Vagina hunting in Mozambique - A linguistic faux pas

A few months ago I was talking with two of my Mozambican neighbors and the subject turned to the topic of a recent rat infestation in our housing compound. Excitedly I mentioned how I was on a killing spree and had caught seven rats (with a trap) in the last few weeks. Basically translated in Portuguese, I said: “Eu já mataram sete ratas na minha casa.”

I instantly knew I had made a faux pas because immediately both my friends started laughing hysterically. Between uncontrollable giggles, my friend Sonia yelled “RATO not RATA!” and then she gestured to her crotch.

So that is how I learned what the colloquial term was for vagina. I had basically told my neighbors that I had surprisingly found and assaulted many of them in my house recently. Then I lost it too. When I had finally composed myself and apologized in full, I took a moment and reflected on another related event.

My boyfriend recently came for an extended visit and along with other misadventures, he participated in the rat hunting. In the morning we’d inspect our trap to see what we’d caught. When we found a victim, I’d make him take the bag with the carcass to the trashcan by the front gate. In an effort to discourage local kids and curious neighbors from going through our trash (which is normal here) my boyfriend would point to the bag and say in Spanish, “No abra este. Cogí otra rata anoche.” Which in Spanish means not to open the bag because there is a gross dead rat inside, but in Mozambican-Portuguese that means, “I got some last night.”

Blissfully unaware of his crude comment, Merritt would walk back to the house feeling proud that he had made a few locals crack up with his broken Portuguese, saying he was confident they wouldn’t open the bag.

And I bet he was right.

Camille (female), United States

"Are you the manager here?"

Last year I had the opportunity to work at an international luxury hotel in China. I worked in a restaurant of the hotel which had two enormous glass walk-in wine cases. As the wine bottles had been taken out and put back in quite often, they were no longer perfectly arranged by country, brand, red/white, etc, which made finding the exact bottle for a guest time-consuming. I offered to the restaurant manager (a native Chinese) that I or my colleagues and I could rearrange the bottles in order as they once were, to make finding the right wine easier. He snapped at me: "are you the manager here? It's fine the way it is." I was so shocked that what I thought was a good initiative to improve productivity was immediately shut down and not appreciated. I was also surprised that he had appeared offended by my suggestion. I vaguely knew what it meant to "save face" in China, but it was not until then that I learned just how important it was. By directly suggesting a way to improve something in "his" restaurant, I had made him feel as if I thought he wasn't running an efficient operation and/or should have thought of this bottle-rearranging idea before. It was even worse that I had done this as a subordinate, as Chinese are hyper-aware of rank in the workplace. I was very careful from there on out to find very subtle, indirect, "face-saving" ways of bringing my ideas to the table.

Lauren (female), United States

Ask and you shall receive

I was traveling in Borneo with my friends and we had been hiking all day in the heat. When we finally found our way to the hotel all I wanted was a hot shower - to wash away all the mud and sweat. To my greatest disappointment all I got from the tap was cold water. Being tired and very frustrated with the situation, I called the reception and complained "there is no hot water". Soon there was a knock on the door and one of the members of staff entered the room - with a bottle of hot water. They thought I wanted to have a cup of tea. How amusing! We all just laughed.

The result: Hot water, yes - hot shower, no.

Ilona (female), Finland

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How not to name your cat

Growing up in New Jersey, we adopted a Siamese cat. An aloof, beautiful and somewhat regal feline. My father dug into the encyclopedia (you know, those books that filled shelves before Wikipedia and Google existed), and discovered that the kings of Siam (Thailand) were named Rama. And so we named our cat Rama, which seemed so fitting a name.

Many years later I had the chance to live in Thailand. One day in the office, I was telling my colleagues about our cat, and I thought they would be impressed that we had bothered to look up the royal lineage in Thailand. Instead, they were horrified that we had named a cat after their monarch. They viewed this as a defamation to equate an animal with the monarchy.

In Thailand it is a crime to insult the king, and many languish in jail for publishing negatives stories, photos or opinions.

I was completely embarrassed by my cultural gaffe, and needless to say, I kept my cat story to myself after that.

Jon (male), United States

A language with no word for 'please'

During my stay in England I occasionally felt rude or impolite when I acted the way I usually do in Finland. For example, I often forgot to use the word 'please'.

Eventually I told my English friend that I sometimes forget to use the word 'please', but I'm not trying to be rude - we just have no equivalent for 'please' in the Finnish language. My friend was really surprised - it had never occurred to him that there could be a language that does not have the word 'please'.

Ulla (female), Finland

That's what I thought

I was working in Cambodia for an NGO. My superior was a young, easy-going Khmer man with whom I had a great relationship. One day, I went to check some information with him, and when I received the answer I expected, I said "Ok, that's what I thought."

For me, this was an expression to show that I had thought about the question myself but out of caution wanted to confirm my response, and that I was in agreement with his decision. However, he took the "Ok, that's what I thought" to mean something like "I already knew that, your contribution is worthless." Moreover, another Khmer coworker present confirmed that she'd have taken the same meaning from it as my boss did.

I appreciated my Khmer coworkers for having the courage to explain to me something that I was doing to make them uncomfortable. They were generally pretty easygoing regarding cultural differences between the team members of different nationalities, so I believe this was something that was particularly important to them, as it motivated them to speak up.

S.B. (female), United States