Imagine that your first job after graduation is with a multinational oil company. Because of your analytical skills, lack of prejudice, and interpersonal flexibility, your boss has selected you to be part of a negotiating team sent to Saudi Arabia. After checking into your hotel room, you take a long, cool shower and then head for the lobby to meet your counterpart with the Arabian firm. After the first five minutes, you know it’s going to be a long day. Josef comes on way too strong. He stands so close that his face is only a foot away from yours.
There’s no letup in his penetrating gaze, and his voice is too loud. The smell of his breath is even more disconcerting, and you shudder at the feel of his hand on your arm. He strikes you suddenly as a pushy rug
merchant. As for Josef, you quickly confirm his worst fears about Americans. He sees you as devious and aloof because you avert your eyes, deny him your breath, and cover up your natural body scent. Despite his overtures of friendship, you coldly back away and hold him at arm’s length. He begins to picture you as an Ugly American. He thinks it’ll be a long day too.
DISTANCETH,E HIDDENDI~MENSION
If anthropologist Edward Hall had been sitting in the lobby, he would have given a knowing smile at the comical and, yet, tragic scene of the advancing Arab and the retreating American. While teaching at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Hall introduced the termproxemics to designate “the interrelated observations and theories of man’s use of space as a specialized elaboration of culture.“30 You’ll recall from the introduction to the section on messages that Whorfs hypothesis of linguistic relativity claims that language shapes our perception of reality. Hall believes space speaks to us just as loudly as words.
