Living in a Hospitality Culture — Is It Hospitality or Obligation?

Is it hospitality or obligation? It can be a fine line between the two acts. Hospitality is serving others because you want to treat guests warmly.

Obligation is providing a gesture because you feel you need to.

Hospitality in the States

In some cultures, hospitality is a demonstrated high value. You see examples of this in the southern United States (also called the Pineapple States). “Real Southerners” who were born and raised in these southeast states like North or South Carolina, will offer strangers hospitable gestures out of this value of southern kindness and manners.

Expect something like an offer of a sandwich or a conversation with long-winded questions attached. This is similar to life in a “small town” in the US where everyone knows everyone else and their daily business. But in the south, it doesn’t have to be a small town. It could be a larger town like the Raleigh, NC metro area that has over a half million inhabitants.

The opposite to this kind hospitality, would be rudeness, not being a good neighbor, or giving strangers the time of day. It could be as simple as not smiling or being friendly to others, regardless of their status. New Yorkers have gotten a bad rap for this. I’d add my two cents, that busy city goers in these northeast states have become friendlier since social media took a life, as no one wants to be caught on camera with a frown.

Hospitality or Obligation?

In other cultures and countries outside the United States, hospitality can be elevated to even higher levels. In Morocco, friends are made easily and it’s customary to invite friends over for meals with the family. When invited, the return invitation back is expected especially with new friends. This could be in an outside meeting event or an at-home event. In either case, is this type of behavior considered courtesy or does it cross the line of an obligation, with possible motives to impress?

To help figure this out, I had witnessed this first hand as my host family was invited over for dinner. At the end of the dinner, the other (second) family invited the host (first) family over for a dessert gathering for the same week at their home. At the end…