Culture shock - gaffes and faux pas

Cafe Society
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Mods: Since this is specifically about different cultures, I figured it goes here. Move if desired.

Have you ever visited another country, region, state, or town and while blissfully ignorant of local culture and customs, you do or say something that surprises, amuses, or insults people? I have two stories to relate, one about my brother, and one about me.

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When my brother was stationed in the Air Force near Chicago, he went to a men’s clothing store to buy some things to keep him warm. After finding a sweater on his own, he asked a sales clerk where their toboggans were. “We don’t have those,” the clerk said. “Try a hardware store.”

My brother thought the guy was being a smartass. “Why would I go to a hardware store for clothes?”

“You said you wanted a tobbogan. Where ya gonna wear it?”

“On my head.”

The dumbfounded clerk shot back, “You’re gonna put a sled on your head?”

“What?” my brother said, getting pretty steamed by now. “Are you trying to be an asshole?”

Long story short, it turned out that what my brother should have asked for up there was a “ski cap”. Pretty funny. He loved telling that story. Around here, a ski cap is called a toboggan, although the term has lately acquired the other meaning secondarily.

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Now for mine. I had to go to Yardley, PA once, just north of Philly. I was a special guest of our vendor, and they had put out a nice breakfast spread when I arrived that morning. I got a cup of coffee and inspected the table. I found the biggest, fattest donuts I’d ever seen. I bit into one and made a terrible face.

“What’s wrong?” the mortified salesman asked me as I spat into a napkin.

“Those donuts are stale!” I exclaimed.

The whole group burst into laughter as I stood wondering what the hell was up, some kind of practical joke maybe?

“Those aren’t donuts,” the guy said, “They’re bagels.”

It was the first bagel I’d ever seen in my life.

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Those are great!

The best I can do is one time i was working with an American electrician and he referred to pulling wires into a peckerhead I just stared stupidly. He was referring to the terminal box on the side of the motor but I had no idea. Then I asked him what size marrettes he needed and it was his turn to stare blankly, these are the twist-on connectors to join wires which he only knew as wire-nuts. We worked much more quickly once we started speaking the same language.

I was also surprised in Pennsylvania once that no one knew what a toque was (I was trying to buy one of these http://news.steelers.com/catalog/product/57180/ )

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Giving a german a present wrapped in paper with gift written all over it …

damn, I would lovve to find me some more of that paper :smiley:

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In poison pen?

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Hahaha. After the confusion was cleared up, did you end up enjoying the bagel for what it was?

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I know money is short when you in college but, really, coudn’t you afford at least the cost of a whole “J”?

Mine happened when I visited Paris. I’d had some basic French in high school but never really came anywhere near even semi-fluent in the language. Besides, those classes had been ages ago so I, therefore, had no intentions of trying to speak the language out loud.

My devilish travel companion, though, mentioned my learnin’ to the cab driver from the airport and he, being the friendly and non-snobbish type, encouraged me to give it a try. I put together a few ackward, rudimentary questions and comments and, with his encouragement, was beginning to be quite proud of myself when, after one question, the driver let out a loud guffaw. Why?

I’d asked him, “Avez-vous un mari?”

Because the last word seemed vaguely feminine in my cob-webby mind, I’d thought to ask him whether he had a wife.

“Mari” is French for husband.

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Asked a waitress at a pizza place in St. Louis if they had Samual Adams beer. She gave me the strangest look, then asked where I was from. If you wanted a beer from a brewer other than Anheuser-Busch, you weren’t going to find it at this place or it appeared, many other restaurants in the St. Louis area.

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I think my palate was just too shocked. I had a Danish instead. Cream cheese, I think. :smiley:

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When I first visited England in '91, I got a little green around the gills for a day or so. The very proper, respectable country lady whose house I was staying at took concern and I said I just had a queasy stomach. “Perhaps dropping a tab of acid would make you feel better,” she remarked.

It took me a moment to realize she meant taking an antacid.

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It toque me almost half an hour to get this, well played suh.

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On my first trip to Paris . . . I hadn’t spoken French since high school, 35 years earlier. A guy approached me and asked a question (in French) that was totally meaningless to me. So I responded (in French) “I don’t understand; I don’t speak French very well.” So he asked the same question, and I gave him the same reply. Then he asked a third time, sounding more insistent and a little angry. I gave him the same reply, sounding more insistent and a little angry. Finally, out of desperation, I asked, “Do you speak English?” It turned out that each of us was American, assuming the other was French.

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My dad (whose first language is Spanish) was stopped by a CHP officer several years ago over a traffic violation, the nature of which I forget. When the officer reminded Dad of whatever law it was he had broken, he, unfamiliar with that particular rule, replied, “I ignore that, officer” I don’t recall the CHiP’s reaction to Dad’s remark, but I’m sure he thought Dad was being a smart aleck. Turns out that in Spanish, “lo ignoro” means “I’m unaware of it”. Eventually the confusion was cleared up, although I don’t recall whether Dad got a ticket for it.

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Chinese restaurant in Iowa, biting into what I mistakenly thought was going to be a savoury spring roll or won-ton sort of thing only to find it was stuffed with surimi mixed with cream cheese. Ewww. :eek:

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Not quite about visiting somewhere else, but perhaps it is a bit of a cultural thing…

I remember my ex’s mother making us all laugh once. It was Christmas dinner, and my ex’s brother, who was attending university in another city, was home for Christmas break. At dinner he regaled us all (my ex, her parents, her sister and BIL, and her other brother and his girlfriend) with stories of how his school year was going. Most of them revolved around going out and partying–he had many stories about drinking, and among them was the night he and some friends had gone to a club and tried a new shooter called a “Blowjob.” They had quite a few, apparently.

Now, my ex’s family was Spanish, and while my ex and her siblings all spoke fluent, accentless English (as well as perfect Spanish, of course), the same could not be said for Mama. She was pretty good with the English language, but some things, especially popular idioms and slang, eluded her. So when Brother, like any college student, brought up the subject of never having any money, Mama came out with the following:

“Of course you never have any money. You spend it all on Blowjobs!”

We all cracked up, except poor Mama. She had no idea what she had said to make us laugh so. My ex leaned over and quietly explained, and I’ve never seen anybody redder than Mama that night. Still she was a good sport, and laughed about her gaffe too.

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When I went to Europe last summer we were sitting in the Frankfurt airport waiting for our connecting flight to Spain. I was excited for the opportunity to speak Spanish.

The man next to me turned and asked something incomprehensible in German.

I had once taken a single intensive semester of German, so I proudly replied, ‘‘Ich spreche kein Deutsch’’ (I don’t speak German)

‘‘Kein Deutsch, eh?’’ says he, looking disappointed. Then he turned and started speaking Spanish to his wife. :smack:

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When I visited Marseille last year, we went to see our French host’s father - a chain-smoking, pastis-swilling tattooed ex-con whose only phrase in English was ‘My wife is mad!’ (I could only agree with him…). As my French is pretty rudimentary I tried bonding via the smoking and drinking, and asked him for a light thusly - “Avez-vous un feu?”. I was nearly right - ‘du feu’ is ‘a light’. ‘Un feu’ is slang for ‘a gun’. So he cracked up in incomprehensible delight.

Coincidentally he did have a loaded revolver, hanging in its holster, I found out later…

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When I was in Hong Kong I wanted ant repellent to stem an infestation in my kitchen.

I knew the Cantonese for mosquito repellent was “mun pah soi” - literally “mosquito fear water”. And I knew the Cantonese for ant was “ngai”.

So, thinking myself very linguistically clever, I went into my local shop and asked if they had any “ngai pah soi”.

The woman behind the counter nearly fell over laughing.

It turned out I had asked for “an ant that is frightened of water”. She didn’t have any. :smiley:

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This… sort of qualifies, but I think it’s hilarious.

I was out to eat with my then-boyfriend and some of his family, including his sweet little old Hispanic grandma. She hardly speaks a word of English, and I’ve seen her eat non-Hispanic food maybe twice in the last 8 years. We were at an Asian buffet.

So we’re all eating or whatever, and she says something or other, so we look over to acknowledge her and notice that she’s got a great big glob of green stuff on her plate. Before we can ask her what the hell she’s going to do with all that, she scoops up a huge spoonful and we watch, horrified, as she puts it into her mouth. Her mouth stopped moving, her face slowly turned crimson, she grabbed her throat and began coughing and desperately drinking her water. By this point we’re laughing so hard we can barely breath… obviously, it was wasabi. She thought it was guacamole.

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My buddy used to deliver pizzas. He told me about the one time he was delivering to a house in a nice neighborhood. As he is giving the pizza to the owner at the door my buddy tells him that he just saw 3 bucks in the guy’s driveway, and that it was pretty cool. The owner gave him a bit of a strange look and closed the door, not even tipping him.

A little bit later it occurred to him that the owner thought he was referring to finding 3 dollars in his driveway and not even offering to return it to him as opposed to the 3 male deer he had actually seen.

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When my grandparents first moved to Florida, my family went down to visit them for a vacation. At one point, my grandma needed to pick up some groceries, so we stopped in to some chain supermarket. I was kind of wandering around, looking at a display of something, when a local wandered up and said “Is that ya’lls buggy?” I blinked, looked around, wondering what the heck she was talking about. I said “What?” hoping that repetition would help clear things up. When it was clear she was asking for a “buggy” whatever the heck that was, I still had no idea what she was asking about. I ended up just saying “No.” because I was pretty sure that I didn’t have anything with me that could be called a buggy. Turns out she was asking if the empty cart somewhat nearby was ours.

I’m usually pretty good with local slang, but the buggy thing threw me.