How To Get Funny Looks In Taiwan
written by John Chow
For whatever reason, people tend to give you strange looks when you walk down the streets of Taiwan drinking a 1L tall can of ASAHI beer. The beer, which only cost $105NT ($3.28US), is designed for group drinking - people in Taipei don’t drink 1L of beer out of the can. They pour in into four glasses and share among friends.
Being Canadians, that didn’t work for us. What did work was opening the tall can of beer and drinking it on the street. It was a very hot day and the beer did a great job cooling us down. We’re not sure if Taiwan has any drinking on the street by-law, but people look at you funny when you’re trying to down 1L of beer all by yourself. This is especially true if you’re also making a video of it.
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(11 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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Its pretty tiny John. You should go to Germany and have a keg.
I think its US & Canadian law that you are not suppose to drink at the beach and it may extend to other public place such as the city streets as well, not sure though…
Yeah, not allowed to drink on streets or be drunk on streets (they don’t care if your drunk as long as you don’t wonder into the middle of the road or pinch people’s butts or something)
Only if they catch you…
Right, when I was in Germany, we used to drink 2L small kegs in a park
Good thing, they allow it if you are not drunk, in US you have to drink only inside a building or your backyard 
When I was in Germany, I fell asleep in the park after drink a couple of those ’small’ kegs.
What? People share these cans among friends? What a bunch of wussies
is that the result from the buy me a beer plugin john?
I’m sure it helps keep it cold though. Big beers are nice novelties, but the bottom bit usually ends up warm.
That’s classic — drinking a supersize can of beer in a foreign land, right in front of a Sogo even. LOL wish I was there drinking a can with you guys, too.
lol drinking a 40oz in Taiwan. You would get weird looks doing that in a US city too lol
Except the US would have a watered down version like all their beers.
.. and coffee
I just went and bought a tall boy.
(24 oz can)
I’ll tip my hat to that
they probably look at you not cause of the bear, but because it’s generally not very smart to drink beer in the sun. I thought every beer drinker knew that
haha, thats a nice beer
You say it’s US$5 in Canada?
Wait until you buy one at the Sushi bars here … more than 10.
Great one
was it cold?
And in broad daylight too!
Splitting 1 l of beer among 4 people? Oh, I’ll say
That’s pretty funny. It reminds me of a college business school trip I took to China. We were students at the University of Wisconsin, and the beers were only $1.00USD. We drank all of the convenience and grocery stores near our hotels out of beer. Nobody drinks beer in China. We were the only people buying Tsingtao. We would walk into the stores, and the people who worked in them would point us to the liquor department, just because we were American.
Craziness, but we sure all had a fun time!
Hahaha!
I just pictured myself what happens when a person from Taiwan gets into Germany. He probably won’t believe his eyes.
He would split a beer between a bus load.
It make thinking back tho
.. I’m from Malaysia (muslim country) in a state of Sabah and it seems like no problem drinking beer on a street tho in here.. People go for beer on a coffee shop. As long as you are not a Muslim, you can go for a beer anywhere u like.
That buy-me-a-beer plugin finally pays off for time like this.
Yeah who would of thought that plugin was literal.
haha thats my kind of beer
. Thats prety sad they split a beer 4 ways in Taiwan wheres the fun in that lol.
Wow.. John I am having a 1L bottle of beer and reading your post.
Beer in India is around Rs 60-Rs 80 that may be arnd USD1.2.
Oh like US and CAN we are not supposed to drink in public places.
haha, I can’t believe they actually split a beer between 4 friends. thats ridiculous. taiwan needs to man up.
im just glad john changed his shirt. He was wearing the vista one for the whole week.
haha.. may be john wear it only on the computex area
I think they beat you for that in some countries.
haha…i can find any bigger size beer like this one in Hong Kong.
how does the beer compare to any other place?
Really glad to see a vid of you chugging back some beer John. Excellent work!
It will make for some nice material to use when you do your beer plugin follow up after you get back 
Hey, great video of John Chow in nice drinking mood! If you come to Ukraine, you will see a lot of students drinking from 2L plastic bottles, and nobody looks at you whatever you do (make video or else)
2L bottles?
That just seems excessive…
The same with Japan. It’s probably not about the “tall” beer, but that you’re drinking on the street. In Japan, they have amazing looking bakeries on street corners. As I backpacked through cities, I’d stop and grab some rolls, and quickly learned that, socially, you aren’t supposed to eat or drink anything on the streets. You should go find a private corner area to eat. But of course, space is limited, so there really were no places to “hide” and eat or drink. I got the same looks.
What happened to the picnic?
Geez, the Japanese get a surprise if they come to Taipei. People drink and eat on the streets all the time… it’s too hot to stay inside in summer.
I guess cold climate people have quite different behaviors from warmer climate people, eh!
YOu should try drinking a beer on the street in Scotland… it’s the lager lout laws that will get you !
Friday night bevying and partying make it impossible now for ordinary poeple to do that!
Kenneth
Way to do us Canadians Proud!
Ahha Beer!! eh? First comes money, then babes now beer. It definitely looks like a guys blog.
No i am not sexist. That was just a joke.
Do you mind if i join beer party
You sound like Mr. Bean!