Egypt - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

Culture Smart / Cultuur Bewust

by Jailan Zayan

Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships.

Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the culture and society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whether on business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include


* customs, values, and traditions
* historical, religious, and political background
* life at home
* leisure, social, and cultural life
* eating and drinking
* do's, don'ts, and taboos
* business practices
* communication, spoken and unspoken


"Culture Smart has come to the rescue of hapless travellers." Sunday Times Travel

"... the perfect introduction to the weird, wonderful and downright odd quirks and customs of various countries." Global Travel

"...full of fascinating-as well as common-sense-tips to help you avoid embarrassing faux pas." Observer

"...as useful as they are entertaining." Easyjet Magazine

"...offer glimpses into the psyche of a faraway world." New York Times

Genres: Nonfiction, Cultural, Egypt

168 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

Reviews

[Britt O'Duffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

While these guides are built on broad strokes of cultural generalizations (this one was a bit dated - capturing the end of Mubarak’s regime but nothing beyond Arab Spring), they provide a helpful primer for tourists on quick trips.

As someone who clumsily commits regular social gaffes in both America and the UK, it’ll be an uphill battle. So long as I don’t offend anyone, it’s a win. But yeah, very much looking forward to exploring over the next two days!

(Shout out to Mythili for the tips - we’ll be meeting Marwa tomorrow!)

[Miquela · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, quick guide to Eypt's past and present, though this edition is a bit outdated since it was published pre-revolution. However, I really wish I had read it before coming. It could have helped me from making some false assumptions and possibly kept me from appearing rude.

An example:

Whenever my husband and I meet an Egyptian man, the Egyptian will shake hands with my husband but not offer me his hand. I chalked this up to some idea that perhaps it frowned upon for women to greet others/touch the opposite sex this way. I was incorrect. The Egyptian men were waiting for me to extend my hand first (which I wasn't doing, not knowing how they felt about a "woman's place"), and would not presume to make the gesture first. So, there was nothing about "keeping me in my place" and everything about respecting an unknown woman.

[Jeff · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read up beforehand on every country I intend to visit and have been including books from the Culture Smart series. But, after having read about a half dozen of these books, I would say the series is pretty useless. Usually a little anti-American bias pops up in almost every one, usually with a dos of "though our country is poor, we're rich in history, culture and family life." On top of all that, this book has a lot of anti-Israel bias.

There was almost noting here on the pitfalls of dealing with Muslims and the myriad ways of offending them. Nor was there anything about the millions of dollars the country has gotten in aid from the U.S. and the hundreds of projects over the last half-century that the U.S. has funded, though the books are clearly aimed at American readers.

You can get a lot better information from the State Department website, so don't waste you money on these.

[Rob&Maria Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb Primer on the Uniqueness of Egypt!

Well worth the time to read. Provides good rules of thumb for living, traveling a/o visiting Egypt. Short and concise points and outline of the material facilitate its use as a reference as well.

[Sherry Howard · Rating 1 out of 5]

Skimming the Surface

Not worth the price. Contains a general history, ancient and modern, cursory discourse of customs and mores, slight travelogue. Wikipedia and any general guide book will give as much as this brief treatment.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful for my upcoming trip to Egypt.

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so interesting and will helpful on my upcoming trip!

[Daniel Burke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am heading to Egypt in April and found the information useful.

[Kimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty high level but good overview of Egypt and it’s people.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish it had been updated before my trip. Oh well!

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book number 15 of 2007 is the Culture Smart Egypt: A Quick Guide to Customs and Etiquette. A pleasant read, this guide gives what seems to be an excellent overview of the customs, traditions and history of Egypt. It was useful reading; must read again before the trip in March (2008).

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is an apt description - good into for the traveler.

[Pelita Hayati · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice resume. i am traveler :)

[Crystal]

something educational

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

Useless

Less information than I could have found with 5 minutes of websurfing. This book is ertainly not worth wasting money on.