My friend, Jack Vinson published the following item in his blog (http://www.jackvinson.com/ )
"It isn't only coffee that inspires conversation. It might be anywhere that people are gathered for purposes of open discussion: coffee shops, tea houses, hookah huts, good meals... George Nemeth found an interesting quote on Inspiring great discussions with respect to hookah smoking.
'One of the oldest traditions of the Middle East is the art of hookah smoking. The hookah, also referred to as a narghile or narghila, shisha or sheesha, water-pipe, and hubbly-bubbly, has long inspired great discussions of politics, religion, and the daily happenings. In social gatherings, the passing of the hose is remarkable- a narghile is placed in the center of a group and smokers pass the hose to the next in the circle, all the while exchanging words and sharing ideas in a playful mode...'"
Now, the question for our time is how do we recapture a truly oral tradition like this? With the attention span of the west growing ever shorter and organizations' timelines (vis a vis their vision and mission) becoming shorter, how can we show the value of a truly oral tradition that values history as well as the time it takes to build relationships. In the Middle East, hooka smoking was an important social activities and relationship were build that stood the test of time. What do we have in the west that is comparable?
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Thanks, Eugene, for link to that.
I'm not sure our "tradition" of sitting around drinking coffee is as powerful and compealling as it used to be. How many people do you see sitting around a Starbucks? True, there are some. But most people's coffee habit is 'to go'.
I've never done one, but an ethopian coffee ceremony involve the breaking of bread. Sharing a meal is one of best ways we have in the west to engage in the kind of casual conversation hookah smoking accomplishes in the east...
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