What to say and What not to say

After living in another country for an extended period of time, 5 weeks tomorrow to be exact, you learn some different customs and other things that you would not normally know without living in that country.  One prime example is the way that things are said, not the different languages, but the meanings of the words being used.  So in the United States it is not uncommon for people to go into a grocery store, or house, or restaurant and say something along the lines of “Do you have bananas (or eggs, or papaya)?”  Well, here in Mexico the word for have is tener, and we are always taught as students to use the word tener to ask if someone has something.  Well in Mexico, when asking to for bananas, eggs, or papaya you absolutely never use to the word tener, you would say “Hay” and then the word.  If I would happen to walk up to a store clerk and say “tiene platanos?” I would be trying to ask “Do you have bananas?” but in reality would be asking him (or her) if he/she had a penis.  Learning this after being here for 3 weeks was kind of disturbing because I am quite sure that I have asked at least one person if there were bananas anywhere and I can guarantee that I used the verb “tener”.  The same thing goes for papaya (being vagina) and huevos, eggs being testicles.  It is strange to think that the way things are said makes a huge difference in their meanings because in the United States if you want to say “Do you have bananas?” there is only one way that it can really be taken.  Also, this is only here in Mexico, if I would say “tienes platanos?” in Spain it would be perfectly fine and they speak Spanish there too!  This is a very interesting idea about culture, even though two countries speak the same language they are not always able to communicate with one another exactly how they want to and very big misunderstandings could occur and be very insulting.  To be perfectly honest if my culture teacher had not told us about these different words and different ways to say things I still would not know, I would have gone on knowing what I was taught and making a fool out of myself when speaking to the Mexican people.  Another example of this is the word for jacket.  In schools in the United States they teach that you are supposed to use “chaqueta” for jacket “saco” for suit jacket.  Well once again not here.  Saco is jacket, if one were to say chaqueta that would not be very appropriate at all!  In Mexico City, chaqueta means testicles, in the Yucatan chaqueta means masturbation.  So you see how it could be very confusing for someone, especially just starting to learn the language, that certain words mean certain things in certain places and each is used is different places at different times.  So this was my experience learning that there are certain words a can and can’t say here even if my intention is completely harmless, and I am sure that there are many more things that can be taken the wrong way.  I definitely feel unless you grow up in a culture you will not truly be able to 100% understand it and there will always be things that are “understood” that you will not be taught.