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Q: What things have you told a Chinese person that confuse them?
I would play with nice dogs that were with the owners. The dogs respond well and I would tell the owners that the dog understood English very well, I was joking but this confused the owners as the dogs would react to my voice not words. Animal language is basically emotional sounds. We use it too, not always consciously, like talking to a baby. What things do you say that confuse a Chinese person?
Yesterday at dinner time, around 5pm - 6pm, I said, "No thanks but I'm not hungry now."
The look of sheer confusion was hilarious as they tried to process that nugget of strange info coming from the Canadian.
"What? But it is the usual time of the day when we must eat, what is wrong with you? How can this be? We have 5000 years of history and we always do it this way. You must eat now. I think we are losing face or something. Are we losing face? The western culture is so strange!"
I told someone that in the UK we had a monument still standing that is about 5,000 years old, Stonehenge. The look on their face was hilarious, I don't know whether they simply did not believe me or were astounded that somewhere foreign also had 5,000 years of history and culture. I did show them a picture later and gave them a web link to check it out but I really don't think that made any difference.
GuilinRaf:
Same here!
Some of my students insist that there is no way Stonehenge could be 5,000 years old because "as everyone knows, China is the oldest civilization....."
cooter:
Obviously built by aliens. So Chinese culture is still the oldest and bestest.....
Tried to explain what a rubbish bin is and what it is used for.
In reference to the story about playing with a dog in front of its owner.
I remember walking past a woman with a big-ass dog.
I'm a goofy guy so I waved and said "Hi dog" as I passed by.
Figuring that wasn't enough, I went ahead and said "Ni hao gou" as well.
The dog's owner burst out into laughter. The dog didn't get it.
I guess I was kind of hoping it would respond like a Chinese Scooby Doo. "Ree Row"
This issue starts in the morning as soon as my wife wakes up. Yay communication gaps!
derek:
Yup, I have great fun this way too. I get slapped from time to time but who cares, great laffs!
once i told a Chinese dude that i am not a foreigner.........the guy was in denial mute mode for five minutes trying to figure out if am a foreigner or a Chinese........that day i laughed like LOL
Not told but done:
Eat ice-cream in the winter time...
TedDBayer:
I don't like reheated meat. I ate a cold sparerib in front of someone and she insisted I cook it again in the wok, so I took out leftover cold fried rice out of the frig and ate it, she went nuts. Told me I can't eat that.
I told a young Chinese driver she should check for oncoming traffic before trying to merge.
That I didn't want to copy and paste sections of an article to put in an essay...really confused my research professor on that one!
Hypnos:
Coming from a place where they seem to copy paste everything, yes pretty strange :)
Also, in the same spirit as GuilinRaf: not told but done.......
Driving home after picking up my gf from the bus station. It was late, dark, street lights weren't working, and in a construction zone (2 lanes instead of 4). I had a taxi absolutely riding my ass (the speed limit was 80 km/h, and that's what I was doing). I gave him a pretty good brake check....wow, he locked up all four tires..I could see a little smoke in the rear view, hehe. So I would say he was moderately confused, as the harmonious local drivers don't resort to these kind of tactics....but he never got close to me again 
We Aussies tell ppl we ride to work and schools on kangaroos...
Always gets ppl wondering 
