Middle Eastern Culture and Cats

Arab Culture is a cat-loving culture. This is something I noticed in Turkey, but it's true for the Kingdom as well. 

They freaking love cats.

The stray cats in Turkey get pet by passerby’s. I routinely saw them get fed by shop owners and restaurant workers.

The Prophet Muhammad was said to have loved cats so much that he cut his cloak rather than disturb a cat that was sleeping next to him.

This is a contrast to Western culture which is a cat hating culture. Now, calm down, I know you love cats, and maybe your friends do, too. But that doesn't change the fact that our culture, as a whole, has it out for our feline friends.

Think of all the superstitions associated with cats. Don't let a black cat cross your path. A cat can steal a baby's breath. Cats are associated with witchcraft and the devil. In a movie, when a cat dies, it's meant to be humorous (though I never thought so), while a dog dying is tragic in the extreme.

Though the instinct is buried deep, it's still there, trust me.

In the Middle East, dog saliva is supposed to be unclean. If a dog licks your clothes, then you can't pray in those clothes. You either have to wash them or change before you pray. Dogs are not pets you keep in the house, nor are they kept by very many people. They are mostly kept as a display of toughness, as in, 'look how tough I am, I have a dog.'

The gesture that Westerners do without thinking about it – crooking your finger at someone to get them to come closer – is considered insulting here to the highest degree, because that's how you call a dog.

Gender Dynamics

As I've already stated, gender dynamics here are difficult to pin down. Sometimes I'm sure I understand how things work, and then something happens to change my mind completely.

I made a previous post on this subject that I don't think is entirely accurate anymore. I thought the women-seclusion thing was more protective than anything, but I can't really say that anymore. At least, not in the case of foreign women.

We've recently had an incident with a taxi driver that has thrown some things in sharp relief.

We have this society where women and men are supposed to be separate (but not equal, mind you), but we also have a society where women are constantly being forced to interact with men who they don't know. 

Women aren't allowed to drive, so they need a driver. That driver is not going to be someone related to them, it's going to be someone whose job it is to drive them. In other words, a man who is not related to them. 

Shop owners are mostly men. This means that when a woman wants to purchase something – including things like lingerie – they have to buy it from men. Men they don't know. 

In the West, this is not a problem. Though I do feel a little bit uncomfortable bringing a bra to a cash register with a man behind it, there is almost always a female alternative. And I don't care who my taxi driver is, as long as they get me where I want to go.

But in a culture where women are not allowed to talk to men – not allowed to be alone in the car with men - this is a serious problem.

This Pseudo Segregation is not doing anyone any favors. These men come to the Kingdom for work, leaving their families (including their wives) behind and then they interact with women who their culture has told them are loose (i.e.: Western women). Things are bound to happen.

As for us, our standards of interaction with men are different than here (obvi) and we don't know where the boundaries are. When a taxi driver starts talking to us, we talk back because it's the polite thing to do. We have trouble just treating them like a servant. This gives the signal to the driver, who is from any number of countries in the region who have similar standards for male-female interaction, the entirely wrong signal.

Where we see politeness, they see flirting and harlotry.

I'm not saying it's ok, I'm saying that's how it is.

So this is the situation we are left with. Forced to interact everyday with men who think the lowest of us for reasons we have a hard time understanding.

The company we work for, who, according to the government is our male guardian and who should be looking after us in this respect, is doing nothing to assure our safety. We have one doorman (who I could probably take) who watches over a set of glass doors in the front of the building. We should have at least three people down there at all times.

This situation, and the situation with not getting paid properly which I will not go into now, has all of us really considering whether or not it's worth it to stay here. 

We shouldn't have to compromise our emotional health and physical safety just to exist here. Something's got to give soon, or there is going to be some serious problems.

English Grammar

Sometimes I think that I'm not really fit to be an English teacher. I mean, I studied some linguistics in college, and I am a native speaker, but I've never had an English grammar lesson in my life. Not even in grade school was I forced to tell the difference between the present continuous and the present perfect continuous.

Often, when the students ask me a question about a specific incidence of grammar, my mind goes blank. I know one is right and the other is wrong, but I can't for the life of me tell you why.

My motto being 'fake it till you make it', I always find some way to get through. And it isn't like I don't know the answer. Somewhere deep inside me is a treasure trove of grammatical rules that will eventually bubble to the surface in a time of need. But it always takes a while.

An example I will give you is my most recent lesson, which was a combined lesson between me and my co-teacher.

It was the day before the exam and we had been hinting heavily to the students that if they didn't show to class, then we would totally understand. Unfortunately, three students in each class showed up genuinely wanting revision. To a teacher, there is only one thing to do at this point – you want to blow off class by giving them a BS assignment and telling them to do it elsewhere, but these kinds actually want to learn. So we had to actually teach them.

My co-teacher and I combined forces and started to do some grammar revision. My co-teacher, Carol, is very good at grammar because she is taking the DELTA (think of it as a MA for ESL teachers). I sat by the first half of the class as she fielded these questions like a pro. The answers to which, I had no idea.

When it came to my turn, the first question I got was about this sentence: “When I woke up this morning, the sun was shining.”

“Why do we use past continuous in this sentence, teacher, instead of present continuous.”

Present continuous, would be 'the sun is shining', in case you, like me, would not know the answer off the top of your head.

I surprised myself, though, by going into this whole spiel about the intricacies of the two grammatical structures. Complete with diagrams.

One of the on-going headaches I've had is trying to explain when you do and don't use the present continuous instead of just regular present simple. Sometimes you can say “I live in the Kingdom” and sometimes you can say “I'm living in the Kingdom”.

The girls, understandably, can't see the difference. I'm sure you, as mostly native English speakers, can tell me the difference between the meanings of the two if you think about it. The second implies a temporary situation, whereas the first is talking about a permanent situation. BUT! You can also say “I live in the Kingdom, now” which could also imply a temporary situation. Or at least one that has changed recently.

Also, you can't use this subject + to be + verb-ing structure when you are using certain verbs. You can't say “I am thinking you are mad at me” or “I am knowing how to say this”. But can you tell me why?

Verbs that are stative (that describe a state of mind or being) cannot be used with present continuous.

Try telling that to girls who have grown up hearing “I'm loving it!” every five seconds on the TV. This is grammatically incorrect, by the way. 'Love' is a stative verb.

Inevitably I get the question: why, if it's incorrect, do so many native speakers say things like “I'm loving this weather!” or “I'm enjoying your company”?

I tell them what my Latin teacher told me when I asked him why Latin poets don't feel the need to use any type of grammar at all:

Language is born from speed and laziness. People will say what is easiest, and what is quickest, and other people will hear them and say it too. Language isn't something that you create one day and put in a museum for everyone to admire. It's a living, breathing thing that changes the more you use it. Think of it, I told them, as you would think of a pair of leather shoes. The more you wear them, the more they change to the shape of your foot and the way you walk. In the end, they aren't the same shoes they were when you started wearing them, but they fit you better now.

It's not a coincidence that the most common verbs are also the most irregular.

I always view this as a good thing. If a language can't evolve, then it dies, just like anything. That's what makes it so hard to pin down. If it were just about memorizing rules, then learning a language would be easy.

I still have a long way to go but I think this is a great learning experience. Teaching adults helps you iron out these things for yourself.

NaNoWriMo

For those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month – also known as NaNoWriMo.

Basically, the rules are as follows:

You must write a novel, 50,000 words or more, in the space of a month. That's about it. Some people prepare ahead of time, and some people don't.

This will be the first year I will be participating and I am very excited. For those of you who don't know of my literary aspirations, I am aiming to be an author, and the only way to do that is to write, write, write!

Every day I was on vacation, I have sat in the rooftop cafe of my hostel and written (or done something connected with writing) until about two in the afternoon. Though sometimes I feel this is a waste of time, sometimes I have very encouraging results. For example, two literary agents have now asked to see my writing. This could mean me getting published, or this could mean nothing. InshAllah, it will be the former.

So, NaNoWriMo is the next step. For the next month, you can expect there will be some pretty strange updates and half-articulated excuses. The updates in the month ahead may not be about the Kingdom at all.

This is what I consider fair warning.