That's not the part I wanted to tell you. See how the Prince drinks his right away, and then shakes the cup back and forth until they come to take it? That's important to know.
In Iraq they served usually tea, and it was boiling hot. Iraq was already boiling hot, without being asked to hold a glass of boiling hot liquid in your hand. As soon as I could, I would drink it, and immediately the cup would be refilled with more boiling liquid. Nobody told me that was the way to signal that you'd had enough, and no more was wanted, thank you very much for the generosity.
So now you know. If you ever end up in the Middle East accepting hospitality, that is how you signal that you're finished and don't need any more.
Also, the word for "no" in Arabic is lā. If you want to be very polite, "no, thank you" is lā shukran. These are very important words to know when traveling in Arabic countries. (Also in China, where the Mandarin word at least is bù or bù yào for 'don't want [that]').
3 comments:
Useful information that I'm never going to use. I love this stuff.
Here's another item to be filed away as unlikely to be used:
In the Philippines, beckoning someone with a crooked index finger, like I grew up with in the Midwest, is insulting: that gesture is used to invite a pet, and you're saying the individual only that.
Instead, you "beckon" someone with an upraised hand swept straight down.
And one more: when you offer someone something in the Philippines and in the RoK, you do it with the right hand and with the left hand supporting the right wrist. It's an act of courtesy whose absence--offering someone something in the American way, for instance--isn't taken amiss.
Or at least that was the case decades ago when I was stationed in those places. Customs do evolve.
Eric Hines
I wonder if using two hands shows that 1) the object is valuable in some way, and 2) you are not hiding the other hand in order to do something less than welcoming?
LittleRed1
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