hmm..

I’m Qatar and i do think all qataris are the same. of course no one can make a generalization like that. i’m sure there few people who will think differently, maybe because they’re exposed to different education, cultures or whatever.

But when you look closely, those “different” people are vastly outnumbered.

I go around and i see those brats in their LCs i deal with them everyday. they all think the same way, act the same. same mentalities, interests, manners.

i’m afraid it might be off topic to mention the similarities between them.

my point is, just because there are couple of different people doesn’t mean Qataris are not clones from themselves.

> Alright, I’m off to my weekly Qatari Land Cruiser
> meet-up. The topic today is how to mess up the economy.

I would have thought the topic would have been “how to get a government job…”

(totally kidding!)

In all seriousness, I loved your post. I agree that the community needs constant reminders to *not* prejudge or apply unfair stereotypes to whole groups of people. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for this. Reading as many blogs on Qatar as I can find in preparation for our move to Doha, I’m often struck by the tone many expats use when describing local customs or people that they don’t find appealing. Sometimes I find myself thinking: these bloggers are xenophobes!

But I also have to admit that, as an American married to a European and having lived in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. (soon to be Middle East!), we all make generalizations about other groups from time to time. My spouse and I often discuss the differences between the cultures we’ve lived in, and at one time or another we’ve said negative things about all of them in a generalized, broad, stereotypical way. I suppose, as Sybil points out, it’s part human nature. I think it stems from being so used to one thing and then being shocked by something so different in a new place, and no one in that place seems to notice how crazy and shocking it is. For example, the infamous driving in Doha. For people who’ve always grown up with slow, courteous, safety-obsessed, and law-abiding drivers, it can be a total shock to have to defend yourself daily on the roads. I know — I lived in Boston and New York. Yikes.

Having said that, though, I think there is something really, really rude about anyone who criticizes these kinds of things in a stereotypical way in a public forum (like a blog) when that person is basically a guest in someone else’s home. Living in another culture is the most amazing, eye-opening, and challenging thing a person can do in his or her lifetime, and I consider it a privilege. I would hope that people understand that doing things differently doesn’t mean better or worse, it’s just different. If you don’t like it, that’s OK, but if you are a guest in someone else’s country, be polite about it, the same way as if you were a guest in someone’s home. You certainly wouldn’t go home and blog openly about how awful the dinner was that they served you. It’s just bad manners.