This is a compilation of very strange things observed when living in several foreign countries. Now updated with more strange things...
2nd update on June 5th, 2013
3rd update on June 6th, 2013
4th update on June 12th, 2013
5th update on June 25th, 2013
6th update on June 27th, 2013
7th update on August 2nd, 2013
8th update on August 4th, 2013
9th update on August 18th, 2013
10th update on February 14th, 2014
11th update on February 17th, 2014
12th update on May 18th, 2015
13th update on November 7th, 2015
14th update on November 19th, 2015
15th update on October 20th, 2022
(NEW UPDATES APPEAR AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST)
Categories
TRANSPORTATION
BUGS
LANGUAGE
FOOD
LEGAL SYSTEM
WEATHER
FOREIGN CULTURE
PERSONAL HYGIENE
EXERCISE & RECREATION
APPLIANCES
AT THE HOSPITAL
PHONE
TOILET
LIGHT BULBS
OFFICE SUPPLIES
You phone the internet company for English service and the recording in Chinese tells you to press 3 for English.
All day on the phone, strangers call you who dialed the wrong number.
When you first arrive, you ask, "Where are all the handicapped people?" The reply is, "they're useless to us so we kill them." You are totally shocked.
You arrive and go to the toilet room and find a hole in the ground. You are shocked and immediately go out and ask, "what's that hole?" You are told, that's the toilet!
You talk to a man in the park doing Tai Chi exercise. He's in perfect health, then he tells you his age is 107.
You talk to the age 107 Chinese man. He tells you all the secrets to a long life.
Light bulbs are so cheaply made, they explode all the time.
Plastic in the AC power strip and light switch are not stable. Without touching, suddenly they fall apart.
There are no FDA safety standards. Poison filler is put into milk and thousands of babies die. The people responsible are executed.
Right or wrong, people get a swift trial and are immediately hanged.
You ask why there are no jails. You are told, a person is executed rather than have the expense of holding a person.
A man plays a joke. He says, he has seen the famous rare tiger, and posts fake photos on the internet. The government awards him prize money. Someone finds the photos are fake. The government executes him.
Fireworks have no laws and periodically hit your window and burn down skyscrapers. Keep your windows shut.
During Chinese New Year, the fireworks are loud. They last a month. You wear earplugs inside your home for a month.
It's the hottest place in the world. Maybe the cruelest. The favorite pet is an Alaskan Husky dog with a big fur coat.
There is no UL safety approval and your appliances blow up.
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You spend good money on your domain name and web site host. Then you learn the government has blocked it so you cannot see it.
New companies flock to this country to exploit low wages. Then they cannot find educated qualified people to do the work.
Companies move here and learn they cannot use blocked internet. Then they move out of the country as fast as they moved in.
You walk into the store and it’s so small you can stretch out your arms and touch both sides of the walls at the same time.
English signs are written by people who don't know English.
There are so many people on the subway, a "Pusher" official has a job to push as many people as possible into the subway vehicle.
You are the only foreigner on the subway, with thousands of local people and no space to move. There are three very beautiful sexy girls pressed hard on your body. How did that happen?
English teachers native to this country never went to any English speaking country, never learned from a native English speaking person, and learned from a book with errors written by a similar English teacher who doesn't know English.
Some English teachers teach gibberish that makes no sense. Some students go around speaking gibberish.
You have three maps and notice the same place has 3 different names.
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You are instructed to take the blue Massive Rail Transport line. The map shows it's the yellow line. When you arrive at the station, it's a red line.
The subway is above the ground.
The toilet has no paper. Carry your own.
You go to the bathroom at the hospital. Several doctors go in and leave without washing hands.
For some reason, there's a cleaning girl in the men's bathroom.
At the mall, you go to the bathroom, but the door is open for some reason. While relieving yourself, you discover several giggling school girls next to you, looking and smiling.
You can't tell the difference between subway, MRT, train, express, and shuttle.
Nothing is consistent or stable. You return to the grocery store to buy bread and there is none. You go to the bakery bread store and they have no bread.
You pay with an old coin and the store clerk says they don't accept old coins.
You move into your new home and discover the wiring is only for 6 watt light bulbs. You cannot see at night.
You move your things to the new country and find none of your appliances run on the strange voltage and frequency.
You're sitting in the Park in the evening and the small birds buzzing your head are actually black bats.
The gray squirrel in the tree, in the park, is staring at you and showing teeth like he wants to eat you.
The electrician is a boy with no education who works on your home’s 240 volt electrical system with his bare hands, without shutting off the electricity.
The temperature is 100 deg. F. outside. Home walls and windows have no insulation and are hot to the touch, inside the home.
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The night market sells fresh cooked food outside, however the food is covered with flies and other bugs.
Homes have no heaters when it’s freezing in winter.
Sewer pipes are too small to use toilet paper when flushing.
Sinks have no utraps and sewer gas comes into the home on windy days, and days without wind.
The air filter in your room clogs up with dust every day.
All products sold in the store are defective rejects.
There is no fresh air, outside.
The taxi man tells you the fare is double what the meter indicates.
You spent five years training in Tai Chi. Studied Jujitsu. Earned your belt in Karate. Studied in four countries. You go to the park for practice. A man comes over to say you are doing everything wrong and you can leave the park.
On the holiday, everyone comes out of their skyscraper homes and there are so many people, there is no space to stand.
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In the park, the man is running with his kite to launch it. He's over 100 years old.
Unregulated Fireworks are allowed under your window year round and, at any time, very loud bomb explosions may occur.
The sound outside is so loud you cannot hear to talk on the phone inside your room.
The restaurant menu serves dog. Hang onto your pet. All stray dogs are known to disappear periodically.
The bugs live so long, they become smart enough to out-think humans and grow as big as small mice.
As the big cockroach is walking away, he turns his head around and looks at you.
Big cockroaches have wings. You never think they can fly. You were wrong. One is coming after you in the air.
It's so bright outside on an overcast day, you must wear sunglasses.
Mosquitoes become your live in companions. Like vampires, they suck your blood until they're full. Then the next one takes turns.
You're happy to kill a mosquito in your home. Then you realize, it was slow because it was filled with your blood.
You must sleep under a bubble net at night to escape mosquitoes. Unfortunately, your arm contacts the net. You wake up with an arm swollen larger than your leg.
Because you sleep inside the bubble net, everyone calls you by your new name - bubble boy.
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You invest your entire monthy paycheck on mosquito killers. None work.
The locals don’t follow their own traffic laws. An accident happens every 20 minutes. Human road kill is more common than animal.
You must carry 10 cards in your wallet to make payments.
Your utility bill must be paid 3 days before it arrives in the mail or you must pay a penalty.
The TV bill you just paid is a fake bill. You cannot get your money back.
Periodically, market food is delivered by horses pulling wood carriages. The horses leave their mark in the street.
For some reason, every time there’s a really big life threatening earthquake, you’re in your underwear, pajamas or naked in the shower.
You ask your professional boss what to do in the case of an earthquake. He tells you, "Bend over and kiss your arse goodbye."
It's so hot, there's no air to breathe. Air superheats at the base of skyscrapers and moves up, forming a negative pressure partial vacuum.
The air has 100% humidity. You need to be a fish to breathe.
Beggars work for professional begging companies. They are limo'd to a street corner to beg, and are picked up at the end of the day.
Everyone will cheat a foreigner. All foreigners are expected to be rich and not care if they’re cheated.
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Expect the taxi man to pretend to be lost and drive you around the busy parts of the city to increase your fare.
You hear these strange low sounding Star Wars noises all night. Investigating the next day, it's the bus horn.
During a rain downpour at night, the floor on your balcony acts like a giant overflowing tea cup, spilling hundreds of gallons of water into your home.
It takes 3 air conditioners to cool your tiny room. You have only one.
After a new subway is installed underground, your skyscraper home is swaying back and forth 24/7 making you constantly sea-sick.
The taxi man spends more time flying the car rather than driving it. Rubber tires rarely contact the road.
The meat tastes strange and then you learn the special of the day is dog and monkey unmentionables.
You eat Octopus from the ocean and are sick for 13 days.
Stranger girls follow you around like flies to honey because they never saw a foreigner before.
Everyone wants you to eat the local cuisine, then when you eat it, they tell you it’s a mix of guts from dead animals.
You watch science fiction Star Trek and the alien Klingons serve blood pie. When you eat out with friends, you are served real blood pie.
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You learn the legal system is swift when a common thief is marched out south of town and shot by a firing squad.
Everyone is wearing a dust mask when they really need a respirator against chemical pollution.
It’s a sunny day but everyone is using an opened umbrella.
You trade snow storm blizzards and tornadoes for earthquakes and typhoons.
The store shirts are marked XXL but they are smaller than small USA size.
During the night, weather becomes 20 degrees hotter than the day.
You live on the 22nd floor, nearly a thousand feet from the ground. It’s your first violent earthquake in the night. Suddenly you realize your bed is sliding towards the large window.
It rains so much, the outside of buildings are all covered with bathroom shower tiles.
You tell everyone you don't need an umbrella. The first rain is like someone pouring a bucket of water over your head, continuously. Then you notice your nipples are showing like a wet tshirt contest..
You cannot buy a home or land, the government owns everything.
Milk costs as nearly much as its weight in gold. Beef steak is almost free.
There are no refrigeration trucks. Milk and cheese on the grocery shelves are always spoiled.
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It’s hotter than Hell, but people are still wearing thick coats, gloves and parkas.
Your home is so small, when you turn around, the light switch is bumped on by your back side.
When you first arrive in the summer, everyone is wearing quilted Star Trek Romulan coats. You wonder if Gene Roddenberry visited here.
The floor is so small, you almost lose your big toe, hitting it on the furniture. It take 2 years to grow a new toe nail.
The bus driver is a mad man from Hell. The constant beeping noise means he is driving faster than the speed limit.
You are instructed to take bus 20. During your bus ride, the number changes to 21 on the electronic sign. You end up in the mountains and walk back home. It takes all day.
Proper manners of the locals: push people out of line, talk loud, be rude, cheat everyone, fart on the crowded subway, scratch "there," and spit everywhere indoors and outdoors.
There are more cheating scams than you can count. If you drive a car, be prepared for a tag team of two vehicles to ram you on purpose, then collect your money and threaten your life.
Angry people hunt down new cars and use keys to scratch the finish.
Cars have square pieces of plywood covering their wheels.
The subway doors have no safety feature. When they close on your arm, kiss it goodbye.
If you have an accident, no one will help you.
Everyone in the restaurant is smoking cigarettes - men, woman, children, old men, old ladies, handicapped people... You go outside for fresh air and everyone outside is smoking.
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You wake up in the morning, look outside and think it's snowing. Then you realize it's air pollution.
The taxi lady continues to drive in circles to increase the fare. You tell her to immediately stop. She will not stop. While the car is moving, you find a clear spot of grass, open the door, and jump out.
Your eyes sting and burn. You go to the hospital. The doctor tells you it's caused by air pollution. Everyone has burning stinging eyes.
A man is passed out in the middle of the road. You must save him. You ask the driver to stop but he will not stop! Finally you demand he stop or you will jump out the moving vehicle. He stops and you rescue the man from certain death.
Every person over age 50 in the park is clapping their hands or hitting their body.
You are walking outside. At 9:30 pm, there are tens of thousands of people also outside walking. At 10:00 pm, you are suddenly alone.
You cannot walk to the shopping center without a prostitute accosting you.
You are on the subway and several people are fighting and killing each other. The subway cop has disappeared. The next time on the subway, a subway cop issues you a $570 warning for chewing gum.
You go to the park for fresh air. Everyone in the park is smoking. There is no fresh air and you leave.
After months and months of rain, you need sunlight. The sun comes out! You go outside to enjoy the sun. But there's only shade everywhere caused by tall skyscrapers.
You open your skyscraper window for fresh air. All you get is bad kitchen and sewer exhaust from apartments below, above, and to the sides.
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You can see light coming in around the windows. You can also see evil bugs coming in.
Everyone is wearing black but they are not going to a funeral.
The beautiful sexy girl in front of you has a slender body, curves, feminine attire, jewelry, makeup, perfume, smooth skin, stylish purse, and long silken black hair. She turns around. It's a man.
You cannot tell the difference between men and woman. Woman always look like women, and so do men.
You walk out of the store and everyone on the sidewalk for 2 blocks is looking at their iPhone all at the same time.
You buy rechargeable batteries. They are defective. The store clerk tells you to go across town to the service center. You go there and they say there is nothing to repair. They send you back to the store clerk who tells you to go back to the service center. They finally give you a replacement when you show the Apple Warranty card at the store. The replacement is defective. They tell you to go back to the service center...
You pay for the fastest internet connection and it's too slow to be usable. Then you discover the government is reading your email and has infected your computer.
You're hot, tired, and don't want to walk up 500 steps on the stairway. You go over to the escalator. It's turned off to save money.
The electricity frequently goes off. Your electronic door lock won't let you in. Then you spend hours with administration who say it's your fault.
Your apartment gate card fails. You ask for a new card. The administration says, we can't help you because you don't live here!
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You pay electricity in advance. Only a small payment is allowed. There is no way to know when it will run out. It runs out and there is no one to refill it until after the weekend. You sit in the dark for 2 days.
You don't want to be in the elevator with another person, unless you can hold your breath.
A local person tells you... "we get a shower twice in our lifetime, once when we're born, and once when we die."
The elevator is making loud screeching noises and swaying in the wrong direction. You live on the 20th floor and can't take the steps.
You go to take a shower and only a few drops of water come out of the shower head. There is no water pressure.
You turn on the kitchen sink water and water splashes to the ceiling. There's too much water pressure.
You take a shower but don't feel clean. The water smells bad. You're not sure if it's sewer water or something else.
You learn which taxi to take - the ones that have no accident damage.
You go out with a local girl. She says her hobby is to hit and punch people. She hits you in the arm. You never see her again.
There is no hot water. If you want hot water, go boil some cold water.
In the summer, the cold water faucet delivers hot water.
Every building has a small silver metal barrel on top of the roof. No one knows why.
Every apartment has a red button on the wall. Everyone tells you, don't push it!!!
There's a story going around about a visiting foreigner who pressed the red button on the wall. The result was not good for the foreigner.
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Whenever you need to use the phone for language translation, there's loss of signal. When you don't need language translation, it works fine.
You go skating at the indoor skate rink and are resting. A beautiful girl walks over to you, grabs your hand, holds it high in the air, and yells, "Look everyone, see what I found, he's mine!"
Every minute, a new young girl wants to skate with you. For the first time skating, you feel too tired and old to continue.
At the skate rink, during the weekend, there's a dance contest in the center of the rink. You win!
You dance your most complicated dance that took months to learn. The young girls learn it in two minutes.
To get to the skate rink, you walk a mile, ride the subway for an hour and a half, take the taxi, go down the dark alley and walk through the shops. When you arrive, you're too tired to skate.
You meet a local friend. All he does in life is study, drink warm water and eat healthy. After knowing you a month, he's drinking cold diet coke, eating fast food, skating, going out with girls, and catching up on every Star Trek episode!
Your friend is a study machine. He memorizes 25 pages of text. You tell him any page number and he can recite it.
Your friend memorizes 55,000 words from the dictionary, but he cannot form a sentence. You teach him English and he passes his English Ielts test.
On a cool day at the store, the air conditioner is always on. On the hottest day, the air conditioner is turned off to save money.
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You must turn the faucet in the opposite direction to get any water.
The curved front part of the knife is dull. The back side of the knife is sharp.
You call the first kite store. The man says he has lots of kites in his store. You travel all day to find the store. When you arrive, there are no kites. He lied.
You go into the second kite store to buy an expensive kite and string. You call the other store to check on string price. The store owner hears you and becomes so angry and tells you to immediately "get out!"
In your home country, kites are flown away from trees and power lines. In this country, kites are flown in parks with trees and power lines.
You find the kite you want to buy. It's big enough to hold the camera and payload. The man won't sell the kite. He says it's too big and will loft not only the camera but you as well.
You notice envelopes have no glue for sealing. Then you notice envelopes brought from the USA have all sealed shut, due to humidity.
You go out to buy a paper folder. After visiting 14 stores you realize there are none.
You buy $140 brand name sunglasses. They're fake and break the next week. You buy cheap $5 sunglasses. Over a year later, you're still wearing them.
You are eating out at the fancy public restaurant. The woman at the table across from you catches your eye. She kneels down on the floor. Then she neatly places a napkin there and unfolds it. Then she helps her 2 year old child squat over the napkin and shit.
You are walking in the mall. A woman is holding her baby above the public garbage can. You think she's throwing away her baby! As you pass by, the baby is using it as a toilet.
Babies and toddlers have pants open in the back. Because they don't wear diapers and can just excrement on the sidewalk.
Excrement on the sidewalk is not from a dog.
Men pee by the bushes. They are not behind the bushes. They do it in front so everyone can see.
You go into the hotel toilet room and strange mean dressed in white suits want money from you.
You wait years to get to China because you love Chinese food in the USA. You go to China and cannot eat real Chinese food.
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You drink distilled water from the delivered container. The water tastes strange but you keep drinking it. A few days later, you discover hundreds of worms crawled in through the spout.
You sat in the sun every day for a week and never got a suntan.
It's hot, you want to go to the lake and swim. There is no lake.
It rains every day for 7 months. The nearby skate rink is outside.
You finally get a new bike and ride to the park to relax with no stress. A very angry cop comes over and tells you to get the hell out of the park.
Your friend had a bike for years. You convince your friend to buy a bike lock. The next week the bike is stolen.
You walk on the sidewalk but the people walking towards you will never move.
You are looking through the store window at the side of the sidewalk. A man walking by crashes into you, knocking you to the ground. Was he walking while drinking?
You set your umbrella on the ledge and open your bag. 2 seconds later, your umbrella is gone.
Your friend wants to borrow your expensive and large "gentleman's" umbrella. An hour later, he lost it.
You loan your new light weight umbrella to another friend. It's returned a week later, with all stitches newly sewn, reinforced, cleaned and improved! Wow, very nice!
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You get the flu and suffer for weeks. It will not go away. You see the old Chinese doctor. He says, "Take these pills. You will be cured in 3 days." You are cured in 3 days.
You get stomach bacteria. The pain is so bad, you think you will die. After several days of agonizing pain, you go to the Chinese woman doctor. She asks, "Do you want to be cured quickly or slowly?" You reply, "QUICK!" A few hours later you are cured.
You go to the hospital and the nurse tells you to drop your pants. She rubs your butt a long time, then gives you a shot. After, your friend asks "what took so long?" Then he tells you the rub should last 5 seconds, not 15 minutes!
At the same hospital, you go for xrays and lay on the bench in your gown. Each time the nurse adjusts your position, she firmly holds onto your private part.
You were happy to swim in the ocean. Then next day, news reports everyone swimming in the ocean was infected with ocean worms.
You bring all your winter clothes. The temperature averages 100 deg. F.
You live on the top skyscraper floor. Your balcony has no floor drain. The water pipe breaks. The floor fills up with leaking dirty water and overflows. Every neighbor living below who had clean clothes hanging out now hates you.
You hang your clean washed clothes outside on the open balcony. Waves of smoke ruin your clothes. You look down, and the neighbor below is burning camel feces in a religious celebration.
You hang your washed clothes out to dry. Six days later, they are still not dry.
You buy a clothes dryer and discover the hottest temperature setting is only slightly warm.
You wash your clothes in the provided washer. Your clothes come out more dirty than when they went in.
You move all your pots and pans with you from the home with the electric stove. Then you discover nothing fits the gas cooking stove.
You break out in a terrible allergy. The clothes wash soap has something in it.
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You go out to by "free & clear" soap so you won't have an allergy. You find one small container of soap. It costs a day's wages!
You have a new water saving Korean washing machine. It doesn't use enough water to clean your clothes.
Your next new washing machine is Chinese. It has many dials and controls. You ask a Chinese friend to translate. The description makes no sense, even to Chinese people.
You become very sick and need medicine. You go to the Pharmacy next to your home. He won't sell you medicine because you are a "foreigner." You must travel far away to another pharmacy that will sell you medicine.
After several hundred rides in a taxi, you find one taxi driver that knows how to drive.
Nothing is convenient. You must carry bags every day. Your two shoulders become broken. They never heal. After moving out of the country, you heal in 9 months.
Nothing is convenient. You do too much walking and break your foot bone. It takes 7 months to heal without walking.
You are shocked. Instead of cheating you, a friendly taxi driver gifts you with bottled water. Later you find out it was only a sales promotion.
You buy the largest raincoat for riding a bike in the rain. It won't cover your knees. It's made for a midget or dwarf.
You realize you are eating mostly at convenience stores like 711 and Family Mart.
There's a government guard posted at every building entrance.
You find it amusing that two Russian woman are flirting with the Chinese govt. guard but he cannot speak their language.
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You realize the only place with certified clean food is Mcdonalds.
You go out for a walk and there are no sidewalks.
In the USA, people are killed with double talk words from an attorney.. In foreign countries, a knife or stone.
It rains every day for 7 months making you depressed indoors.
Finally after 7 months of rain, the sun comes out. You still cannot go outside. The sun is hot enough to cook you.
You realize the sharp pain on your leg that you ignored all afternoon is a tiny bug biting you.
You thought it was a dream that your eye was itching all night. In the morning, you discover red bite marks where bugs feasted on you.
You wake up in the middle of the night and see your worst nightmare. It looks like 10,000 tiny ants are marching across your walls, in single file!
In the small city of 20,000, there's 1 insane man walking around. In the foreign location of 6 million, you realize there's 300,000.
Your washing machine sets outside on the open balcony. It's so hot and humid outside, the washer forms black smelly mold on the inside.
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You discover a rope, metal horizontal bar, and pulley system above the balcony to hang clothes to dry. Unfortunately, someone covered it with the air conditioner making it useless.
You find yourself shopping for brand name toilet paper to avoid a hot butt. The news reports off-brands use recycled radioactive contaminants.
The ceiling light bulb burned out. You think its simple to replace it. There's a screw in the center. You remove it but the shade is still affixed. You pull on it and it breaks into pieces. Hidden on each side were strange cheap plastic butterfly wing mounts. Then you try to remove the light bulb. It's stuck. Very little force applied causes the electrical box to fall out from the ceiling with open dangling hot wires! You broke the shade, the light, the wiring, and the box. Finally you have a China-man repair it!
You ride your bike on the new finished bike trail. It's getting dark. You avoid the strange black areas on the ground. In the daytime, you discover they're open 4-foot deep holes with pipes and cables! You could have fallen in and died!
You go out in the day. It seems unusually hot. The weather reports 92 degrees F. When you arrive home you put a cooking thermometer in the sun. It reads 220 degrees! Then you realize you were walking in the sun and the weather report was measuring temps in the shade.
Statistics say your perfect mate is one in every 30,000 people. Your home town of only 20,000 has a 100% divorce rate.
You are living in the city of 7 million people. When you go outside, you can meet 233,333.33 perfect mates! You know they're perfect when your heart rate doubles, jumps into your throat, and your knees fail.
The brain fails when you are with the perfect girl. She steps into the elevator with you at floor 1. You live on floor 3. You start sweating, become dizzy and just keep pressing button number 1, over and over again. The elevator goes nowhere. She smiles at you. You are so brain dead..
You are walking in the night market. Your friend is local. You suggest buying a shirt with an interesting Chinese character. Your friend is shocked. The Chinese character says FU*K ME.
The local Chinese girls like to wear English tshirts for style. They don't know the shirt has words that say F U * K MY P * SSY!
The instructions say lock your bike with the ubolt lock. Put it upside down so a thief will have a difficult time opening it. You put it upside down. When you come back to your bike, it takes a half hour to unlock it because it's upside down and the tiny-keyed key won't fit.
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You are native English and turn on the TV. A level 1 learning English show is on. They are teaching words you never heard in your life!
You visited the new hamburger restaurant only one time a week ago. Today, you walk there at 4pm but it's closed on Sunday. The two store owners are outside and recognize you. Then, they open the entire restaurant, just for you - one customer!!!. Wow!
You are eating a hamburger at the store mentioned above and are a little hot and fanning yourself with a manual Chinese fan. The owner sees you are hot and turns on two air conditioners for you! Wow, very nice!
You are looking for a TV with antenna function, but every store tells you it's old technology and no longer made. Finally you find one, and ask, "if it's defective today, what is the warranty?" The story owner tells you. "No return." You tell the store owner, "No return, no buy."
You use a normal looking tube of deep heat muscle rub ointment. A few days later, your skin has permanent patches of white as if it were bleached.
In the winter, you're freezing. Homes have no heaters or furnaces. So you buy a large electric heater. You're still cold because the room has concrete walls and no insulation.
After drinking some milk, you realize the reason the cap won't go back on the bottle is because the threads are manufactured defective with a misalignment!
You search for one half year to find a store with a paperclip. Now that you have the paperclip, you cannot find the store that sells reams of paper.
Air pollution is the worst in the world. You buy an air filter machine. The next day, the $120 replacement filter needs replacing!
The plumbing always has problems. You think sewer gas is the worst problem. Then you look at the deck floor. It's 3-inches deep with dirty sewer water and rising, about to flood the entire home! The worst part is the big dark brown thing floating in the water!
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Your home has 3 nearby bread bakery stores. On Monday you go there to buy bread. The first store is out of business. No problem. You go to the 2nd store. The store is missing. No problem. You go to number 3. They have no bread and tell you to go home. The next day, you go again. No bread. A week goes by. You go there again. No bread. Finally you ask when they will have bread, and they reply, "What is bread?"
Your hobby is amateur astronomy. You set up your telescope and view the night sky. You see strange flying things in the sky. You swing the telescope over and look at one. It's a flying saucer. Now you know why the locals all believe in aliens.
Taxi drivers don't know how to drive. You discover pressing your heavy bag against your tummy will delay throwing up your food.
The taxi sign says No Smoking. But the taxi man is smoking.
The taxi smells so bad inside, you must always take a filter mask with you.
You get onto the taxi and the seat is all red wet. Your colleague tells you that local girls have their P and don't bother to use padding.
You find it amusing. The sign says no birds allowed on the bus. Then someone tells you, the birds have flu that can kill you.
You're going onto the bus. The second your foot leaves the last step, the bus driver accelerates at high speed. You are thrown to the floor, roll across the floor, and are slammed hard into the seat backdrop! You don't take the bus again for at least a month.
Your friend tells you about what happened in the girls bathroom. A local attendant had to tell the visiting people to shut the door when they poop.
Cake is not normal. Cake has no frosting. Then you realize, there is no frosting on anything.
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It's not the tailgate back of the truck, but rather the entire long side that folds down to remove cargo.
You order a case of diet coke. For some strange reason, a bottle does not have its full fiz (carbonation). Then you notice the fill line is just a bit lower than some of the other bottes. Finally, you notice the cap seal was broken. Someone was randomly opening the new bottles and taking sips of pop, hoping you wouldn't notice!!!!
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Categories
TRANSPORTATION
BUGS
LANGUAGE
FOOD
LEGAL SYSTEM
WEATHER
FOREIGN CULTURE
PERSONAL HYGIENE
EXERCISE & RECREATION
APPLIANCES
AT THE HOSPITAL
PHONE
TOILET
LIGHT BULBS
OFFICE SUPPLIES
You phone the internet company for English service and the recording in Chinese tells you to press 3 for English.
All day on the phone, strangers call you who dialed the wrong number.
When you first arrive, you ask, "Where are all the handicapped people?" The reply is, "they're useless to us so we kill them." You are totally shocked.
You arrive and go to the toilet room and find a hole in the ground. You are shocked and immediately go out and ask, "what's that hole?" You are told, that's the toilet!
You talk to a man in the park doing Tai Chi exercise. He's in perfect health, then he tells you his age is 107.
You talk to the age 107 Chinese man. He tells you all the secrets to a long life.
Light bulbs are so cheaply made, they explode all the time.
Plastic in the AC power strip and light switch are not stable. Without touching, suddenly they fall apart.
There are no FDA safety standards. Poison filler is put into milk and thousands of babies die. The people responsible are executed.
Right or wrong, people get a swift trial and are immediately hanged.
You ask why there are no jails. You are told, a person is executed rather than have the expense of holding a person.
A man plays a joke. He says, he has seen the famous rare tiger, and posts fake photos on the internet. The government awards him prize money. Someone finds the photos are fake. The government executes him.
Fireworks have no laws and periodically hit your window and burn down skyscrapers. Keep your windows shut.
During Chinese New Year, the fireworks are loud. They last a month. You wear earplugs inside your home for a month.
It's the hottest place in the world. Maybe the cruelest. The favorite pet is an Alaskan Husky dog with a big fur coat.
There is no UL safety approval and your appliances blow up.
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You spend good money on your domain name and web site host. Then you learn the government has blocked it so you cannot see it.
New companies flock to this country to exploit low wages. Then they cannot find educated qualified people to do the work.
Companies move here and learn they cannot use blocked internet. Then they move out of the country as fast as they moved in.
You walk into the store and it’s so small you can stretch out your arms and touch both sides of the walls at the same time.
English signs are written by people who don't know English.
There are so many people on the subway, a "Pusher" official has a job to push as many people as possible into the subway vehicle.
You are the only foreigner on the subway, with thousands of local people and no space to move. There are three very beautiful sexy girls pressed hard on your body. How did that happen?
English teachers native to this country never went to any English speaking country, never learned from a native English speaking person, and learned from a book with errors written by a similar English teacher who doesn't know English.
Some English teachers teach gibberish that makes no sense. Some students go around speaking gibberish.
You have three maps and notice the same place has 3 different names.
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You are instructed to take the blue Massive Rail Transport line. The map shows it's the yellow line. When you arrive at the station, it's a red line.
The subway is above the ground.
The toilet has no paper. Carry your own.
You go to the bathroom at the hospital. Several doctors go in and leave without washing hands.
For some reason, there's a cleaning girl in the men's bathroom.
At the mall, you go to the bathroom, but the door is open for some reason. While relieving yourself, you discover several giggling school girls next to you, looking and smiling.
You can't tell the difference between subway, MRT, train, express, and shuttle.
Nothing is consistent or stable. You return to the grocery store to buy bread and there is none. You go to the bakery bread store and they have no bread.
You pay with an old coin and the store clerk says they don't accept old coins.
You move into your new home and discover the wiring is only for 6 watt light bulbs. You cannot see at night.
You move your things to the new country and find none of your appliances run on the strange voltage and frequency.
You're sitting in the Park in the evening and the small birds buzzing your head are actually black bats.
The gray squirrel in the tree, in the park, is staring at you and showing teeth like he wants to eat you.
The electrician is a boy with no education who works on your home’s 240 volt electrical system with his bare hands, without shutting off the electricity.
The temperature is 100 deg. F. outside. Home walls and windows have no insulation and are hot to the touch, inside the home.
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The night market sells fresh cooked food outside, however the food is covered with flies and other bugs.
Homes have no heaters when it’s freezing in winter.
Sewer pipes are too small to use toilet paper when flushing.
Sinks have no utraps and sewer gas comes into the home on windy days, and days without wind.
The air filter in your room clogs up with dust every day.
All products sold in the store are defective rejects.
There is no fresh air, outside.
The taxi man tells you the fare is double what the meter indicates.
You spent five years training in Tai Chi. Studied Jujitsu. Earned your belt in Karate. Studied in four countries. You go to the park for practice. A man comes over to say you are doing everything wrong and you can leave the park.
On the holiday, everyone comes out of their skyscraper homes and there are so many people, there is no space to stand.
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In the park, the man is running with his kite to launch it. He's over 100 years old.
Unregulated Fireworks are allowed under your window year round and, at any time, very loud bomb explosions may occur.
The sound outside is so loud you cannot hear to talk on the phone inside your room.
The restaurant menu serves dog. Hang onto your pet. All stray dogs are known to disappear periodically.
The bugs live so long, they become smart enough to out-think humans and grow as big as small mice.
As the big cockroach is walking away, he turns his head around and looks at you.
Big cockroaches have wings. You never think they can fly. You were wrong. One is coming after you in the air.
It's so bright outside on an overcast day, you must wear sunglasses.
Mosquitoes become your live in companions. Like vampires, they suck your blood until they're full. Then the next one takes turns.
You're happy to kill a mosquito in your home. Then you realize, it was slow because it was filled with your blood.
You must sleep under a bubble net at night to escape mosquitoes. Unfortunately, your arm contacts the net. You wake up with an arm swollen larger than your leg.
Because you sleep inside the bubble net, everyone calls you by your new name - bubble boy.
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You invest your entire monthy paycheck on mosquito killers. None work.
The locals don’t follow their own traffic laws. An accident happens every 20 minutes. Human road kill is more common than animal.
You must carry 10 cards in your wallet to make payments.
Your utility bill must be paid 3 days before it arrives in the mail or you must pay a penalty.
The TV bill you just paid is a fake bill. You cannot get your money back.
Periodically, market food is delivered by horses pulling wood carriages. The horses leave their mark in the street.
For some reason, every time there’s a really big life threatening earthquake, you’re in your underwear, pajamas or naked in the shower.
You ask your professional boss what to do in the case of an earthquake. He tells you, "Bend over and kiss your arse goodbye."
It's so hot, there's no air to breathe. Air superheats at the base of skyscrapers and moves up, forming a negative pressure partial vacuum.
The air has 100% humidity. You need to be a fish to breathe.
Beggars work for professional begging companies. They are limo'd to a street corner to beg, and are picked up at the end of the day.
Everyone will cheat a foreigner. All foreigners are expected to be rich and not care if they’re cheated.
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Expect the taxi man to pretend to be lost and drive you around the busy parts of the city to increase your fare.
You hear these strange low sounding Star Wars noises all night. Investigating the next day, it's the bus horn.
During a rain downpour at night, the floor on your balcony acts like a giant overflowing tea cup, spilling hundreds of gallons of water into your home.
It takes 3 air conditioners to cool your tiny room. You have only one.
After a new subway is installed underground, your skyscraper home is swaying back and forth 24/7 making you constantly sea-sick.
The taxi man spends more time flying the car rather than driving it. Rubber tires rarely contact the road.
The meat tastes strange and then you learn the special of the day is dog and monkey unmentionables.
You eat Octopus from the ocean and are sick for 13 days.
Stranger girls follow you around like flies to honey because they never saw a foreigner before.
Everyone wants you to eat the local cuisine, then when you eat it, they tell you it’s a mix of guts from dead animals.
You watch science fiction Star Trek and the alien Klingons serve blood pie. When you eat out with friends, you are served real blood pie.
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You learn the legal system is swift when a common thief is marched out south of town and shot by a firing squad.
Everyone is wearing a dust mask when they really need a respirator against chemical pollution.
It’s a sunny day but everyone is using an opened umbrella.
You trade snow storm blizzards and tornadoes for earthquakes and typhoons.
The store shirts are marked XXL but they are smaller than small USA size.
During the night, weather becomes 20 degrees hotter than the day.
You live on the 22nd floor, nearly a thousand feet from the ground. It’s your first violent earthquake in the night. Suddenly you realize your bed is sliding towards the large window.
It rains so much, the outside of buildings are all covered with bathroom shower tiles.
You tell everyone you don't need an umbrella. The first rain is like someone pouring a bucket of water over your head, continuously. Then you notice your nipples are showing like a wet tshirt contest..
You cannot buy a home or land, the government owns everything.
Milk costs as nearly much as its weight in gold. Beef steak is almost free.
There are no refrigeration trucks. Milk and cheese on the grocery shelves are always spoiled.
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It’s hotter than Hell, but people are still wearing thick coats, gloves and parkas.
Your home is so small, when you turn around, the light switch is bumped on by your back side.
When you first arrive in the summer, everyone is wearing quilted Star Trek Romulan coats. You wonder if Gene Roddenberry visited here.
The floor is so small, you almost lose your big toe, hitting it on the furniture. It take 2 years to grow a new toe nail.
The bus driver is a mad man from Hell. The constant beeping noise means he is driving faster than the speed limit.
You are instructed to take bus 20. During your bus ride, the number changes to 21 on the electronic sign. You end up in the mountains and walk back home. It takes all day.
Proper manners of the locals: push people out of line, talk loud, be rude, cheat everyone, fart on the crowded subway, scratch "there," and spit everywhere indoors and outdoors.
There are more cheating scams than you can count. If you drive a car, be prepared for a tag team of two vehicles to ram you on purpose, then collect your money and threaten your life.
Angry people hunt down new cars and use keys to scratch the finish.
Cars have square pieces of plywood covering their wheels.
The subway doors have no safety feature. When they close on your arm, kiss it goodbye.
If you have an accident, no one will help you.
Everyone in the restaurant is smoking cigarettes - men, woman, children, old men, old ladies, handicapped people... You go outside for fresh air and everyone outside is smoking.
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You wake up in the morning, look outside and think it's snowing. Then you realize it's air pollution.
The taxi lady continues to drive in circles to increase the fare. You tell her to immediately stop. She will not stop. While the car is moving, you find a clear spot of grass, open the door, and jump out.
Your eyes sting and burn. You go to the hospital. The doctor tells you it's caused by air pollution. Everyone has burning stinging eyes.
A man is passed out in the middle of the road. You must save him. You ask the driver to stop but he will not stop! Finally you demand he stop or you will jump out the moving vehicle. He stops and you rescue the man from certain death.
Every person over age 50 in the park is clapping their hands or hitting their body.
You are walking outside. At 9:30 pm, there are tens of thousands of people also outside walking. At 10:00 pm, you are suddenly alone.
You cannot walk to the shopping center without a prostitute accosting you.
You are on the subway and several people are fighting and killing each other. The subway cop has disappeared. The next time on the subway, a subway cop issues you a $570 warning for chewing gum.
You go to the park for fresh air. Everyone in the park is smoking. There is no fresh air and you leave.
After months and months of rain, you need sunlight. The sun comes out! You go outside to enjoy the sun. But there's only shade everywhere caused by tall skyscrapers.
You open your skyscraper window for fresh air. All you get is bad kitchen and sewer exhaust from apartments below, above, and to the sides.
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You can see light coming in around the windows. You can also see evil bugs coming in.
Everyone is wearing black but they are not going to a funeral.
The beautiful sexy girl in front of you has a slender body, curves, feminine attire, jewelry, makeup, perfume, smooth skin, stylish purse, and long silken black hair. She turns around. It's a man.
You cannot tell the difference between men and woman. Woman always look like women, and so do men.
You walk out of the store and everyone on the sidewalk for 2 blocks is looking at their iPhone all at the same time.
You buy rechargeable batteries. They are defective. The store clerk tells you to go across town to the service center. You go there and they say there is nothing to repair. They send you back to the store clerk who tells you to go back to the service center. They finally give you a replacement when you show the Apple Warranty card at the store. The replacement is defective. They tell you to go back to the service center...
You pay for the fastest internet connection and it's too slow to be usable. Then you discover the government is reading your email and has infected your computer.
You're hot, tired, and don't want to walk up 500 steps on the stairway. You go over to the escalator. It's turned off to save money.
The electricity frequently goes off. Your electronic door lock won't let you in. Then you spend hours with administration who say it's your fault.
Your apartment gate card fails. You ask for a new card. The administration says, we can't help you because you don't live here!
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You pay electricity in advance. Only a small payment is allowed. There is no way to know when it will run out. It runs out and there is no one to refill it until after the weekend. You sit in the dark for 2 days.
You don't want to be in the elevator with another person, unless you can hold your breath.
A local person tells you... "we get a shower twice in our lifetime, once when we're born, and once when we die."
The elevator is making loud screeching noises and swaying in the wrong direction. You live on the 20th floor and can't take the steps.
You go to take a shower and only a few drops of water come out of the shower head. There is no water pressure.
You turn on the kitchen sink water and water splashes to the ceiling. There's too much water pressure.
You take a shower but don't feel clean. The water smells bad. You're not sure if it's sewer water or something else.
You learn which taxi to take - the ones that have no accident damage.
You go out with a local girl. She says her hobby is to hit and punch people. She hits you in the arm. You never see her again.
There is no hot water. If you want hot water, go boil some cold water.
In the summer, the cold water faucet delivers hot water.
Every building has a small silver metal barrel on top of the roof. No one knows why.
Every apartment has a red button on the wall. Everyone tells you, don't push it!!!
There's a story going around about a visiting foreigner who pressed the red button on the wall. The result was not good for the foreigner.
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Whenever you need to use the phone for language translation, there's loss of signal. When you don't need language translation, it works fine.
You go skating at the indoor skate rink and are resting. A beautiful girl walks over to you, grabs your hand, holds it high in the air, and yells, "Look everyone, see what I found, he's mine!"
Every minute, a new young girl wants to skate with you. For the first time skating, you feel too tired and old to continue.
At the skate rink, during the weekend, there's a dance contest in the center of the rink. You win!
You dance your most complicated dance that took months to learn. The young girls learn it in two minutes.
To get to the skate rink, you walk a mile, ride the subway for an hour and a half, take the taxi, go down the dark alley and walk through the shops. When you arrive, you're too tired to skate.
You meet a local friend. All he does in life is study, drink warm water and eat healthy. After knowing you a month, he's drinking cold diet coke, eating fast food, skating, going out with girls, and catching up on every Star Trek episode!
Your friend is a study machine. He memorizes 25 pages of text. You tell him any page number and he can recite it.
Your friend memorizes 55,000 words from the dictionary, but he cannot form a sentence. You teach him English and he passes his English Ielts test.
On a cool day at the store, the air conditioner is always on. On the hottest day, the air conditioner is turned off to save money.
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You must turn the faucet in the opposite direction to get any water.
The curved front part of the knife is dull. The back side of the knife is sharp.
You call the first kite store. The man says he has lots of kites in his store. You travel all day to find the store. When you arrive, there are no kites. He lied.
You go into the second kite store to buy an expensive kite and string. You call the other store to check on string price. The store owner hears you and becomes so angry and tells you to immediately "get out!"
In your home country, kites are flown away from trees and power lines. In this country, kites are flown in parks with trees and power lines.
You find the kite you want to buy. It's big enough to hold the camera and payload. The man won't sell the kite. He says it's too big and will loft not only the camera but you as well.
You notice envelopes have no glue for sealing. Then you notice envelopes brought from the USA have all sealed shut, due to humidity.
You go out to buy a paper folder. After visiting 14 stores you realize there are none.
You buy $140 brand name sunglasses. They're fake and break the next week. You buy cheap $5 sunglasses. Over a year later, you're still wearing them.
You are eating out at the fancy public restaurant. The woman at the table across from you catches your eye. She kneels down on the floor. Then she neatly places a napkin there and unfolds it. Then she helps her 2 year old child squat over the napkin and shit.
You are walking in the mall. A woman is holding her baby above the public garbage can. You think she's throwing away her baby! As you pass by, the baby is using it as a toilet.
Babies and toddlers have pants open in the back. Because they don't wear diapers and can just excrement on the sidewalk.
Excrement on the sidewalk is not from a dog.
Men pee by the bushes. They are not behind the bushes. They do it in front so everyone can see.
You go into the hotel toilet room and strange mean dressed in white suits want money from you.
You wait years to get to China because you love Chinese food in the USA. You go to China and cannot eat real Chinese food.
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You drink distilled water from the delivered container. The water tastes strange but you keep drinking it. A few days later, you discover hundreds of worms crawled in through the spout.
You sat in the sun every day for a week and never got a suntan.
It's hot, you want to go to the lake and swim. There is no lake.
It rains every day for 7 months. The nearby skate rink is outside.
You finally get a new bike and ride to the park to relax with no stress. A very angry cop comes over and tells you to get the hell out of the park.
Your friend had a bike for years. You convince your friend to buy a bike lock. The next week the bike is stolen.
You walk on the sidewalk but the people walking towards you will never move.
You are looking through the store window at the side of the sidewalk. A man walking by crashes into you, knocking you to the ground. Was he walking while drinking?
You set your umbrella on the ledge and open your bag. 2 seconds later, your umbrella is gone.
Your friend wants to borrow your expensive and large "gentleman's" umbrella. An hour later, he lost it.
You loan your new light weight umbrella to another friend. It's returned a week later, with all stitches newly sewn, reinforced, cleaned and improved! Wow, very nice!
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You get the flu and suffer for weeks. It will not go away. You see the old Chinese doctor. He says, "Take these pills. You will be cured in 3 days." You are cured in 3 days.
You get stomach bacteria. The pain is so bad, you think you will die. After several days of agonizing pain, you go to the Chinese woman doctor. She asks, "Do you want to be cured quickly or slowly?" You reply, "QUICK!" A few hours later you are cured.
You go to the hospital and the nurse tells you to drop your pants. She rubs your butt a long time, then gives you a shot. After, your friend asks "what took so long?" Then he tells you the rub should last 5 seconds, not 15 minutes!
At the same hospital, you go for xrays and lay on the bench in your gown. Each time the nurse adjusts your position, she firmly holds onto your private part.
You were happy to swim in the ocean. Then next day, news reports everyone swimming in the ocean was infected with ocean worms.
You bring all your winter clothes. The temperature averages 100 deg. F.
You live on the top skyscraper floor. Your balcony has no floor drain. The water pipe breaks. The floor fills up with leaking dirty water and overflows. Every neighbor living below who had clean clothes hanging out now hates you.
You hang your clean washed clothes outside on the open balcony. Waves of smoke ruin your clothes. You look down, and the neighbor below is burning camel feces in a religious celebration.
You hang your washed clothes out to dry. Six days later, they are still not dry.
You buy a clothes dryer and discover the hottest temperature setting is only slightly warm.
You wash your clothes in the provided washer. Your clothes come out more dirty than when they went in.
You move all your pots and pans with you from the home with the electric stove. Then you discover nothing fits the gas cooking stove.
You break out in a terrible allergy. The clothes wash soap has something in it.
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You go out to by "free & clear" soap so you won't have an allergy. You find one small container of soap. It costs a day's wages!
You have a new water saving Korean washing machine. It doesn't use enough water to clean your clothes.
Your next new washing machine is Chinese. It has many dials and controls. You ask a Chinese friend to translate. The description makes no sense, even to Chinese people.
You become very sick and need medicine. You go to the Pharmacy next to your home. He won't sell you medicine because you are a "foreigner." You must travel far away to another pharmacy that will sell you medicine.
After several hundred rides in a taxi, you find one taxi driver that knows how to drive.
Nothing is convenient. You must carry bags every day. Your two shoulders become broken. They never heal. After moving out of the country, you heal in 9 months.
Nothing is convenient. You do too much walking and break your foot bone. It takes 7 months to heal without walking.
You are shocked. Instead of cheating you, a friendly taxi driver gifts you with bottled water. Later you find out it was only a sales promotion.
You buy the largest raincoat for riding a bike in the rain. It won't cover your knees. It's made for a midget or dwarf.
You realize you are eating mostly at convenience stores like 711 and Family Mart.
There's a government guard posted at every building entrance.
You find it amusing that two Russian woman are flirting with the Chinese govt. guard but he cannot speak their language.
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You realize the only place with certified clean food is Mcdonalds.
You go out for a walk and there are no sidewalks.
In the USA, people are killed with double talk words from an attorney.. In foreign countries, a knife or stone.
It rains every day for 7 months making you depressed indoors.
Finally after 7 months of rain, the sun comes out. You still cannot go outside. The sun is hot enough to cook you.
You realize the sharp pain on your leg that you ignored all afternoon is a tiny bug biting you.
You thought it was a dream that your eye was itching all night. In the morning, you discover red bite marks where bugs feasted on you.
You wake up in the middle of the night and see your worst nightmare. It looks like 10,000 tiny ants are marching across your walls, in single file!
In the small city of 20,000, there's 1 insane man walking around. In the foreign location of 6 million, you realize there's 300,000.
Your washing machine sets outside on the open balcony. It's so hot and humid outside, the washer forms black smelly mold on the inside.
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You discover a rope, metal horizontal bar, and pulley system above the balcony to hang clothes to dry. Unfortunately, someone covered it with the air conditioner making it useless.
You find yourself shopping for brand name toilet paper to avoid a hot butt. The news reports off-brands use recycled radioactive contaminants.
The ceiling light bulb burned out. You think its simple to replace it. There's a screw in the center. You remove it but the shade is still affixed. You pull on it and it breaks into pieces. Hidden on each side were strange cheap plastic butterfly wing mounts. Then you try to remove the light bulb. It's stuck. Very little force applied causes the electrical box to fall out from the ceiling with open dangling hot wires! You broke the shade, the light, the wiring, and the box. Finally you have a China-man repair it!
You ride your bike on the new finished bike trail. It's getting dark. You avoid the strange black areas on the ground. In the daytime, you discover they're open 4-foot deep holes with pipes and cables! You could have fallen in and died!
You go out in the day. It seems unusually hot. The weather reports 92 degrees F. When you arrive home you put a cooking thermometer in the sun. It reads 220 degrees! Then you realize you were walking in the sun and the weather report was measuring temps in the shade.
Statistics say your perfect mate is one in every 30,000 people. Your home town of only 20,000 has a 100% divorce rate.
You are living in the city of 7 million people. When you go outside, you can meet 233,333.33 perfect mates! You know they're perfect when your heart rate doubles, jumps into your throat, and your knees fail.
The brain fails when you are with the perfect girl. She steps into the elevator with you at floor 1. You live on floor 3. You start sweating, become dizzy and just keep pressing button number 1, over and over again. The elevator goes nowhere. She smiles at you. You are so brain dead..
You are walking in the night market. Your friend is local. You suggest buying a shirt with an interesting Chinese character. Your friend is shocked. The Chinese character says FU*K ME.
The local Chinese girls like to wear English tshirts for style. They don't know the shirt has words that say F U * K MY P * SSY!
The instructions say lock your bike with the ubolt lock. Put it upside down so a thief will have a difficult time opening it. You put it upside down. When you come back to your bike, it takes a half hour to unlock it because it's upside down and the tiny-keyed key won't fit.
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You are native English and turn on the TV. A level 1 learning English show is on. They are teaching words you never heard in your life!
You visited the new hamburger restaurant only one time a week ago. Today, you walk there at 4pm but it's closed on Sunday. The two store owners are outside and recognize you. Then, they open the entire restaurant, just for you - one customer!!!. Wow!
You are eating a hamburger at the store mentioned above and are a little hot and fanning yourself with a manual Chinese fan. The owner sees you are hot and turns on two air conditioners for you! Wow, very nice!
You are looking for a TV with antenna function, but every store tells you it's old technology and no longer made. Finally you find one, and ask, "if it's defective today, what is the warranty?" The story owner tells you. "No return." You tell the store owner, "No return, no buy."
You use a normal looking tube of deep heat muscle rub ointment. A few days later, your skin has permanent patches of white as if it were bleached.
In the winter, you're freezing. Homes have no heaters or furnaces. So you buy a large electric heater. You're still cold because the room has concrete walls and no insulation.
After drinking some milk, you realize the reason the cap won't go back on the bottle is because the threads are manufactured defective with a misalignment!
You search for one half year to find a store with a paperclip. Now that you have the paperclip, you cannot find the store that sells reams of paper.
Air pollution is the worst in the world. You buy an air filter machine. The next day, the $120 replacement filter needs replacing!
The plumbing always has problems. You think sewer gas is the worst problem. Then you look at the deck floor. It's 3-inches deep with dirty sewer water and rising, about to flood the entire home! The worst part is the big dark brown thing floating in the water!
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Your home has 3 nearby bread bakery stores. On Monday you go there to buy bread. The first store is out of business. No problem. You go to the 2nd store. The store is missing. No problem. You go to number 3. They have no bread and tell you to go home. The next day, you go again. No bread. A week goes by. You go there again. No bread. Finally you ask when they will have bread, and they reply, "What is bread?"
Your hobby is amateur astronomy. You set up your telescope and view the night sky. You see strange flying things in the sky. You swing the telescope over and look at one. It's a flying saucer. Now you know why the locals all believe in aliens.
Taxi drivers don't know how to drive. You discover pressing your heavy bag against your tummy will delay throwing up your food.
The taxi sign says No Smoking. But the taxi man is smoking.
The taxi smells so bad inside, you must always take a filter mask with you.
You get onto the taxi and the seat is all red wet. Your colleague tells you that local girls have their P and don't bother to use padding.
You find it amusing. The sign says no birds allowed on the bus. Then someone tells you, the birds have flu that can kill you.
You're going onto the bus. The second your foot leaves the last step, the bus driver accelerates at high speed. You are thrown to the floor, roll across the floor, and are slammed hard into the seat backdrop! You don't take the bus again for at least a month.
Your friend tells you about what happened in the girls bathroom. A local attendant had to tell the visiting people to shut the door when they poop.
Cake is not normal. Cake has no frosting. Then you realize, there is no frosting on anything.
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It's not the tailgate back of the truck, but rather the entire long side that folds down to remove cargo.
You order a case of diet coke. For some strange reason, a bottle does not have its full fiz (carbonation). Then you notice the fill line is just a bit lower than some of the other bottes. Finally, you notice the cap seal was broken. Someone was randomly opening the new bottles and taking sips of pop, hoping you wouldn't notice!!!!
When you first lived in the country, everyone wanted to speak English with you. A few years later, no one claims to speak English!
You put a few croutons in the microwave oven and they overheat. A small amount of smoke results. NO big deal. Right? Wrong! The smoke detector goes off and very loud prerecorded yelling begins in a foreign language. It won't stop for 15 minutes, there is no reset, and the alarm is connected to all the alarms in all the hallways, in the entire skyscraper, all 22 floors!!!!
The lock on the door is digital battery driven. When the battery goes dead abruptly, the door won't open, there is no warning, and you are locked out of your home.
You order food but it never gets delivered to your home. They delivered it to another skyscraper down the street!
You must keep the home spotless clean. One time you let the food set out overnight. The next day, the high humidity signaled every cockroach in the neighborhood and a thousand moved in for the feast! After that, you hire a cleaning lady and the problem goes away.
The apartment next to yours is apparently rented by a movie star. When you open the door, a tall bodyguard is just standing there, glaring eerily at you with no expression.
The city is big and fast. The girls are fast. One girl explains she has 35 boyfriends all at the same time, and she rotates them on a schedule.
It's election time and the landline won't stop ringing. Finally you take the receiver off the hook. The phone is useless.
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The taxi woman is driving you around unnecessarily to increase your cost. You tell her to stop but she won't. As the taxi is moving, you open the door and jump out rolling across the boulevard.
You are allergic to flu and covid vaccines. You stay indoors to stay healthy. You stayed indoors too long and develop heart failure. Now you need more than one heart surgery to stay alive.