Me Making Fun of Bad Dressers

You may have two reactions to this post. Some of you may get the mental picture of this and laugh until you are sick. Others of you may think I am being too hard on them. :)

Cross cultural dressing is a dangerous thing when you may not understand the culture you are trying to adapt to. I would also to point out that I know that the locals have done the same thing to me. They have thought and at times said, “What is with you?” So just as I am making fun of these guys, I know that this is happening to me. I know that me trying to adapt to this culture has made some Arabs go, "What are you doing stupid? Go back to your own country!" So it all evens out in the end. Adapting cross culturaly can bring on some embarrassing fashion moments.

So I was sitting in one of the many malls we have here waiting for the movie theater to let us in to see "The Brothers Grimm," which is a good movie by the way, when three guys walked by me. They were probably around 16ish years old, so part of this can be blamed on age I guess, but they were completely "punked out."

All three of them had on real baggy pants, sagging way down. Two of them had real bushy hair with baseball caps on. One of them had his Yankees cap turned off center with the bill flattened. The kicker of this whole thing is that the third one had his real baggy pants, and oversized T-shirt that had some far-off American logo on it and get this... a huge belt buckle. I am talking about one like you get when you win the National Bull Riding Championship. It was huge!

The funny thing about this is our innate sense of not wanting to be like anyone else, but we still desperately want to fit in. These kids had Yankees products, mixed with skater apparel, and to top it off, a cowboy belt buckle. These kids are supporting a team they probably don't care about, dressing like skaters when I can confidently say that they probably haven't even seen a skateboard before, and a belt buckle from a culture that I can guarantee that they have never experienced.

Why, because it came across the airwaves and landed on their TVs. I love self expression! You can express yourself however you want, but I will express myself however I want and my form of expression will be to make fun or you expressing yourself.

Have a great day!

Happy Groundhog's Day

I don't have a clue on how to say "groundhog" in Arabic, but I can guarantee that little booger didn't see his shadow here. I am pretty sure that he skipped the whole thing. He stayed in his little, furry bed away from all the freezing, cold rain and wind. I don't know what that means though. Is it six more weeks of winter if he sees his shadow? Someone comment and set me straight on the rules and guidelines of proper groundhog interpretation.

ADSL and Peter Rabbit

You see the strangest things in the Middle East. Usually they are funny things on the menus at restaurants, or seeing your name misspelled on some official document that is important for you to stay in country, or teenage guys walking around wearing shirts that says, "World's greatest Grandma."

Well today it was me getting our Internet upgraded. For those of you that think we are suffering, we are officially on wireless now. But I was sitting at this desk trying to explain to the guy that its okay to get an upgrade on our internet even though the phone line wasn't in our name, but our landlord's name, y'all've heard me talk about Mama, right? Well anyway, I kept telling him, of course Mama knows that we have the internet. We are getting an upgrade to hi-speed, not getting a new account. How do you think we got the internet originally? Well, while he was off running around trying to act busy. I sat there and surveyed my surroundings, and lo and behold on the trash can next to me is none other than Peter Rabbit. You know, the rabbit that went into Farmer McGregor's garden and lost his new coat. Anyways, he apparently has stickers and there is a pretty big one of him on this trash can in the phone company's office.

Just thought you should know.

Yes, Road Rage is a Cultural Thing

So we've all been there, driving too fast down the interstate when some idiot cuts you off and you have to slam on your brakes to avoid ramming your car into his. Or worse, we've all been the idiot once or twice as well. What usually happens? When I cut someone off they usually pull up next to me, yell something that I can't hear but when lip reading I can clearly see they aren't wishing me a safe farewell, and then, almost without a doubt, I get "the bird." That’s how it goes in America.

Here it doesn't work that way. Today, my taxi driver cut off a guy downtown and he nearly hit us. The guy managed to speed past us and then slam on his brakes, throwing his car in park, and got out to approach our taxi where he and the taxi driver were obliviously going to have words. I was half expecting them to duke it out, but that doesn't happen in this culture. Apparently in this culture they yell and argue over who was wrong until enough traffic is backed up behind them that the roaring of people's horns makes it impossible to hear what the other guy is saying. Than you both return to your cars and drive off.

So today was no different. The guy hopes out and comes over to the taxi window and went off about how stupid my driver was and yada-yada. Then he started walking off and my driver said something that made him even more upset, so he came back and they argued some more until the traffic was backed up enough that his friend from the passenger side came over and pulled him away.

Needless to say, we were late to school. But for those of you that know me that is a normal thing.