ABC as easy as 123

The Arabic  version of Sesame Street is teaching us to sing the ABCs

And here's the 123s

A Counter Intuitive Answer

Who thinks sweatshops are a good thing?

The New York Times' columnist Nicholas Kristof.

In his op-ed article yesterday, Kristof argued sweatshop labor is a relative blessing for people in the world's poorest countries. There are many jobs that are more dangerous and hazardous that pay less. Then, of course, there's the jobs in the unemployment pool which pays $0. Sweatshops suck, but we all have to eat.

Why do people campaign against sweatshops? Because to the West, these working conditions are inhumane. What we sometimes forget is that the living conditions in the poorest countries can be even more inhumane. Maybe this is just a crazy thought, but it's an idea to consider, maybe sweatshops are as bad as we think they are, but that can actually be a good thing for certain people in relative terms.

Picking Up Chicks Part III

Let's get deeper into this well regulated market.

First, you can't say "that's what she said" to the previous statement. They simply don't have that type of joke here.

Hooking up is out of the question. But, so is what Americans would call traditional dating. There are no dinner or movie dates, and there's never time to spend alone with someone outside of Egypt's watchful eyes. If you're sneaky, you can sneak in some long walks along the Corniche (right next to the beach), but don't even think about kissing her. Culturally, PDA is --حرام -- literally, forbidden. People love to hold hands and they get pretty touchy down by the beach, but you will never see a kiss in public.

One of my Egyptian professors calls her own culture a "culture of glue." It's a reference to the marriage-centric thinking of Egyptians. When I meet new people, the typical order of questions is "Where are you from?" "What's your name?" "Are you married?" "Well, are you engaged Everyone gets married as soon as possible, and Egyptian guys consider all Egyptian girls mozas (babes). I've been asked, in complete seriousness, if the three girls I was traveling with were my wives. Of course, I said yes and the Egyptians gave me a lot of props.

I'm not going to contradict Harry's advice to Sally on their ride to New York, but Egypt really takes it to the extreme in considering any acquaintanceship between a guy and a girl paramount to eternal love.

A couple 16 year-old boys told me that in Egypt, no one is looking to date, everyone just wants to get married. So be careful when you ask a girl for her number, that's the fast track to marriage or a dearly broken heart.

And, that's the dating scene in Egypt.

Picking Up Chicks Part II

Here's a video on one man's experience with women in Egypt. 

Picking Up Chicks

The fundamentals of the game are the same wherever you go, but the Egyptian game has some striking peculiarities. You might say the difference derives from the contrast of America's free market to the well regulated markets of Egypt.

In the next couple posts, I am going to explore this idea. I didn't post enough stuff to keep people interested in December, so I'm going be like the media and take a sensationalist bias to start up the new year.

What's the relationship between guys and girls in Egypt?

There is no such thing as "just friends" in Egypt. If a guy and girl hang out by themselves, they must be dating. But since dating doesn't exist, the only reasonable conclusion that you can make is that they are on track to get married. 

Guys and girls don't hang out in groups together. There are exceptions to this rule, but this is true 90% of the time. Guys hang with guys and girls hang with girls. Geographically speaking, college kids are doomed. The guys dorms are a couple kilometers away from the girls dorms. But, that's not too important because you would never be able to sneak past the armed guards who stand in front of the only entrance to the fort-like dorms. I'm not talking about sneaking into the dorm after lights out (there's no lights out, but I say that in a figurative way), I'm saying you can't go in the opposite sex's dorm at any time of the day. Furthermore, the girls have a 9:30 curfew everyday of the week, so there's no possibility for social life during the night. 

Why guys and girls still don't try to circumvent these external obstacles? I don't know. You can put it up to the culture, it's just considered completely weird for guys and girls to hang out. Last Thanksgiving, for instance, all the students in the Middlebury abroad program along with our Egyptian hall mates ate dinner in the apartment of our professor's apartment. The Egyptian guys hung out with everyone, and each of them made small talk and treated the girls kindly. On the other hand, the Egyptian girls hung out in a separate room, and they didn't talk with us at all with the exception of one girl who made small talk with a couple guys. I asked one of the guys what his opinion is on hanging out with girls after going out on night, and he told me that he finds it really weird because he just doesn't know what to say to a girl.

Christmas x 2

It turns out they had Christmas in Egypt, it was just a little late -- January 7. That's when the Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas. I went to a Coptic service on Coptic Christmas Eve. I've had never seen a service before, but I knew they were into chanting. After 10 minutes of straight chanting that I couldn't understand, I understood that they are really into chanting, so I bounced. It was interesting to see women in Alexandria without Hijabs (because they weren't Muslims), but other than that, I couldn't get any value out of the service. 

The next day, we had Christmas dinner with the owner of a restaurant along the Corniche whom we befriended in September. She is Coptic and her restaurant was completely decorated with Christmas decorations. The restaurant is actually called Restaurant (مطعم). She served us an awesome mixed drink with mint and lemonade (no kicker though), salad, rice, and turkey and even an after dinner tea all on the house (and this isn't the first time she's done this). We met her uncle, cousin, good friends, and chef throughout the night. So here's a post to the hospitality of Egyptians (احسن ناس).

Bartering

It's 2009, and we're back in action. I just arrived in Cairo International Airport (CAI)  two days ago, and I was warmly welcomed by the typical "Welcome to Egypt..."

"... Would you like a taxi?" 

You have to be careful when catching a taxi at places like train stops or airports because the taxi fare varies greatly depending on who's taxi you enter. At CAI, there are three rounds of taxi cab drivers. The first are the "official" guys, their target is foreigners who didn't plan for limos or tour buses beforehand. These guys work in a kiosk, speak fluent English, and they even have a clipboard full of "official" prices to different destinations within Cairo. His taxi is the most expensive because he seems legitimate, and truth be told, he is a little more legitimate that the others because at least he knows how to work the system. The second line of defenses comes right after I exit the airport. These prices are generally too high, but I just wanted to get to my destination, so we agreed on a price and he took me to the car, but then asked me to wait. He told his buddy to watch me while he looked for another customer. I told him I wasn't going to wait, so I went to the third line of taxis: the guys that just wait in their cars and don't try to play games to entice you into their taxis. These drivers wanted to agree on a price up front, so we agreed on a fair price. 

Here's where we get into the bartering. After I put all my stuff in the taxi, the cabbie told me that I had to pay 5 more pounds (equivalent $1) for the parking ticket. 

I call this request the "Just a Dollar Game." It's a game between Egyptians and foreigners, and it always begins once a sale is made. If you can score an extra dollar for every transaction that you make you are going to be considerably more successful, especially since this is always a bottom line profit. So, this is an important economic game. Usually this game is played in a souk (Arabic marketplace), where you might be bartering over a sweatshirt, soccer jersey, or scarves. There's an initial bartering process that usually begins with two vastly different prices between the customer and merchant. After a couple rounds of converging prices, the merchant will try to close the deal. If he can't simply get the foreigner to pay for his overpriced good/service, then he'll concede to the foreigner's offer. To him, the sale has been made, but instead of just giving up he offers one dollar more than the foreigner's offer. The idea is that the foreigner (untrained in the art of bartering) is happy that they are so close to an agreement that the foreigner might as well just pay the extra one dollar to finalize the transaction. But, if the foreigner is smart, he will know that like him a dollar is just a dollar to the merchant. The merchant would far rather make the transaction than lose a sale because he was stubborn over a dollar. So that's where the "Just a Dollar Game" starts.

"We already agreed on 60 (a really generous price in the first place), so I'm not going to pay an extra dollar" (My lines translated from Arabic)

"You speak Arabic good. Don't worry, one dollar is no big deal"

"Great, then we don't have a problem. The price is 60"

"60 plus 5 is 65"

"55 plus 5 is 60"

"The price of the taxi is 60 plus 5 for the ticket"

"I play basketball and soccer. I don't play the dollar game"

"Ok, no problem..." goes on to talk about how his son teaches Arabic and tells me about his service in the military. You have to have two faces here, the bartering face and the human face; once you get the bartering out of the way, you can just be yourself and meet someone new.