Consequently a lot of funny situations have happened to me and I'll share them with you:
1)
One time I desperately needed tampons so I went into a "Watson's" which is a chain drugstore, similar to Walgreens in the states. After scanning aisle after aisle I finally found a very long aisle all dedicated to sanitary pads. I knew I was close but I couldn't see any tampons (of course I'm only going off of pictures). I examined all the packages but I couldn't see any pictures of tampons. I really wanted to find them myself without having to go through the hassle of asking somebody.
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| An aisle of pads, no tampons on this aisle. |
I finally gave up and found a girl to help me out. I tapped her arm, smiled, raised my hands in surrender and said, "NO Zhongwon" (No Chinese). Then I motioned for her to come and follow me and led her in front of the sanitary pads. I thought, "okay, how the hell do I explain this?" So I pointed to the pads and then used my fingers to symbol what I was looking for.
Now, what would you do? Well, I did it the good old fashioned way. I made an "O" with my left thumb and index finger, then I got my right index finger and pushed it in and out through the "O", all the while saying "taaampoonnn". (Does anyone have a better idea?)
Well, it apparently worked because it looked like a lightbulb clicked in her head. She brightened up and motioned for me to follow her.
I followed her to the other side of the store and low and behold she lead me to a huge section of...condoms. I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. It all just seemed so ridiculous. Me, not being able to communicate and having to use silly, lewd hand motions to get my point across. She, trying to guess at a game of sexual charades...
Finally, after making it clear that I didn't want condoms, that I wanted a cross between a condom and a sanitary pad, I finally got my tampons.
Side note: The reason it was so hard for me to find tampons was because they're just not popular here. The only ones I've noticed in Taiwan are the OB brand, which I think is ironic because they're the hardest to use, and they're very expensive and semi-hidden away from the rest of the feminine products.
2)
The first few months of living in Taiwan, I thought that the Taiwanese had an obsession for receipts. It didn't matter where I went, whether it was a 7-11 to buy a pack of gum or the grocery store to buy a lot more stuff, the cashier always insisted that I received my receipt. The first few times I tried to refuse it by waving my hands and saying no, but they would actually follow me, sometimes outside, until I took it. It never occurred to me that there must be a reason behind this. I just thought that people really like having receipts around here. For me, it was a pain in the ass and a waste of paper to have my wallet or backpack constantly fill up with receipts.
Recently, I found out why and I kick myself for not trying to find out the reason sooner. The receipts are lottery tickets! Every two months they run the national lottery and if you have the winning numbers you have a chance to win a lot of money. I heard as much as $1,000,000 NT which is about $300,000 US. I'm not sure if that's quite true but I know that there's a lot of chances to win smaller increments of money.
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| The 8 digit number in dark print are the possible winning numbers |
A couple of reasons why the government does this is so that people can keep a track of their receipts for tax purposes. Also, by forcing businesses to hand out receipts (they get fined if they don't) they can't cheat the system.
As for me, I've been collecting all my receipts, I can't wait until the numbers come out in May! Plus, all the grocery stores have huge bins where you can recycle the ludicrous amounts of receipt papers that gather up. I'll let you know results in May. Wish me luck!
I have more to share so check back later!
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