Observation Study Of The Arabic Culture: Zenobia Lounge

Participant-Observation Study of the Arabic culture
I have conducted a participant-observation research in an Arabic hookah café in Georgetown, the Zenobia Lounge. While I was expecting to get more insight about the way Arabs practice Islam in their daily lives, my observations were about the service sector in collectivist cultures and expression of cultural identities. I realized that the intimate relationship between a business and customers was more important than the service itself in collectivist cultures. I also realized that Arabs expressed their belongings to two distinct cultures, Arabic and American culture, in their outfits by carrying both modern and oriental elements. I have spent a total of six hours in the café, three hours each in two consecutive days. Considering that I would have more opportunity to make observations while the place is crowded, I decided to be there between 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm on Friday, and 9:00 pm and 12:00 am on Saturday. Since the café was open to public, I didn’t need to get any permission from a gatekeeper, or put any extra effort to be
I was exposed to both the individualistic Western culture and the collectivistic Eastern culture, therefore I didn’t consider myself as a complete cultural outsider. I realized, however, that I could turn my familiarity with both cultures into an advantage: My familiarity with the individualistic culture could let me observe the Arabic culture from an outsider lens, and my exposure to the collectivistic culture could actually provide me the interpretive tools to understand the “thick description” of their actions. My exposure to both cultures did turn out to be helpful: While I was observing the Arabs, I could analyze their outfits as an outsider to Arabic culture, but my knowledge about the religious significance of growing beard in Islam helped me interpret my