There are lots of chances for culture shock and cultural misunderstandings in expat life. These often revolve around big cultural differences, but not all cultural variance assaults our core ideas. Some are simply quaint. These are the cultural contrasts a vacationer might notice between spa treatments, or might turn up in a high school report. They’re interesting, light, fluffy, and fun.

Generally Taiwanese prefer to shower at night while Westerners prefer to shower in the morning. For the Taiwanese, it’s a time to unwind, shed the day’s cares, and prepare for bed. Apparently Taiwanese people don’t sweat or spit all over themselves in their sleep. Us more messy Western sleepers tend to prefer an invigorating morning shower to wake up, wash away the sleep goo, and get ready to face the day.

Relaxing versus prepping is also a theme in eating soup. At banquets Taiwanese have the soup toward meal’s end, to settle the stomach and aid in digestion after gorging. Clearly they’re wrong—that’s why God invented whiskey and tobacco. In formal dining, Westerners usually have soup at the beginning of the meal, to warm the stomach, and lay the groundwork for the coming meal.

Continuing with the stomach theme, most Westerners are comfortable with a drinks only night out, or inviting friends over and entertaining them with drinks and perhaps light snacks. [See: Starvation Culture]. In Taiwan it is very odd to spend time with friends without talking around a mouthful of food.

Dating has a lot of small cultural differences. Kissing is culturally different, not so much in structure or delivery, as in timing. The kiss is an important part of early dates in the West. Should I? Shouldn’t I? Was that the signal? You have to get through the kiss to get to the good stuff. These things have stages, hence the whole first-base metaphor. Kissing has a less important role in dating in Taiwan. Kissing on the first or even second date is a bit odd, not wrong, possibly even charming, in a hey-I’m-dating-a-foreigner sort of way. It isn’t uncommon to hit a homer before circling around for some of that hot first-base action, which is also charming, in a hey-I’m-dating-a-Taiwanese-woman sort of way.

Yet picking your nose on a first date might be acceptable. There’s definitely an odd tendency towards public nose-picking. The number of times I’ve seen someone engaged in a third-knuckle-deep snoot root on the street, in a bus, at a restaurant is disturbing. Man, woman; old, young; hot, not; high-class or low-class place; it does matter, nothing stands in the way of a good rhinogasm. Oddly despite the fascination with the nostrils, blowing your nose in public is bad form. They’d rather snuffle. Taiwanese nasal culture is opposite to the West’s.

Private space blends with public space in Taiwan in other ways. At the traditional morning market it’d be surprising if you didn’t see women shopping in their pajamas, or old men in their undershirts and—what looks like—boxer shorts. I don’t really mind. We have Walmart, so, you know, there’s no room for aspersions, but it drives my French friends nuts.

As a teacher, one cultural difference I find myself dealing with is that plagiarism is not a mortal sin like in the West. A traditional way of studying in Chinese culture is to copy accepted authorities. Also Taiwanese students tend to be more communal in their study habits; they study together, share their research, and copy each other. It is not so bad here. You look like a raging lunatic if you get too over-the-top morally indignant. Sure you’d have been expelled and blackballed, but what’s that to do with here?

The Taiwanese are generally good savers. Even though I’ve been a part of a Taiwanese family for over a decade I still don’t entirely understand the mechanics of it. My wife seems profligate, yet saves an awesome percentage of her income. My parents-in-law are the same. My wife has me saving/investing 65%+ of my income, and despite doing it, I don’t get how it is happening. [I’m pretty sure I’m suffering]. I’m frugal, but left to my own devices, I’d be lucky to save 15-20%.

It’s always amazed me how often little things are the opposite. We have a 20% off sale, in Chinese it’s a 80% on sale. Which direction does a compass point? North? In ancient Chinese it pointed south. These little cultural differences are interesting, but won’t cause much culture shock or intercultural discomfort. They’re just fun.