Numbers

I don't like math, but admittedly I've been thinking a lot about numbers lately. The number of days I have left until I return to America, the number of pictures I've taken on my phone, the number of people I've met in my short time here, and the number of apples I've eaten in Jordan. Numbers are concrete, unchanging, and Arabic.

That's right, numbers are Arabic. I don't mean that in a sweeping generalization like Arabic people have some sort of monopoly on systems of counting, but that the characters we use for numbers (1,2,3, etc.) originate from Arabic. At some point along the way Arabic speakers had an exchange with Europeans in which the number system we are familiar with today was introduced. Nowadays the numeric system used by native Arabic speakers is the Hindu numeric system.

In my last post, I focused a lot about how I can see the effects from America in everyday life here, but obviously the reverse is true. Whether it's numbers, or musical instruments, cultural exchange has not been a one way street. This constant blending and trading of ideas undoubtedly effects the world around us. Just try and imagine America without numbers, or without violins.

The strange thing is often times the effects of the Arab world are talked about as past occurrences. I have a vague memory of reading about the inventions and impacts of the Ottoman Empire in my seventh grade Social Studies class. Even this faint memory is simply of what has happened in the past, and not the power of what is being exchanged now.

With increasing interdependence on the world, it is impossible to live isolated. Whether through regular diplomatic ties, tourism, periods of oil dependence, or various other reasons, ideas have gentlely drifted between America and the Middle East through a sort of osmosis. Often times these are things we don't recognize on a daily basis. The creation of new ways to extract resources, the exploration of desalination as a means to more fresh water, or new hijab fashion trends. There are countless unseen ways my way of life in America was influenced by forces unseen, and one of the things I'm excited about is heading back with a heightened awareness of how people halfway around the globe have enriched my life.

McDonalds, Music, and Movies

Fast food has always been a large portion of my diet. Between my mom's work and my dad's claim that taking us out to eat was "cooking", I developed a deep familiarity with the menus at many different chains. Arguably, the spot in my heart that is supposed to be filled with warm feelings towards puppies has been filled with a wealth of emotions for greasy mountains of cheap and easily accessible food.

Coming here, I knew I would constantly be presented with the temptation to fall back to my comfort zone and go to fast food restaurants instead of exploring new places with new cuisines. Still, I was morbidly curious about the McDonalds here. What's different about the McDonalds that you find in Jordan? How would it feel going to a McDonalds here? And most importantly, could I utilize my last name to get a free meal out of my adventure?

I made a deal with myself. I decided that I would go to McDonalds, but only if it was an educational experience. I was determined to order in Arabic, and to attempt to glean some information about the chain here. The first information I got about McDonalds was through a conversation with a cab driver. He told me he only ever ate at McDonalds because it was the cleanest restaurant around. This seems like a striking claim, and it's probably not completely true, but at the same time my cab driver was not completely off the mark.

When international food chains open up around the world, they are still subject to inspections from the corporate entity. This is to make sure the stores are meeting the standards required of them so they can flaunt the multibillion dollar names. A famous example of this is Dunkin' Donuts in Jordan. At one point and time there were numerous Dunkin' Donuts in Amman, but upon failing the inspection by the corporate Dunkin' Donuts these stores were closed down. Nowadays, instead of Dunkin' Donuts in Amman, you fill find numerous Donut Factory's. Donut Factory's are the exact same stores that used to be Dunkin' Donuts, they sell the same products, and even have the same color scheme as Dunkin' Donuts does, but they don't have the international backing of the company. When I asked one of my professors why Dunkin' Donuts doesn't try to shut these stores down, she said A. Because these stores aren't taking any business away from the corporation itself and B. Dunkin' Donuts has bigger worries than a couple of small shops located in Amman.

On top of maintaining corporate standards, McDonalds is halal here. Halal is the term for food, drinks, or actions permitted by Islamic law. For food to be halal, it must be slaughtered and prepared in a specific way. The entire point of halal meat is that the animal that dies for consumption should die in a humane way in accordance with God's will.

Prepared with my knowledge about the workings of McDonalds, I decided it was time to go test out McDonalds. One day after class I went with my friends, but I decided to start slow and just get a McFlurry. The McFlurry was different than ones that I've had in America, the candy pieces weren't mixed in with the ice cream, and the ice cream itself tasted slightly different. The week after I decided that I had to go back for the full experience. A simple McFlurry wasn't enough to curb my appetite for fast food. I went there with some friends to work on a group project and ordered a whole meal. In order to save face, I decided to order something not on menus in America. I got a Chicken Big Mac sandwich. This sandwich was missing the special sauce, which was replaced with mayonnaise, which I also received as an optional condiment to dip my French fries into. Satisfied that I had received the optimum McDonalds experience I left the restaurant with a full stomach that reminded me of my childhood diet.

Food isn't the only thing that reminds me of home here. When I came to Amman, I was expecting to put down my trombone for a semester. A chance meeting with the University band and a tattered trombone later I found myself as a part of a rag tag group of about five students and an instructor who enjoys jazz music.

I have never done improvisation in my life. I was in my high school's jazz band which usually struggled to toot out anything with a swing to it, yet alone take the music off the paper and follow that blues rhythm to where it means a thing. When I showed up there was no sheet music and the instructor listed off the key and the chord progressions and looked and me expectantly while they started off the song. It didn't go too well, and while I'm slowly getting the hang of what I'm doing, it's a learning process.

Attempting to learn how to improvise can be difficult work, and in order to destress I found something that was even more unhealthy than McDonald's. Cine Bistro is the joy of a movie theater with an all you can eat buffet. This ingenious creation had me hooked before I even knew what movie I would go see in it.

One night I went to Cine Bistro with a group of my friends from the CIEE and we watched the movie 13 Hours, a movie depicting the actions of hired security personal during the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. When I went to Cine Bistro, I was expecting to just get to sit back and cram my face full of food, but I bit off a bit more than I was ready to chew with our choice of film.

13 Hours, because it takes place in Benghazi, has some moments that remind me of my time here in Jordan. By that I mean that Libya and Jordan are very different countries, but the ability of Americans to be baffled by local culture, as portrayed in the movie, seems to be a universal trend. The little quirks of the movie, the similarity of architecture, and the shared language, were a constant reminder of where I was in the world, and who the people surrounding me watching the movie were.

This reminder was hard to swallow because the movie blatantly showed how little is understood about Libya and the rest of the Middle East. This is even more shocking with the realization of how much about America is understood by people there. A classic example of this is the TV show Homeland. For an episode Homeland was airing in their fifth season, they hired some Arabic graffiti artists to do some pieces on their set for the shoot. These artists decided to write phrases like "Homeland is racist" in Arabic and not tell the producer about it. Nobody on the set spoke Arabic, so these phrases challenging the show were aired as part of the series.*

The fact of the matter is, if the tables had been turned and an American artist would have been hired to do graffiti for a Jordanian TV show, a Jordanian producer would have been able to identify what the artist wrote in English. The reason that the artists were right about their claims that Homeland is racist is because it's obvious that no effort was put into truly understanding the people they were portraying.

One day at band practice the band was working on a traditional Arabic song we're planning on performing. For the song the instructor was on the piano, a student was singing, my friend Aaron was playing violin, and two PSUT students were playing bass and guitar respectively. At one point and time the instructor paused and laughed. He pointed out the fact that all the instruments they were using were western instruments and how ironic it was that they were using them to perform a traditional Arabic song. Throughout my experiences with McDonalds, movies, and music, it has struck me much American culture has influenced life here, but what the instructor of the band showed is how people have used the aspects of my culture they encountered for their own benefit. The remaining question is what has happened in reverse? What part of my culture comes from life over here?




* http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/oct/15/homeland-is-racist-artists-subversive-graffiti-tv-show

Lucky and Levantine

By some great irony, as one of the few people in the CIEE who would not have minded having a vacation from four legged bark bags, I was placed with a host family who has a dog. Lucky is some sort of mix between a Pomeranian and another tiny yapper. However misleading his name might be on most days I do not feel lucky to be around him.

Lucky follows me around under the misguided assumption that I am his best friend in the world. Admittedly, I don't do much to debunk his fantasy because for some reason after he sits at my feet for more than ten seconds I find myself running my fingers through his thick fur. Between his expectant gazes and his uncontainable excitement any time somebody enters the door, I would describe my feelings towards him as toleration.

This morning, Lucky decided to put our relationship through the ultimate test. When the maid came to the back door I unlocked it and let her in. As I was saying good morning to her, Lucky saw a golden opportunity and bolted through the door before I had a chance to react. Seeing as I was the one who let him out, I figured I should go hunt the fluffball down, so I walked out of the house in my slippers thinking he wouldn't make it outside the gate. As it turns out the gate is the perfect size for him to slip through, and next thing I knew I was strolling down the street in slippers behind what I imagined to be the happiest dog in the world.

Lucky enjoyed playing the game of marking his territory on the neighbors stone fences just long enough to let me catch up, but not pick him up. After we passed about a dozen houses, he finally got distracted by an interesting smell in a patch of grass. I promptly scooped him up and walked back home. It had rained during the night, so his little paws were muddy and left some marks on my shirt. Needless to say I attracted some side glances as I trekked back to the house with a dog in my arms.

After changing my shirt and washing my hands I went in to get breakfast where my host Mom asked me why I had gone after Lucky. I assumed that as the person who let Lucky out I should go pick him up before he wrecked havoc in the neighborhood or got hit by a car. I had only ever seen Lucky go on structured walks where he was contained by a leash, so it wasn't until later that I understood my host family's confusion. When I got home today, my host mom was doing laundry, and as she opened the door to go pick up a load that had dried Lucky pulled the same stunt on her that he had on me. After yelling come in Arabic and expressing mild disappointment, my host mom closed the door and let Lucky have a little adventure before he trotted back to the house half an hour later.

This isn't the only way that my notion of how dogs should be treated is challenged here. Lucky usually garners a lot of attention when we take him out. This can come in the form of boys playing a game of bravery to see who will get closest to him, a man mock barking at Lucky as you walk him down the street, or simple sideways glances. During a get together with students here I asked them if many people had dogs here. They explained that dogs are generally thought to be unclean, so when people have dogs it's usually as an outdoor guard dog.

Lucky, like most dogs, recognizes the word outside, but he recognizes it in Arabic. When I got here, it was a point of shame that the dog understood more Arabic than I did. This was pretty good motivation, and I'm proud to say I now know the word for "come" and "outside" in Arabic, so I believe that I have surpassed Lucky's level of competency.

Part of the reason I also feel comfortable saying that I understand as much Arabic as the dog is because I am not just studying the Levantine dialect, but also Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). That all sounds like gobbledy gook when you've never learned about Arabic before, but what it boils down to is this: In Arabic there is the form of Arabic that you read and write (MSA) that is taught universally in schools. In everyday life people don't speak MSA. Every region has their own dialect, and what I'm studying can be classified as the Levantine dialect. Even within the Levantine dialect there are more specific accents and words, so for example people consider Lebanese and Jordanian dialects to be Levantine, but they use different words and speech patterns. While I'm studying here, I take two classes for MSA and one class for spoken Arabic. Sometimes there are crossovers in words and structures for MSA and spoken Arabic, just like there are crossovers between Yiddish and German. Just like Yiddish and German, MSA and spoken Arabic are by no means identical.

Like most of my experiences in Jordan, learning Arabic is a hard task that seems well worth it when put into practice. Since being here my Arabic has improved at a painstakingly slow pace. My friends and I often talk about how consuming studying Arabic can be. Between reading a different character system, trying to differentiate between MSA and spoken Arabic, grammar, and vocab, everything can feel overwhelming, but Arabic is definitely worth the effort put into it. As my host dad explained to me early on, Arabic is a language of poetry. It's full of symbols and meanings unique to itself. Admittedly, I'm not close to understanding any of them, but being able to hold short conversations with taxi drivers is keeping me motivated for now.

Kisses and Kempt

Left is a good direction. Not only does it help me navigate the streets of Amman, it's also an important direction to keep in mind if you don't want to become accidentally lip locked with a Jordanian. Here in Jordan it's not uncommon for friends to kiss each other on the cheek when they meet each other, and when they do the common practice is to go left then right, so if you want to avoid a surprise smooch, it's best to remember to always start left.

Unlike the French, Jordanians don't throw around kisses like candy at a parade, but they do appreciate the friendly acknowledgement through the greeting of some pecks on the cheek. There are some special rules surrounding this greeting though. People of opposite gender don't really exchanged kisses, unless they're family. I'm familiar with the dreaded moment when my Grandma would pucker up and look at me expectantly, but what I wasn't as familiar with is how kisses could also be used as a sign of respect. Whenever children see their grandparents after a long time, it's not entirely uncommon to kiss their hands as a sign of respect. I even started to notice that when my taxi drivers would say Alhamdulillah that they'd kiss their hands. When I asked my Arabic professor about it she said it's because they were imagining they were kissing the hands of God.

My parents would argue that how neat my room is here is because of the hand of God. At school, I don't have a reputation for being a messy person, but when nobody is paying attention I generally enjoying leaving my clothes strewn about the floor and leaving the sheets on my bed a crumpled mess. My parents have a knack for being around when I claim that nobody else is paying attention, and if you listened to them long enough they'd probably argue that I am incapable of picking up my clothes and making my bed every day for three months, but so far in this program I have proven that I indeed can stay tidy.

Being kempt in Jordan is about more than just keeping a clean room. It's also about physical appearance. Every morning here I've combed my hair, something that is unheard of for me in America. Usually in the morning I run my fingers through my hair and call it a day, but being here it seems as if having a bit more order to your do goes a long way. I also usually stop a do a check to make sure there's no stains on my shirt and that my pants aren't wrinkled. I can't say it's my favorite activity to put so much effort into appearance, but I can say that the feeling of putting effort in to adjust to cultural differences, whether it's kisses on the cheek or appearance, is well worth it.