Right now I'm listening to a book called Jupiter's Travels: Four Years Around the World on a Triumph. (A Triumph being a British motorcycle, for the uninitiated.) This 1970's account has become a classic for those afflicted with wanderlust, like yours truly, and the inspiration for the likes of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's Long Way Round series. The already pleasant experience of "reading" this book is heightened by the writing of author Ted Simon, already an accomplished journalist when he undertook this massive endeavor.
I'm not even close to finishing the book, but I've already been impacted by a number of things. We are currently with Simon in Tanzania, having crossed the Mediterranean from Italy and traversed the Sahel from Morocco to Egypt, then descending into Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
Almost everywhere he stops in Arabic-speaking countries -- the entirety of North Africa -- he is welcomed, fed, housed, not only by people of means but by people who so willingly share what little they have. We've all heard of Arab hospitality, but it becomes even more poignant when juxtaposed with the reception Simon gets after crossing into so-called Christian countries. People at times eye him suspiciously, prostitution is rampant, and trust is rare.
I have spent most of my US years in the South, first Texas and now Tennessee. Southern hospitality is supposedly legendary, but nowadays you would be hard pressed to find someone willing to take in a stranger in the South. Times have changed, of course, since the 1970's when Ted Simon's epic adventure took place. I spent part of a summer during my college years selling books door to door in rural Arkansas, where I did experience this kind of hospitality; I would show up on someone's front porch and the next thing I knew I was sitting down to dinner with them.
I haven't been back to rural Arkansas since that summer, and would be curious to find out how/whether this notion of Southern hospitality has changed. But one thing I do know, not just from my reading but from personal experience: the Arabs who have shown me hospitality have completely upended my preconceived notions of Middle Easterners in general.
How has your concept of hospitality changed over time? What have you experienced that has challenged your world view or way of thinking? Please take a minute and share here!