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 #2 (permalink) Sat Jan 03, 2009 16:17 pm what do you know about Middle East... |
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I think there is not a region like this.It mentıons only a position.For example; for a european country middle east can be Turkey or Iraq.However, ıf you live in Turkey, you can not say middle east countries for your country.According to me, this expression is used by Americans and Europeans.
Are there other opinions?
thanks |
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 Mehtab
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| #3 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:39 am What do you know about Middle East? |
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| I know that in the Middle East, if your host offers you food, you have to say "no" again and again even if you want the food, and the people will make you eat the food anyway, even if you don't want it, and even if you never say "yes". |
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Jamie (K)
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| #4 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 6:22 am What do you know about Middle East? |
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And you are not supposed to talk to people looking into their eyes. I heard it's considered an insult or something. Is it true?
Are there any customs in the Middle East that might be considered strange in the other parts of the world?
_________________
Non-native speaker of English
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I intend to live forever - so far, so good. |
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Daemon99
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| #5 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 6:32 am What do you know about Middle East? |
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| Daemon99 wrote: |
| Are there any customs in the Middle East that might be considered strange in the other parts of the world? |
Yes! Giving people food anyway after they've said "no" to it several times. If they think "no" means you want the food, what should you say when you DON'T want the food?
Another strange custom from the Middle East is to bargain everything. Students from the Middle East are used to bargaining prices, so they try to bargain their test grades, the length of their breaks -- anything that can be bargained, they will try to bargain. It's very irritating and stressful for Westerners to deal with them.
People from the Middle East usually think that personal relationships are more important than rules or laws, so they're always expecting us to break the rules just for them. That's also very annoying to us, because they arrive here with very little concept of fairness.
One lady I know who is from the Middle East says she would never marry a Middle Eastern man, because they're too scared of their mothers. That's what she says, anyway. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #6 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 9:53 am What do you know about Middle East? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Students from the Middle East are used to bargaining prices, so they try to bargain their test grades |
How do they bargain test grades?
| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| People from the Middle East usually think that personal relationships are more important than rules or laws, so they're always expecting us to break the rules just for them. That's also very annoying to us, because they arrive here with very little concept of fairness. |
Some people here expect that, too. It is annoying to some of us, too. For example, it is somehow unkind and ruthless to refuse to cheat in an exam. Even though they know that cheating is forbidden in their religion, you are somewhat of a hard-hearted when you refuse. I loathe that. I always sit at a desk in front of the professor to be sure that I am safe and at peace. |
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Happytofita
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| #7 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 12:36 pm What do you know about Middle East? |
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| Happytofita wrote: |
| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Students from the Middle East are used to bargaining prices, so they try to bargain their test grades |
How do they bargain test grades? |
They basically tell you what test grade they think they deserve, and they keep pushing and pushing you to change it. Sometimes they'll claim that the mistakes they made weren't important and shouldn't be counted. If that doesn't work, they might try to convince you that they knew the right answer but just didn't write it for some reason. They might tell you that the test was deliberately confusing, or they promise they'll do better on the next test if you give them a good grade on the bad test. Sometimes they just start whining. Often they'll tell you they need a higher grade on the test because their final grade in the class has to be at a certain level for them to continue their program. This often sounds like they are ordering their grade at McDonald's, so when the do this I ask, "Do you want fries with that?"
My favorites are the ones who take the placement test and land in an intermediate class. The whole time they are failing the class with their bad English, they claim that they don't belong in the class because they were English educated in Lebanon (or whatever country).
Another problem with some students is that they think that if the instructor likes them personally, they will get a good grade in the class. If a Middle Easterner whom I like fails my class, he or she is liable to cause all kinds of administrative trouble after that. At the core of the problem is that they feel betrayed by an instructor who was friendly but still gave them the grade they deserved.
| Happytofita wrote: |
| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| People from the Middle East usually think that personal relationships are more important than rules or laws, so they're always expecting us to break the rules just for them. That's also very annoying to us, because they arrive here with very little concept of fairness. |
Some people here expect that, too. It is annoying to some of us, too. For example, it is somehow unkind and ruthless to refuse to cheat in an exam. Even though they know that cheating is forbidden in their religion, you are somewhat of a hard-hearted when you refuse. I loathe that. I always sit at a desk in front of the professor to be sure that I am safe and at peace. |
We see this in our classes too, usually with Arabs. They'll turn their heads around and openly discuss the test with each other, in which case I take the test away and give them a zero. They'll insist they weren't talking about the test, but I just tell them it wouldn't even matter if they were talking about Donald Duck. It's just forbidden to talk during a test. Then they want me to give them a chance to take the test again, which I don't give them, of course. On rare occasions you get both a brother and a sister from the Middle East in the class, and the sister does all the homework for both herself and the brother. So we punish them both.
In the classes where I teach, part of the time is spent doing practices in a computer lab, and occasionally we will catch some student looking at pornography on the Internet instead of doing his work. For some reason I don't know, it's almost always a Middle Eastern student. I've never seen the Chinese or the South Americans or the North Europeans doing it, but almost always the Middle Easterners.
Another problem we have with them is that they lie to us so much -- and they don't even try to keep track of what lie they told the time before. A student might say he was absent for two weeks because he has a recurring illness. The next time he's absent for a long time, he tells you he has no health problems but that it's his wife who's in the local hospital. "No, no! I didn't say I was sick. I said my WIFE was sick." Then the next time, he says his wife isn't in the local hospital, but in the hospital in his country. The lie keeps evolving, and every time he forgets, he claims he didn't say what he'd said before. This happens a lot with Middle Easterners who don't choose to live among the general American population.
This lying happens with Middle Eastern students so much that an American friend of mine, who is of Syrian origin, and I started wondering if maybe a certain amount of lying is expected in Arab society and whether the Arabs have specific, culturally based ways of dealing with lies, or ignoring them.
After years of experience, I have become pretty good at figuring out which Middle Easterners are going cheat based on (1) country of origin, (2) religion, (3) gender and (4) the neighborhood where the student lives in the US. My system isn't perfect, so I simply have to deal with lies as they come, whoever they come from, but on the first day of class I can usually tell who in the class will be dishonest and who won't. However, I always hope to be surprised.
The behavior of these students is so difficult for us, by the way, that my state's ESL teacher's organization holds seminars at its convention called "Dealing with Arabic Students". |
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Jamie (K)
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Happytofita
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| #9 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 14:05 pm What do you know about Middle East? |
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I would like to say thanks for everyone, who shared with us the bad experience with Middle Easterner’s.
It amuses me much, when I see how people reacting to a certain subject.
And I keep asking my self, Why do we always remember the Bad things, when “I’m sure” there is many good things that we can also mention.
Alright,
For Jamie (K), you told us your experience and your opinion. I’m not here to Judge.
but wasn’t the following your words about Fairness, “because they arrive here with very little concept of fairness.”
That means the community that they recently joined, is filled with Fairness.
If you take another look at what you wrote about Middle Easterner’s, you will find that You “yourself” are not quite Fair, and before you ask why is that!! I might say: ok. You mentioned every little Bad habit, experience, you have with them.
But you didn’t even mention anything which might be good “Fair” about them.
A small piece of advice – if in case you accept it as an advice – Just apply Fairness to your self, if you are expecting it from people.
For Daemon99, I have two answers,
@@And you are not supposed to talk to people looking into their eyes. I heard it's considered an insult or something. Is it true?@@
I live there, and I assure you the opposite.
@@Are there any customs in the Middle East that might be considered strange in the other parts of the world?@@
That depends on the receiving party, if in case they cant accept other communities culture “customs”.
But, overall there isn’t.
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Thanks again for sharing. |
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Zaza7cool
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| #10 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 14:12 pm What do you know about Middle East? |
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Afew comments to Happytofita,,
Thanks a lot for sharing your most recent Bad experience. I just wanted to say:
If it’s possible to adopt a little of the concept that Jamie mentioned earlier,
The Fairness - Concept.
That would be Great. to add adiff. color to the post. |
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Zaza7cool
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Happytofita
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| #12 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 15:15 pm What do you know about Middle East? |
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Zaza, the problem is that not everything in life is balanced 50/50. These people I was talking about aren't fair in half of life and unfair in the other half. In the environment I see them in, they are simply unfair and unethical most of the time. I believe that it's because so many of them grew up in countries where dictators and bureaucrats use their power arbitrarily, so half their lives in their home countries involves trying to evade various laws and rules in order to benefit themselves and their families, or even just to survive. To them it's normal, but to us its very corrupt, and most of us won't tolerate it. They come from places where hardly anything is fair, and they behave in the same way.
Some Middle Easterners who've lived in the US for a few years tell me the difference is that, "In the Middle East, individuals are stronger than the law, but in the US, the law is stronger than the individual." Middle Easterners who come to the US and settle in a neighborhood where everyone else is from the Middle East also (the type of neighborhood where no one really needs to learn English and everyone watches Arabic satellite TV) either never learn about this or don't care. Those who settle among the general American population learn it relatively quickly. This is why I often know what neighborhood they live in just by their level of honesty.
Here is another thing that happens in my classes: A Muslim Arab will look at a Mexican and make some ignorant criticism of Christianity (the Mexican's religion). Maybe he'll say that Christians believe in three gods, or something stupid like that. The Mexican will calmly and patiently explain that what the Muslim said is not true, and he will explain what the Christian belief on that subject really is. Very often, then, this Muslim will take this Mexican's kind explanation as an attack on Islam, and get furious with the him, even if the Mexican said nothing at all about Islam. (And only the Middle Eastern Muslims seem to do this. I've never seen a Muslim from the Far East or sub-Saharan Africa behave in this way.) |
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Jamie (K)
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Jamie (K)
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Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| #14 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 15:41 pm What do you know about Middle East? |
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Hello Jamie,
| Happytofita wrote: |
I know that in the Middle East people are famous for hospitality  Are we welcome with open arms Zaid? (Do not worry we will not overstay our welcome  ) |
I am aware of overstay, but I thought we use them (overstay/outstay) interchangeably.
| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Okay, but nobody yet has told me how to refuse food in a Middle Eastern household. If "no, no, no" is understood as "yes", then how do people say "no"? |
They show that they are hospitable to you by insisting in that way. People do that here, too. So, you either keep saying no, no thanks, I have had sufficient until they stop asking you(I use it, it is a tried and true), or keep on eating even if you are full (grin and bear it). |
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Happytofita
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| #15 (permalink) Tue Jan 06, 2009 15:49 pm What do you know about Middle East? |
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| Happytofita wrote: |
| Happytofita wrote: |
| I know that in the Middle East people are famous for hospitality Are we welcome with open arms Zaid? (Do not worry we will not overstay our welcome ) |
I am aware of overstay, but I thought we use them (overstay/outstay) interchangeably. |
I have never heard "outstay", but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
| Happytofita wrote: |
| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Okay, but nobody yet has told me how to refuse food in a Middle Eastern household. If "no, no, no" is understood as "yes", then how do people say "no"? |
They show that they are hospitable to you by insisting in that way. People do that here, too. So, you either keep saying no, no thanks, I have had sufficient until they stop asking you(I use it, it is a tried and true), or keep on eating even if you are full (grin and bear it). |
The problem is that some of these people never stop offering no matter how many times you say "no". It's like Tourette syndrome.
The dirtiest trick is when you refuse and they say, "Eat as much as you love us!" |
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Jamie (K)
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Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Can You help me? I have to prepare project about something... | About the ex-priminister "Taksin Shinnawat" |
I was really distracted at that moment