I will say this (these?)

1. Learning standard chinese in an academic situation may not prepare you for kung fu talk

2. Learning kung fu talk probably won't prepare you for regular conversations

Dialects and regional variations can be a bitch

CTS spoke Toisanese, I speak a more standard Cantonese, had trouble talking to a guy from Jungsaan

My Mandarin has cantonese accent and Shanghai variations/vocab (long story), it was great in Shanghai, with Taiwanese we frequently kept saying "what?"

My Shanghai is actually Ningpo... I sound like Chiang Kai Shek

It's a maze, a trecherous maze