I’ll be honest –
I’ve always been a little skeptical about the cross-cultural etiquette advice that crops up in guidebooks and on travel sites across the web.
The guidelines offered tend to be a little too black-and-white for me.
When a guide is written by one “expert” (usually a foreigner) there is not always room for nuance, for variations across society, or for the host’s understanding that visitors are just that: visitors, and therefore allowed some cultural leeway.