Customs, Middle East

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Are the following customs true or still true? Why did or do these customs exist? What do you think about them? How is it in your country?
 
 

 
 

 

Middle East

1. In Saudi Arabia, a host must offer refreshments and the guest must refuse it. This happens three times, before the guest must accept the offer.

2. In the Kibbutz in Israel, children live and grow up separately from their parents in dorms. People eat together in communal kitchens.

3. Women as well as men are conscripted into the Israeli Defense Forces (military).

4. If people committed adultery, they should be stoned.

5. In the Middle East, virtually everyone working in bazaars, shops, restaurants and small businesses are men.

6. If a guest admires anything in a host’s or hostess’ home in Saudi Arabia, it will be given to him or her.
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
7. In Gulf States, migrants from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka outnumber the local Arabs.

8. It is perfectly alright for Muslim men to date and marry foreign, non-Muslim women, but it is unacceptable for Muslim women to marry foreign men.

9. In many Middle Eastern countries, women must cover their hair with a hijab, face with a niqab or body with a burka.

10. Turks and Persians emphatically insist that they are not Arabs and have absolutely nothing in common with Arabs, and they are a Mediterranean people similar to Greeks and Italians.

11. Travelers comment on how friendly and hospitable people in the Middle East are.

12. Middle Eastern people generally avoid migrating to other Middle Eastern countries and prefer going to Europe or North America.