Since in his culture such a setting required closer proximity, the Kuwaiti moved closer to her once again.
This repeated itself until the female instructor was backed up against the wall.
Suddenly, she then fled the classroom with a scream.
My Egyptian colleague shared then how the wise director of the English teacher training program realized what had gone on, in terms of miscommunication due to classroom proxemics across cultures.
This director then preceded to train both the students and the teacher on what the appropriate differences (proxemics) in different social distances were among the cultures in various communicative settings.
These settings and distances change depend on how many people are involved in the communication and which cultures are generally involved.
Going into the Iraqi occupation, it is quite likely that American coalition forces as a whole were unable to make good judgments about what was safe and what were not safe distances and safe social contexts to put themselves in.
This has led to a heightened set of fear and stress for American forces relating to Iraqi Arabs in the 2003 to 2008 period.
Naturally, in Kuwait itself, this has led to most of the U.S. military personnel being subjected to little leave-time from their own military barracks for weeks at a time during the same periods. (At most only a few dozen personnel out of thousands are allowed off the U.S. bases each day.)
My theory concerning proxemics and roadway dangers in Kuwait is that part of the problem with driving on Kuwait highways is certainly that distances that are appropriate between cars are also subject to cultural proxemics.
With drivers from different cultural backgrounds now unable to adjust in time to the distances that the OTHER perceives as acceptable leads daily to a tremendous amount of high speed collisions in Kuwait--where the population is made up of 30% Kuwaitis born-and-raised here, 25% Arabs not from Kuwait, 30% Asians, and 15% Western or southern African, or Latin American residents.
Likewise, differences in distances between males and females from Asian and Western cultures are sometimes observed by Arabs in restaraunts, malls and other public spaces. However, these differences are misused or misunderstood by Arabs, such as Arab policemen, creating a very threatening situation when Arabs attempt to imitate (or fail to properly imitate) these differences in proxemics in the wrong social and communicative context.
This leaves western females and Asian females feeling unduly followed and insecure about Arabs and others from different cultures hanging around too close to them.
As the results of the survey are discussed below, note how many of these levels of concern might be lessened by the creation of more common understanding of how to behave in public space takes shape sometime in Kuwait in the future once this need for awareness of proxemics becomes more understood in this fast changing Gulf State.
RESPONDENTS TO THE SURVEY ON SAFETY in KUWAIT The initial survey on Safety in Kuwait entailed a broad variety of Kuwaiti resident respondents answering these open-ended set of questions. (1) What is your general feeling about safety in Kuwait? Is it very safe? Only safe in certain areas and/or at certain times of day? (2) At what times are you most concerned personally about safety? (3) At what times are you most concerned about the safety of others, such as loved ones or family members? (4) Do you have recommendations to make about safety to people who are new to Kuwait? (5) Do you have any recommendation to the cities of Kuwait, to the national government, or to police about how to make Kuwait more safe?The were respondents as young as 10 or 11 years old, teenagers and adults through their 50s or 60s.
Moreover, among those who responded to the small survey were single women, single men, married couples, high school students, young ex-pats and Kuwaiti nationals. There were also Saudis, Bedouin, Christians, Muslims, Filipinos, Africans, British, German, Egyptians and a large variety of other respondents.
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