Ask people if they want to have a shower way too often

This strange custom is one that I picked up from spending an entire year in Brazil.

I travelled a lot in the country, and had my own home some of the time, but the rest of the time would stay with friends. It struck me as incredibly odd, but the first question Brazilians would ask me whenever I arrived at their home was always if I wanted to have a shower!

This wasn’t saying anything about my B.O., but something that is customary to offer any guest who is visiting you in Brazil, including if they are not staying over. Brazil can be a hot country depending on the city and time of year, and Brazilians are among the most hygienic people I’ve ever come across, generally taking at least two and sometimes three showers a day, especially if they are physically active (gyms, sports etc.)

Because of this, Brazilians generally want to have a shower as soon as they arrive at someone’s house, to freshen up. The problem is that I’m so used to asking this that any time I have a Couchsurfer over at my place, or if it’s a somewhat hot day anywhere in the world and someone pops by my house, I just automatically ask the question of if they want to hop in the shower as soon as they enter.

You can imagine the looks I’ve gotten from asking this when people think I’m somehow implying they are smelly, or a girl who may be just a friend or a very different age to me thinking I have an ulterior motive! I’m just trying to be nice, as any Brazilian would, I swear!

2. Examine a business card or hand over money as if it were about to explode

This time, a habit I picked up in Taiwan, which stood out for me immediately after I arrived there, was that you treat anything that you can hand over to another person as sacred.

So if I meet you at a conference for instance, and you give me your business card, rather than glance at it and stuff it into my pocket, I will delicately accept it using both of my hands as if I’m holding a fragile piece of crystal and examine it closely for the incredible design, as if I was looking through a window into a wonderful parallel universe.

Only then can I put it into my left pocket, which is my “throw-into-the-bin-as-soon-as-they’re-gone pocket”.

And with money, the same rules apply. You don’t hand over any note with one hand, but with two, as if it will explode if handled incorrectly. I have shaken off this second habit due to spending long enough outside of Asia by now, but I have to admit that I still feel quite insulted whenever someone hands me money with one hand without forcefully putting their whole body into the delicate transfer. I definitely still take business cards with both hands though.

3. Point as if you’re flirting with a fish

In the Philippines, and strangely enough also in Colombia and other countries, they almost never point with their index finger (thus immediately nullifying the very title of index finger). This is considered quite rude in many cultures.

So what do you do if you genuinely need to point to something? Why, you use your lips of course! You need to pout them as if you are making a kissy-face and do so in the direction of the thing that requires the attention of the conversation. It’s not a long “point”, but more a quick pucker-up for a half a second.

I got so used to this, that I do it unconsciously now, even when I’m also pointing with my fingers too. So I look weird to pretty much everyone now!

4. Feel guilty about using the toilet

This is an odd one, but many countries in the world don’t have the same kind of plumbing system as we do in Europe and North America.

As such, in many countries in Africa, South America and Asia, you can’t flush toilet paper down the toilet!

Because of this, there is a bin beside the toilet for you to discard your “used” toilet paper. It seems disgusting at first to have that within sight, but after a while you get used to it. Now, I genuinely feel… guilty every time I flush toilet paper down the toilet itself, even when in a country where this is perfectly acceptable as the plumbing system can handle it, because I feel like I’m clogging up the pipes!

5. Call people at random intervals and hang up before they answer

Another habit I picked up, this time from Italy is the concept of a “squillo”.

You may generally understand this as a missed call, although it is always intentional. We do this all the time in most countries if we want to give someone our number, by noting theirs and then calling them just for a second, and they’d see our number on their caller ID.

Italians however take this to the next level and make it an entirely new form of communication! I wrote about it in detail here.

Basically, you call someone and then hang up such that the context of why you called is obvious. If you are meeting up with them but will arrive 10 minutes late, the squillo implies that you are on your way. If you are going out with someone and not meeting up with them right now but receive a very quick call where they hang up before you would pick up, this means that they are thinking about you (lovers or married couples etc.) If a guy friend gives another guy friend a squillo, it essentially means “whats up?” and you would text him back.

Essentially, you have these random moments throughout your day where your phone rings for just a second and then stops ringing. Now, the instinct of most non-Italians is to call this person back. Maybe it’s their way of saying they are out of credit for instance, and it’s urgent they talk to you. But the squillo itself was the communication; you have to extrapolate from the context what it means without calling them back!

As such, I call friends and hang up immediately all the time. In most countries though, they’ll call me back and we have an awkward conversation, which I was attempting to avoid precisely by giving them a squillo! I still can’t shake this habit, and have many weird phone conversations if people pick up before I finish my brief squillo, or think that I’m trying to get out of being the one paying for the call.

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 617