Due to the very inter­st­ing reac­tions, I gave this post a push.

Amer­i­can sol­diers in Iraq receive Cul­tural Smart Cards which, among other things, pro­vide a series of “Do This” and “Don’t Do This” behav­iors designed to avoid cul­tural mis­un­der­stand­ings. Some of these are quite obvi­ous (e.g., “Never offer a Mus­lim alco­hol or pork,” “Don’t engage in reli­gious dis­cus­sions”) oth­ers are less so (e.g., “Don’t make the ‘OK’ or ‘thumbs up’ signs; they are con­sid­ered obscene,” “Don’t praise an Iraqi’s pos­ses­sions too much. He may give them to you and expect some­thing of value in return,” “Try all food offered to you, even if in small por­tions”). Go check them out and come back here again because the story is not fin­ished yet.

IRAQ CULTURE SMART CARD 1 (PDF)

IRAQ CULTURE SMART CARD 2 (PDF)

What would a sim­i­lar card look like for for­eign­ers vis­it­ing the US?

–Try to Con­sume Coca Cola and McDonald’s Ham­burger as much as pos­si­ble for cul­tural inte­gra­tion rea­sons. I had to con­sume tons and tons of raw her­rings in Hol­land for the same rea­son.

-“What’s up” can be a greet­ing. (learned it from the movies).

What else?