I’m not sure if it’s a symptom of genuine failure to realize what exactly the meaning of the English some companies use, or a general indifference by overseas companies of what exactly appears on their products in Taiwan.

Despite a general understanding of English I could probably walk down a street and ask ten random Taiwanese people if they’d seen my douchebag and not get a reaction. To fault their kindness I could probably get a few of them to even help me look for it.

But I’m not that cruel.

The other week I was walking through a supermarket looking for some shampoo when I spotted Gel Douche. Sitting there on the shelf in plain view like it was an everyday item.

If anything’s going to bring out your inner ten year old, it’s Gel Douche in a supermarket and it took everything I had to not spurt my tea out in laughter. Worst still when I pulled out my N95 to take a photo my boss came up and asked what I was doing.

Standing there camera in hand trying to take a photo of Gel Douche I looked into her eyes and hoped her English wasn’t as good as I thought it was.

‘uh…I’ve been looking for this everywhere. So glad I finally found it…’

I’d hoped that was the end of it but then she picked up a bottle of the shelf for examination. As I stood there silently praying the question wouldn’t be asked, deep down I already knew what was coming;

‘hmm, what…is… do-…. dou-che? Douche? How do you say douche?’

Now I’m not much of an actor, but I’d like to think I put in an award winning performance that afternoon.

Meanwhile I’m not sure what disturbs me more, my boss going overseas at some point and walking into a store naively asking for gel douche, that it came in three varieties or the fact that it was on sale for just over a dollar.



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