Editing Middle East (section)

== Middle Eastern Culture ==

In general, Middle Eastern and Central Asian cultures in the region can be split into Semitic (Hebrew, Syriac, Arab, Berber, etc), Iranic (Persian, Farsi, Tajik, Baloch, etc), and Turkic (Azeri, Kazakh, Uzbek, etc) alongside related/historically related groups on the outer edges of the region (such as the Caucasus-inhabiting Armenians or Georgians and the Urdu-Hindi groups in [[India]] in the former case or the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Kushans, Scythians, Huns, & Mongols in the latter case). The long history of the region means many of the cultures and ethnic groups have long histories of contact and intermingling with each other with both peaceful and violent interactions like in the European Balkans.

Since the area was and is a crossroads between Europe, Africa and Asia, this has fostered something of a mercantile proclivities among the native populations. The Middle Eastern bazaars are famed across much of the world for their wares and a certain air of quaint charm of a bygone era still present in the modern world. An additional cultural quirk related to this is haggling - it's downright expected as a gesture of politeness and intelligence for you to haggle for an item you want to purchase and not doing so by simply paying the ˝standard˝ price may ironically disgust merchants and or make you look like a fool.

And if you want to avoid a scrap, DO NOT compare someone to a dog or have your shoes touch anything they may cheris, including their person. Being called a dog or compared to one is an especially big insult there and hitting someone with your shoe (which you use to basically avoid the dirt, filth and feces on the ground) is seen as an ultimate insult and essentially a call to a scrap (thus Bush having a shoe thrown at him was the equivalent of that guy walking up to him and spitting in his face).