Peter Gorman, an accountant from Raleigh, North Carolina, had been working for two years in one of his firm’s branch offices in Melbourne, Australia. Normally, he took the bus to work, but one morning he was running late and did not want to miss an important meeting, so he was forced to take a taxi. He signaled to a cab on the street by raising his right hand, jumped into the back seat, and told the driver where he wanted to go. As the driver begins to pull away, however, he turned to Peter and said: “What’s wrong, mate? Do I have leprosy?” Peter was not sure whether the taxi driver was joking or not. In America, people simply smile and say ‘hello’ when meeting someone new. It would be acceptable to just jump into a cab in our