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#Post#: 13652--------------------------------------------------
Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: Terecia Date: March 25, 2019, 8:19 am
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First of all, the story is rather long. So, please bear with me.
I always get tongue-tied when I have to talk to people in
my own language. Until one day, something happened.
I was on a train going on holiday with my friend. There was
a middle-aged man, sat facing me. He didn't seem friendly, I
could see that he sometimes looked at my friend out of the
corner of his eyes. My friend could feel the same thing. I
whispered at her, asking if she wanted me to tell him to stop
looking at her. She nodded slowly.
I was about to speak to him, then he took something out of
the pocket on his shabby shirt. It was a packet of cigarettes.
He lit one of them without any hesitation. Good grief! Didn't he
know that it's prohibited to smoke on the train?
All of a sudden, he sneered at me as if he could read my
mind. I couldn't believe what I saw. I tried so hard to keep
myself calm until there was a loud noise coming from behind the
man's seat. A baby cried and coughed at the same time.
The man didn't only ignore the cry of the baby, he kept
smoking unceasingly. I asked him politely several times, with my
broken Chinese, to put out his cigarettes. He didn't show any
response, not the least bit of attention. Then, a train-officer
was walking towards us, collecting tickets from passengers. I
stopped him and asked his help to warn the man. He responded in
a haste, said he would come back.
I waited and waited, the officer didn't show up. The room
started to fill with smoke, the baby cried louder, but no one
did anything. I couldn't hold myself back anymore.
Suddenly, I snatched his cigarette out of his mouth without
anyone realizing it. He was shocked. I gave him an intense look,
my brain shouted to me saying he would definitely hit me.
Surprisingly, he didn't. He gave me an awkward expression
which I could hardly understand what was in his mind.
My friend asked me to promise her that I would never act
like that. It was the most insane decision I've ever made.
Thank you for reading my story. I don't have any intention to
bash any nation, because it only happened once. I considered
this kind of person could be anywhere.
#Post#: 13669--------------------------------------------------
Re: Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: Kseniia Date: March 25, 2019, 4:14 pm
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My stories are not about cultural differences, strictly
speaking, but both of them have a "freaking out" element (in the
sense of being shocked or being frightened), so I'll tell them
anyway.
The first episode took place during my first year in China. The
story is simple: I took a taxi and sat in the front seat. When
we arrived at the destination, I gave the taxi driver a 100 yuan
banknote (I had to pay 60-something RMB). Then he suddenly
switched to English — he said "Welcome to China!" — and reached
out as if he was going to shake my hand. I did try to shake his
hand, but, quite suddenly, he grabbed mine and... emm... stroked
his cheek with the back of my hand*. I think I just stared at
him for a few seconds (I was speechless), and then... well, just
got out of the car. A few minutes later it occurred to me that
he didn't give me change (and now I actually suspect that was
the whole point!). But then there was one of the most weird
things that happened to me in China: I came back home, said
hello to my neighbour and told him about all this in what I
thought was a light way, and he seemed to be listening very
attentively but in the end he said, "You know I don't speak
Russian, don't you?". And then I realised that I had been
speaking Russian the entire time. I think I might have developed
some sort of prejudice against taxi drivers because of this
baffling episode (and I actually prefer back seats now... just
in case).
*Now this is one of those rare situations when you really need
these personal pronouns!
The second episode (not as traumatic, thankfully) took place in
Montenegro. We were staying at a small hotel in Budva. I got
sunburned on the first day (of course!) so I didn't go to the
beach, but it was a lovely summer evening, I was trying to learn
the lyrics of "Dragostea Din Tei" — all in all, there was little
to warn of the danger ahead. But at some point I decided to go
to the bathroom and when I opened the door, I saw that right in
the centre of the bathroom there was SOMETHING.
...By "saw" I actually mean that I first screamed like a banshee
and jumped back in horror like those cats on Youtube that get
scared of the "sudden" appearance of cucumbers, and in the
process I realised that there is something alive on the floor
and that it looked like a scorpion. Then the "freaking out" part
starts because I slammed the door, picked up a slipper, run out
of our hotel room and knocked at the next door.
Now, imagine that you just checked into a hotel and you hear a
knock at your door. You open it, and there is someone looking
absolutely terrified, who gives you a slipper and says this,
"MAN, HELP ME! SCORPION!". Now, coming to think of it, it
probably looked and sounded a bit unusual. But the guy who
opened the door took my slipper, said something I didn't
understand and then asked "where?". I said, "BATHROOM!", and he
just went in there. I didn't come in, of course, but I heard a
splat, then a toilet flush, and then the guy walked out, handed
me the slipper, said "It's OK" and went back to his hotel room
after my tenth "THANK YOU". I actually don't know how normal it
it to have scorpions in your bathrooms in whatever country he
was from (maybe it was a very mundane thing for him) but God
bless him anyway, he'll be my knight in shining armour forever.
I told this epic story to a friend of mine when she came back
from a beach (maybe I changed a few details and didn't tell her
that her slipper was used as the murder weapon, but anyway), and
a few hours later we changed hotels. Thankfully, there were no
scorpions there (so this story has a happy ending).
#Post#: 13671--------------------------------------------------
Re: Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: Susan Date: March 25, 2019, 5:47 pm
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When I was 16 I traveled in Europe with a group of American
teenagers playing tennis tournaments and being housed in the
homes of locals. One weekend we visited Paris and then took a
train to Rotterdam in the Netherlands where our tournament was.
The train from Paris to Rotterdam was severely overbooked and
there were men laying in the aisles who did not have seats. In
the evening, just as some of us were falling asleep, the girl
beside me shrieked because a man on the floor had slid his hand
up her leg. None of the girls slept at all that night-- we were
too busy being hypervigilant. (Passenger trains are not very
common in the U.S. and none of us had ever experienced people
not having seats.)
Basically, after a weekend of siteseeing in Paris during which
we had almost no sleep, and the scarey train trip, I arrived in
Rotterdam and was told that the other three girls were going to
one house and I was going to another, and that the owners of
house I was staying in had been called away-- oh and was it okay
with me to sleep in their house alone? I thought I would be
fine. I did not want to be a burden. The tournament directors
wife took me to the home, brought along bread and water for my
breakfast, and showed me the house. She showed me that part of
the house I was allowed to be in and asked that I not entered
the other part of the house. She told me to be careful not to
leave until they came to pick me up because the door would lock
behind me.´She then asked me again if I would be okay, and then
left.
I thought that the tiny ¨bedroom¨ I was given looked really
strange and I had never seen a bed so small. The room had a
counter and a small sink. I had access to rooms that appeared
more like an office than a house. There was a small empty room
that for some odd reason had a bench on one side and a rubber
inflatable boat hanging on the wall. None of the rooms except
my small bedroom had curtains. I began to get very nervous as
it was night and it felt like I could be seen and had no privacy
except in the tiny bedroom. I entered a room with a laboratory
and then a room with shelves full of boxes of medications. Then
I realized I was staying in the office of a doctor that was
attached to his home. I went back to the small bedroom and
realized the bed was an exam table made up like a bed. I kept
getting more and more nervous and paranoid. I started to fear
that someone would try to break in and steal the drugs. i tried
going to my room to sleep, but all I could think of was maybe
someone had died there. Finally, in a panic I decided there was
no possible way I could stay there. (This was 1980-- before cell
phones. I was so rule abiding that I did not enter the side of
the house that was forbidden to me.) Instead, I packed my bag
and left the house.
I was not sure of the way back to the tournament directors home
because it had been dark and I was unfamiliar with the city and
it was in a neighborhood with a small river and winding roads.
It was about midnight, and here I was, a 16 year old girl
wandering the streets of Rotterdam, willing to risk whatever to
get back to people I had met once. (I would call that freaking
out.)
I did find my way back to their house and when the directors
wife answered the door I burst into tears and explained I had
tried and could not stay there by myself. She had pity on me
and I stayed with them for the rest of the week.
#Post#: 13672--------------------------------------------------
Re: Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: Nikola Date: March 25, 2019, 5:57 pm
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That's like a proper horror story. I think you win, Susan.
#Post#: 13673--------------------------------------------------
Re: Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: NealC Date: March 25, 2019, 8:18 pm
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Well, you know it isn't good when you go to your morning meeting
with the Tour Director in the hotel lobby and he says:
"I don't think you should panic, but there has been a coup..."
His next few lines:
"Do you have a Canadian passport?"
"They only took over the radio station and the international
flights area of the airport. Your next flight is domestic, so
you're fine!"
"Don't worry, you know some Spanish right? English is ok, just
make sure no one thinks you're British".
#Post#: 13685--------------------------------------------------
Re: Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: SuKi Date: March 26, 2019, 3:50 am
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1981.
A dark backstreet in a seedy port town on Corsica (a
Mediterranean island run by the mafia).
My friend and I arrive late one night, fresh-faced and innocent,
having answered an advert for a jobs as waitresses in a bar.
It turns out that it isn't really a bar and the job isn't
exactly waitressing...
#Post#: 13686--------------------------------------------------
Re: Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: Nikola Date: March 26, 2019, 4:47 am
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@SuKi
OK, let me phrase it differently... So how long did you end up
staying? :)
#Post#: 13689--------------------------------------------------
Re: Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: SuKi Date: March 26, 2019, 6:10 am
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[quote author=Nikola link=topic=926.msg13686#msg13686
date=1553593669]
@SuKi
OK, let me phrase it differently... So how long did you end up
staying? :)
[/quote]
I'm still there now. Didn't I tell you?
This English language malarkey is just a bit of sideline.
#Post#: 13690--------------------------------------------------
Re: Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: Truman Overby Date: March 26, 2019, 6:25 am
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[quote author=SuKi link=topic=926.msg13685#msg13685
date=1553590218]
1981.
A dark backstreet in a seedy port town on Corsica (a
Mediterranean island run by the mafia).
My friend and I arrive late one night, fresh-faced and innocent,
having answered an advert for a jobs as waitresses in a bar.
It turns out that it isn't really a bar and the job isn't
exactly waitressing...
[/quote]
Sounds like a 'tricky' situation.
#Post#: 13692--------------------------------------------------
Re: Have You Ever Freaked Out in A Foreign Country?
By: SuKi Date: March 26, 2019, 6:33 am
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[quote author=Beard Brain link=topic=926.msg13690#msg13690
date=1553599554]
[quote author=SuKi link=topic=926.msg13685#msg13685
date=1553590218]
1981.
A dark backstreet in a seedy port town on Corsica (a
Mediterranean island run by the mafia).
My friend and I arrive late one night, fresh-faced and innocent,
having answered an advert for a jobs as waitresses in a bar.
It turns out that it isn't really a bar and the job isn't
exactly waitressing...
Sounds like a 'tricky' situation.
[/quote]
[/quote]
Tricky? Oh, I reckon I can turn my hand to most things if I have
to...
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