I've been waiting to write about cultural differences we've run into here until I have something insightful to say...but that something doesn't seem forthcoming, so I am going to forge ahead anyway!
Living in the Middle East has been eye-opening, but not in the way I expected. I had hoped that coming here would help me better understand the culture, geography, and religion of this region, which would, in turn, help me better understand the tensions at play between the East and the West writ large. I thought, naively I am realizing now, that just being here would help me see the Gulf states more clearly, give me a deeper appreciation for Islam, and allow my children the chance to experience a blend of cultures even more diverse than my own experiences in Hawaii.
The reality of life here is quite different, and it's hard to put into words why this is. Yes, my children go to school with children from the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Holland, and all over Asia and the Middle East, along with kids from other states including New York, California, and Texas. One of J's teachers is from New Zealand, the other from Canada, while E's teachers are from Germany and Lebanon. J is taking French with a teacher from France whose English is only slightly better than his French. E is learning Arabic, and he comes home reciting lines from the Koran and wishing us salaam alaikhum. (He's actually adorable when he does all this, by the way. He LOVES Arabic and is constantly pointing out the Arabic writing all around us and knows how to write almost as many Arabic letters as he does English letters!) So in some ways, they are getting the kind of cultural education we had hoped for them. However, the school struggles with knowing how to integrate the first language Arabic children with the first language English children once they get out of the first year (Eli's), so there are strange divisions within the classes. J's class has only two boys whose first language is Arabic, and they are constantly at odds with the rest of the class and are often in trouble for misbehavior. When we arrived, the school automatically put J and E in French, because why would they want to learn Arabic, for heaven's sake? E had an issue with the French teacher and was switched over to Arabic by default but has thrived there. And now, finally, next year they will be offering both Arabic as a first language combined with Islamic studies (mandatory for Arabic speakers here) and Arabic as a second language for kids like E who just want to learn the language of the country in which they live! So a melting pot the school is not!
Outside of school, I have been amazed at how few opportunities we have had to interact with Qataris, despite the fact that we live in their country. Granted, there are only 300,000 Qataris total in the entire country, but even if they were more numerous relative to the rest of the expat residents here, I bet we would still not have met very many. And "meeting" is a relative term: we do have a Qatari family who lives across the street from us (oddly, since many live in stand-alone villas rather than compounds like ours), and they have two boys who are each a year older than ours, but though our boys play together often and they and their older sister have been over to make s'mores in our backyard and we all play together in the pool, I have never spoken to their father, though he does nod hello on occasion, and I have seen their mother only once in all the time we have lived here. I only just found out a few weeks ago that they have an older sister whom I have also never seen. I interact quite often with their two nannies and their driver and various other helpers, at least three of whom also live in the house (which means there are at least 10 people in a house the same size as ours). So even though we live very close, we seem very far away from each other. Indeed, the divide between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds here is very deep, even though quite a few of those Muslims are quite Westernized in many ways and Qatar as a society is relatively progressive, particularly in comparison to our only neighbor, Saudi Arabia, where expats and natives alike are expected to adhere to very conservative standards of dress and behavior.
However, right now, in the run-up to Ramadan, a local modesty campaign has begun called Reflect your Respect. As you can read here and here, in some ways the reactions of expats and natives are so much at odds with each other's way of thinking it's hard to imagine understanding ever being reached. Personally, I think the country has the right to dictate how any of us who live here should be dressing (but I already belong to a religion that dictates that my shoulders and knees should be covered, which I realize is certainly not the norm in the West), and I think this campaign, which basically consists of women and children handing out leaflets to people who are dressed inappropriately, is a fairly non-confrontational tactic. No one is being arrested; no one is being fined. And Ramadan IS the most holy time here, when these standards are the most important to the locals. So a little education won't hurt. I do understand the conflict, particularly as temperatures continue to rise (115 degrees today!) and long black abayas and robes seems more and more anathema to someone raised in a different culture. But I believe respect is still respect.
Of course our attitudes about strangers are quite different. I'm American and Mormon: I like to smile at strangers, exchange pleasantries, engage in conversation with them if they seem open to it, but I never get past smiling here. Very few people smile back, let alone engage in conversation of any kind. And I'm not even smiling at men, who often wouldn't be able to talk to me anyway, given the restrictions about interactions between the sexes. But women won't smile back either, or they will but then duck away so quickly or bury themselves in their phones so decidedly that that is the end of that. (Or they are wearing a veil and I can't tell whether they are smiling or not!) When I pick up E from school, it's hilarious to watch. There is another mom from Holland and one from Houston and the three of us chat happily together. There are several Arabic moms who are there at times (more often their nannies are there instead), who will exchange a few words with our friend from Holland who also happens to be Muslim though she doesn't really speak Arabic, but they will never even acknowledge the rest of us. It's such a shame that the few opportunities we have to interact with our hosts still don't yield any meaningful relationships, let alone insights into one another's cultures.
So we are all operating on stereotypes: one group thinks the other is rich, entitled, and reckless on the road. The other group thinks the first is loud, disrespectful, and probably apostate. These ideas don't make for a lot of positive cultural interactions! I mean, I get the frustrations we (expats) all feel, I totally do. But I have to think about how our society would be acting if we had moved from being nomadic tribes to becoming an incredibly affluent oil-rich nation in the space of basically one generation. I'm pretty sure we would be making all the same kinds of mistakes that are getting made here: shortsightedness, lack of environmental awareness, systemic discrimination, wasteful spending, etc., etc., etc. So we look for understanding and respect, and we don't have many opportunities to find it, unfortunately. I'm hoping we have more chances as time goes on!
Living in the Middle East has been eye-opening, but not in the way I expected. I had hoped that coming here would help me better understand the culture, geography, and religion of this region, which would, in turn, help me better understand the tensions at play between the East and the West writ large. I thought, naively I am realizing now, that just being here would help me see the Gulf states more clearly, give me a deeper appreciation for Islam, and allow my children the chance to experience a blend of cultures even more diverse than my own experiences in Hawaii.
The reality of life here is quite different, and it's hard to put into words why this is. Yes, my children go to school with children from the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Holland, and all over Asia and the Middle East, along with kids from other states including New York, California, and Texas. One of J's teachers is from New Zealand, the other from Canada, while E's teachers are from Germany and Lebanon. J is taking French with a teacher from France whose English is only slightly better than his French. E is learning Arabic, and he comes home reciting lines from the Koran and wishing us salaam alaikhum. (He's actually adorable when he does all this, by the way. He LOVES Arabic and is constantly pointing out the Arabic writing all around us and knows how to write almost as many Arabic letters as he does English letters!) So in some ways, they are getting the kind of cultural education we had hoped for them. However, the school struggles with knowing how to integrate the first language Arabic children with the first language English children once they get out of the first year (Eli's), so there are strange divisions within the classes. J's class has only two boys whose first language is Arabic, and they are constantly at odds with the rest of the class and are often in trouble for misbehavior. When we arrived, the school automatically put J and E in French, because why would they want to learn Arabic, for heaven's sake? E had an issue with the French teacher and was switched over to Arabic by default but has thrived there. And now, finally, next year they will be offering both Arabic as a first language combined with Islamic studies (mandatory for Arabic speakers here) and Arabic as a second language for kids like E who just want to learn the language of the country in which they live! So a melting pot the school is not!
Outside of school, I have been amazed at how few opportunities we have had to interact with Qataris, despite the fact that we live in their country. Granted, there are only 300,000 Qataris total in the entire country, but even if they were more numerous relative to the rest of the expat residents here, I bet we would still not have met very many. And "meeting" is a relative term: we do have a Qatari family who lives across the street from us (oddly, since many live in stand-alone villas rather than compounds like ours), and they have two boys who are each a year older than ours, but though our boys play together often and they and their older sister have been over to make s'mores in our backyard and we all play together in the pool, I have never spoken to their father, though he does nod hello on occasion, and I have seen their mother only once in all the time we have lived here. I only just found out a few weeks ago that they have an older sister whom I have also never seen. I interact quite often with their two nannies and their driver and various other helpers, at least three of whom also live in the house (which means there are at least 10 people in a house the same size as ours). So even though we live very close, we seem very far away from each other. Indeed, the divide between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds here is very deep, even though quite a few of those Muslims are quite Westernized in many ways and Qatar as a society is relatively progressive, particularly in comparison to our only neighbor, Saudi Arabia, where expats and natives alike are expected to adhere to very conservative standards of dress and behavior.
However, right now, in the run-up to Ramadan, a local modesty campaign has begun called Reflect your Respect. As you can read here and here, in some ways the reactions of expats and natives are so much at odds with each other's way of thinking it's hard to imagine understanding ever being reached. Personally, I think the country has the right to dictate how any of us who live here should be dressing (but I already belong to a religion that dictates that my shoulders and knees should be covered, which I realize is certainly not the norm in the West), and I think this campaign, which basically consists of women and children handing out leaflets to people who are dressed inappropriately, is a fairly non-confrontational tactic. No one is being arrested; no one is being fined. And Ramadan IS the most holy time here, when these standards are the most important to the locals. So a little education won't hurt. I do understand the conflict, particularly as temperatures continue to rise (115 degrees today!) and long black abayas and robes seems more and more anathema to someone raised in a different culture. But I believe respect is still respect.
Of course our attitudes about strangers are quite different. I'm American and Mormon: I like to smile at strangers, exchange pleasantries, engage in conversation with them if they seem open to it, but I never get past smiling here. Very few people smile back, let alone engage in conversation of any kind. And I'm not even smiling at men, who often wouldn't be able to talk to me anyway, given the restrictions about interactions between the sexes. But women won't smile back either, or they will but then duck away so quickly or bury themselves in their phones so decidedly that that is the end of that. (Or they are wearing a veil and I can't tell whether they are smiling or not!) When I pick up E from school, it's hilarious to watch. There is another mom from Holland and one from Houston and the three of us chat happily together. There are several Arabic moms who are there at times (more often their nannies are there instead), who will exchange a few words with our friend from Holland who also happens to be Muslim though she doesn't really speak Arabic, but they will never even acknowledge the rest of us. It's such a shame that the few opportunities we have to interact with our hosts still don't yield any meaningful relationships, let alone insights into one another's cultures.
So we are all operating on stereotypes: one group thinks the other is rich, entitled, and reckless on the road. The other group thinks the first is loud, disrespectful, and probably apostate. These ideas don't make for a lot of positive cultural interactions! I mean, I get the frustrations we (expats) all feel, I totally do. But I have to think about how our society would be acting if we had moved from being nomadic tribes to becoming an incredibly affluent oil-rich nation in the space of basically one generation. I'm pretty sure we would be making all the same kinds of mistakes that are getting made here: shortsightedness, lack of environmental awareness, systemic discrimination, wasteful spending, etc., etc., etc. So we look for understanding and respect, and we don't have many opportunities to find it, unfortunately. I'm hoping we have more chances as time goes on!
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