Rules

It really resonated with me how the author of this book I'm reading at the moment describes deciphering and keeping unwritten and sometimes unspoken rules as a foreigner in the Middle East:

For a long time, I focused on learning the rules. What clothes should I wear on the street, in people’s homes, at government offices? Where should I sit in taxis and rickshaws? How should I address the governor, a community elder, police at a checkpoint? Early on I recognized the role of peer pressure and looked to my neighbors and coworkers to help me construct the strange, hybrid rules that applied to me, as a foreign woman.

I understood that my neighbors would decide, based on dozens of small social cues, if I was a good woman or not. If they judged me as good, they would welcome me into their lives. If they judged me as bad, the doors and gates would lock before me.

I chose a fairly conservative path and was careful to test, question, and observe the outcome of each decision I made. It was exhausting but necessary. Most of my neighbors did accept me as a good and honorable, if strange, woman. In a sense, I accepted my neighbors’ right to judge me. It was, after all, their country, and I was the visitor.