The Logistical Differences

When I first learned we would be moving to Asia I had prepared myself for the cultural differences that would be inevitable. For example, in Asia, they are much more straight forward and open about things like: my weight, consistency of your bowel movements, and when you look bad it's never that you look tired, it's just that you look really bad.

However, what I did not prepare for was logistical differences....yesterday I was invited to watch a Taiwanese basketball game. Although I'm no sports "buff" I thought it would be a fun activity since I wasn't even aware that Taiwan had a team much less 7 teams. A friend and I decided to
meet at the MRT (Taiwan Subway) and take the subway out to the stadium.


*side note* here is a shot of the basketball game. It ended up being super fun to watch despite having grown up during the Michael Jordan era in Chicago. I mean after watching what may be known as the greatest team alive to watching the Taiwanese teams it was a bit of a let down, but they were so bad it ended up being pretty entertaining. Lots of opportunities for yelling and screaming because there were tons of turnovers, airballs, and balls being thrown right into enemy arms. It was entertaining none-the-less. **


Okay so once we got to the subway I figured I would use the restroom (Taiwan subways have surprisingly nice bathrooms) before we walked to the stadium since I didn't know how the stadium bathrooms would be and I didn't want to "chance it"

I walk in and immediately saw an open stall and went in. It didn't take long to go number one and when I was finished I turned around to flush. Now please look at the picture I've taken below. would one not assume that the only button visible would be the "flush" button. Well I did.
Since, for me, logic says that most public bathrooms I've gone to if they don't have a manual flush next to the toilet then it's usually a button or automated. Since I didn't see the flashing green light of an automated flusher and there was no lever I pressed the button. Upon pressing the button, an incredibly LOUD and non-stop siren started going off. It wasn't hard to figure out that I had activated some sort of emergency light and the next thing I know there are people outside my stall knocking and asking me if I am all right. I sheepishly say, "Yes, I am all right, I hit the button by accident" the bathroom attendants say okay and while I'm trying to pull my pants up as quickly as possible and get the heck out of the bathroom while the sirens were still going off I hear the subway po-po arrive and have the following conversation:

Po-Po: "Is victim still inside the stall?"
Attendant: "Yes, but she said it was an accident."
Po-Po: "Accident?"
Attendant: "Yes, she hit the button by accident."
Po-Po: "but she is still inside? and she hasn't come out yet?"
*pound, pound, pounding on my bathroom stall*
Me: "uhm yeah I'm okay...I'm coming out now"

As I walk out of the stall I have about 7 people all staring at me.

4-randoms just waiting to use the bathroom
2-subway po-po making sure I wasn't a "victim" of some horrible toilet accident
1-bathroom attendant looking really annoyed at the turd that just hit a big red button that says emergency

I guess all my preparations for the cultural differences made no real difference at all because I still managed to make one of the biggest bathroom faux pas possible...although I do put part of the blame on the genius engineer that designed an emergency button where the flusher usually is in a public bathroom.