Saudi Arabia and I

Here's a story to tell your girlfriends:
(and I've already told mine, so you're getting well-digested info.) 
Three nights ago, Saturday night, I was going to cook and have C over but he called and said these two friends of his invited us both to a late dinner get-together at their off-campus apartment.  I had met these two friends of his (with names that sound like Toork-heh and Mahw-hih) last semester when they invited us out to dinner.  I didn't get the scoop on them beforehand, so in the first few minutes of conversation I learned they were from Saudi Arabia but I think I didn't fully process the information.  I was mildly uncomfortable at dinner but only because I was the sole woman with three dudes. 
So when C suggested we go, I thought it would be those two guys and maybe an additional friend, or a gathering of random international students.  We both got a little spiffed up and took a cab to their apartment complex, which is one of the seemingly many of its kind in Zhuhai.  These complexes are big gated neighborhoods filled with townhouse-like apartments, all the same.  The apartments themselves are brand new and beautiful, and the landscaping is all perfect with wrought-iron bridges over man-made lakes and such.  It sort of reminds me of Florida.  The aesthetic is like new tacky Floridian developments.  The rent at these places is about 2,500 yuan per month between three people, which is about 120 dollars per month per person.  This is like the best deal ever, as the apartments are beautiful and comfortable and spacious, but I have no idea who lives in all the rest of them.  That rent is way too high for most Chinese folks and it's not like north Zhuhai has a big enough foreign population to fill even a percentage of the apartments available.  Anyway, when we got there one of the dudes met us downstairs and led us up to the apartment, where I discovered that this was not an intimate dinner party but a gathering of 10 (ten) TEN Saudi Arabian guys.  Ten curly-haired, cigarette and hookah-smoking, floor-sitting Arabians, my boyfriend, and sparkly-eye-shadowed-and-bangle-wristed-me. 
So, I panic a little inside, but do my best to remain calm and charming (but not too obviously outgoing-ly American).  I'm not sure whether to shake hands or not, as two of the Egyptian men on campus won't touch women and I don't know the rules with these guys.  But they all reach out to shake mine, and I take my shoes off, and they tell me to have a seat on the couch.
And then, a funny thing happened: they acted totally normal.  Normal by my standards, that is.  OK, not totally.  But quite.
These guys are clearly loaded - some of them are wearing Dolce & Gabbana t-shirts, and there are a few laptops lying around with a fancy speakers hooked up to one, and they have a flatscreen TV that they're using to play video games, and they have "five or six motorbikes, between the three apartments" and they just give off that...wealthy vibe.  A few of them seem younger and timid, but most of them take turns sitting next to me and chatting, or showing me something in the apartment.  They're all very friendly and open, but not childishly eager like so many Chinese peers.  Just normal.  A lot of them are smoking but nobody is drinking, which upps their legitimacy as Muslims in C's eyes.  I can't help but feeling like I'm totally crashing their dude party, but they're not acting like I have - and they invited me, after all - so I try to play along.  They mostly speak in Arabic, with C, but switch to English to talk to me.  They pretty much speak lovely English, which makes me feel guilty for not knowing Arabic.  I think the cadence and rhythm of Arabic must be much closer to English than Chinese is, because even the Chinese folks with the best English skills sound so much more foreign to me than the Saudi dudes with shaky English did.  I don't mind having lighter skin than all the other people in a full room, but sitting around looking at all this thick black hair really makes me aware of my screaming blond curls.  It's funny to feel so conspicuous.  Being conscious of my hair like that almost makes me want to...put it under a scarf.  HAHA. Just kidding. But not really.
When it's time to eat, they put a plastic cloth down over the rug, and bring out big bowls of delicious-smelling stuff and bread and drinks.  They apologize that we're eating on the floor, which doesn't bother me at all because I had anticipated this and worn appropriate clothing.  Someone pours me a drink and they're all very concerned that I'll like the food.  I see that they are going to eat with their hands, but they give me a bowl and spoon.  The thought crosses my mind that maybe this is so I'm not reaching into the common dishes with them, and maybe I'm supposed to wait for someone to serve me.  But then the one next to me says, "Please help yourself!"  Now, I generally eat just about anything, and like it, too, but I reeeeally liked this meal.  There was rice with chicken and a light sauce, and a vegetabley cold salad, and not-too-spicy soup with potatoes and cabbage and some unfamiliar spices.  Then afterward, they brought out pineapple on sticks and tea with dried mint.  I was so impressed with these dudes' organization and competency as hosts! 
After that we hung out for a while more, as the dudes who hadn't cooked washed the dishes and the rest lounged around smoking and commenting on the soccer game on TV.  We left around midnight, to protests that we were going too early.  One guy offered to lend us his motorcycle to get home, but I wasn't about to let C experiment with such a machine with me helpless on the back, so the guy walked us to the gate and we got a cab.  Then I (calmly) said to C, yo man, you didn't tell me there would be ten of them there.  I shouldn't have been there.  And he was like, what do you mean, what's the problem? And I was like, no problem, but even if they were all American guys I would be a little uncomfortable.  And he was like, I don't see the problem.  haha.  And then I said, You know Americans are scared of people from Saudi Arabia, right?  And this, I didn't say, but was thinking: Just because I'm educated, and am living in China, doesn't mean I'm free from the prejudices and biases that other Americans have.  Just because I know better doesn't mean I'm different than everybody else. And he was like...I don't understand what the problem is.  lol.
There wasn't any problem, really.  Just that I assumed there would be.  Probably if you proceed in such situations as if you will be completely unable to relate to someone else, it will be true.  Like if you assume people are going to persecute you for being of a certain whatever-you-are, and proceed as if it is true, then it will be true.
So here is the moral.  Based on my experience thus far, I would like to suggest that if Americans are going to be scared of Middle Eastern people, they should be equally as afraid of Chinese people.  These guys were very polite, nice, genuine-seeming.  They are obviously sensitive to how I expect to be treated.  They are obviously aware that I expect them to engage me in real conversations, and to eat with a utensil, and to be included rather than put on a pedestal on account of my foreignness.  They sort of just seemed like rich Americans, but a little different, rather than people from some part of the world I've never seen.  They didn't feel nearly as "foreign" to me as Chinese people do, even after interacting with Chinese people day after day, month after month.  Their manner of social interaction, at least in relation to me, was familiar.  I'm sure the wealth is part of it, but not all of it.  If we are going to scared of them, I think it should be partly because they either know how to play our game or use the same game themselves.  If they are really so foreign, and have crazy ideas, then whatever, I don't know enough about politics to make my own judgments, but if you're going to be afraid of them then you should keep in mind that they probably know more than you think they do about why you're afraid.  If you're going to be afraid of China, I'm not saying you shouldn't be, because the Chinese are aliens.  As hard as I try to exercise my openmindedness and gloss over the cultural differences - it's a small world after all, we all have the same dreams and hopes, you know - socially, Chinese people are foreign.  They do NOT know how to play our game, they do NOT know how we expect to be treated.  And I'm not saying they should, obviously!  I don't see any non-American reason why they should learn.  But, they haven't.  
I'm just saying, if you're going to be afraid of people, you might consider choosing the people who organize their thoughts differently than we do, who don't know how to rationalize in the "usual" manner. 
The next day when I was telling my roommate about it, the first thing she said, only half-jokingly, was, "Oh...do you think they were offended by your bare head?"  This was relieving, as I had been worrying that I was over-analyzing the situation and shouldn't have even considered that they would be offended by my bare head.  I said, Probably, but they didn't act like it.  And after I had given her the full synopsis she said, Look at you, Zoe, look at all these cool things you're getting to do that you wouldn't otherwise be able to! 
Damn straight.  This was also comforting, as confirmation that these situations are truly novel and I have the right to be mildly frightened. 
If they invite us over again, I'm gonna try to sneak in a few of my *single* American girlfriends with me, and...see what happens.  I'm fascinated.