It is Eid al Fitr - the celebration of the end of the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan.  It's a nice time to be here with an atmosphere of peace and goodwill to all men, focus on family and some serious shopping.  Not unlike Xmas in the Christian world.

The use of the lunar calendar is a bit of a pain for those of us who grew up with a fixed solar calendar.  Dates move by about 11 days every year relative to our western calendar and the need for a physical moon sighting makes planning a bit of a hit or miss affair.

I had meetings planned for today because I wasn't expecting Eid till tomorrow.  but the holiday was declared at the last minute yesterday and so now I'm here sipping coffee and contemplating going for an afternoon nap instead. 

In practice this uncertainty is no problem.  You get used to it in time and adjust to a different way of doing things.  At least you do if you stay.  A lot of western expats fail to adjust and their sojourn in the region becomes a nightmare of missed deadlines, flexible timings, and a general attitude of things taking their own sweet time.  It drives western schedule driven business people crazy.  Because we have a fundamentally different relationship with time here.

Partially it's driven by the flexibility inherent in the calendar.  Partly it's driven by a fatalistic approach to life in general that is belief driven.  Partly it's driven by the climate which makes the idea of hurry anathema - not to mention sweaty and smelly.

Superficially our culture here is heavily westernised.  Everyone speaks English most of the time.  The city looks like any other big city with its skyscrapers and freeways and metro and restaurants and bars and shops.  But our real culture is still here and  going strong.

It's a Muslim culture above all but you mix in general Arab values, Bedu ideals and Indian philosophy and Filipino peronalities among myriad others and you have an 'eastern' ambience and value set quite different from the US and western Europe.

If you cannot adapt to that and insist on maintaining your western mindset you will hate it here.  I am always surprised by how many do hate it here and never get their minds around leting go and joining in.

We talk about learning the corporate culture all the time in business.  Of understanding and fitting in and so on.  We know about Vision and Mission and Shared Values and teach courses endlessly on the subject.  It's no different for a society as a whole.

I just wish more expats would learn to drop their 'it's better at home' mindset