Welcome to Culture Shock! The new series that named itself. Join us as we learn, grow and share all about new found social/cultural behaviours and expectations through our world exploration. These are our thoughts, observations and lessons on respecting and behaving in a foreign culture that may just leave you laughing and crying at the same time.

For those of you who have not yet experienced the shear adventure brought to you by ‘the squat toilet,’ allow me to paint the picture for you.

First Encounters

I entered a restroom stall outside a temple in Lukang, Taiwan and in that moment, much to my horror, I was slapped with a very dark reality. Western style toilets were a thing of the past with my homeland, Canada, now at the other end of the world. While I had managed to avoid encounters with a ‘squat toilet’ throughout my first week in Asia, mainly Hong Kong, it was now time to accept the unavoidable truth. Long gone were the days I had sat comfortably in the middle of the night after staggering all clumsy and groggy to my porcelain throne. Going forward I would be expected to bend my knees and hover over a hole in the ground. Continue reading →