Justins Saudi Adventure!: Cultural sensitivity and Man on man action!

Saturday, 9 August 2008

Cultural sensitivity and Man on man action!

The Middle Eastern chaps at work are forever putting their arms around each other and distributing shoulder massages, hugs, kisses and handshakes. When they come into work they often greet each other like long lost friends.

Liberal numbers of kisses are deployed on large numbers of cheeks, often accompanied by subtle slurping noises.Despite having lived here for almost four months, this behaviour continues to amuse and surprise me.

I cannot help my innate Englishness. In the West you're lucky if you get a mumbled "Good Morning" when you arrive at work. I am not used to all this male physical affection. In Riyadh I am Justin, the untouchable.

This week one of the guys was departing for a holiday. He was going to be away for a month. I anticipated some frenzied man on man action before he left. I was not to be disappointed.

I watched cautiously as he gradually kissed and hugged his way through the entire team.He was getting nearer and nearer to me.I grinned nervously.

I looked him over. He's a big man. If he gave me a bear hug I could be lost for weeks. He might board the plane for his holiday without realising I was still stuck under his arm, my muffled screams drowned out by the hum of the engines. I hoped he was going somewhere nice.

I mentally prepared myself.

He walked towards me… this was it. Stiff upper lip, old chap.…he thrust out his hand to shake mine.

No hug. No kisses for me. Not even the briefest of shoulder massages. Just a handshake.

He wasn't touching me, but his cultural sensitivity was.

To me it's still odd that holding your wife's hand in public is frowned upon out here, but being touchy feely with your male colleagues is business as usual.

I wonder what my colleagues think of me. Justin the emotional retard? Hell, maybe they're right. Perhaps, just once in the future, I'll copy their behaviour in a Western work setting somewhere. Can you imagine the responses from the Western men as I slowly kiss my way through them all? Justin the untouchable, indeed!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: "Justin the Untouchable" - now that's a phrase I thought I'd never hear .... nor believe!!!; 12 August 2008 at 14:31
Justin "Sparky" Boydell said...: Hey in Sauid, Im untouchable. Believe me!; 16 August 2008 at 22:21

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Glossary

Abaya - A long black robe designed to cover all of a woman's body
Haram - "Forbidden"
Istemarah - Car registration
Khalas - Finished, the end
Mushkilla - Problem
Muttawa - Religious policeman, the "authority for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice"
Throbe - Traditional dress for Arabic men
Ghutra - The tea-towel like headscarf worn by men
Iqual - The black band that holds the ghutra in place
Wasta(h) - Having powerful social connections
Insha’allah – God willing
Insha'allah Bakora - Tomorrow god willing ......or definetly not tomorrow in my experience, more likely next month, if you're lucky!
Iqama - Visa

Monty Python Sketch

Although its not anything to do with living in the Middle East, I find the following Monty Python Sketch hilarious and pub lish it in the hope it also brings a smile to your face:

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL:
They won't!