“Do you know why we Greeks are so successful?” the bright-eyed, animated lady with the most luminous teeth asked me as she adjusted her necklace, upon which was strung a Santorini-blue evil eye.
Side-stepping the question, she continued. “Because we have something else no-one else has. And do you know what that is?”
“A language of such dexterity that is able to reduce the words Notis Sfakianakis to a short and easily compactable ‘Sfax’?” I responded.
“Kefi,” she answered, jingling her bracelet covered arms. “Kefi. An attitude to life that lets us surmount all challenges. The Greek succeeds where others fail because he has kefi. No-one can stop him. You can see that when we dance. Take a Greek wedding for example. It’s all about the dancing, whereas with Italians it’s all about the food.”
“I’m not sure about that,” I reflected. “At all the Greek dances I’ve been to lately, the MC had to plead with the attendees, who were mostly in their 80s, to get onto the dance floor. They seemed to be more interested in complaining about the price of the ticket.”