[Rain Man]

I suspect that there are indeed some cultural differences with those who are immigrants from that area. The culture there is to fight and argue over every penny in a purchase, which may explain why nothing ever gets accomplished and they're a thousand years behind the rest of the world. I suspect that people of Middle Eastern origin who grew up in the U.S. don't have that attitude, but in the Middle East it's just part of life.

I went to Egypt on vacation back in 2001, and I despised that system of lengthy, protracted negotiations over every single little thing. It was such a pain in the neck that I just wouldn't buy stuff. Fortunately, restaurant meals were exempt from that system or I would've starved to death.

I remember one night in Luxor, we were walking to the ruins. Any time you stepped out of the hotel, you were harrassed by people trying to sell you stuff, and you just learned to ignore it. (It wasn't hard once you got used to it.) Anyway, a horse and buggy guy offered us a ride for five bucks or something and and we kept walking and then he offered four bucks and we kept walking and then three and then two, and at two we said, "Okay, Mister. You've got a deal." So we get in the buggy, and the horse knows the way there so the horse is walking and the guy just turns around and starts hammering us to give him more money. We had hoped to have a nice buggy ride and he just kept harrassing and harrassing and harrassing and I kept saying no and finally told him to turn around and shut up, but he never would. We just refused to acknowledge him, and gave him his two bucks when we got there and he was calling us names and all sorts of stuff. I kind of hope he eventually got killed in religious-based violence, though the horse seemed nice.