The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cultural Etiquette

by Carol Ann Turkington

You're no idiot, of course. You know you're supposed to bow when greeting someone in China and noisily slurp your noodles in Japan. But when it comes to really knowing what to do in foreign countries, you feel as confident as a bowl of wet noodles! Don't burn your passport yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cultural Etiquette is a fun, fascinating, 'round-the-world' guide to how different cultures eat, meet, and greet. In this Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:

372 pages, Paperback

First published September 17, 1999

About the author

Carol Ann Turkington was a health and psychology writer and editor.

Reviews

[Annelisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, I picked this up at the library and started to flip through it. I went to the table of contents to see the different countries/regions that were being highlighted, trying to figure out which section I wanted to visit first. I saw a section on Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. There was even a section on Canada and Mexico. But guess which continent and region isn't in this book? That's right, Africa, the big pork chop itself. Not one section of the book is devoted to the etiquette, customs, social graces, what have you of an African country, not a one. I guess that businesspeople, casual travelers and tourists just bypass Africa as they jettison around the world, and are just disinterested in learning how to meet different African peoples with the respect that their culture dictates. Seriously? At first I thought that maybe this was just a flaw in the old edition of the book, as the publication date is 1999. However, this seems to be the only version, so there haven't been any attempts to correct this egregious choice. I didn't even bother going through the rest of the pages. I don't believe in wasting my valuable reading time on such a blatant example of exclusion, outdated volume or not. I can't say whether the omission was a conscious choice or not, or whether the author felt that no one would even notice. Either way, I think that she should be ashamed of herself, and I cannot in good conscience recommend this book to anyone. Even if the information within is relevant, we live in a global world. To exclude such a major part of it is wrong, period.