When I was a kid, we would sometimes go to Mexico for Christmas vacation. My Spanish is / was very limited, but I learned enough broken Spanish to get by. After all, I was going to someone else’s country, and I should at least try to speak their language.

On one of the first trips down, I went up to a bar on the beach to get a soda. I had my line “Hola senior! Una coca cola por favor” practiced, poised, and ready.

The bartender asked the guy in front of me what he would like, and the man replied “Get me a beer.” I thought that was pretty rude, but then he followed up with “extr-o lime-o please-o.”

At that point I thought, “I will never, ever act like that, ever.” Seriously, I couldn’t even fathom what the guy could possibly be thinking, and I was about 13.

When I travel now I do research on where I am going, and try to dress, act, and speak (as best I can) like the people of that country. Because it’s someone else’s country.

“Someone else’s country”, I’ve come to discover over the years, is a lost concept on a good portion of Americans (let alone languages other than English American). I find it very sad when I see Americans who just can’t grasp that they are not “at home”. I hope I get better marks than the usual traveler, and I try to do my part to kill off that stereotype.

So when I almost insulted my teacher over the use of a Chinese dragon image, I wanted to punch myself.

I am making a board game to help practice Chinese – it’s kind of like candy land meets trivial pursuit. For the main path for the game, the part where the pieces advance, I used a Chinese dragon.

It turns out that the Chinese dragon has some meanings and specific symbology. For example, 5 toed dragons where traditionally only used by the Emperor and if a commoner use the image it was considered treason punishable by death (wikipeida) – of course, I drew the dragon with 5 toes.

I also used the character 完 for the finish position (it’s the only word I currently know for “finish”), and I put that position on the dragons head. 完 can also mean “to die” and the dragons head is closely linked to China – so basically it said “die China” – man…

Also each part of the Chinese dragon has a point to it. The horns, the feet, the scales – some of which I just didn’t draw because I didn’t feel like it – thereby somewhat desecrating the image.

The whole thing was an utter disaster, but at least everyone involved knew me and knew I didn’t mean any harm. I just didn’t understand or look into it. I accidentally became “that guy”.

extr-o lime-o please-o.