Samia Abdennour offers a brief introduction to local customs and festivals
First time visitors to Egypt may be lucky to find a brief note or two about local etiquette, or a few quaint references to holiday traditions in their travel guides. This may be sufficient for a tourist who will rarely venture far from the sites, guides, and souvenir vendors.
But if you – or someone you know – is planning a longer stay or even relocating to Egypt, then Samia Abdennour’s latest guide to “Egyptian Customs and Festivals is a must-have.
If you’re unfamiliar with Egyptian etiquette, for instance, you may make the faux pas of starting off a business meeting with an actual discussion on business as many Europeans and Americans are prone to do. On the other hand, if you had the foresight to browse through Abdennour’s guide you would know to “begin by inquiring about his or her health and offer a drink. before broaching the subject of the visit. To ask a person immediately, ‘What can I do for you?’ without the above preliminaries is considered abrupt and distant and may have a frosty outcome, she cautions.
Abdennour also holds the key to many questions that puzzle visitors unfamiliar with Egyptian ways. She takes the reader through a quick tour of local customs and traditions, and if that weren’t enough she tosses in nuggets of background on rites and festivities. But numbering some 100 pages, it’s in no way a comprehensive reference.
For a start, these are general guidelines to follow. It’s simply a starting point. Our customs and traditions are summed up in general observations, jumping from one topic to another almost randomly:
“Children are always welcome in Egyptian families. Both parents welcome a large number of children, especially boys, who are expected to support them in their old age, she writes.
In the following paragraph, without any leap of logic, she bounds into a discussion of time: “The Egyptian concept of time is very flexible, she starts her explanation of common tardiness among the locals.
Next, she skips to men’s outings: “For everyday entertainment, men largely prefer the company of other men.
All good points, but it reads more like a list someone is shooting off the top of their head, rather than a well-organized reference book.
The more interesting section is that on local festivities. It reads like a sociological observation of Egyptian life on special occasions – weddings to subu’s (the celebration of 7 days following a child’s birth). The book feels as if an outsider looking in wrote it. That distance might have been a way to ensure objectivity perhaps, but instead it makes Egyptians seem like museum specimens on show for the tourists.
Abdennour clearly points out in her introduction that the customs and traditions she refers to are found among the middle and upper-middle classes residing in Cairo and other large cities. Yet with the encroachment of Western culture on our society, especially among the younger generations, this seems like an overgeneralization. The practice of dressing a baby boy in girls’ clothing to deter the evil eye is not common among these levels of society.
Another custom that a young executive is unlikely to be caught doing is to “find a morsel of bread in the street, they will pick it up, kiss it, and place it in an elevated place for birds or stray dogs.
There’s a handy list of common proverbs in the back of the book. And, as the author of the best-selling “Egyptian Cooking and Other Middle Eastern Recipes, Abdennour throws in a few recipes for a final touch of local flavor.
“Egyptian Customs and Festivals is a handy guide for first-time visitors, and should be included in every “Welcome to Egypt package.
Egyptian Customs and FestivalsBy Samia AbdennourThe American University in Cairo Press, 2007
