Ramadan Kareem everyone. Mbarak aalekum il shahar :)
Today I was invited to the company Iftar party at one of the nice Dubai hotels. All was going great: there was a prayer room set up and ready, a HUGE line up of food, employees brought their families so you had kids with face paint fighting with balloon swords, people introducing their spouses to others...all in all, it was a success.
After the get together, I waited for my car at the valet (not a fan, but I couldn't find parking myself). And there it happened, I saw a male x-employee with his wife walking over to say hi, he was happy to see me and planted a kiss on my cheek. Now different Arabic women respond differently to the kiss on the cheeks (the mmwah mmwah from one cheek to the next). Their reaction falls according to the following categories:
- Some are down with it, and lean right back in
- Some are ok with a handshake but do not favor a kiss on the cheeks
- Some are not only "not cool" with it at all, but they don't want to shake hands either.
