Hello beautiful people, and welcome back once more to the route! 🙂

Today we will talk about foreign languages and their “magical” power to open doors and other people’s hearts! 🙂

First of all, let’s get some focus: did you know that across our planet there are more than 7,000 spoken languages?

Yes…over 7000!

Every language has a history, a culture and shapes the way people think and express their emotions!

Despite what many inexperienced travelers may assume, knowing English is just the ABC for deep traveling, but is not “in-se” a magical universal key that opens every door!

Surely, English can almost universally help in airports, hotels, tourist zones, and parts of the internet… but once you step outside the “polished bubble” of international tourism, things can become wonderfully different and unpredictable!

In my earlier travel years, I collected “misunderstandings” the way some people collect magnets on the fridge! xD

I ordered the wrong food, ended up in the wrong places, trusted the wrong people, and found myself in situations that were hilarious in hindsight and deeply uncomfortable in real time… and today I am going to talk you about 7 of these weird situations!

In Italian we call these moments “figure di merda” (“shitty moments”)…basically embarrassing clumsy disastrous moments you would like never to experience, where your confidence dramatically collapses in public as you feel you made a terrible – idiotic mistake 🙂

I will narrate you those 7 to give you an idea, how important in hindsights would have been being able to communicate better!

In the past decade, learning languages has become my passion and today, I consider myself a little polyglot, speaking 7 languages (Italian, Spanish, Portoguese, English, German, French and Chinese) – and the more I learn, the more I want to learn.

Technology on the other side, has also made mind-blowing progresses since those stories happened, with AI translations and AI apps that today can make communication across cultures so seamless that seems straight out of a sci-fi movie!

While telling you my funny stories, I will also give you some tips to avoid the “figure di merda” I did, and make your traveling across continents easier and more meaningful! 😉

Let’s dive right in! 🙂

Let’s start! 🙂

1. I Accidentally Asked

for a Maggot Salad in Cambodia

(luckily it was good!)

Cambodia is one of those countries that stays in your heart.

The energy, the warmth of the people, the ancient temples, the chaos of the markets, the smell of street food drifting through humid evening air, the untouched beaches, the smiles of the people… Cambodia is definitely a place that rewards slow exploration and curious eyes!

Unfortunately for me though, curiosity without vocabulary can become a dangerous experience! xD

Once upon a time, it was 2017, I was in a fusion French-Cambodian restaurant in Siem Reap, and as I was trying to be adventurous and respectful, I decided that instead of ordering the obvious safe option (classic noodles), I would point at something new and unknown I saw on the menu. 

Randomly, I pointed at something I did not even know what it was, they told me something and I just nodded smiling.

A few minutes later, one of the most unforgettable plates of my life arrived.

What I had somehow requested was a salad containing maggots, crickets and black scorpions!

Now, to be clear, edible insects are common in many parts of the world – about 2 billion people eat them regularly as part of their diets!

Yet, bringing myself to eat it was not that easy… although once I did, I found out it was surprisingly tasty (altough very “ewwwwwy” nonetheless xD).

This was an experience that made me realize how having no vocabulary, in some situations you might just be a powerless leaf flowing down a river of destiny – and internally, that night I negotiated a LOT with my destiny! 🙂

Quick Tip: Before visiting a new country, learn 15 core food words and phrases: chicken, fish, vegetarian, nuts, spicy, no meat, allergy, cooked, raw, water, etc.

That tiny effort can save your stomach and stomach aches! 🙂

2. In Bali with Allergies,

toilet-rush became the norm!

We talked a lot about Bali in our comprehensive guide, it’s simply paradise on Earth: jungle villas, scooters everywhere, smoothie bowls, peaceful traditions, traditional dances, mesmerizing music, heart-melting sunsets… it’s an island everyone should visit at least once in life!

Said that, even paradise can become stressful when food allergies enter the equation!

In 2019, just before the Covid Pandemic, I was traveling there with my girlfriend Isa, and she had several allergies (and by several I mean several: gluten, milk, soy, nuts, pistacho, mustard, eggs…to name a few! – fortunately all medium-light allergies).

Suddenly, when immersed in the local warungs, every casual meal became a mini high-stakes mission full of clumsy communication.

Eggs are almost always in rice. And so is soy almost in every noodles dish. And gluten….argggh!

Understand ingredients, oils, sauces, cross-contamination, hidden nuts, and whether “yes yes no problem” actually meant “yes yes no problem” with people speaking only Balinese, was a little nightmare!

What we learned from this holiday, is that many travelers underestimate this.

Food allergies affect hundreds of millions of people globally, and depending on the degree of severity, they can be very dangerous too!

At times in Bali, Isa’s method was embarrassingly simple: guess, hope, observe, try to survive xD

Yet, this was ok for a holiday but would not have been a good long-term strategy…. most restaurants wanted to help, but wanting to help and fully understanding are two different things: sometimes we could not really communicate and where phone was lacking signal, we had to go with our guts 🙂

Quick Tip: If you have special needs or allergies, be sure to print a small card before going abroad, where you will print icons of your allergies. That will allow you to be understood by all waiters and will help you avoiding potential health risks!

3. I Booked the Wrong Room (twice!),

because the World Thought I Was a Woman xD

4. In ToroToro (Bolivia),

nobody was talking to us…

until we talked to the “boss”! 

One of the biggest travel mistakes people make is believing that communication is only about words.

Well… it is not!

Sometimes you can know the language, say the right sentence, smile correctly, and still get absolutely nowhere 😛

I learned this properly in ToroToro, Bolivia, a remote area high in the Andes, where many communities live around 4,000 meters above sea level and life moves at a completely different rhythm from anywhere else in the world.

At the time, it was 2014, I was working with an NGO called CEDESOL, and we had to reach small mountain villages scattered across rough roads and isolated valleys, some hours away from Cochabamba, lost in the Andes.

Just getting there was an adventure in itself: we would load a jeep, strap extra fuel tanks on the back (because petrol stations were rare), and spend hours climbing dusty roads with cliffs on one side and silence on the other – panoramas completely out of the world!

This was not the kind of place where you arrive, pull out your phone, check Google Maps, and read reviews. There was no phone signal, no 3G nor 2G.

Many villages had little contact with the outside world, very limited phone access, and strong internal community structures.

People knew each other, trusted each other, and would not easily start talking with foreigners showing up, even if they came just for help.

And that was exactly our problem.

We arrived thinking, perhaps a little naively, that showing up with good intentions would be enough: we wanted to give them some solar ovens as gifts, as traditional cooking in altitude is difficult and unhealthy (wood is hard to find and children need to spend hours to gather it while women get intoxicated by black smoke and suffer mortal lungs diseases). 

We were friendly, respectful, smiling, speaking Spanish, trying to explain what we were doing.

Nothing hostile happened. But nothing really happened either… people were distant, giving short answers, showing little interest…it was just awkard!

Then the boss of our organisation had the good idea to speak with “Padre Pedro”, an elder authority of the municipality, which had a clear understanding of the cooking problem, and happily decided to join us on our jeep ride to the different pueblos!

The old guy, spoke Spanish and helped us communicate with locals, many of whom primarily spoke Quechua, one of the great Indigenous languages of the Andes still spoken by millions today!

The difference was immediate and almost shocking.

The same people who had barely acknowledged us now welcomed conversation. They listened. They asked questions. They invited us to eat with them, play footbal with them, to see their houses, their communities, their children! 

Just having a figure they trusted on our side, helped us building the right bridge beyond the language barrier!

This experience taught me something I never forgot: language is deeply tied to trust, hierarchy, culture, and context. Sometimes the real barrier is not vocabulary in se, but the legitimacy of who uses it!

Quick Tip: If visiting rural, traditional, or culturally tight communities (like remote villages in the Andes, favelas in Brazil etc.), find a trusted local guide, host, elder, or intermediary first. One respected person can open more doors than 500 words in a foreign language!

5) I Landed at the Wrong Airport in Shanghai…

and took an illegal shady taxi!

If you travel long enough, sooner or later you will make a mistake so avoidable that it becomes painful only because it was so easily preventable!

Mine happened in Shanghai, a city so large and efficient that it has not one, but two major airports: Shanghai Pudong International Airport AND Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport!

I discovered this detail at exactly the wrongest possible moment xD

It was 2013, I was coming from Milan and had a connecting flight to Taipei (Taiwan). 

Once arrived at the airport, I was checking the onward flight and I could not find it…then I realized that I was not at the wrong gate, nor even at the wrong terminal. I was at the wrong airport entirely! PANIC!

The sensation is difficult to explain unless you have lived it.

I had about 3 hours, and at that time I did not have a smartphone with me and my old Nokia phone battery just died after a long trip! (we were still leaving in the past back then!).

My stomach was upside down, every minute suddenly felt expensive and in my mind there was just one thought: RUN!

I did not speak Chinese, nor had a Chinese Visa.

I just asked the info point to the only guy that seemed to speak English, he told me that taxis where downstairs.

I went downstairs, I could not find the taxi station.

A random man approached me, offering me a ride to the other airport in super-broken English.

He spoke just enough English to sound useful, and I was stressed enough to confuse confidence with trustworthiness. So I got in his car…

Looking back, it was reckless af.

I could not verify the route, could not negotiate the price (he stopped talking English the moment I went in), could not read signs, and had no certainty he was even taking me where he said he was.

When I realized I went in without even my phone, I felt so stupid… and fragile!

I remember staring out of the window wondering whether I was being helped, scammed, or kidnapped by a man who simply had excellent timing… I was sweating as we were driving for over an hour on those Shanghai endless highways.

Thankfully, when I was starting to get in panic again, we reached the airport!

Then came the price: €100!

Absurdly inflated for Chinese standards at that time. Still, I payed almost happy for being scammed (and nothing worse!).

That day taught me that language barriers can become very dangerous when combined with urgency (I even learned Chinese after that experience ahah!), you’re much easier to scam when you cannot communicate!

Quick Tip: Before landing in any mega-city, know the exact airport name, local transport options, and normal transfer price range. Don’t be like me back then, come well-prepared!

6. My Chinese Girlfriend’s Family Was Lovely…

But I Could Barely Understand a Thing!

I once had a girlfriend from China (we’ve met in Aalto University, Finland, during our graduate years). 

In 2018, I went to China the first time to visit her and her family, she was from Shanghai.

Her family was incredibly kind to me from the first moment: mama, baba, aunts and uncles, all were very lovely and all made me fall in love with Chinese culture!

There was only one small complication, I could barely communicate with them (despite having tried my best to self-study chinese in the 4 months before I went there!).

Imagine sitting at a lively family table where everyone is talking, laughing, offering food, telling stories, teasing each other, asking you questions, and you understand perhaps 1% of what is happening (thanks to my kind ex-gf’s translations) 🙂 

It is a strange feeling: you become strangely alert, you start studying tone, facial expressions, body language, laughter timing, who pours whose drink, who everyone listens to, trying to understand when they are talking to you! xD

In situations like this, you become less of a speaker and more of an anthropologist I guess xD

At one point I learned the phrase “yi kou men”, roughly meaning “finish it in one go,” which turned out to be a dangerous phrase to know because glasses of baijiu (strong Chinese rice-based spirit) kept appearing.

If you have never tried baijiu, imagine a spirit often above 40% alcohol that does not negotiate with beginners.

So there I was, smiling, nodding, drinking, trying to look socially competent while understanding almost nothing. And yet, despite the language gap, we still had a genuinely great time because goodwill travels well 🙂

But I also understood something important: language is not only for ordering taxis and checking into hotels. Language is what gives you access to humor, stories, family history, subtle emotions, and the deeper layers of human connection, it’s who we are!

Without understanding, we may be present physically, but still miss half the richness of the moment!

That is why I am amazed by advanced AI apps and how they opened intercultural communication in a way that was entirely unthinkable just few years ago!

One I recently discovered which I can definitely recommend, is BabelPhone: it is an app similar to whatsapp, which you can use to make phone calls and get translations in real time while also receiving full transcript in both the foreign and your personal language. 

I tried it with all the languages I know and even with some dialects, and it just delivers high quality output, awesome to communicate by phone in real-time with people you would normally never exchange a meaningful sentence!

Instead of awkwardly typing sentences into static translators and trying their worst in pronouncing what they read, this app can help people who speak different languages communicate in a more natural flow, which can matters enormously in keeping long-distance relationships and friendships, after traveling abroad (I wish I had this back then, to keep contact with some of these wonderful people! xD).

Quick Tip: As I often say, we have the luck to “living the future”. Today we have incredible AI apps that can help us understanding other languages and shattering cultural barriers. If you have to pick one, we can suggest you to give a try to this one: Download BabelPhone 🙂

7) In Taiwan,

a Giant Rubber Duck

Led Me to a Police Car

Back in 2013, I was on exchange in Kaohsiung when the city hosted the famous giant rubber duck art installation by Florentijn Hofman.

The creative masterpiece became a sensation across Asia, drawing crowds, cameras, families, and apparently poor purchasing decisions too 😉

When the duck came to Kaohsiung (Taiwan), I was exchanging there. 

In the middle of the hype, I bought a souvenir peluche duck that was nearly one meter tall (and one meter wide!) to send home to my girlfriend of that time.

Romantic? Perhaps.

Ridiculous? Absolutely!

But somehow I thought it was a funny idea, so I went with it! 🙂

Still 2014, I had no smartphone, no maps, no navigation, and was trying to transport this enormous plush duck through the city on a scooter in humid heat.

I remember I was sweating a lot. I was feeling lost, confused, and attracting the kind of attention usually reserved for street performers (I was keeping this duck hanging from my scooter with one hand!).

At one point I stopped and started walking around the street looking for a post oiffice.

A local guy on a scooter stopped by, and I tried to explain what I needed.

My Chinese vocabulary was non-existant, so I went simply with English and said: “Post office.”

He looked at me, looked at the duck, seemed to understand, and gestured for me to get on the back of his scooter!

So there we went: him driving, me behind him, giant duck above my head! It felt nice to find such kind people!

Thing is…I thought he was taking me to the post office.

Instead, he stopped outside a police station!

Apparently, after seeing a sweaty foreigner wandering town carrying a giant duck and saying one mysterious phrase, he concluded that professionals should handle this situation xD

Or better, he suggested me to ask them about my matter! Then he left. Awkard! eheh

Then well…I just gave it a try.

I walked into the station holding the duck. Officers stood up immediately. I tried English. No success. They tried Mandarin. No success either. Akwardness raising!

Then I used the oldest translation method in history: I got a pen and drew.

I sketched a little building with a letter symbol on it…and they luckily understood what I was looking for.

One officer laughed, nodded, and kindly drove me to the post office in his police car, which was just 2 minutes from there.

Honestly, I felt I was getting elite customer service there! 😀

That day taught me that when words fail, communication does not necessarily end: gesture, humor, patience, drawings, tone, and goodwill can carry you surprisingly far too 😉

Quick Tip: When traveling, never rely only on language. Keep addresses written down, know key symbols, and remember that drawing badly is still better than explaining badly.

Conclusions 🙂

And here we are at the end of this article 🙂

In this article I showed you 7 awkard situations that I found myself into, where better communication skills would have save me time, face and lot of embarassment xD 

Thinking back, I’d say all of those have been all great experiences nevertheless, that helped me to improve my sensitivity to other cultures and become a more knowledgeable, conscious traveler.

Before leaving you, a quick question for you now:

What is the funniest language misunderstanding you’ve ever had abroad?

Drop it in the comments below 😉

Hereafter, I will leave you a few articles that you might also be interested in checking out:

•  Italy in 10 Days – The Super-Fast Itinerary + Free Download

• Destinations of the World: Discover More Cool Destinations!

• Travel Italy: All You Need to Discover the Bel Paese!

Thank you for reading, and see you in the next article! 🙂