While waiting for a friend in a Washington, D.C. hotel lobby
and wanting to be both (1) and alone, I had seated myself in
a solitary chair outside the normal stream of traffic. In such a setting most
Americans follow a role, which can be stated as follows: as soon as a person
stops or is seated in a public place, there balloons around him a small
(2) of privacy which is considered (3) .
Anyone who enters this zone and says there is intruding. As I
waited in the (4) lobby, a stranger walked up to where I was
sitting and stood close enough so that not only could I easily touch him but I
could even hear him breathing, If the lobby had been crowed with people, I would
have understood his (5) , but in empty lobby his presence
made me very uncomfortable. Feeling annoyed by this intrusion, I moved my body
in such a way as to communicate (6) . Strangely enough,
instead of moving away, my actions seemed to encourage him, because he moved
even closer. Fortunately, a group of people soon arrived whom my
tormentor immediately joined. Their (7) explained his
behavior, for I knew from both speech and (8) that they were
Arabs. I have not been able to make this (9) identification
by looking at him when he was alone because he was wearing American
clothes. For the Arab, there is no such thing as (10)
in public. Public means public. If A is standing on a street comer
and B wants his spot, B is within his rights if be does what he can to make A
uncomfortable enough to move. [A] mannerism
[I] desert [B] crucial
[J] deserved [C]
behavior
[K] gestures [D] intrusion
[L] visible [E] inviolate
[M] visionary [F] annoyance
[N] anxiously [G] specify
[O]
interfere [H] sphere