{"id":104,"date":"2007-02-28T11:43:19","date_gmt":"2007-02-28T09:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/?p=104"},"modified":"2007-02-28T11:43:19","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T09:43:19","slug":"the-corridor-nod-is-not-acceptable-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/2007\/02\/28\/the-corridor-nod-is-not-acceptable-here\/","title":{"rendered":"The &#8220;corridor nod&#8221; is not acceptable here."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anybody who has ever worked in the US knows what I mean by the corridor nod:<\/p>\n<p>You are walking down the hall and you see a coworker or acquaintance.<\/p>\n<p>You nod, maybe say &#8220;How&#8217;s it going&#8221; in passing. Neither of you break stride.<\/p>\n<p>That is unpossible here. At least with those attuned to the culture.<\/p>\n<p>There is a much more formulaic greeting ritual, for lack of a better word.<\/p>\n<p>If it is the first time you have seen this person today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Stop.<\/li>\n<li>Shake hands.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>Handshakes here are not like handshakes in the US.<\/p>\n<p>Man-to-man, it is a firm clasp. No real shaking, just a clasp.<\/p>\n<p>And then there is the cheek kiss. Men here will do the 2 cheek air kiss while clasping hands. This is taking a great deal of getting used to for me. I remember the first time this happened to me with a man. <em>Boy, taken out of context that could be problematic for my political career.Anyway..<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was awkward. I am getting better at it, but I just know I am gonna &#8220;go left&#8221; when I should go right and headbutt someone and break his nose.<\/p>\n<p>Woman-to-Woman, it is kind of a limp clasp, again with the 2 cheek kiss.<\/p>\n<p>Man to woman is more problematic. The woman has to be the initiator of any contact. Do not attempt to shake her hand unless she puts her hand out first.<\/p>\n<p>I remember when I learned that lesson: I met an Egyptian woman and stuck my hand out. A look of confusion and embarrassment came over her face and she barely stuck her hand out. At that point I realised I had screwed up. I took her hand very lightly and gave it a slight squeeze. It was like grapsing a dead fish. Whee.<\/p>\n<p>After all that comes the:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Ezaik? (How are you). This is <strong>INVARIABLY <\/strong>answered with<\/li>\n<li>Al Hamde-le-lah. Which loosely means thanks be to god. There can be a &#8220;Kwaize&#8221;, which means &#8220;OK&#8221;, followed by the Al Hamde-le-lah. But most times, the &#8220;ok&#8221; is dropped and the response is just &#8220;Al Hamde-le-lah&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Repeat in the other direction.<\/li>\n<li>How was the weekend, or whatever<\/li>\n<li>Then, depending on the frequency of seeing this person, another round of air kissing and a<\/li>\n<li>See you soon, Insh&#8217;allah<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If one knows a lot of people, it can take a significant amount of time to walk a block or down a busy part of campus.<\/p>\n<p>It is one of a myriad of reasons why <strong>everything <\/strong>takes longer than one would think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anybody who has ever worked in the US knows what I mean by the corridor nod: You are walking down the hall and you see a coworker or acquaintance. You nod, maybe say &#8220;How&#8217;s it going&#8221; in passing. Neither of you break stride. That is unpossible here. At least with those attuned to the culture. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-differences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cairochronicles.com\/jack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}