| Americans and Arabs are different in
their space habits. Arabs prefer close contact.Dr. Hall has explained that the
Arabs belong to a touch culture and in conversation, they always envelop the
other person. They hold his hand, look into his eyes, and bathe him in their
breath. Dr. Hall's interest in man's use of space developed in the early nineteen fifties when he was Director of the Point Four training program at the Foreign Service Institute. In talking with Americans who had lived overseas, he found that many of them had been highly uncomfortable because of cultural differences. Such discomfort is usually referred to as culture shock. The problem is that, relatively speaking, Americans live in a non-contact culture. Partly, this is a product of our puritan heritage (清教徒文化遗产). Dr. Hall points out that we spend years teaching our children not to crowd in and lean on us. (34) And in situations where we ourselves are forced to stand close to another person on crowded subways, for example, we turn our eyes away, and if actual body contact is involved, tense the muscles on the contact side. Most of us feel very strongly that this is the only proper way to behave. |