Taiwan’s Musical Garbage Trucks
Refuse collection vehicles playing Beethoven’s ‘Fur Elise’ will always top the list. Yeah, I know they have no set time schedule and must broadcast some sort of ‘clarion call’ during their rounds. Yet, the irony of garbage trucks playing a classical piano piece while trolling back alleys of a densely overpopulated Asian city will always be nearly too much for my own (admittedly) warped sense of humor to handle.
My favorite was the guy on the bicycle with the dried shrimp stretched on racks on the back, selling as he went down the street, honking his horn. This is at least a Thai phenomenon, even though I’m sure they do it (or similar) in other Asian countries.
La Tomatina - Tomato fighting in Buñol, Spain
One of the biggest food-fights in the world 
Something like 200,000 pounds of tomatos are brought in by the truckload, everyone has to wear goggles, be as naked as possible and be very drunk 
Although I was too young to participate when I was in Spain that time, it’s perhaps one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. It’s on my list of things to do whenever I go there next.
Ahh… speaking as an overseas native (from your pov) I can definitely say we do some pretty strange things. But this board constantly amazes me - te cultural differences are really rather big. I keep seeing posts about legal drinking age (what’s that, excactly?), oral sex not really counting as sex, severe homophobia from policemen, strong religious beliefs governing people’s lives, censorship towards artists who don’t agree with government policy and other smaller things that indicate that things are …different… in the us.
Some of it is funny, some of it just makes me more content with living where I do. No offense intended.
In the UK they put sweet corn on pizza. This is wrong.
In South Africa they put banana on pizza - this may offend some, but it tastes gooooooooooooooooooooood!!
Grim
I’ve encountered some very odd stuff overseas, but what sticks in my mind is anything from either The Philippines or Japan, which, ironically, are places I’ve not been. The popular culture of both those countries seems simply to say, “heh!”.
The long version, I guess, would be, “Hey, we’re Filippino / Japanese, and we’re damn well at peace with that concept. Being what we are is cool. No offence, but we don’t particularly care what y’all think of us. We’re having fun here!” I respect and admire that. YMMV.
The wackiest thing I ever encountered was the night of 10 gazillion bottle rockets. seriously, there is/was a festival in southern Taiwan somewhere, I forget the name of the town. Where the entire point was to take the temple gods around town on these giant palaquins on wheels with about 20 guys half carrying/half dragging them. Shop keepers believed they would have more luck in the coming year if they could get one of these portable temple gods to spend more time in front of their shop. Method of getting you to stay in front of the shop was to construct something called a “beehive”. Basically a plywood frame with tens of thousands of bottle rockets laid out on little platforms. As the temple god gets within range, the shopkeeper starts off about 15 minutes of a bottle rocket barrage.
Man it was a fucking blast. A crowd of thousands - I mean a pretty packed crowed for at least a mile of neighborhood streets - had on motorcycle helmets. It was hot and humid weather. The whole scene lasted for hours. You could just run up to one of the temple gods and help carry the damn thing around.
The worst was being right at the range where the bottle rockets ran out of steam and blew up. Having a few hundred of those blowing up in a constant barrage was wierd. Also if you got some up close that caught in your clothing and burned out before exploding. Bwahahaha. That was great.
If I have time I’ll come back and write about Beigang and the Matsu Festival, or some Tibet stories…
Leningrad, 1989, November 7 parade (the anniversary of the Great October Soviet Socialist Revolution. Why was it celebrated in November, you ask? Well, the calendar was revolutionized, too.) 1989 was probably the last year that this particular parade took place.
Flatbeds with ballistic missiles on the back charging through the streets, I kid you not. Tanks. Lots of big, heavy, exploding Soviet socialist stuff. It was more than a little weird. The crowd was so packed and so overwhelming that we had absolutely no choice about where we walked; we were simply swept along. I have no memory of where we ended up or how we got home.
RUssia has many weird things, but that’s just one that pops to mind as the moment. Later that evening, I was mistaken for a hard-currency Russian hooker (which was pretty funny, as I was dressed quite seductively in a long wool coat and heavy winter boots; the only visible part was my eyeballs). But that’s another story.
The Cheung Chau bun festival, Hong Kong:
Oh yeah. I’ve spent a fair amount of Taiwan a lot lately (going back again next week.) I can hear those damn things on the 21st floor of my hotel.
Haj
I’m looking forward to spending some Taiwan when I go there too
German toilets.
Instead of a pool of water at the bottom of the toilet to encapsulate the smelly stuff, the German version has a large, dry ledge (with a small drain in the back) that allows the stink to merrily fill the entire house while you finish up your business. I suppose this cuts down on splashbacks, but it certainly increases the stench factor.
Of course this was 20 years ago. Perhaps there have been design improvements since then…
The brown paper bags (bottle or can-sized) on the counter in a gas station in Louisiana.
I visited my ex in the States a few years ago. It was New Year’s Eve, and we had stopped the taxi on our way to New Orleans to pick up some beer at a gas station. Next to the cashier was a stack of brown paper bags for hiding your bottle or can. 'Cause, as I was told, if a police officer didn’t see the actual bottle he wouldn’t have to fine you for drinking in the car. My, my…
Mine is that is seems like every country in the world except for the US and Canada has horrible toilet paper. C’mon, does it REALLY cost that much more to have non-abrasive TP?
They say you’ve been in Japan too long when you’re no longer surprised by trucks that play “It’s a Small World” when they back up.
Something that wowed me when I first arrived (and impressed my parents when they came for a visit), were the vending machines that not only sell coffee in cans, just like soda, but they sell it hot. The first time I encountered one, I thought the machine had malfunctioned. It’s neat, but there are occasional drawbacks (“ow-ow-ow-ow! Hot can! Hot can! Hot Can! ow-ooh-eeech!”)
Oh, how could I have forgotten: Washlets!
You sit down on the toilet and do your business. Next to you, there’s an arm with a row of buttons and dials. Push one, and a small plastic arm with a nozzle on the end extends from under the rim and starts hosing you off. Not getting everything off? Turn the dial adjusting water pressure. Too hot? Turn the temperature dial. Not getting the right spot? Adjust the aim. When you’re done, push another button and the hose retracts. You’re now clean, but wet, so push another button and a jet of warm air dries everything off.
The best part of this was the TV ad for one of the washlet brands, Apricot. A starship with a giant water cannon mounted on top was on course for a planet-sized apricot. You know how the seam of an apricot kind of looks like a… you know… an ass? Well, that’s how this was one positioned. The brave crew took careful aim, and launched a water torpedo right up the stemhole.
On the Malawi-Zambia border there was a vendor selling sundried mice onna stick…He would have made CMOT Dibbler proud
I’m not kidding, they were little 2" long mice impaled on rough twigs and left on a blanket on the side of the road to dry. Our driver said you eat them like crawdads:eek: , the thought of sucking the head of a sundried mouse is still enough to make me shudder.
On a more pleasant note, further north in Malawi, we found that gin and vodka was readily available to us in convenient plastic packets that were the same size as the sweet and sour packets you get at the Chinese takeaway. At about 15 cents apiece, they made a fantastic accompaniment to the ice cold cans of Schweppes Bitter Lemon.
Don’t we actually have something like that now? Or is it just that you have to be a certain age to buy alcohol? Whatever it is, I’m sure nobody notices it much
Btw. nice to see one more dane here.
And to add my own “weird thing seen in other countries”: toilets that are just a hole in the ground - eek!
I will blame that horribly constructed sentence on jet lag.
Haj