language and misunderstandings

It makes me laugh sometimes and sometimes it is highly frustrating... language and cultural differences...

A year or two ago, I did a unit at school about water and water conservation. One of the things i asked the students to keep track of was how often they went to the toilet I was rather surprised when one of the students responded with: " 1 time a day, right after lunch"...  He (and i found later many with him) thought that going to the toilet meant doing a number 2, the rest didn't count as going to the toilet. We had some fun over that one.

Another difference that comes up regularly is the afternoon/evening-confusion. Myanmar refer to anything after 3 pm as 'evening'. This causes much obvious confusion with westerners when they are told they have an 'evening bus' or something similar. :luckily, I am more aware of it nowadays and usually double check, just to make sure whether they mean their 'evening' or my version of it. 

Beer doesn't count as drinking alcohol (or at least 1 beer doesn't), leaving early can be anywhere from before daybreak to somewhere around 10, "it doesn't take long" is a very elastic expression, and "It takes 3 hours" usually has me add at least an hour or 2 to the total to correct for lack of awareness of time.