Letter to the editor

One week ago, I was contacted by a Colonnade staff writer to say what I think about the Host Family program. This was good initiative from that staff writer. However, there were some unprofessional details that made the article’s value decrease. Here are the reasons why.

First of all, I was contacted and interviewed over the phone exactly 45 minutes before the article was due. Being in a hurry, the writer didn’t even know what questions to ask me. Secondly, which is more dangerous, I was misquoted. The writer wrote “Kettani also said Americans have better interaction.” I have never compared my country’s people with Americans, and I never do. I said there are a lot of differences between Americans and Moroccans, among them human interaction.

Since I was asked unprofessionally, and what I said about the differences was not written, let me now tell you the differences between Americans and Moroccans as far as human interaction is concerned. In Morocco, when a person meets new people of a group, these people make him feel welcome by engaging a conversation with him no matter what culture he/she is from. Here in United States, or at least in Milledgeville, this new person has to initiate a conversation,otherwise, he/she would be seen as shy.

The second difference is the definition of friendship. The third difference is that even if you see the person every day, you have to shake (like in business) his (and not her) hand, otherwise it’s considered very rude; if it’s a girl, guys kiss the cheeks, like European cultures. I was surprised here, when one time I shook my three roommates’ hands after coming home, they told me we don’t do that in America. The fourth difference is that Moroccan shave certain knowledge about other countries; they know that othercountries have cars, cities, live in buildings etc.

Finally, please do not misunderstand me, I am not comparing Americans to Moroccans; I am just saying the differences between them.

Ghali Kettani

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 27 2002. Filed under Letters to the Editor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry