Quote:
Originally posted by bilqis:
Ah Ramon, ever the gentleman! 
How was my answer 'unamerican'? Let me assure you I'm not offended by that statement, simply curious as to the reason/meaning of it?
No, my husband is not Arab. He's an american of Onandaga Indian, Scottish/Irish decent from Syracuse NY. He did his undergrad work in Arabic though, and after spending 6 months in Egypt to perfect his Arabic, he joined Peace Corps. I met him while he was at the end of his PC tour in Yemen, and I was at the beginning of mine.
More detail than you probably wanted! ha! 
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Bilqis, I am insatiable when it comes to details on people I have elected to like.
Unamerican, well that is a touchy one, I feel like I have opened the proverbial Pandora's box of generalizations and stereotypes, but anyway: I think that in American daily life culture conversation on a "small talk" level plays a more prominent role than, for instance, in Germany. The positive effect of that is that it makes for a friendlier atmosphere when dealing with strangers or semi-strangers in a public or semi-public setting. On the negative side, conversation like that tends to stay and has to stay more superficial. (Note: By that I do NOT to intend to associate myself with the, unfortunately, popular European myth that human/social interaction in America in general tends to be more superficial.) Anyway, in our case that meant when you ended one of your earlier posts with "how are you ? " I, at first, felt compelled to dismiss that as a kind of "conversational reflex" and not to answer that part at all. So, when I did answer, asked myself and your answer was more open than the prototypical "I'm fine, thanks" I was pleasantly surprised.
I imagine speaking Arab to each other, when you share the same native language, to be quite exhausting and requiring lots of discipline. During my first months in Barcelona, Tim, the Londoner with whom I shared the flat, and I at one point pledged to speak Spanish to each other to practice as we both still did not know
many Spaniards. We soon resorted back to English, because talking to each other in a language other than our best common one, was very tiresome and felt very strange.
Always an extreme pleasure talking to you !
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So long !
R³ - Co-president(s) of the Club of Broken Hearts
[This message has been edited by Ramon de Ramon y Ramon (edited 04-01-2001).]