1: Warm Water:
If you drink something cold you WILL get sick. You must always drink water and everything semi warm to avoid sickness. I am being completely serious. (however my Grandma Lila would be in heaven here) People c'mon, I mean i'm not a doctor by any means but seriously, i'm pretty sure those ridiculous strong stomach acids you've got rollin around have got it covered. It's just down right weird.... even in school sometimes we'll make smoothies and have ice cream, half the kids say their moms won't let them have it because they'll get sick. I'm sorry but this is child abuse. You DO NOT deprive your child because of some stupid cold-drink hoopla, welcome to the 20th century.
2: Garbage man:
You hear a happy go lucky song rollin around the corner and being born and raised in America, what's the first thing you'd think of? ICE CREAM!!! URrrr wrong. This ladies and gentlemen would be the garbage truck. Yes this guy drive around play old musical tunes. I'm pretty sure I have the tune da daaaahhhh da duh duh duhhhhh embedded in my memory. Weird, yet I must admit brilliant for all the stupid people like me, that miss the garbage man for 3 weeks in a row, this would be a nice reminder.
3: Automatic Doors:
So, in America you walk up to a sliding door and the thing detects you from about 2 or 3 feet back and opens up for you. You don't even have to miss a stride in your step it's rather convenient, in Taiwan it doesn't quite work that way. Ok, quite literally you walk up to an automatic door and you have to get so close to the dang thing that your nose is touching it.
4: Lines
So, quite frequently i'm standing in line somewhere waiting to check out. I usually stand a foot or two back from the person. Apparently that's not what you do here. I can't even number the amount of times i've been standing in line and a person has walked right in front of me and just gone ahead. Uhhh hello? Must I really be groping the person in front of me to make it any more obvious that i'm standing in line. Maybe it's a cool thing to stand behind a person here smack dab in front of the cash register or something, so I just don't get it. But let me tell ya it's weird.
5: Hand drying and washing:
So, as mentioned earlier people are a little bit overly ridiculously cautious of getting sick. Maybe germs and how they work was discovered in America and hasn't spread to the Asian continent yet... I don't know but these people don't quite get it. Your lucky if a person "washes" their hands after they go to the bathroom here, and if they do they just run it under the water. And no one, NO ONE dries there hands. If you come by a towel or a blow dryer here, I want to bow down on my knees and praise it.
6: Washing Dishes and Soap
So this one relates to the last one. Yet again these people don't know how to clean. First of all people don't really wash there dishes, they simply put them under the water until they look clean, maybe just maybe if there is something really grotty you'll get some scrubbing action going on, but soap is un-heard of, who do you think you are a queen? Second of all, I swear concentrated soap is not that new of a concept. But maybe it is because Taiwan sure doesn't know what it is. So, we being Americans and doing the un-thinkable actually wash our dishes WITH SOAP, weird, but the soap you get here is not everyday soap. It's more like bubble water. I seriously have to put around 10 pumps of soap to wash my spoon. It's a real wonder none of us have gotten sick yet.
7: Driving:
PEOPLE. HERE. ARE. MANIACS. WHILE. THEY. DRIVE. It truly is a wonder how I ride my bike through town and am still alive. Blind spot check? What is that? You have rear-view mirrors? Why do you need to look behind you while you drive? It seriously is like a mario cart game!
8: Farting and Burping
Ok, so for those of you that know me, you know that ya know if i've got some sort of gas I let it rip. In America, if you let one rip in the middle of a first grade class all hell would break loose. Here, they don't give a darn. Literally people fart and burp like there simply blinking or something. I'm not sure if i'll ever get used to sitting next to a cute, delicate, quaint old woman and hearing her belch and thinking that's not a little odd at all...
9: Stinky Tofu
That is the true name of this stuff, not just the name I gave it. Why? Why Taiwan do you torture me with this? The smell is horrendous. I don't even know how to explain it. But one of my roommates I thought had a pretty good accurate description. "it smells like something threw up a farm and that throw up is going rotten." Why is this even anywhere appealing to eat to these people? Why?
That's really all that I can think of at the moment. But don't get me wrong if I sound like a downer or anything by these. I LOVE Taiwan!!
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