Yemen

Hello, everybody, thank you for being here.

I hope everybody's having a great day.

I would like to start this out by expressing a

bit of gratitude.

Thank you for allowing me to not only conduct and

present the research that I have, but also like to

say thank you and allowing me to be a part

of our expansion into Yemen.

This thing's research was over the societal differences between the

United States and Yemen.

I know it may seem a bit trivial, but I

can assure you that failure to adhere to societal norms

will be, ah, huge barrier to success.

I did grow up in a military family.

I've seen firsthand how things are done differently around the

world. For instance, I lived in Japan, and one of

the bigger differences between here and there is when you

go to somebody's house.

If you're invited, you're expected to take your shoes off

before coming inside.

Now, failure to do this is seen as very rude.

Um, some would say as rude as slap in the

host directly in the face.

I can assure you, once you've done that, there is

no joke.

You can tell there's no dish you can cook.

That's good enough to overcome the rude and obscene acts

you've committed.

Chances are you're going to be remembered for being rude,

and you might not even be invited back.

But I would like to keep us from slapping our

host in the face.

So there are a few things that I would like

to address.

Yemen is a small country of about 30 million people.

However, more than 99% of the people are of Muslim

faith. I know we do have people that follow Islam.

Here in America, however, it's a bit different.

Yemen, because almost everybody follows these more strict set of

rules and societal norms are a bit more dictated by

this, um, T notes on this are how you greet

people. Now I know that here in America, we kind

of do things similar.

If you greet somebody, you know a good handshake.

Nice eye contact is customary.

However, gender is a bit different.

Their women are are viewed a little bit different than

we view women here in America a little behind the

times. But we do have to remember we are the

guests now to keep it a bit short and sweet.

I'll keep the perspective as a man, interacting just just

to keep things from going over too far.

If you're gonna meet another guy a nice, gentle handshake.

Um, try not to fall for the squeezing very hard,

like a lot of people do here in America.

I know that some people do view the strength of

a handshake as a test of somebody's manhood.

A little different.

Yemen. You know, a nice, gentle handshake works great, engaging

great eye contact, and you know the customary greetings air.

Okay. Hello.

How are you?

How was your day?

Please, You're great.

However, if you're meeting a woman, handshakes, hugs, they're not

the same.

You're not to shake hands with a woman.

If you do accidentally try and shake hands with a

woman, chances are she's either going to say no.

Or she may have been placed her hand over a

chest like this as a way of saying no, thank

you. This is not to be seen as a rude,

um, disagreement with trying to meet you.

It's more of the fact that in in Yemen, the

culture of women is that shaking hands with the man

is very obscene and it's actually prohibited.

So just keep that in mind, you know, nice handshake

for meeting a guy.

If you meet a woman, you know, say hello.

She may even be a bit standoffish, But just understand

that women do play a different role in society in

Yemen. Um, now here in America, we do enjoy our

weekends. Everybody looks for the weekend in my opinion, Saturday,

Sunday comes around, and that is, that is what we

live for in Yemen.

The weekend is scheduled bit differently.

Traditionally, the Islamic weekend is a Thursday Friday weekend.

Yemen did follow this up until about 2012, and they

ended up shifting to a Friday Saturday weekend.

This was in response to following most of their trading

partners around them.

Uh, there was a set of problems with the Thursday

Friday, Um, when you're trading with company with companies that

have weekends much like us, you know, if you're off

on Thursday and Friday, they're off on Saturday and Sunday.

You're missing out on four days communication.

So as a way to mitigate this, they shifted it

to a Friday Saturday weekend to kind of meet in

the middle Now this was met with a lot of

opposition. You know, there's a lot of people who do

not agree with this, um they see it as rude

or or against their beliefs to share a day of

rest with the people that are Jewish.

Um, one of the things that I would suggest is

transitioning to a four day work week, um, Sunday to

Wednesday for four days a week, 10 hour days.

This is a kind of fit directly in between the,

you know, the traditional Islamic holiday and the people who

want to follow the weekends of Saturday and Sunday in

Yemen following along with the Islamic schedule, There is an

important month to keep in mind.

Uh, Islamic people do celebrate or observe the holy month

of Ramadan.

This is a month long observation toe where people are

fasting during the daylight.

You know they're encouraged.

Thio do more reading of their faith, more practicing their

faith as well as engaging.

You know, more community efforts.

With this does come a bit of barriers now it

doesn't follow the same month every year, For instance, this

year was April 22nd toe.

May 22nd um it is 30 29 to 30 days

long, but however, every year it's just by 10 days

because it does follow lunar calendar.

So for 2021 it will begin on April 12 2022.

It will begin on April 2nd, and so on and

so forth.

Um, during this month, um, something to note is the

levels of production are gonna be going way down.

Uh, everybody knows that if you haven't eaten in a

while, chances are you're not motivated to do much.

You may even be crabby.

Eso This is definitely something we need to address.

Uh, most companies do push any important meetings or deadlines

off for the month following or the month before because

it's been observed study that production has been decreased during

this month from his little a CE, 35% to 50%.

So we definitely will want to schedule any important dates,

you know, away from this month.

You know, even during the month kind of limit the

responsibility, our goals.

Because most people are gonna work less hours.

They're gonna be a bit more tired, less motivated.

It's just gonna be something that will not be good

for us to keep up with if the rest of

the country is is not following, you know?

And as I said, you know, we'd like Thio adhere

to their societal norms.

This this is a big one for them.

Oh, you know, if we ignore this or any of

the other societal norms, chances are we're not gonna have

people that want to do business with us there.

They're not gonna want Thio, um, interact with us because

we're gonna be seeing this route People on.

I don't know why you guys, but I try and

stay away as much as I can.

So, in closing, I would like to just reiterate the

points, uh, with interacting with people.

Just keep in mind if you meet a guy, it's

okay to engaged in the way you would hear America

way. Definitely need to look into adjusting our schedule Thio

for 10, maybe work week, Saturday or Wednesday.

We could do Saturday and Thursday would like, but I

just received a little bit more problems going back route

than just go ahead bet and sticking with Saturday toe

Wednesday. Schedule A ZX well as adjusting our dates to

the line with, uh, it's something we could predict and

it's definitely something that way.

Should definitely adjust way would like to keep from slapping

our in the face.

So I hope that we could keep us in mind

as we continue forward.

Other than that, most of the society most of the

same and we should have no problem our transition.

I'm very excited and I hope everyone else is as

well, thank you.

Yemen

Audio TranscriptAuto-generated