Pleasant Saudi man (Part3-End)

Oh, my gooood! I met Mohamed and his wife Sarah!! It is only a month since they got married. I have never seen such a happy couple as them in my life. Two years have already passed since I saw Mohamed. When I saw him last, he was still a single man who was determined to marry Sarah and this time he was indeed with Sarah as her husband. They told me that Sarah had to pretend as if it was the first time to see Mohamed when he came to see her family to ask her father for her hand because they were not supposed to know each other. After Mohamed visited her family, Sarah meant to take 3 weeks before she accepted his marriage proposal. Of course, she wanted to say "YES" right at that spot when Mohamed was there but she followed Saudi way! Her father still doesn't know and will not know that they had been in love with each other for 3 years before this marriage took place. I was happy to see them very happy to be with each other. Mohamed's family who knew their son was in love with Sarah was very supportive. He said without his family's help, he couldn't have married Sarah. I have seen many Saudi couples who had arranged marriage at the time of their honeymoon as I worked for a hotel where many Saudi couples came for honeymoon. There is no comparison between them and other Saudi couples I saw in my life. They are at the peak of their happiness. I hope more and more Saudi people marry like them to taste the meaning of love from the beginning of marriage and what it is like to marry someone that you love. I strongly believe where there is a will, there is a way. Mohamed and Sara's case was a good example. They proved it. In such a place as Saudi Arabia where the Mutawa are walking around, I want to say it out loud that this happy love marriage could and did happen there. I am sure there are those Saudis who want to say "This kind of marriage is not right. I don't want my daughter or son to marry this way." but if they really really think of their daughter or son's happiness, they should be wise. I think it is time for parents to realize "Parents' happiness is not always their children's happiness. They have to think about children's happiness first before their own happiness when it comes to marriage." I believe it is not haram for parents to make their child's love marriage look like arranged marriage just to fit in the Saudi social code if necessary. Of course, it would be better if love marriage is accepted as it is one day. I want to see more and more Saudi couples like Mohamed and Sarah. Congratulations!!

Plesant Saudi Man (Part 2)

I have a great news to tell about the Saudi man whom I wrote about in my blog on August 16, 2007. Yes, it is about Mohamed, a pleasant Saudi man! He is getting married in a few weeks to the lady he has been in so much love with for a couple of years that I mentioned in the blog dated August 16. He made it!!!! Yes, he chose his partner for himself. I saw his finance's photo. The lady is very pretty and I am sure they make a nice couple. They will be a couple that many Saudis get jealous of . From Day 1 of their marriage, their marriage life will be filled with love, which I believe is unusual in a country like Saudi Arabia where many people marry through arranged marriage. I am sure there are many happy couples who married through arranged marriage but at the same time I know there are many unhappy couples. Anyway, I am very very happy for him and his finance. I really admire them. If they lived in some other place, love marriage would be very normal but I am sure they needed the guts, energy and courage to get consent from their families and put up with unfavorable judgment from their society. Oh, I am soooo happy for them. I want to wish them a very happy marriage!

Here is just a thought.......In my country when we hear a person has eloped with someone he or she loves, we are more likely to say "They are immature" "They are still young to think eloping is the only way to be together". People usually give a negative comment as we believe there are other ways for a couple to be together. We usually think elopement is a consequence of inner immaturity of young people. However, if I was to hear the same kind of story in Saudi Arabia, I would definitely admire their guts and wish them a happy life together. I have read a story (based on the true story) about a couple who eloped to the US. According to the story, the girl's brothers and father chased after them to the US and found them. By the way the girl is Saudi and the boy is Palestinian. They hit the boy with a heavy object, leaving him unconscious for a while and took the girl back to Saudi Arabia. For me, the fact that they attempted to elope is worth admiration though the first consequence turned out quite harsh. Yes, there is a second consequence, a good one! When they eloped for the second time, the girl's family finally agreed to their marriage. If you wan to know the details, please read Princess Sultana's Daughters by Jean Sasson. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not encouraging Saudis to elope to marry someone s/he loves. Our life is short. Why not we try to seek more ways to make us happy. With a little gut, life can change from hell to heaven. Many Arab people who are married say to me "Arranged marriage is good. Love will grow as time goes by" I don't disagree to it but I don't want this kind. I believe it is nice that we have love for each other when we marry and that it will grow bigger and bigger later.

Ali Confused Me

Sometimes I get upset, disappointed or confused in the least expected way. I know too well that I can’t judge others with my own ruler, especially if they have different cultural backgrounds. I often feel tired with stopping to make sure I am not doing anything wrong against their cultures.

Last week I bumped into my Iranian friend, Ali in the street with his 2 male friends. I hadn’t seen him since last December and assumed he was back in Iran. Both of us got very surprised to see each other and I was very happy to see him. My husband, Hassan and I were often invited to our friend’s house where I got to know Ali and his wife about 2 years ago. We had a great time talking about various things every time we met. The last time we met them in December, Ali’s wife was expecting a baby in a few months. So, when I saw Ali this time, I asked him about his wife. I was happy to hear that she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. In the beginning since I was too excited to see Ali who I had least expected to see again, I totally forgot about his 2 friends who also seemed from Iran. I just apologized to them for making them wait. They were kind enough to wait and even told me to take my time to talk to Ali. However, I started to realize something was wrong with Ali. I could easily tell that Ali was not as happy to see me as I wanted him to be. Since he mentioned he was going back to Iran in 10 days, I thought I could invite him to my house for dinner before he left, so I asked him for his mobile number. Can you guess what he said? He said, “I can give you my wife’s email address.” I just pretended to be fine with his answer at that time by saying “OK, that is great” but inside my heart I was thinking “Why can’t he give me his phone number?” Just for your information, I had his mobile number in December but deleted it as I thought he was gone back to Iran. I thought he was afraid of being suspected about his relation with me (female) by his 2 friends, so I even mentioned my husband’s name many times in our conversation to give them an impression that Ali was more like our family friends because I thought this could help Ali feel better, but it didn’t work at all. I could see he was very uncomfortable to talk to me. I was sad because it was the first time I felt like this as far as Ali was concerned. I had had a lot of meaningful discussions with him and his wife about what could be only discussed between close friends. That was why I was very upset. After I went back home, I told about this to Hassan. He also couldn’t understand what made Ali act like that. Anyway, Ali gave me his wife’s email address and also his. I emailed his wife to congratulate on the baby’s birth. (CC to Ali) Then, the next day Ali himself replied to me, not his wife. I was startled to read his email as he expressed his excitement of having seen me the day before. I got really confused. I really wanted to say to him, “If you were to write such a pleasant email to me, why did you have to act that way?” Was it because he thought it wasn’t nice to talk to a woman without his wife’s presence or knowledge? I don’t think so. The only thing that I can think of now is that he was afraid of how his 2 friends would look at him. Speaking of his wife, when I met Ali and her for the first time, I shook hands with him as it is very normal to do so among Muslims here regardless sex. Later, his wife told me that she didn’t want her husband to shake hands with women. Right away I apologized to her for having shaken hands with him. She told me not to worry about it because I didn’t know. I really felt very bad and sorry for her. I told Hassan that I had made Ali’s wife offended by shaking hands with her husband. Hassan said it wasn’t my problem but Ali’s problem and that Ali was the one who should figure out how to deal with such a shaking-hands-situation with a woman. According to Hassan, if Ali doesn’t wan to shake hands with a woman, he can say “I’m sorry but I can’t” or he can put his hand on his chest to greet politely as this gesture can give the woman a hint of his unwillingness to shake hands, which in fact Ali’s wife was doing to avoid shaking hands with a man. What Hassan was unhappy was Ali’s wife’s attitude. Hassan has been still keeping saying it was rude of Ali’s wife to tell me such a thing face to face and that she should figure out with Ali how to avoid shaking hands with the opposite sex when offered because it is their problem.

The best way is not to shake hands with anybody but I feel I can convey my happiness of seeing people by shaking hands....by the way I am Muslima.

Sad incident of Saudi woman

By the way a few days before I met Mohamed (See August 9 blog) in the hotel where he was staying, a 20 year old Saudi woman who was staying in the same hotel on her honeymoon committed suicide by jumping off from her room window. I read the news in the papers but it didn’t say much of the details. When I took a taxi to go to the hotel to see Mohamed, the taxi driver told me this: the Saudi woman’s husband arranged the transportation from the hotel to go downtown to look for a woman with a taxi driver who could speak Arabic. His wife woke up in the middle of the night to find him gone from the bed panicked and called him at his mobile, asking where he was. It seemed right after this his wife committed suicide. The taxi driver who was with this Saudi man at that time was a friend of the driver’s who gave me a ride to the hotel. I felt so much pain toward this young lady who could have had longer happier life if she had not married this evil man.

The story told by the driver may be a little exaggerated but I think the story is very probable because I have seen similar cases in a hotel where I worked for 2 years. I met many nice Arab tourists, while I met some Arabs very hard to understand. Many of them came to the hotel on their honeymoon. I knew it because many Arab men usually mention it at the time of checking in. One night a Saudi male guest approached me in the lobby. He wanted to get my help to plan what he could do with his wife for the next few days. He said he was newly married and that he didn’t want his wife to get bored during their honeymoon. He couldn’t take much time with me in planning as he wanted to go back to the room before his wife finished taking a shower. It seemed that he didn’t want to show his wife his worries about the honeymoon. I was very happy to make a quick suggestion on a few places for them to visit and saw him off. He turned into a confident man who was sure that his wife would not get bored for the next few days. I was ready and happy to offer this kind of help anytime while working in the hotel.

However, I sometimes faced unfavorable situations with Arab guests. Not only Arabs but other races came to the hotel on honeymoon but this happened only with Arab men. Though Arab men mentioned they were here on their honeymoon, they had no shame to ask hotel staff where they could go for drinking or looking for women. If they wanted to drink, I always wanted to say “Take your wife with you”. I didn’t care if they wanted to enjoy what was forbidden for them to do back home but I simply couldn’t stand the idea that they didn’t mind leaving their wives alone in a hotel room in a foreign country without letting her know where he was going. What was worse, they had no shame to ask me where they could find prostitutes.
How dare they could ask me such a question on their honeymoon with their wives sleeping in the hotel rooms!? Unbelievable!! I really think I can write a book about nice Arab guests and weird Arab guests!! There are more stories to come in the future blog!! Some of them are too funny or strange for you to believe!!

Pleasant Saudi Man

The country where I live is full of Arab tourists around this time of the year. I have a very good Saudi friend, Fawziah whom I have known since 1999, when she was here with her husband on their honeymoon. I met them again here in 2005 and last year her brother, Mohamed came with his mother on holidays. Although I hadn’t met them before, Fawziah emailed me and arranged for me to see them during their visit here. I was so happy to see my good friend’s family members.

Fawziah’s brother, Mohamed was such a pleasant young man. He was in the last year in his university in Saudi Arabia. I had a great time talking to Mohamed for a couple of hours. Since I couldn’t communicate well with his mother, I mostly talked to him and when it was necessary, he was an interpreter between his mother and me. Though it was the first time we met each other, we didn’t feel like that as I and he had had information on each other from Fawziah. We talked about a lot of things that might not be usually discussed at the first meeting. Before I met him, I was a little nervous as I was going to see a Saudi man. I read many books about Saudi Arabia that gave me some unpleasant image about Saudi men. He was far from being such an unpleasant man as was described in the books. On the contrary, he was far better than any other Arab male friends that I know. It is no strange to my culture that I ask a male or female friend if s/he has a boy/girlfriend. So, I asked him if he had someone special. Actually this conversation took place in the most natural way in the course of our conversation as our topic was about marriage. Mohamed said that he wanted to get a job, marry and settle down right after he finished his university, while his mother said Mohamed was too young for that. I also agreed with his mother as I believed his age, 21 was still young for marriage. However, it suddenly occurred to me that to make him think like this, there must be a legitimate reason for him. So, I asked him if he had someone special in his mind. He said, “Yes, I do. The string tied around my wrist was from her, which my mother doesn’t know” without even looking at it! Both I and Mohamed were bad enough to take advantage of his mother not being able to understand English well. I assumed that the string was like lucky charm given to him from the girl he loved. I didn’t make any further questions in front of the mother in case she could sense something from our talk I didn’t want to put Mohamed in a bad situation as it seemed that he wasn’t ready to let his secret out yet. He also said that she was the right one for him and that he would not consider marrying anyone else but her.

When I heard this spoken from the mouth of the Saudi man, I felt somehow very very happy. I wanted to admire his strong will and healthy thought toward his marriage in spite of the environment that didn’t welcome such kind of thought as his. What is normal in some places is abnormal in other places, and Mohamed’s case may apply to “abnormal” category in Saudi Arabia where arranged marriage has higher value than love marriage. Mohamed told me that his brother and his wife married by love marriage but their families tried to make the marriage look like “arranged marriage”. For me, this marriage sounded a bit tricky but if that was the way their marriage was welcomed and accepted by their society without creating problem or gossip, let it be so. They are happily married still now and I think that is the most important. I want to say, “Let Saudi parents use whatever tricks they need to use to make their children’s love marriage look arranged marriage” because this kind of tricky marriage is still healthier and happier than marriage where 2 strangers are arranged to marry without knowing each other or feeling enough love for each other.

Meeting Mohamed lightened up my view of Saudi men. He has just finished his university and got a job in a bank. I hope he will marry the lady who gave him the string!!

Poor Sarah

Today I saw a photo of Ahmad forwarded by my friend. He is an Arab who used to live here and moved to Canada 3 years ago. A close friend of my husband’s once invited me and my husband to dinner where Ahmad and his girlfriend, Sarah were also invited. Ahmad didn’t introduce Sarah to us properly, so we dared not to ask him who she was. Sarah was obviously Muslim as she was wearing a head scarf. She told me she had learned to cook Arabic food for Ahmad and that the head scarf she was wearing was a gift from Ahmad’s brother. I didn’t care if she was married to Ahmad. Anyway she acted like she was Ahmad’s wife.

One year went by. I learned from my husband’s friend who had invited us to dinner that Ahmad left Sarah here and immigrated to Canada. He also told me that Sarah was in bad shape as she missed Ahmad so much. I simply couldn’t believe that Ahmad didn’t even consider taking Sarah to Canada. What I felt angry was that a few months after Ahmad moved to Canada, he went back home. His family had chosen a few girls for him so that he could choose his wife among them. When he came back to Canada, he brought his wife with him. Now they have a baby. Ahmad’s wife would never know about Sarah whose life was destroyed by her insincere husband.

Ahmad is not the only one that has done this kind of thing. I know at least 2 more Arab men who did the same thing. I always wonder if they have any guilt. The strangest thing about these men is that they always end up marrying a woman from the same country and that they demand a virgin wife, which makes me laugh always. The men are not virgin and yet they demand virgin girls. That is sick mentality of Arabs. When I see them praying, I always think “You don’t go to heaven definitely.”

Secret meeting between Arab and Iran

I met my Arab friend, Hana last week in a fast food restaurant in a shopping mall. She brought her Iranian boyfriend, Hussein to introduce him to me. I had heard a lot about him from her before but it was the first time that I met him. We spent a few hours talking and talking to one another.

I was very happy to see Hana being very happy with him but at the same time I feel sorry for them. They try their best to avoid the possibility of bumping into their friends whenever and herever they meet. Considering Arabic and Iranian cultures, if someone that they know sees them being together, it can be a big gossip next day among Arabic and Iranian communities here. So, though they love to see each other as much as they can, they are never free from the fear that someone may be watching them. I wish there were some stress-free way for them to see each other. If I were Hana, I would not care what other people say but I may be able to say this as I am not Arab. Since Hana lives with her brother, she feels very afraid that her brother will find it out through his friends somehow. I know there is no such relation as boyfriend-girlfriend in Arabic countries or Iran. To be precise, there should be but it is not simply approved by their societies. Seeing Hana, I am very happy that she experiences a relation with someone special though they always have to be afraid of being spotted by others. To my eyes this kind of relation is very normal for college students like them. They are considering getting married in a peaceful way in the future but it is long way to go. Hana says that she would be forsaken by her family if they knew that she is seeing Hussein now.

I’m familiar with Arabic culture as my husband is from the same country as Hana. I can’t do anything with it but I always wish that there were a healthier way for a man and a woman to get to know each other. When I meet Arab people who show no sympathy and right away criticize such a relation as Hana and Hussein are having now, I always feel like saying, “Haven’t you ever fallen in love with someone?” I think they miss one of the greatest things in life. Or…maybe they feel the same way as I do but are not strong enough to express their true feelings against their culture. Some say it is against Islam but I who always respect peoples’ feelings first more than anything else still believe that there is a way for a man and woman to see each other in a way Islam allows. I hope Hana and Hussein will find a stress-free way of seeing each other and that their relation will lead them to happy marriage one day. Even if they were to break up one day, I would be still proud of Hana who has experienced the relation and known what it is to love someone, which many Arab people don’t know.