Do's and Taboos Around The World
Author: Roger E. Axtell
List Price: $16.95
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ISBN: 0471595284
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (June, 1993)
Sales Rank: 17,474
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 3 out of 5
advice for the business traveler, tourist, or EFL teacher
Do's and Taboos Around the World was written in the mid-eighties for American businessmen who regularly traveled abroad meeting foreign clients. I bought this book to help teach culture shock to my Japanese EFL students, and, by and large, I am quite pleased that I have it on my shelf. Even though there is a lot less information about women than men, and some information, such as gift giving, appears to be specifically for business people, there is enough general information about many different countries' cultures to make interesting reading. The chapter on body language and gestures appeared to be well researched, and my students were able to learn many things from teaching material that I made using the book as a reference. There may be some people who would read Do's and Taboos and say that the author has distilled a nation's people to a simple stereotype, and to a point I wouldn't be able to disagree with that. However, if I ever found myself in the company of people whose culture I were ignorant of, it would be nice to be able to scan this book for do's, taboos, likes and dislikes, and give myself a reasonable introduction on what I might be likely to encounter. This book is most useful for business travelers, but it is also useful for tourists and travelers, or anyone living in a culture other than their own.
Rating: 5 out of 5
A wonderful guide to the do's and taboos around the world!
No book is more need then this book in question, e.g., Do's and Taboos Around the World by Roger E. Axtell (Editor). Especially since we are becoming a global village where business knows no bounds and a savvy traveller should be prepared for anything and everything. For instance, in this book, Mr. Axtell guides the unitiated businesman in the art of dining, and says that yes one should eat everything that is being served by the host, e.g., if monkeys brain or sheeps eyes, are the culinary specialty or considerd heute couture in your host country; then one is obliged to go ahead and eat it. Since, not parktaking in the feasting on the speciality or heute couture can be seen as a major snub, cultural elitism or even worst the host feeling as if his guests viewied their dish as something barbaric that only cavemen or wild dogs eat. I loved the book and I can not wait to try some local specialities since diversity of food, culture and customs is the spice of life.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Dos and Taboos
This title offered so much promise. I was really looking forward to reading it and ofcourse decided to start by checking the two countries I know really well, Australia and Japan. Well disappointment just isn't strong enough. How can you trust a book that makes major errors when talking about cultures that you know? Frankly, I can not recommend this book to anyone given the inaccurate out dated infomation I found in the two countries I know really well... Surely there are better books on foreign cultures than this. If not it is not suprizing that Americans have difficulty in understanding people from other countries! Similar Products
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