Personal Space and Kindness

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How different cultures handle personal space

Our perspectives on personal space – the distance we keep between us and the person in front of us on an elevator – are often heavily influenced by the norms of the places we inhabit. If someone comes more into your personal space than you are used to, you can often feel like, ‘What’s happening here?’ And it is easy to misread what someone is actually communicating if you only come from your cultural perspective.

I am in noisy Cairo, a crowded city of some 16 million people. In the summer it feels like everyone is sitting on top of you in the smog and heat. On my balcony I can see the lady across the alley ironing her clothes. Last week I was watching television and someone yelled from the building next door to turn it down. I spent one day on a microbus, a type of minivan Egyptians use to get around the city. I was squished in the back next to two other women, and 12 more people were piled in. Young boys with no cash jumped on the back for a free ride.

Walking around the city is like dealing with an obstacle course. The narrow streets are made more narrow by cars parked on the sidewalks, sometimes even in the middle of the street. Standing in one of the most crowded parts of Cairo, Giza Square, you really have no sense of personal space. There are too many people to have that. There is no legal time to cross the street, you just cross when you can. A man brushed up right against me, didn’t even notice, and didn’t even apologise – because that’s normal here.

In the morning Egyptians crowd around breakfast stands throughout the capital. Men serve up hot veggies and bread. People eat at the stand as others flash money above their heads to get service, bodies pressed up against each other. A friend jokes that by the time you get your food, you need to shake the other patrons out of your clothes.

Without space there is no privacy. In every Cairo apartment building there is a bawab, the building guard. He knows the comings and goings of every resident on the street. But the closeness is also comforting. It is a fundamentally kind city. If you fall, people will rush to your aid. No one will walk by thinking, ‘not my problem.’ It is loud, crowded and claustrophobic, and it is maddening and wonderful at the same time.

I’m in Sao Paulo’s metro system. This is a city of 20 million people – one of the largest cities in the world. Some people take three hours every day just to get to work, going from one side of the city to another. In most countries in the world, people are on the metro staring at their feet, or they have got their headphones on and they are in their own little world. But here people are very engaged, talking to one another, and interacting. It is a much livelier scene than in many other cities.

Another surprising aspect to life here: there is a lot of respect for the elderly and mothers with children. At the supermarket, at the cinema, at government offices, they have special lines that give these individuals priority. Family is important here. Because of the high cost of living they tend to be small, but families here are close-knit. Everyone gathers on a Sunday for lunch, but they often visit during the week as well. And that sense of caring translates into how people treat others in public spaces.

As I am standing on the metro, I see a young woman offer her seat to an older one with a smile. The retiree says she often gets offered a seat. Still, she tells me, Brazil is an unsafe country and she is often nervous when out in the city. That is what makes this all the more surprising. People say that safety is one of their main concerns when they go on public transport, but that doesn’t stop them from this important human-to-human contact.