商务女性在沙特出差 如何寻找变通之道

WOMEN traveling to Saudi Arabia often raise eyebrows there, and Michelle Obama was no exception.

去沙特阿拉伯旅行的西方女人往往会令那里的人扬起眉毛，米歇尔·奥巴马(Michelle Obama)也不例外。

When Mrs. Obama recently appeared in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in the company of President Obama with her hair uncovered, she was following well-established diplomatic protocol for prominent foreign women visiting the country, where strict religious laws otherwise require women to have their heads covered.

前不久，在总统奥巴马的陪伴下，奥巴马夫人出现在沙特首都利雅得，她没有戴头巾，这是遵循了外国著名女性拜访该国的悠久外交礼节。然而依照沙特阿拉伯严格的宗教规定，女性必须戴头巾。

But a commotion ensued, exacerbated by a faked YouTube video that suggested that Saudi state television had blurred out images of Mrs. Obama and her uncovered head. The video had been doctored, and not by Saudi television. But a furor still is playing out on Twitter over Mrs. Obama and the absent head scarf.

但是，这引发了一场骚动，YouTube上的一个伪造视频更加剧了这场骚动。该视频显示，沙特阿拉伯国家电视台把奥巴马夫人和她未戴头巾的头部作了模糊处理。这段视频是篡改过的，并非来自沙特阿拉伯国家电视台。但是Twitter上仍出现了关于奥巴马夫人未戴头巾的激烈争论。

That makes for an interesting backdrop, as more women are traveling to Saudi Arabia on business these days. And they are encountering the laws that limit the social and physical mobility of women in the kingdom, where it is illegal for a woman to drive a car.

这是一个有趣的背景，因为如今越来越多的女人会去沙特出差。她们会遇到这个王国限制女性社会和身体流动性的各种法律。在那里，女人开车是违法的。

In 2015, a theme being widely applied to the hajj pilgrimage that brings millions of Muslims to Saudi holy sites each year is “The Year of Development,” to highlight significant economic and social changes in the kingdom. In a country whose economy is being battered by the drop in world oil prices, there is growing emphasis on improving infrastructure and business development, including the building of new hotels. Among many global hotel companies with new projects in Saudi Arabia are Marriott, Carlson Rezidor and InterContinental, which is developing its Staybridge Suites brand in Jeddah.

每年，成百上千万穆斯林前往沙特圣地麦加朝圣。2015年朝圣的一个主题是“发展之年”，突显这个王国的经济和社会变革。该国经济正因全球油价下跌而遭受打击，所以越来越重视改善基础设施，促进商业发展，包括建新酒店。很多全球酒店集团正在沙特建新酒店，包括万豪(Marriott)、卡尔森瑞德酒店(Carlson Rezidor)和洲际酒店(InterContinental)。洲际酒店正在吉达扩张自己的驻桥套房(Staybridge Suites)品牌。

But as this development expands, can businesswomen from abroad work effectively within a culture where, for example, a Saudi woman was arrested in December for attending a soccer match? Yes — but it requires planning and agility, says Nancy J. Ruddy, a co-founder of CetraRuddy, an architectural firm in New York that has been working in Saudi Arabia on the design for a large business hotel project in Jeddah. The five-star Galleria hotel and retail center is scheduled to open late this year.

但是在这些发展的同时，国外的商务女性能在这种文化中有效率地进行工作吗？去年12月，一名沙特女子因去现场观看足球赛而被捕。纽约建筑公司CetraRuddy的联合创始人南希·J·拉迪(Nancy J. Ruddy)说，女人能够在这里有效率地工作，不过需要计划和机智。该公司正在吉达设计一个大型商务酒店项目。这个五星级加列里亚饭店(Galleria)和零售中心计划今年年底开业。

We’re all familiar with the basic drill in Saudi society, where even restaurants are segregated, with women and children seated in special sections away from men. But I asked Ms. Ruddy whether there are lesser-known hurdles in doing business while female in Saudi Arabia.

我们都知道沙特社会的一些基本习俗，在那里甚至连餐馆都设立隔离区，女人和孩子被安置在特殊区域，与男人隔开。但是我问拉迪，女性在沙特做生意有没有什么不太为人所知的障碍。

“Any country that I go to, I really study the customs and I get advice from people who have been there, so the obvious things about having to wear these robes, these abayas, about being covered, everybody knows about those things,” she said. “But there are certain things we all assume are basic in our global world, even if it is a country like Saudi Arabia, such as the availability of bathrooms.”

“不管去哪个国家，我都会认真研究那里的习俗，询问去过那里的人的建议。很显然，你必须穿长袍，盖住头，谁都知道这些，”她说，“但是有些东西我们以为全世界都有，甚至在沙特这样的国家也应该有，可实际上那里没有，比如卫生间。”

Many of her business meetings with the development company, an arm of the Saudi royal family, took place in a modern 23-story office building, she said.

她说，她和开发公司的很多商务会议都是在一个23层的现代写字楼里进行的。那是沙特皇室的公司。

“But there was no ladies’ room, which was totally shocking to me,” she said. “During my first trip there, if I needed to use the bathroom, I would have to say that I need to go back to my hotel, and I would have to be walked back to the hotel by a man, because you’re not allowed as a woman to walk around unaccompanied on the streets. And because there are almost no women in the work force in Saudi Arabia, there are no ladies’ rooms in office buildings.”

“但是那里没有女卫生间，这让我极为震惊，”她说，“我第一次去那儿时，如果我需要去卫生间，我只能说我需要回酒店，然后必须有一个男人送我回酒店，因为在沙特，没有男人陪伴，女人不能独自在街上走动。因为沙特女人几乎都不工作，所以写字楼里没有女卫生间。”

So Ms. Ruddy resorted to a kind of bathroom diplomacy during her frequent work sessions there. “All of the male executives had private bathrooms, so I asked if it was possible for one of those bathrooms to be put out of commission so I could use it, so I wouldn’t have to ask some man to take me on a 15-minute walk back to my hotel.”

所以，在那里频繁工作期间，拉迪想出了一种卫生间外交策略。“所有男性高管都有私人卫生间，所以我询问是否有可能留出一个卫生间给我用，这样我就不用让某个男人陪我走15分钟回酒店了。”

Voilà! Compromise was achieved and a little sign on a door solved a big problem.

好了！他们让步了，在门上挂一个小牌子就解决了一个大问题。

By and large, as more women travel on business in Saudi Arabia, more of them are finding ways to work around the system, even as some social pressure builds within the country from Saudi women, who make up 20 percent of the country’s work force, up from 16 percent a decade ago. That is still among the lowest female work force percentages of any country, according to data from the World Bank.

总的来说，随着更多女人到沙特出差，她们中的更多人在寻找变通方法，与此同时，沙特妇女也在国内施加了一些社会压力。如今女性占沙特劳动力的20%，比十年前的16%有所增长。根据世界银行的数据，它仍是世界上女性劳动者比例最低的国家之一。

“With so many U.S.- and global-based businesses in Saudi Arabia, travel to the country is only going to expand,” said Carol Margolis, the publisher of Smart Women Travelers. “Saudi women keep pushing for change and, as a result, travel into their country by Western women will become easier.”

“随着这么多美国和国际性公司进驻沙特，到这个国家旅行的人只会越来越多，”《聪明的女性旅行者》(Smart Women Travelers)的作者卡罗尔·马戈利斯(Carol Margolis)说，“沙特妇女在不断推进改革，所以西方女性去她们国家旅行会变得更容易。”

Finding ways to navigate around customs that might seem insurmountable at first “has been very interesting,” said Ms. Ruddy, who also has developed projects in India.

拉迪说，在最初看来似乎难以逾越的习俗中寻找变通办法“变得非常有趣”。她也在印度开发项目。

“In Saudi Arabia, it’s clear they have a great admiration for expertise, so the rules were changed a bit when they saw that I was bringing expertise to the table, which is of course why they hired me in the first place,” she said. “After a while, some of the men would even call me by name and make direct eye contact.”

“在沙特阿拉伯，他们显然十分钦佩专业知识，所以当他们看到我能带来专业知识时，规矩就有所松动，当然他们起初雇佣我也是为了我的专业知识，”她说，“经过一段时间，其中一些男人甚至开始直呼我的名字，跟我有直接的目光接触。”

Small victories, of course, in a world where the ability to gracefully work around traditions is valued because, as every business traveler contemplating a trip to an unknown culture knows, as a general rule, when you have to go, you have to go.

当然，这些都是小小的胜利。在当今世界，在尊重传统的同时，寻找变通方法以便得体工作的能力显得越来越重要，因为每个商务旅行者在考虑前往一个陌生文化时，都知道这样的一般原则——如果必须去，那就别无选择。