A lesson about cultures

Whenever I have the opportunity to visit another country, I try to check out as much as I can. Not only the well-known places, but also if possible figure out how ordinary people live and the difference between cultures. I guess most people find that interesting.

If you ever go to Beijing I can recommend a certain tour where you have a guide for a small group of people (like my little family when we were there on vacation), going in a bike-taxi, guidence through some historical places, visit a family in one of the old small houses and also have a traditional tea session. I would say it was worth the money, the guide spoke very good english, answered any questions we had and my children seem to remember every word he said.

Once when I was going on a business trip to China, there was some an industry fair in the particular town I was visiting, so the hotels were expensive and fully booked. I booked the same hotel as a collegue which turned out to be a bit different, at least according to European standards. They had for instance a zoo partly inside of the hotel.

I ended up lonely in this hotel. Since I'm curious, I checked out everything, like what services they offered etc. In the basement they had some sort of sauna department where I noted that they had some suspicious expensive foot massage. Anyway I took a pedicyre which was of course much cheaper...

The next day at the office on our way back from lunch in the elevator I was asked what I had been doing so far. I explained that I had been walking in the city, eaten some everyday chinese food that looke like small birds (I didn't eat that). I also talked about the hotel with a zoo in it, and said that I have had some sort of foot.... massage. I didn't find the right word, in Swedish we normally use the expression "foot treatment" instead of pedicyre and maybe I was also trying to be a bit funny. But before I had the chance to correct myself and explain, the other European in the elevator gave me a bit sarcastic comment and quickly changed the subject. I felt increadible stupid. What should I do? Should I interrupt and explained the mistake as if I didn't think they understood that by themselves? I did nothing, since they were very busy discussing something work related.

Later a female collegue asked me if I really had had foot massage, and I said "of course not" and we talked about different kinds of massage and compared the different cultures (as we did with several other subjects too).

Do you think that episode gave me some kind of funny or rather bad reputation? I'm not sure..

Next time I talk to people with another culture I will pay special attention to every word I say and rather be silent than try to be funny!