Taiwan Bloopers

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
#1

Last week when I looked more closely at the grocery store, I realized why I’ve been cursing my Taiwanese washing machine since I got here. Upon arrival, I purchased fabric softener instead of detergent because I didn’t look carefully enough at the labels. One jug of detergent later, all my clothes were clean and I was feeling dumb - that was six months spent grumbling and thinking that in Taiwan clothes never got clean (natural state of affairs, or something of the sort).

Anyone else had similar stupid problems and care to share to make me feel less dumb?

#2

silence - somewhere in the distance, an owl hoots

#3

Wow! Whatever things you’ve done by accident must have been really embarassing not to list any of them. :raspberry:

#4

Sorry - I meant to post that in another thread.

#5

I felt SO stupid the other day. I came to this traffice light, slowed down and saw quite a few cars and scooters zipping past me from the back, with one or two even honking at me. Bloody hell, when I realised I stopped at a red light.

#6

I thought the tinned tuna really sucked. And then I started to wonder why they had a cat on the label.

HG

#7

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]I thought the tinned tuna really sucked. And then I started to wonder why they had a cat on the label.

HG[/quote]

Haha! HG ate cat! Haha.

Oh wait…

#8

I brushed my teeth with hemorroid cream.

#9

But your smile is definitely free of piles, so it works!

#10

A roommate of mine, while taking a rapid shower when late for work one morning, accidentally used baby oil instead of shampoo. What made it funnier was that there was no shampoo left to fix the problem. :laughing:

Luckily, he saw the funny side.

#11

A thirsty friend of mine once mistook a bottle of weed killer for water.

Luckily, he saw the fungicide.

#12

And a hungover, thirsty friend of mine mistook a bottle of moonlight for iced water. :stuck_out_tongue:

#13

What’s a bottle of moonlight? How do you bottle it, and where can I get some?

#14

A young nephew stayed with me for three trouble packed months, which included him getting plastered almost daily and on one occasion taking a swing at me, which saw him promptly on his arse gasping for air.

After blowing all his loot in Vietnam and repaying me for the scoot he lost while pissed, he was living off an oily rag. Then one day he gleefully returned from the local shop smugly declaring those “stupid fuckers can’t spell whiskey!” I watched him open and damn near drain that Whisby bottle in one stupid gulp before he realised his folly. Hilarious!

HG

#15

What’s a bottle of moonlight? How do you bottle it, and where can I get some?[/quote]

Erm… er… moonshine … er … :blush: :blush:

But I got you there for a moment, didn’t I?! :raspberry:

#16

I once wiped me arse with ghost money.

#17

First week in Taiwan, went to RT Mart, bought some cherry ice cream. Got home, bit into it, and it was red beans fer god’s sake. :s

#18

About 4 years ago when I first started studying Chinese I finally got up enough courage to use a bit of it in a store in Shida. Went through the whole “qing wen yi shi” bit to ask where the wallets were (皮包 pi bao). What I ended up asking is where the bao pi (包皮) were. When the sales girl turned red and started giggling with her friends I got in a huff and thought they were laughing at my Chinese.

Later I found out “bao pi” meant foreskin. I never went back.

#19

i once mispoke hard hat (ing mao) for pubic hair (yin mao). minor embarassment, more on their part than mine. Hoot!

later i also found out that helmet is not literally translated as hard hat. cha bu duo.

#20

[quote=“bushibanned”]About 4 years ago when I first started studying Chinese I finally got up enough courage to use a bit of it in a store in Shi-Da. Went through the whole “qing wen yi shi” bit to ask where the wallets were (皮包 pi bao). What I ended up asking is where the bao pi (包皮) were. When the sales girl turned red and started giggling with her friends I got in a huff and thought they were laughing at my Chinese.

Later I found out “bao pi” meant foreskin. I never went back.[/quote]
Same thing happened to me, mixing up pi bao with bao pi, except it was with my wife’s friends. :blush: