Wow. Glad you didn’t lose an eye...I had a fairly benign encounter with one that lost me a tie and got me ten dollars...I was in Jet-A school in Millington, TN and when I was preparing to punch holes in my stack of self-paced learning papers, an Iranian guy next to me grabbed my tie, stuck it in the machine and hit the punch button.
It punched a hole in the tie, and while I was still processing, the guy grinningly handed me a ten dollar bill, which could buy a few ties in that day.
I always thought the Iranians were friendly and a bit goofy, after I got out and went to college, I had a bunch in my Chemistry classes and became good friends with one in my program.
I remember one time trying to explain to him what a “Cherry Boy” was, and the cultural barrier was a high one. When introduced, he said his name was (phonetically) “Homayun Azsmiley”...but “You can call me ‘Brian’...”
He was a good guy, but there were some others who were a-holes.
Middle Eastern and Persian cultures have issues with labor and technology, or are at least very different from us in that respect.
Interesting to hear how your experience parallelled mine in some respects.
Americans are pretty versatile. Throw us in an unknown situation and we’re liable to figure out what to do.
The ability to improvise is in our genes :-)