The above picture is of a receipt for a pizza chain in Taipei. This receipt usually makes my friends laugh because for "customer name" they just put "Mr. Foreigner."
But really in certain citations, being "Mr. Foreigner" is great in that it saves a lot of time. When going to this pizza place i never have to bother giving them my phone number or name. But not just here, pretty much any place where you need to sign up for anything, they really don't bother with it if you are a foreigner. You also don't get stopped by sales people, or bothered by telemarketers, and best of all if you feign ignorance you can usually get some good deals (depending on what kind of place it is).
Granted for the most part living abroad is tough, and there are always problems and situations that you are going to face which the locals don't need to bother with. However if you know how things work, you can really save a lot of time as well. I'd hazard a guess that I have upwards of an extra hour of free time each day just because i don't have to deal with the extra B.S. of everyday situations. Plenty of places will just say "ok whatever, here you go" rather than try and deal with a foreigner. And for a busy person, that's a godsend.
