Editor's Commentary

By Jimmy Dunn

I often cruise the bookstores looking for Egyptian travel guides. I look for old or new, obscure or popular, even to the extent of checking out rare book stores. This isn't really some collection I have going on. I just like to get different people's perspective on things. Soon, I will be writing reviews of travel guides for our book review, though mostly on obtainable volumes.

This last month, I picked up a book, which appears to be a series on different countries called, "Culture Shock". This one was "Culture Shock - Egypt", more a cultural guide to Egypt than a travel guide.

The series of books is meant to explain the huge cultural differences between people of various countries; differences so extreme it would seem as to cause shock. This has been a popular topic in the past, and these books are very detailed in their commentary.

It is also a topic that seems somewhat out of date. Oh, there are vast differences, for example, between Egypt and much of the rest of the world. But globalization has also created many similarities, and in fact, so much so that there is little shock left.

I cannot speak for the entire world, but in Egypt, different strata of society are probably shocking each other more than anything else. There is the old and the new. Particularly the middle class and professionals of Egypt in many respects taken to the ways of the global community. Certainly many people that tourists will encounter in hotels and upscale night life establishments will be progressive, and their cell phones and computer talk will not shock any Westerner.

Media reviews in Egypt center around American movies, and there is no real surprise these days to see Egyptian youth, at least in closed surroundings such as a hotel pool, wearing shorts and in some places even skimpy swimsuits. Egypt is very awake, and changing culturally with the rest of the global community.

Some people might decide this is not a good thing. Of course, there is still plenty of "old culture" in Egypt, as elsewhere, and that will last at least through our lifetime. For myself, I find it comfortable. I love my modern friends in Egypt, as well as my not so modern friends.

But really there is no shock really in going to Egypt these days.

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