Critical Incident

During my time in USA I have been in many confusing situations. These absolutely happened because of the huge cultural differences between mine and Americans’ culture. One of the incidents is the way people greeting each other. I found out that each culture has different way in greeting. For example, here in America they are used to shake hand or hug as a way of greeting. However, in my culture we are used to shake hand by our right hands and kiss 2 or three times in cheeks, even men they do the same and no nobody misunderstood this behavior. Also, in our religion women should not have to shake hand with stranger’s males, but it is okay to do it with relatives. Based on this difference, it happened to me many times that I have been in a situation where a stranger man wants to shake my hand and I got embarrassed to refuse so I bow to show some respect. It is really hard to me to refuse because when people shake hands they are kind of welcoming others.