My dad once had a client who was Lebanese. Drug dealer, I think. (Dad was a defense lawyer). He was one of those guys who took one look around the federal pen and said, "you call this a prison?? In my country, this is a fking country club!"
Anyhow, my dad said that you could drop this guy in any city in the world, naked, and without knowing the language he would figure out a way to survive and then thrive in very short order. That this particular culture was very adept at capitalism, though he used slightly different language to say that.
