Sino-Arab Culture: the amazing commonalties between tWo ancient civilizations

You are probably never going to see a truck full of wiggling pigs riding down the highway in Jordan. Nor will you have to avoid certain areas of Chengdu due to possibly violent political protests against neighboring countries. Yet while there are many differences between Chinese and Arabs, my latest trip served more to highlight the similarities between the two cultures. As I spent time chatting with our driver and other random people in shops and airports, I was constantly being reminded of moments from my life these past two years in the Middle East. Here are a few of the most memorable.

Since much of my time in China on this last excursion was spent in the car driving from meeting to meeting, it is natural that the first similarity that occurred to me is vehicular-related. Aside from the obvious disdain for bothersome traffic regulations, or perhaps due to the relative chaos achieved by said disdain, both Chinese and Arabs feel the need to appeal to a High Power for safety on the road. Arabs tie a baby shoe to the bottom of the car in order to deter the jinn, who are apparently strongly offended by the sole of a baby's shoe. With the shoe warding off these mischievous spirits, of course there will be no problems caused to anyone when you speed down the road faster than the speed of light, swerving in and out of traffic as needed. Because everyone knows that accidents are caused by genies, not chain-smoking taxi-drivers. As for the Chinese, they look to Lady Luck. By tying a red ribbon to the side mirrors of their car, Luck will favor them when they go for a free left-turn on red (just so you know, Chinese drive on the same side of the road as Americans and this practice is not looked on favorably by most American drivers). Baby shoe or red ribbon, the end result is the same: peace of mind on the highway and in the cities.

I've heard it said that human nature doesn't vary much between cultures. Something else that doesn't vary is the questions that are asked of foreigners (although the responses to foreigners' answers can be vastly different). While visiting Zhugeliang's house, one of China's most revered military strategists of ancient times, an old man came up to me to ask me a question. He'd heard me speak Chinese so he knew he could make himself understood. "How did you get your hair that color? Did you dye it?" I've often had comments on the color of my hair, even here in Lebanon where it is not unheard of for some Crusader blood to have mixed in to the genetic pool causing blondes and redheads all over the place. But for some reason, comments on my hair or other odd-looking aspects of my foreign-appearance are always good conversation starters.

Another good conversation starter involves generalizations of American culture based on TVs/movies/etc. Many times these generalizations involve the size of American families. Once a taxi driver invited me to become his second wife. He mentioned to me that he'd be able to support me financially because he knew that as an American, I wouldn't want kids. "Americans don't like children, " he told me. "Even the ones who have families have small families with only 3 or 4 children." In China I heard, "Americans love big families! They usually have 2 or 3 or sometimes even 4 kids!" The same sense of awe at the bigness or smallness of American families is always easily managed.

Street-side decor is also in demand in both China and the Middle East. While the Chinese favor red banners with large white characters entreating the people to guard the purity of Chinese culture and love their comrades, Arabs prefer photos of martyrs who died during the 70s and/or current favored political leaders. Chinese do have strategically places photos of Mao around town, but they do not have nearly the dedication or Mao-face loyalty that Arabs have for the Nasrallahs and Arafats and Assads and Abdullahs. Chinese will as soon put up one of Mao's critically-acclaimed poems as a photo of his face. I kind of appreciate that because, really, that mole on his cheek is just not that attractive. However, the common cultural phenomenon is the consistent decor that exists all over China and throughout various countries in the Middle East.

Finally, the last common factor that both of these cultures have is their biggest fan: me. I just like them both. I like them so much, dang it. I like their friendliness and hospitality. I love how generous they are and helpful to foreigners. I like most of their food and hate most of their specialty drinks (for example: corn milk and rose water juice). I know that under the surface they struggle with family relationships and economic difficulty. They can also be maddeningly irritating for foreigners to deal with at times, especially in government settings. But in spite of the frustrations I love being able to communicate with them and having opportunities to learn more about their language and culture and history each day that I get to spend in their countries. So that said, should my next job be in China or the Middle East?