Tuesday, May 30, 2006

115 Relationship Titles

"As if it came from an atavism deeper that fear, I used to add "brother" silently to boys' names. It hexed the boys, who would or would not ask me to dance, and made them less scary and as familiar and deserving of benevolence as girls.

But, of course, I hexed myself also- no dates. I should have stood up, both arms waving, and shouted out across libraries, " hey, you! Love me back." I had no idea, though, how to make attraction selective, how to control its direction and magnitude. If I made myself American-pretty so that the five or six Chinese boys in the class fell in love with me, everyone else- the Caucasian, Negro, and Japanese boys - would too. Sisterliness, dignified and honorable, made much more sense. "

Maxine Hong Kingston- The Woman Warrior

Monday, May 29, 2006

Hanan's Rules to survive the corporate world

I can’t believe it has been almost a year since I started work.
Last August, I was this overly excited young girl ready to take the corporate world by storm. This August I am this girl who drives like crazy down the highway trying to make it at work before the maddening 7:16.
What happened between those two Augusts?Well Hanan was hit hard on her face by reality of this big bad world!

So to all those eager fresh Emirati graduates here are the 10 rules I think everyone has to know about the corporate world in the UAE.

  1. Forget all you have learnt at uni/college/school. It only makes different in how much you get paid but otherwise has to real value whatsoever. You could be an Ivy League graduate but in this world it means nothing!
  2. Your colleagues are old boring people. Forget all you have seen on Ally McBeal or how to get a guy in 10 days or 13 going on 30 or any other Hollywood movie where the people you work with look like magazine centerfolds and dress up in Marc Jacobs.
  3. Your number one enemy is your Emirati boss. All he cares about is his title, his position, his promotion, his you get the picture! You are nothing but a new threat who wants to take over his position.
  4. You wont have work everyday. OR: you may never get any real work ever! But don’t blame yourself. And don’t go and ask for work either. Your boss will get all those thoughts from rule # 3.
  5. If rule #4 does not apply to you and you do get work. Be ready to be the secretary, the chai man/woman, the driver, the printer fixer, the interpreter, your English is good please proofread this for me-er, or we just need an Emirati person for this photo shoot person or god forbid we want to showcase ourselves as a nonsexist place where women have equal rights so please attend this meeting with the GM/consultants/guests etc person.
  6. Never gossip with co workers. You never know who the snitch is!
  7. EDIT: Never let your guard down even if the person in front of you is insisting on the whole brother/sister name calling thing. PS: It's just a line!
  8. Have everything in writing! The oldest trick in the book: blame the new person!
  9. One of the things they don’t tell you during your interview. One of the most important skills you have to have in order to be accepted by everyone else in your department: You should be able to list at least 5 different restaurants -that can deliver breakky or brunch- and their phone numbers and their special meals. As the new one around you have to be able to proof to them that you are what you eat!
  10. The last but not the least: make sure you have internet connection and or a cell phone loaded with credit. Believe me you will need it!

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Hay Fidelity?

نقصت 10 كيلو
سويت ريجيم و راحت كرشتي
زوجي كتب البيت باسمي
بسافر و ألف العالم
زوجي كل أسبوع يفاجئني بهدية و يمدحني
و أنا الوحيدة في حياته
(اماراتية تحلم)

Last night I received that text message. It is just so sad! No not the whole diet and weight loss part cause am a firm believer that no lard can stand up against a well balanced diet and a good five times a week work out! But it was all the other points that got me frowning!
Most (let's say 97%) of Emirati girls grow up wanting to get married sooner than god forbid later. Now am not sure if the whole infatuation is with the idea of getting married or the idea of throwing an unforgettable wedding party or just having the burden of being a spinister off their shoulders but that is an other story all together.
What made me reread this message was not the fact that it was not funny in the first place but that I personally know more than handful of married Emirati women who can definitly see themselves in that message.
Is fidelity something so rare nowadays that people joke about it?
At a (feminist) friend's place this issue came up. We discussed whether a person should get into a relationship assuming that a time will come when their partner would cheat. We also wondered which would be better after knowing that your partner cheated/is cheating: staying with him or leaving? Keeping it to yourself or confronting him? Would it be a surprise that after years of marriage he was willing to give you up?

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Eat your heart out

As a kid in a school surrounded by people from an entirely different background from mine, I really had a hard time explaining myself.
I had a particularly difficult time saying the word “sandwich" in Arabic; at that time of course i didn’t know that the word in Arabic is the same as in English. At home I used to say it the way it is meant to be said" sandwich" and I said it in my highly appraised American accent (Whatever!!)

But at school I was confused by the different names my mates were giving it: sunddawittch... sandweesh...sainweeshé .
Usually it was only a couple of clueless girls around me who heard me say my own version of the word. But one unfortunate day in 3 grade, for some incomprehensible reason a teacher decided to ask us what we got for lunch ( I think she wanted to hog the best meal!) So when my turn came I got extremely confused and conscious and the dreadful word that came out of my mouth sounded like shhanndweesh !!!!! My mean teacher roared in laughter and so did the whole class!

Monday, May 08, 2006

Facts about the region


On one of the rare occasions when the higher ups remembered that they hired me I was given a project to create an orientation guide for new employees coming to the UAE for the first time. HR are basically targeting expats from US, UK, Canada etc ( don't even get me started on that!! )
Anyways. In this guide I included points that I think might be useful for people coming to the region such as cost of living, social customs, food, recreation blah blah blah. To help me with this project, I was advised (by an expat) to go through some guidebooks that are specifically designed for travelers to the area. Well as it is no surprise those guides are written by expats for expats. Those guidebooks are ridiculous!!!!
Flipping through this particular guidebook was amusing yet surprising! Some of the information were news flash to me!
For example the attached excerpt! As a twenty something Emirati who lived here all her life I never felt the need to learn Persian of all languages!! Urdu/Hindi yeah we might need that sometimes! But Persian? Seriously? In situations when Arabic or English are not helpful I believe sign languages and hand gestures come to the rescue!
One of the other amusing things I read was " In the UAE the term 'sheikh' applies only to members of the ruling family. The rulers themselves carry the formal title of 'emir' (literally, 'prince'), but are usually referred to as 'sheikhs' "

HUH? Since when? Please someone correct me if I am wrong !!

The above two are examples I got from reading only about 14 pages or so, I wonder what else is there in the rest of the guidebook! And yeah this one is supposed to be the best one out there!

Well one more thing I have to say, no matter how much they read they are definitely in for a surprise!!

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Holy!

I went to KSA last week for 3omra. I will not discuss all the troubles and mishap at the airport cause they are Saudi they are expected to mess things up! But some of the things I saw at both the 7aram ( Holy Mosques) were extremely disturbing.

Side Note: Yes I wrote Mosque and not masjid cause it does not mean mosquitoes house!!To all email forwarders: Please check the accuracy of the information before you send it off to millions of people out there. So FYI: The word comes from French mosquée, from Old French mousquaie, from Old Italian moschea, from moscheta, from Old Spanish mezquita, from Arabic masjid. -- dictionary.com

Ok back to my original subject: the disturbing acts at the mosques.


1) InMeccaa: El 7aram el Makky

  • I was surprised to see that the security allowed people to bring along cameras. Am not talking about cell phones with cameras, no I am talking about cameras of all types (digital/film) and sizes AND camcorders!!! I saw a handful of people posingin frontt of the ka'aba with huge grins on their faces! well Idon'tt know whether this is religiously prohibited or not but it just seems so wrong!


  • Residents of nearby areas spend their weekends in the Haram. They literally spend it there! Like eat, drink, sleep, chat get entertained and everything else!!! There was this family I saw of 12 members or more of all age groups sitting/lying in one of the sections of the mosque. I have to admit that they were rather quiet for such a large party. But all of a sudden this man comes in with huge bags filled with Kudo Meals. (For those of you who don't know what Kudo is: Kudo is afast foodd chain I only saw in KSA andI'mm not exactly sure if it has branches outside the country. They serve stuff that we Emirati people find in cafeterias and mura66abat. In other words its a fancier Ma7arat el Ba7ar lol) . So back to the head of that family got them fast food meals, the whole place ended up smelling like fried chicken, grilled meat and fries ! I wasappalledd!how could they? HelloOoO! This is NOT a picnic spot! There was a time when even during Ramadan people had to sneak in food. They were only allowed to bring in coffee, dates, and bread. Whatever happened to that!!

On the other hand I was glad to see that some of the things Idisapprovedd last time disappeared. For example: During my 5 days stay I only heard 2 cell phones going off during the prayer and the ringtones were not the very distracting customized one ( meaning not songs ) .
Another things was after dark kids did not turn the outside area to a skating alley. During my previous visit two years ago as soon as the weather cooled off hundreds of kids took out their roller blades, skates, scooters and invaded the outside area (saa7a) and turned it into a play ground, which was very disrespectful and annoying. I was so glad to find that the authorities have controlled that, they even had a sign that prohibited it!

2) In Madinah, el 7aram el Madany

There was only this one thing that annoyed the hell out of me and my mom. The security women were searching usevery timee we were entering the mosque. You will tell me that it's a normal and regular procedureyaha Hanan why are you so annoyed? Well cause they were not searching us the normal way! The normal way would be the way they do it in Mekkah, they look at your bags and ask you if you have anything in your pockets in 20 seconds you're on your way. However in Madinah, they were searching us as if we were convicted murderers! They take more than 60 seconds on a person and they feel you up and down!! (Just the memory is making me shudder in disgust) Seriously the airport security was less tight. And when I could not take it I asked the woman what she s exactly looking for, she gave me ascornfull look and said in the most condescending way: that she was looking for cell phones with cameras, cigarettes and knives! KNIVES???? And what was most surprising to me was that this eyebrow raising search was being carried out just at the Ladies entrance!

I am not going to question the reasons for the search. But The way they were carrying it on and the securityladies attitudes has to be investigated!