Syria in bits . . .
The following is a dumper/list of observations that I thought worth mentioning. I just put the beat down on a 24-hour illness/bug and thought this would be part of my rally. I think, once again, I had some food that didn’t quite sit right with me.
1. Whores, Whores, Whores.
I recently found out that Eastern European and Russian women between the ages of 18-30ish are not allowed into Lebanon. I have a friend who is Croatian but her family has been in Germany for over 35 years – but her passport is still Croatian. Recently, she tried for the second time to visit Beirut and like the first time, she was not allowed to enter the country.
The Reasoning: Clearly, any and all women from Eastern Europe and Russia are prostitutes. I think we can all rally around and come to an ill-informed and discriminatory international consensus on this.
The Irony: Just watch music videos from Lebanon and notice how chaste and modest the sweat-covered, half-naked, Lebanese pop-tarts of lust are when they shake their impressive ‘bid-ness’ for the camera . . . and one can clearly see that the government wouldn’t want lewd foreign women to sully their already pristine asexual culture – or perhaps they are afraid of the competition. (Easy now, rude boys)
2. Illness in the Middle East: a difference
When people get sick in the States and I’m guessing Europe as well . . . the rule tends to be that ‘We’ give the person a great deal of personal space and assume they don’t want to be bothered while ill. When I’m sick, I’m not really keen on too many people being up-in-my-business: I prefer to be left alone. Here, things are much different. I had to explain to a Syrian friend of mine that his foreign friends, when sick, just don’t want to be bothered with constant check-ups by every person they know. From what I understand this community/family closeness during illness is fairly standard across cultures in the 2nd and 3rd World.
3. Top recent Syrian Quotes: (sadly these conversations were in English)
1. “If you fart in front of the bedu (Bedouins) . . . . they will kill you.”
2. “The girls in Syria are very beautiful and they don’t have the AIDS”
4. Living Room remodel:
So my host family has been feverously redoing the entire of their already fairly nice (by neighborhood standards) living room. Why? Well, the only daughter of the family is in the process of getting engaged . . . . . and from what I understand ‘process’ is the most appropriate word here. After spending weeks refurnishing they have moved all family business (the TV, all meals, guests, hanging out) to an adjacent bedroom, leaving the new room entirely uninhabited while covering the new furniture with plastic and sheets.
Again . . . why? They have this ‘stage’ set-up and ready for the day wherein the ‘guy’ brings his family over for some kind of formal or preliminary engagement process. (Again, I’m a bit fuzzy on the rules here – I tried to get a Syrian friend of mine to explain it and he said it was too involved and complex and maybe stressful to discuss) Yesterday I thought it was ‘on’ from my barely-lucid, food-poisoned state; however, later on I was reassured that this was merely a false alarm, prompting 30 min of pointless primping and cleaning before discovering that today would not be the day. I’ll keep you, dear reader, updated on this breaking story as information becomes available.
1. Whores, Whores, Whores.
I recently found out that Eastern European and Russian women between the ages of 18-30ish are not allowed into Lebanon. I have a friend who is Croatian but her family has been in Germany for over 35 years – but her passport is still Croatian. Recently, she tried for the second time to visit Beirut and like the first time, she was not allowed to enter the country.
The Reasoning: Clearly, any and all women from Eastern Europe and Russia are prostitutes. I think we can all rally around and come to an ill-informed and discriminatory international consensus on this.
The Irony: Just watch music videos from Lebanon and notice how chaste and modest the sweat-covered, half-naked, Lebanese pop-tarts of lust are when they shake their impressive ‘bid-ness’ for the camera . . . and one can clearly see that the government wouldn’t want lewd foreign women to sully their already pristine asexual culture – or perhaps they are afraid of the competition. (Easy now, rude boys)
2. Illness in the Middle East: a difference
When people get sick in the States and I’m guessing Europe as well . . . the rule tends to be that ‘We’ give the person a great deal of personal space and assume they don’t want to be bothered while ill. When I’m sick, I’m not really keen on too many people being up-in-my-business: I prefer to be left alone. Here, things are much different. I had to explain to a Syrian friend of mine that his foreign friends, when sick, just don’t want to be bothered with constant check-ups by every person they know. From what I understand this community/family closeness during illness is fairly standard across cultures in the 2nd and 3rd World.
3. Top recent Syrian Quotes: (sadly these conversations were in English)
1. “If you fart in front of the bedu (Bedouins) . . . . they will kill you.”
2. “The girls in Syria are very beautiful and they don’t have the AIDS”
4. Living Room remodel:
So my host family has been feverously redoing the entire of their already fairly nice (by neighborhood standards) living room. Why? Well, the only daughter of the family is in the process of getting engaged . . . . . and from what I understand ‘process’ is the most appropriate word here. After spending weeks refurnishing they have moved all family business (the TV, all meals, guests, hanging out) to an adjacent bedroom, leaving the new room entirely uninhabited while covering the new furniture with plastic and sheets.
Again . . . why? They have this ‘stage’ set-up and ready for the day wherein the ‘guy’ brings his family over for some kind of formal or preliminary engagement process. (Again, I’m a bit fuzzy on the rules here – I tried to get a Syrian friend of mine to explain it and he said it was too involved and complex and maybe stressful to discuss) Yesterday I thought it was ‘on’ from my barely-lucid, food-poisoned state; however, later on I was reassured that this was merely a false alarm, prompting 30 min of pointless primping and cleaning before discovering that today would not be the day. I’ll keep you, dear reader, updated on this breaking story as information becomes available.
posted by Kicky Sack at 10:41 PM
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