curve balls

My coworker on the other side of this cube wall has been conducting phone interviews all day. Very strange to hear those questions being asked of someone else. And yet...I still have visceral reactions when I hear those interview catch phrases like "what are your career goals?", "what would your ideal job be?", or "have you been in a situation where..."

Ironically enough, I had an interview this morning. I have to say, in all the interviews I've gone on, I've jumped through a lot of hoops. Most of them standard (like the questions above) with regurgitated answers already prepared in the back of my mind. Then sometimes there are the people who want to test technical. I've taken exams (literal, written exams), given powerpoint presentations on my thesis, played with parts on the spot and answered questions about how they were made, done brainteasers ("if you have a cup of coffee at 100 degrees C and milk at room temp and you want to drink the coffee in 5 minutes, do you add the milk now, 5 min from now, or somewhere in between?")...yeah. I thought I'd seen the gamut. Dealt with being surprised or drawing a blank at pulling something out of nowhere and hoping it sounds convincing...

But no...Far be it for anything to be predictable...

I finished (or so I thought) my interview. It was mildly technical but not really. Fairly standard, pretty friendly...and I'd prepared for most of the questions that would come up, so I thought, no problem. No surprises this time. So then I go into the VP's office to finish filling out my paperwork, and he steps out to take care of something. An oldish Asian man comes into the office, sits at the desk, picks up my resume, and stares at it for awhile. I didn't know who he was and he didn't greet me, so I just kept writing.

Then out of the blue he asks "han-gook-mahl heh-yo?" (do you speak Korean?)

[trying not to show how shocked I am but likely failing] "Neh" (yes)

So he proceeds to conduct an interview IN KOREAN. Well, until we got technical and I was clearly not hacking it anymore. I can honestly say that of all the things on my resume, this was probably the last thing that would get tested at an interview.

I think it was fine, but...still reeling from the shock.

Sab's reaction?

"wow, all those years of "yadan-cheoh"-ing you about your etiquettte may finally pay off! other than that stuff, korean business etiquette revolves around drinking, so I guess we'll teach you how to drink. and karaoke."

Clearly, hitting me on the head with the paddle for saying "yeah" is what caused my behavior to be acceptable when it counted...my silly Sabs.

Although now I have a dilemma because if the Korean manager calls me, I don't know whether to answer in Korean or English. What would be the proper thing to do?