Close Encounters of the Weird Kind

Even though I’ve been here a very limited time, I’ve met a good amount of pretty random crazies of the “come up and talk to you in the street variety.” Anyone up for sharing stories for giggles? I’ll go first, of course.

Walking in the botanical gardens in Taipei, a man asked me “Where are you from?” When I told him I was American, he explained that he only asked me this because his Taiwanese “girlfriend” told him I was a foreigner and he did not believe her and wanted to prove her wrong. He turned out to be from Libya, and because I studied Arabic for years in university, we ended up chatting. After less than five minutes talking, it became clear that his English was insufficient for communication (with me or his “girlfriend” who spoke quite good English). As a result, I ended up translating for them for some time before I got weirded out and fed up of that and ran away to the nearest MRT.

Who can top it?

He: Hello
Me: Erm…Hi
He: I am a college professor.
Me: Oh? Erm…Really? At which college?
He: Chuang Hua
Me: Oh…OK, so what do you teach?
He: Mathematics.
Me: Oh.
He: What’s your phone number?
Me: I don’t have a mobile, sorry.
He: Do you want to visit my house?
Me: I don’t really have time. Sorry, I have to catch the train back home.
He: Where do you live?
Me: Taipei
He: Are you gay?
Me: No. sorry.

And that was that.

Early 1987; about 11pm…Loud commotion from downstairs.

Sounds like someone is breaking into cars…I look out to investigate. Bald headed guy is breaking into the trunk of my car with a tire iron. I grab a bat, and head downstairs. When I get to my car, he’s climbed in and locked the trunk!

I call the cops…They show up looking more like gangsters than policemen. Open the trunk, he jumps out, smashes the window of the car in front of me and climbs into the front seat where he lies on the floor with his feet tucked up inside the dash. Cop opens the door, he kicks him in the face. Cop gets pissed, grabs my bat, opens the door and beats the f*ck out of the guy before dragging him out onto the ground. The guy immediately starts banging his head into the concrete, opening a huge gash in his forehead. They all jump on him, beat him some more, and then drag him off.

I never got my bat back.

[quote=“MJB”]Early 1987; about 11pm…Loud commotion from downstairs.

Sounds like someone is breaking into cars…I look out to investigate. Bald headed guy is breaking into the trunk of my car with a tire iron. I grab a bat, and head downstairs. When I get to my car, he’s climbed in and locked the trunk!

I call the cops…They show up looking more like gangsters than policemen. Open the trunk, he jumps out, smashes the window of the car in front of me and climbs into the front seat where he lies on the floor with his feet tucked up inside the dash. Cop opens the door, he kicks him in the face. Cop gets pissed, grabs my bat, opens the door and beats the f*ck out of the guy before dragging him out onto the ground. The guy immediately starts banging his head into the concrete, opening a huge gash in his forehead. They all jump on him, beat him some more, and then drag him off.

I never got my bat back.[/quote]

PWAHAHA…wow.

Neighbor lady outside my front door as I’m walking down the steps,

“Hey You, (Chinese) You were smiling at my child.”

(Chinese) “I was what? What do you want?”

(Chinese) “You were looking and smiling at my child.”

No child present.

(I never smile at anyone in public)

Chinese “What do you mean? Who are you?”

Chinese “You live up there,” finger pointed to the sky.

Chinese “No I live there,” pointing to second floor.

English “Fuck you, fuck you all waiguoren!!”

Chinese “No, it was me. I was the the one who set your child’s bedroom on fire when you wern’t at home , burned the fuck out of it, Barbeque baby…Fire, more fire, more fire, Big Fire !!!”

Even my sane neighbors who heard the whole thing still don’t talk to me.

About 1998 or so. In a taxi, in Taipei. (Where you would assume people had seen the odd foreigner before.)

Driver: Oh, you’re foreign. [My British flatmate and I were in the taxi.]
Us: Yep, yep, we’re foreign all right.
Driver: Huh. Two foreign girls living in Taipei.
Us: Yep, two of us, living here in Taipei.
Driver: I saw a National Geographic channel special about foreign women in Africa. Their tits are so big, they can throw them right over their shoulders [demonstrating as best he can lacking said appendages.]
Us: Um…hm. Yes, there are many interesting programs on cable these days.

I had this happen to me more than once and what makes it so weird is that the whole conversation took place in English:

Me: (phone ringing) Hello, John here.
She: Is that John?
Me: Yup, it’s John.
She: Is this Mr. John Adams?
Me: Speaking!
She: I’m phoning from the bank… blah, blah, blah.
She: (after about three minutes of conversation) Do you speak Chinese?
Me: Very badly, I’m afraid.
She: Are you a foreigner??? :astonished: :astonished:

Eating at a small noodle place in Taichung. A tall, remarkably serious looking guy wearing what could very well be an expensive suit is done with his meal and gets up from his table, only to sit down opposite to me.

He (in Chinese): Where are you from?
Me (thinking “from a place where people don’t disturb you while you’re eating”, but since my Chinese is lousy, I say): Germany.
He looks back at his wife (?) still sitting at the other table: I can speak German!
Me (thinking “oh no!”): Really?
He (in German, quite loud, so everybody can hear him):
I hate today!
(Ich hasse heute)
Me (“uh oh, one of these nutcases I keep reading about on Forumosa”): Very good, very good!

I hope he’s gained enough face, but of course my GF can’t leave it at that…

GF (in Chinese): What did you want to say? You hate this day?!
He (looks puzzled, thinks for a while, then asks tentatively): It hot today? (Es heiße heute?)
Somewhat relieved, my GF and I laugh out loud (which is not a very clever thing to do while slurping noodles): It’s hot today! (Es ist heiß heute) :laughing:

He still made me agree that his German is much better than my Mandarin Chinese and lectured me on the importance of learning Taiwanese, too, before he eventually left. :wink:

The scene: Yesterday afternoon on the temple bridge in Sanxia

While minding my own business and going for an afternoon walk, random 60’s-ish American man decides to introduce himself. Given that it’s Sanxia, this is not so weird, because there are hardly any foreigners here at all.

Him: “A non-Asian person!”
Me: “Yes…a non-Asian person!”

(a few minutes of normal conversation)

Me: “So how do you like it here in Sanxia?”
Him: “Well, I’ve been to Asia before. I went to Japan with my first wife because she was from there. I went to Japan some more with my second wife because she was half Japanese and half Korean. I went to mainland China several times with my current wife because she’s from there. And now I’m here to see my girlfriend!”
Me: “Well, my house is down that alley (pointing at closest random alley), so I’ve got to be going that way now to make my dinner, nice to meet you!”

Hey Superemma he probably thought YOU were the weird one. :laughing:

not here but japan: female friend in taxi
taxi driver: are you american?
jane: yes!
taxi driver: you are happy?
jane: yes thank you
taxi driver: all american women are happy?
jane: i don’t know all of them!
taxi driver: all american women VERY happy!
jane: not sure what you mean
taxi driver: ALL american women VERY happy! You know American men eh eh!
jane: not sure what you mean!
taxi driver: American men…BIG…you know!
jane: sorry?
taxi driver: AMERICAN MEN BIG PENIS ALL WOMEN HAPPY!!!
jane: stop here!!! let me out!!!

I’ve had the ‘penis conversation’. Or rather, I didn’t because it was 8 am which is not a time when I am amused by crazy intra-cultural misunderstandings/nutters. Got a rant about about how Americans are all bad tempered instead after telling him to watch his mouth. What’s Chinese for ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea whether American men’s penises are bigger than Taiwanese men’s. I am a Welsh fetishist.’?

last week I had a great encounter with one of those garbage obsessed old harridans. I went down with what was obviously all paper to be recycled and put it in the correct area.

Out of nowhere, the old “nothing to do” trash woman who has berated me in the past for putting my trash out 5 mins early, starts ranting and raving about something in Taiwanese. I give her a really cold stare and a “Wo ting bu dong” she takes my stuff, hides it :loco: and then screams at the top of her voice “AHHHDOGAH” and I just walked off. Any ideas what went on there?

She loves you. You should try and kiss her, next time you see her.

[quote=“MJB”]

I never got my bat back.[/quote]

And your finger prints were on it … :smiley:

My closest encounter of the weirdest kind actually happened in Edinburgh, Scotland.

I was on my way home from work, having recently ended my student days (but still with a student mentality). As I crossed the main road near my house, I saw a screwdriver lying on the ground. “I’ll have that”, I thought to myself, and bent down to get it. Suddenly, this guy (one of the customers) comes running out of the local Chinese takeaway shouting “NO! NO! Put it down! Don’t pick that up!!!”

So, I gently set it back down in the middle of the road and look at him in bemusement. He starts going on about how it makes him sad to see people so desperate that they pick up rubbish off the street, etc., and could he buy me some food from the Chinese takeaway. As it happened, that restaurant was by far my favourite restaurant in Edinburgh, so after thinking about it for about 5 milliseconds I said “OK, sure.”

So I go into the takeaway with him and he orders my favourite dish, Lemon Chicken.
Once it arrives, he says that he lives just across the street and I’m welcome to eat the food there. At this point the guy seemed entirely pleasant, but I normally would have said “no” anyway. However, I though it might be easier than letting him know I lived about 20 metres away, so I just said “OK”. He was also a fairly skinny guy and I reckoned I could get out of there if I had to.

So we went into his house. Turned out to be a VERY UPMARKET place. The guy was obviously very rich, or more likely his family was. There was a lovely piano in his living room with a photo of him with Shirley MacLean, who he explained to me was actually his godmother (I have know way of knowing if that was true or not).

Anyway, we sat down and had our food. He knew from my accent that I was from Northern Ireland, and he told me that he had served in the army over there for a few years. It was at that point that things started to go a bit mental. He went quiet for a long time and they said that he had left “part of himself” over there and started crying, and holding my arm. It was a bit, well, uncormfortable, shall we say. I think he realised this and backed off. Good thing too, cos I was seriously eyeing up the window in his livingroom and wondering if I could jump right through it.

He realised he really needed to change the subject, and asked me if I had ever been to Paris. I said “no” and he said that he could take me there if I wanted. Realising this sounded seriously dodgy, he stressed that he had tonnes of airmiles, so it would be no real expense to him and that I could stay in a totally different hotel from him. I politely declined, and he seemed a little disappointed.

So he then told me that some friends were coming round that Sunday for Sunday lunch. Really nice friends, he said, and would I like to join them for lunch. “Sure”, I said, “That would be nice. By the way I have to go now. Someone’s waiting for me.” Happy that I accepted his invitation, he said goodbye and off I went.

On my way back to my flat, I picked up the screwdriver.

Of course I never went back to his house.

[quote=“superemma”]The scene: Yesterday afternoon on the temple bridge in Sanxia

While minding my own business and going for an afternoon walk, random 60’s-ish American man decides to introduce himself. Given that it’s Sanxia, this is not so weird, because there are hardly any foreigners here at all.

Him: “A non-Asian person!”
Me: “Yes…a non-Asian person!”

(a few minutes of normal conversation)

Me: “So how do you like it here in Sanxia?”
Him: “Well, I’ve been to Asia before. I went to Japan with my first wife because she was from there. I went to Japan some more with my second wife because she was half Japanese and half Korean. I went to mainland China several times with my current wife because she’s from there. And now I’m here to see my girlfriend!”
Me: “Well, my house is down that alley (pointing at closest random alley), so I’ve got to be going that way now to make my dinner, nice to meet you!”[/quote]

Pfff … lucky it wasn’t me meeting you … it would’ve been spread all over the board …

In Taichung, on the street:

Woman: (in English) Hello! Are you a mannequin?
Me: (in English) Huh? Excuse me?
Woman: (in English) Are you a mannequin?
Me: (in Chinese) Sorry, I don’t understand. Could you say that in Chinese?
Woman: (in Chinese) Are you American?
Me: D’oh!

I notice a lot of ‘foreigners’ seem to get real nervous when I say “Howdy!” to them.

I usually make a point of speaking to other folks when I see them. Just being courteous. Met a few nice folks by just saying Hello.

For some reason the young cowboy thinks I should know every other wai guo we, or he, sees. He usually says ‘Hello!’ to them also.

I think its the wackos that get all nervous and freaked out when someone just “Hello” to them.

And I always charge NT$10 for the locals to rub my belly for luck… :bouncy:

Last week I was at the CKS (Democracy Hall) memorial when I saw two older guys neer the flag post in the middle of the square … I thought, let’s go and meet them and ask if they are tourists … turned out they were Italian and spoke Inglese soso, but anyway … As I was talking to one of them the other guy just strolled around and when he joined us again they had a brief conversation … then suddenly, probably bored to dead of me, one of them started saluting the Hall (as in military) and began singing I guess the Italian national anthem … I guess leftovers from the Mussolini era … some weird people on this globe