We Panamanians of everybody like people and believe in this live and let live; still, some things surprise us, and we don’t necessarily appreciate or understand them. If you visit a foreign country, isn’t it an experience to adjust to the culture and respect it even if it might be totally different than yours? It makes no sense at all to you.
We do not understand why you go and drink coffee at Starbucks Cafe when we have so many cute Panamanian cafe faces with delicious homegrown coffee beans.
Please do not take picture of us without asking, especially not of our children, you wouldn’t like that either, and Panama is not Disney World.
Now this is a little bit difficult for you when we understand you’re on vacation, but in our culture, you do not go in a bikini and a supermarket or topless at the beach it’s just something that is not in our culture maybe you can respect that.
We do not do one body shaming in Panama; we love well-proportioned, but we love to show what we have. Sometimes in your mind, our close might be too hugging our curves but that’s our style it is undoubtedly not polite if you laugh about us.
Sports we are fanatics about baseball and soccer; this is the one moment we can get very excited and emotional, something you should avoid in this table conversation.Same with politics please do not tell us what is so much better in your country your are guests in our country, experience the different way of living.
When you give a tip, please give it directly to the waitress so they really get the tip.
In our country, we have quite some antismoking rules; please respect them; we have no problem with you smoking, but respect the non-smokers as well.
Not to forget, you know in our country, drugs are not legal, but please, if you buy weed from somebody you don’t know and he sells you basil mixed with lemon mint. Please don’t complain to other people about this; take it as an experience.
We do love it if you try to speak a little bit Spanish with us as it is our language, and the little Buenos Dias, Hola,gracias, it’s easy to learn, and we thank you for that.
