Mike's Just different

When I first went to Saudi Arabia I smoked like pretty much everyone else at the time (1974). When I first met the Saudis I was to work with I found them polite but a little arrogant one of the first shocks I experience was when one of my trainees said “Give me a cigarette” just like that. I know it annoyed many of the expatriates as it was not an uncommon way of addressing us but I soon realised they spoke to each other in the same way. After that I accepted it as their manner but many of my fellow expatriates insisted on them saying please and thank you. A mental hark back to the empire maybe but then later I found that the American expatriate reacted in the same way. It seems that we must alter even ancient cultures to our way instead of learning from them not of course in the way of asking for a cigarette but look at any of the countries we have been too we have left our mark not always for the good but to create a new market or to exploit their resources. Sad that we have learned so little from them as civilisations when we could have started with individual relationships, no we are not better just different.