Childish pleasure

This must have happened a dozen times, but it still gives me a kick…

With Suzie being Asian, shop and hotel staff that we talk to always assume she is Indonesian and start talking to her in Bahasa Indonesia. Then I say to them in Bahasa “my wife’s does not understand Indonesian.” They look at her, look at me, and then then the silent question “is this some kind of joke?”

Trouble is, if they start to have a conversation with me it very quickly exceeds my limited vocabulary. However, most of them seem to think it’s a wind-up and keep talking to her as if I’m not there. Then she has to say “No, really, I’m not Indonesian”