I haven't updated this blog in a while. Part of the reason is laziness, and part of is it the lack of WiFi. I'll try to cover everything in a long blog post here.
Part 1: Amman
The last few days in Amman, around June 6-8, in classes were finishing up the term for the Northeastern students and preparing for the midterms for PGO students. We took the final/midterms. Afterwards we packed up our things in our apartments. The NEU people were leaving Jordan after the excursion so they didn't need to be in the apartments anymore. PGO was moving to a new apartment, one closer to Qasid, after the excursion.
Part 2: Ramadan
By now I've been living here for almost two weeks during Ramadan. Although half of that time was during our excursion, I've spent about a week, maybe 9 or 10 days, in Ramadan in Amman.
As you can imagine, everything involved with food is closed down during the day, except for McDonalds. Even in McDonalds, you can't eat food inside of it. You have to order food and take it with you to your home, where you eat it in private. Throughout the day, eating and drinking in public can get you fined. In Qasid, there's a room set aside for non-Muslims to eat and drink.
Iftar, the breaking of the fast that occurs after sunset, is an interesting time to see the city. Before Iftar, everyone hurries to get home or to get to a restaurant to eat Iftar with friends and family. And right at Iftar, before the Maghreb prayer announces the end of the fast, the streets clear out. There's almost a tension that blankets the whole city. If you're in a restaurant, everyone is sitting at their table with their food, but no one is eating. Well, except for that table of Asian tourists. They're happily digging in. But everyone else is sitting patiently (or anxiously) waiting for the Maghreb prayer.
Then the prayer sounds, and everyone everywhere starts eating. The streets are empty for the next hour or so. And Iftar's very communal. In Islam, Ramadan is a time for spirituality and religion. Many good deeds are earned during this time. And, if you invite someone to your Iftar, you earn the good deeds of all your guests. Even in Mukhtar Mall, large groups of people are all eating together in the food court. Also, taking a taxi at this time is awesome because all the taxi drivers drive really fast on Amman's deserted highways. ma3 as-salaameh traffic!
At night, the city comes alive. Many streets and businesses downtown have decorations, including lanterns, set up everywhere. People are charitable during this time. In Abdoun I ran into a guy giving out water and snacks to random taxis and people. People are celebrating Ramadan. I've seen temporary amusement parks and rides set up for Ramadan. People are active until the early hours of the morning.
We had a short lecture on Ramadan after classes one day from our guide Nidal, and one interesting point he made was that spending during Ramadan actually increases by 140%. Although people aren't buying nearly as much food and water during the day, and people are less productive, people end up spending a lot during the night, and spend a lot on groceries for Iftar.
Many Islamic sources talk about the number of good/bad deeds people have earned through their actions. Ramadan is a time when people earn lots of good deeds, and is also a time for people to settle their beefs with others. They say that if you and another muslim have a beef or aren't talking to each other, then Ramadan is the time to resolve that. If, by the end of Ramadan, you and that other Muslim haven't settled your dispute, then the entire month was wasted for both of you.
There are cases in which your fast may be broken. If a muslim is traveling more than 83 km in a day, they may break their fast that day. Or if they're on their period, or injured, sick, doctor's note, etc.
Living as a non-muslim during this time's been interesting. I've noticed at home sort of a spiritual/communal joy or excitement in my muslim friends back home, and it's always been interesting to me that the month of fasting and discipline is the month that's most celebrated. But it's been really cool to be here, where that spiritual excitement and focus on community pervades the entire city. Throughout the city I've seen signs and advertisements and billboards that say زكاتك/كم رحمة, or your charity is gracious. People greet each other with "Ramadan mubarak!" There's special desserts that are only eaten during Ramadan. It's also amazing to see the entire city united in this act of fasting. When you look at other Ammanis, whether they're taxi drivers, teachers, beggars, office workers, etc. They're fasting with you and celebrating Ramadan with you.
Part 3: The Southern Excursion
I took a lot of pictures on the excursion. But there's so many that I won't upload them. It's a pain to upload pictures on Blogspot.
Day one: we left Amman in the morning. After a few hours of driving, we reached Karak castle. Like Ajloun, it was a Crusader-era castle. It had a number of features for the benefit of defenders of the castle. Some rooms have entrances that were only 4 feet tall, so you'd have to bend down or squat to enter the room. If you weren't paying attention you might hit your head on the top of of the entrance. This was to slow down invaders entering the room. Pretty clever. We ate at a buffet near the castle.
After Karak, we went to a place called Dana. Dana is a valley in the West of Jordan, not too far from Israel. It's a large nature preserve in Jordan. Ecologically, it's unique because of the different ecosystems that exist at different altitudes of the valley. Plus, it's gorgeous, and features the only grass I've walked on in this whole country.
I've realized how weird grass is. It's like plants, but it's everywhere. Like you walk all over it cause it's freaking everywhere. Like how is a blade of grass the whole plant? How does it reproduce? Like what's going on? It's weird. And there's like a million of them! What's up with that? We grow the stuff freaking everywhere too. If you look at American suburban lawns, it's so unnatural. Like not only do we plant probably millions of these little green blades of grass, we also cut them down when they get too big. And the best lawns are just grass, like no weeds or stuff. It's just weird. They're not even like little trees or shrubs or anything. It's just like mold on the ground or something. Or pieces of paper sticking out of dirt.
That day we stayed in a lovely little hotel in the Dana valley. It's not one large building, but rather a number of small buildings spread out. The "main" building, or the closest thing to one, had a lovely lounge-like room for drinking tea and relaxing, and a doumbek. Those things are cool. We also hiked down a winding path down the valley for some sights.
The next morning, we ate an early breakfast then went by bus to the top of the valley. We hiked for a few hours, guided by a local man, Ahmed Abu Yahya. Judging by the fact that he wore a Jordanian Army uniform, he seemed to be a veteran of the Jordan Army, who was born and raised in Dana. He now lives in Dana and works to preserve the local environment. Despite him being an elderly man, he was like a mountain goat by the way he navigated and moved around the valley. The whole valley was an ancient river judging by the rock formations.
After Dana, we took another bus ride to the town of Wadi Musa, right outside the ancient city of Petra. We spent the afternoon in our hotel, the Amra International Hotel, where not a single staff member looked like a native Jordanian.
The next morning we went to Petra. Petra is an enormous archaeological complex. It has a lot of different parts and sites spread out across miles. We spent 5 hours there, but I easily could've spent a whole day exploring. Some people spend a whole week. Petra is famous for being an ancient, well-preserved city that was basically carved out of the rocky cliffs. The buildings are protected by the cliffs from erosion by wind and rain. And being carved out of the side of cliffs, the building material's pretty durable. The entrance is actually a narrow river valley, known as Al-Siq, that provided a natural defensive chokepoint for the city. There's a lot of different sites, including the Treasury, which is probably the most famous and most photographed site in Petra. If you've seen a picture of Petra, it's probably of the Treasury. Other sites included the Monastery, temples for Roman gods, a sacrificial altar at the top of a half hour hike up a cliff, and countless souvenir tents, who normally sell souvenirs for 2JD but will give YOU one for 1JD. Still, there were many sites we didn't get the chance to see, such as the Tomb of the Prophet Harun (Aaron, the brother or cousin of Moses). Basically every direction you looked from any location in Petra was a perfect picture. Petra's perhaps the most photogenic thing I've ever seen.
Interestingly, Petra was quite a multicultural city. It was a center of commerce, which made it rich (attested by the art that's still present to this day, such as camels carved out of the walls of Al-Siq) but also meant that many people from foreign cultures visited and lived in Petra. Some buildings had carvings of Isis, an ancient Egyptian goddess. Other places had carvings of Gods from Greece, from all over the Levant, and even a replica of the Kaaba (when it was a pagan site) from Mecca, hundreds of miles away in Arabia.
After Petra, we took yet another bus ride to Wadi Rum. Along the way, our bus broke down, thankfully at a beautiful scenic point. We waited for an hour along a highway that overlooked a beautiful scene with a view of the Wadi Rum area.
Afterwards we got to Wadi Rum, specifically at a campsite in Wadi Rum for tourists like us apparently. We loaded onto the top of jeeps and were driven across the desert. And the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. It was like being in the American West. The landscape was mostly covered in a fine red sand, with mountains and rock formations dotting the landscape. We saw some domesticated camels, as well as some wild camels. At night, we also ate dinner that was cooked underground. A Bedouin tradition around here is to start a fire underground where chicken, potatoes, vegetables, etc. is cooked slowly. Needless to say it was very good food. Interestingly, there was another group with us, a Christian Korean group that stayed in the same camp.
The next morning we had a camel ride across Wadi Rum. I realized that before coming to Wadi Rum, I'm not sure if I've ever seen a camel in real life. A camel is an animal that's so weird and ungraceful looking that it's actually kind of beautiful.
Later that morning we arrived in Aqaba. It's a VERY touristy town, and is basically the only coastline Jordan gets. The entire city seems to be dominated by 1) tourism and 2) shipping. In our hotel, there were many people working who clearly weren't native Jordanians. The people running gift shops and whatnot were largely Russian. Overall, it was a fun time, but I probably wouldn't return to Aqaba. That afternoon, we had a boat ride and snorkeled. We stopped at one point in the Gulf of Aqaba to see a shipwreck. King Abdullah II, the current king, purposely had ships and tanks wrecked in the Gulf to form coral reefs.
The next morning, we returned to Amman. The four-hour bus ride crossed most of the N-S length of the country, of which probably a half hour to an hour was just navigating Amman traffic. It's another reminder of how small this country is, and how close together places are in the Middle East. I mean, four hours from Detroit will only get you to Chicago. Driving from Detroit to Boston, maybe a 1/4 of the width of the country, takes 13-16 hours. A lot happens in the Middle East in a comparatively small area. Layers and layers of history and demographics are stacked on top of each other in a precarious Tower of Babel, especially here in the Levant.
Part 4: Amman (Again)
The NEU crowd all went home a few days ago. The PGO people moved into a new apartment closer to Qasid. It's a pretty nice place. We've gotten back into a daily rhythm, and actually have weekends off.
Part 5: Culture/language notes
- Some banks are specifically labelled "Islamic banks". In Islam, charging interest is frowned upon, maybe Haraam, I'm not sure. So in these Islamic banks they have different financial mechanisms of doing business. Many of them seem to be run from companies in UAE.
- Taxi drivers sometimes smoke while transporting you around. They always offer you a cigarette as well. One thing I do like about America is that smoking is understood to be done outside, and smokers should avoid exposing others to second hand smoke.
- There's pharmacies EVERYWHERE. There might be two or three in a block. Why do Jordanians need so many pharmacies?
- During this time I think I saw a streetlight for the first time. People just kind of negotiate the roads with each other most of the time, like people walking in a crowded street.
- Arabic doesn't have a "p" sound, so when they speak English, they often use a "b" sound instead ex. barty, boint, broblem, bebsi, etc. But they know how to make a "p" sound, it's just part of the Arabic accent I guess.
While I've been here, I've been asked countless times about my ethnicity. Taxi drivers, business owners, kids on the street, random people, have all asked me if I'm Japanese or Chinese. Japanese is surprisingly the most common by far. Chinese is second. I've gotten Philipino a handful of times. I've never heard Korean yet (maybe on a related note, everyone back home thinks I look Chinese). And every time they do, I respond that I'm American, or I'm from America. Although they're all "oh okay" I know inside they're thinking "why is this Japanese/Chinese guy saying he's from America?" Sometimes they press on asking if my family's J/C/P or if I'm really American. Sometimes people are quite blatant about it. One guy selling shirts said something like "ching chong" while I walked by. A kid walked up to me asking "YOU MADE IN CHINA?!" It's a big jarring to be constantly asked if I'm something that I'm not, and it's a constant reminder that I don't blend in at all here.
What I realized though is that the same thing happens in America, it's just that people are less open and blatant about it. If it was even more common/acceptable to ask "where are you from" to non-white people, America would basically be the same as Jordan in that regard. In a place like Boston, not so much. Lots of people are used to Asian-Americans, and some can tell apart those from Asia from Asian-Americans. I mean we even have a kick-ass Chinatown. But in other parts of America, even around Metro Detroit which is pretty racially diverse, it's assumed I'm foreign until proven otherwise. People instantly assume I was born in China/Japan/sometimes Korea until I say I'm an American, born and raised here in Metro Detroit. It's just a fact of life here. Although the question "so where are you (really) from" has sparked some great conversations about race and Asian American identity, sometimes it'd be nice to just be accepted as another American guy.
But in the end, my little papercut is nothing near what, say, Muslim Americans (especially Hijabis) or Black Americans deal with day to day. They have much bigger problems with race and acceptance than what I'll ever have to deal with.
Also, since coming here, I've been told of an Arabic-speaking comedian Wonho Chung. He was born to a Korean father and a Vietnamese mother in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and grew up here in Amman. Although he self-identities as an Arab, people around him, including his friends, don't consider him Arab, and he does have some bits about that. Interestingly, he speaks five languages (Arabic, English, Korean, Vietnamese, and French(?)) and happens to be one of the best Arabic comedians.
