What is your most embarrasing Faux Pas?

[Bluewhale]

What is your most embarrasing Faux Pas due to cultural misunderstanding?

I know a lot of you, unlike me, have lived in Japan for a long time so you may not have made any cock ups recently, but try to think back to when you first arrived, any funny stories? If this topic has been coverd before, I'm sorry!

As far as I'm concerned the only real thing that happened to me which was quite embarrasing was drinking out of my finger bowl, thinking it was tea, in a crab restaurant on my first night in Tokyo in front of a bunch of pissed up business men who did not stop laughing. Anyone care to share their stories?

[Taro Toporific]

[kotatsuneko]

i messed up yesterday in sapporo station, damn, only been using the trains for work since nov, and usually have the ticket price info beforehand, but not then, so asked one of the ticket girls how much it was to otaru chikko, and she pointed to the huge sign in kanji/romaji with all the prices to see..

guess i am so used to walking around looking down or straight ahead i never thought to look up before!

heres another one, a car almost killed me just 30 mins ago, walking on a green light, looked left and behind, no traffic , walked ahead and this bastard car zoomed in front, i didnt hear or see it till it was an inch away from me, so i stopped to take its number then realised damn i couldnt write the kanji , omk!! wish i had one of those surpluss rpgs....

[kotatsuneko]

oh another one was at the barber a while back, with this totally hot 20ish redhead..

i wanted to apologise for my messy hair and neck hair so said what i thought was:

"gomen, ore no kami wa darashi nai ne"

but what came out was... "gomen , ore no kame wa darashi nai ne"

things fell silent apart from the stifled giggle of the other staff and the wife explained my gaffe ..

not as funny as Taro`s one tho...

[canman]

This was a long time ago, although strangely enough my Japanese really hasn't seemed to have improved in the ensuing years, but I digress. I was just off the boat, and in Sapporo for a training session. After our day of training we all went out to this really good garlic restaurant. I had been studying quite dilligently, and wanted to impress my hosts by asking for the bill. Of course by this time we were all pretty well drunked up, so in a nice loud voice I proceeded to ask the waiter for " Oh kancho onagaishimasu", which of course means, "Oh garcon would you please give me an enema". I was trying to ask for the "Oh kanjo", to which of course all my friends proceeded to run behind me and stick their fingers up my bum.

[Taro Toporific]

oh another... gaffe ...

The orginal henna gaijin and 35+yrs resident of Tokyo, Bob Liccardi, always tells his bonner of buying a huge bag of little white Ivory Soap bars on the cheap . . . and then discovering the soap won't lather at all. Of course when he brings the "soap" bars back to the supermarket, he discovers they are little blocks of mochi rice cakes.

[American Oyaji]

BOKI OJI DESU.
(Boki means 'hard-on' but I wanted to say boke, senile, as in, "I'm getting to be a senile old fart.")

The immediate reply in squeaking unison was, "So desu ne." :P

Umm, Taro, I think you still messed it up.

Don't you mean Boku. Boke is something different entirely I believe.

In any case, Boku/e is a but young for your use I believe. I always use Ore instead. I thought ..hmmmmm.... then again, if you are being "self deprecating", boku would be ok to use....hmmmmmmmm.

[Taro Toporific]

[gomichild]

hahaha canman1 wins!

[GomiGirl]

In any case, Boku/e is a but young for your use I believe. I always use Ore instead.

I know alot of guys who use jibun instead of boku

[kurohinge1]

My wife & some of her female friends don't like a guy using "ore" around them but with other guys, no one seems to care.

Back to the topic: A friend once confused "uni" with "inu" and confidently told a restaurant's staff that their dog was very tasty. I suspect that another staff then ducked out the back to check on the poor thing.

[groovewonder]

Of course by this time we were all pretty well drunked up, so in a nice loud voice I proceeded to ask the waiter for " Oh kancho onagaishimasu", which of course means, "Oh garcon would you please give me an enema". I was trying to ask for the "Oh kanjo", to which of course all my friends proceeded to run behind me and stick their fingers up my bum.

At least it wasn't a coffee kancho...

http://www.d-hourenso.com/coffee/main.html

[Taro Toporific]

I know alot of guys who use jibun instead of boku

Dang. Come to think of it, that use of jibun quite common around
me.

Speaking of fun with Japanese pronouns, personal and otherwise . . .
It took me weeks to get used to salary-slaves at Maybe-the-Largest Inc always saying, "uchi this" and "uchi that"
(meaning our office not our house).

For some darn reason, the first time I hazarded to use uchi in that sense, I said, nontoka, nontoka, unchi de.
(Meaning "bah, bah, SHIT" rather than 'bah, bah, our office'.)

Their answer to me was, So ka

[vince]

So, my wife's sister was visiting us and for some reason I put a broom upside down in the corner - wife's sister FREAKS and starts to get the hell out of there like she found out the real killer was in this room!

Turns out, putting a broom upside down is a signal to the guest that they have overstayed their welcome. It took a *long* time to explain to her that it is Japanese-only custom - the rest of the planet doesn't know about this, etc.

Another time with friends, visiting a Japanese family, when we were leaving, they spoke sincerely about how wonderful it would be if we did the same thing again next weekend. They were *totally* shocked when we showed up the next weekend, but instantly pretended to have a great time again. This was to save face (for us) because it is a custom on parting to show sincerity by creating a pleasent verbal fantasy scenario - which of course, is not meant to be taken literally.

[Andocrates]

Well, last night I was with 2 girls and one of them had her hair braided and I said "kami ga kawaisoudesu ne"

Now you remember that if a table is spread and everything looks tasty you say
Oishisoudesune?
sono eega wa kowaisoudesune

however - - -

kawai sou means poor, miserable, sad, pitiful so I said your hair looks pitiful ;-|

you are supposed to just say Kawaii