Intercultual Interaction

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Intercultural Interaction This intercultural interaction takes place in Saudi Arabia. When I was in junior high school, my father got a job with a private company in Saudi Arabia. Before moving to Saudi Arabia, I was an only child living in a middle class housing development with friends similar to me. Since I was an only child, I was bored a lot of the time, and also spoiled a little. Never once did I think about being white.

I arrived in Saudi to a warm summer evening after being on the plane for all day and night. The smell of the new country was a smell I had never smelled before. It was not a good or bad smell, just a very unique one. The smell was so unique that I would recognized it if blindfolded and taken back there again. It was the smell of a new beginning of the best intercultural experiences of my life.

The thing about living in Saudi as a foreigner is to remember that you must conform to their culture and ways of life. Another shocking discovery was that the Saudis thought they were the best of all the people in the world. I found it to be very similar to the Indian caste system. I was living on a Saudi Naval base in Jubail. The base was divided up into ?class people sections?. The Saudis lived on the eastern side of the base in the nicest housing. The Americans lived directly on the other side of the main road on the western side of the base with Filipinos, and Koreans. The Saudis put the Americans close to them in housing a little smaller than theirs. We had a large section of the base dedicated to us and all of the...