CULTURAL DIFFERENCES | Shorashim - Israel with Israelis

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

When walking through a mall in America, if small pieces of food are presented on a tray on the front counter of a restaurant one assumes that they are free samples. This assumnption led to quite the mistake for me. As I walked past a restaurant today in a Jerusalem mall, I innocently grabbed what looked to be a chicken nugget. After walking away from the restaurant for about 30 seconds, a man shouting in Hebrew chased after me and told me "You come now!". The man brought me back to the restaurant and continued to sternly talk at me. It was at this point that I realized that the chicken nugget most definitely was not free. The man did not seem to speak Englsih so I repeated "I'm sorry" and "How much?" about 5 times until he finally said "2 Shekels". I paid the man, said sorry once more and walked away. This was a big lesson learned for me when in a foriegn country; NEVER assume anything in a new culture is like what you are use to and take an extra second to think about what you are doing.

Israel is amazing,
Corey Brenner