Panama - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships. Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the culture and society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whether on business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include * customs, values, and traditions * historical, religious, and political background * life at home * leisure, social, and cultural life * eating and drinking * do's, don'ts, and taboos * business practices * communication, spoken and unspoken

Heloise Crowther is a British travel writer who specializes in Central America. Currently based in Costa Rica and London, she writes for guidebooks and English newspapers. She spent five years traveling in Latin America, and lived in Panama for three, during which time she wrote extensively about the country. Heloise was the major specialist contributor to Panama: The Bradt Travel Guide, which won the 2005 Best Guide Book Award from the British Guild of Travel Writers.