Did you guys every hear..about the minute of silence????where all the people stay still for a minute in remembrance of an event..usually a tragic one..
such as 7/11 ..or 7/7 in london's underground bombings...(I have a feeling that 7 isn't a very lucky number like most people believe) ..hmmmm let me rephrase that..actually London gave the attacks a 2 minute of silence...Thats when spain came in and gave it a 5 minute for the 11/3 Train bombings..(high on bid offer?????)..
I was actually with a friend of mine in london when the 2min of silence began known as "stay still to the closest underground that is in your reach and do NOT move.."That is when she turned and looked at me drinking her cafe latte extra caramel ..yes we were at a starbucks..and no we did not go the closest underground to stand still...
"Masha..habibti..why don't we in our countries do a minute or two to the people who died tragically?!I mean why didn't we think of it?"...lol..she is so cute...and sometimes can be so "clueless"...but thats what i love about her...
"hayati..if we tried to apply this theory... first of all WHO should we apply it too...palestiniens?..irakis?..(and now lebanese)????..and if we do agree of a timetable of silences to each country..darling we will stand still in silence for 20 YEARS or more in proportion to the number of dead we have...so I guess you should forget about the whole issue!"
"Oh...sa7!"...which means literally.."oh..your right!"..
But she did raise an interesting question right there..how can we show a public mourning to our innocent dead..Ok I know we as muslims are raised not show anything publicly..especially when it comes to feelings or good deeds...even less complain..hell we even hide our desires... we are taught to support our actions and thank god for the blessings he gave us...and if you are doomed than shut up and accept your destiny (qadaa ou qadar)..or be patient...
But the world has changed now and people do not understand "good manners" even less "love thy neighbour"...what they do understand is scandals and complaints and sueing...the more you cry the more you are heard..the more scandal you make and images you show the more people listen to you and are scared of you..jews got the picture...
Till now every single german citizen including the new generations should pay taxes to what they did in world war II..well we can't really use that strategy either cause the world's economy is going to go down and the rest of the world should be obliged to live as "pirates of the carrabien" to seek for hidden treasures..
hmmmm...I really don't know....any ideas?
Monday, July 31, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
What is a Saudi?
"That which God said to the rose and caused it to laugh in full blown beauty.
He said to my heart and made it a hundred times more beautiful" Mathnawi
I am surprisingly having positive feedbacks with my blog.. a few emails and some comments..want to thank you all for your interest which makes me want to write to you and open up even more...
Do we really know who the saudis are and what they are all about???..
Well..I can tell you ...They are normal homosapiens that live, breathe, and eat within an area of about 865,000 square miles (roughly one-third the size of the continental United States, and the same size as all of Western Europe).
They sometimes turn around for ages in the main streets to kill time or take a one hour drive to the closest "Istiraha" which literally means a place of relaxation but is intended to "relax" the bachelors (or bachelors wanna be for that matter) more than anything else...Or they just sit around puffing their shisha while tapping each other's backs when miracalously the national football team scores a goal..
Saudi women on the other hand tend to go to (as much as their after 6.pm timetable affords them ): weddings, funerals and hospitals ...The three major "hot" places to meet their future husbands or precisely mother in laws...
(like they say a man's funeral might be a woman's lucky day)..As for the working category of women....well too bad for them..Should've thought about it in the first place before wasting their time on education and future ambitions..their loss...
In fact 80% of working or educated women are single or trapped in bad marriages..A statistic all sucessful women in the world suffer from..especially in saudi..
From the masses of intermarriages and genetic diseases you can find an estimate 25% of disfunctions that lead to genuises ...such as the 12 year old boy (فارس الخليفي) Fares Alkhelefi who invented an educational watch and mobile phone for handicaps...
But first lets got back to the history of the peninsula itself to understand the perspective of saudis to each other and to the world..
Saudi Arabia was divided if not geographically but historically into 3 parts..Arabia Felix (happy arabia) which included the southern area of Saudi and Yemen..home of several prosperous kingdoms, including Saba ...
Arabia Deserta, The north and center of the peninsula which have always been populated by nomadic tribes and made it difficult to form large stable political organizations until recently thus the location of the capital Riyadh...Where I am from..:)
and The Hijaz which was part of a crucial trade route from the Mediterranean south to the Arabian sea (Mecca was a key city on this route) Thus the geographical importance to a lot of empires including the Abbassides, Omayades and Ottomans...
Now that I bored you to death with historical details will tell you why I did so..
We as Saudis do not only see other people as inferior..lol (I know what you are thinking but it is the truth and besides if you think of it logically isn't the WHOLE world talking about us????)
but we also see each other as inferior depending on the region..(arabs they will never change)...
For example Saudi families from Riyadh (The capital and where the government is)..consider themselves pure..tribal..untouched by other civilizations (don't really know why they are proud of that)thus TRUE saudis..
As for the Saudi families from jeddah.. ( the commercial and "liberal" city for most saudis)..consider themselves the money makers of the country and the supposed educated ones...Since the majority of them come from different civilizations and countries throughout history..
A bit like Dubai in UAE and Catalan in Spain..
All of this results in a sort of silent kind of weird war going on for ages between the two major cities...For some reason..
Jeddah calls Riyadh "Bedouins" ..Riyadh ignores...Jeddah invented a cliche which is famous by now saying "jeeeeeddah 3'air" (It is very important to give the squeeky "e" sounds..eeee..to have the proper dialect) and that means literally (jeddah is so different)..and Riyadh ignores..Jeddah tries to outstand the growing amount of intellectuals in the capital by giving Major headlines such as "oppening of an exhibition of 100 woman artists under 25"..Riyadh still ignores..(which was always its main weapon)= indifference...
But when a marriage occurs between two families and the girl is from " the bedouin tribal riyadh city" like they say..surprisingly a sort of proudness overcomes the hijazi mother in law..who gives a major wedding to arise the jealousy of other hijazi mothers who try to find an "Ace" girl to give an even bigger wedding..As for the girl in question her family might consider it a defeat and shameful act thus an uncessful marriage so they do not make a big deal out of it even if the jeeeeedah boy is fantastic...
It quite surprising how things work here...And quite double standard..Although the men from jeeeeedah have nothing to envy the men from riyadh.. I mean capital N nothing at all.. on the contrary..
But more of the Do and Don't of marriage later...
As for the eastern province...known as "where the oil is!" well their quite neutral really..they are not really loved or hated..They fall into the category of "whatever"...
Now that you know the basic principles...Let's start with the real stuff...Gossip!
He said to my heart and made it a hundred times more beautiful" Mathnawi
I am surprisingly having positive feedbacks with my blog.. a few emails and some comments..want to thank you all for your interest which makes me want to write to you and open up even more...
Do we really know who the saudis are and what they are all about???..
Well..I can tell you ...They are normal homosapiens that live, breathe, and eat within an area of about 865,000 square miles (roughly one-third the size of the continental United States, and the same size as all of Western Europe).
They sometimes turn around for ages in the main streets to kill time or take a one hour drive to the closest "Istiraha" which literally means a place of relaxation but is intended to "relax" the bachelors (or bachelors wanna be for that matter) more than anything else...Or they just sit around puffing their shisha while tapping each other's backs when miracalously the national football team scores a goal..
Saudi women on the other hand tend to go to (as much as their after 6.pm timetable affords them ): weddings, funerals and hospitals ...The three major "hot" places to meet their future husbands or precisely mother in laws...
(like they say a man's funeral might be a woman's lucky day)..As for the working category of women....well too bad for them..Should've thought about it in the first place before wasting their time on education and future ambitions..their loss...
In fact 80% of working or educated women are single or trapped in bad marriages..A statistic all sucessful women in the world suffer from..especially in saudi..
From the masses of intermarriages and genetic diseases you can find an estimate 25% of disfunctions that lead to genuises ...such as the 12 year old boy (فارس الخليفي) Fares Alkhelefi who invented an educational watch and mobile phone for handicaps...
But first lets got back to the history of the peninsula itself to understand the perspective of saudis to each other and to the world..
Saudi Arabia was divided if not geographically but historically into 3 parts..Arabia Felix (happy arabia) which included the southern area of Saudi and Yemen..home of several prosperous kingdoms, including Saba ...
Arabia Deserta, The north and center of the peninsula which have always been populated by nomadic tribes and made it difficult to form large stable political organizations until recently thus the location of the capital Riyadh...Where I am from..:)
and The Hijaz which was part of a crucial trade route from the Mediterranean south to the Arabian sea (Mecca was a key city on this route) Thus the geographical importance to a lot of empires including the Abbassides, Omayades and Ottomans...
Now that I bored you to death with historical details will tell you why I did so..
We as Saudis do not only see other people as inferior..lol (I know what you are thinking but it is the truth and besides if you think of it logically isn't the WHOLE world talking about us????)
but we also see each other as inferior depending on the region..(arabs they will never change)...
For example Saudi families from Riyadh (The capital and where the government is)..consider themselves pure..tribal..untouched by other civilizations (don't really know why they are proud of that)thus TRUE saudis..
As for the Saudi families from jeddah.. ( the commercial and "liberal" city for most saudis)..consider themselves the money makers of the country and the supposed educated ones...Since the majority of them come from different civilizations and countries throughout history..
A bit like Dubai in UAE and Catalan in Spain..
All of this results in a sort of silent kind of weird war going on for ages between the two major cities...For some reason..
Jeddah calls Riyadh "Bedouins" ..Riyadh ignores...Jeddah invented a cliche which is famous by now saying "jeeeeeddah 3'air" (It is very important to give the squeeky "e" sounds..eeee..to have the proper dialect) and that means literally (jeddah is so different)..and Riyadh ignores..Jeddah tries to outstand the growing amount of intellectuals in the capital by giving Major headlines such as "oppening of an exhibition of 100 woman artists under 25"..Riyadh still ignores..(which was always its main weapon)= indifference...
But when a marriage occurs between two families and the girl is from " the bedouin tribal riyadh city" like they say..surprisingly a sort of proudness overcomes the hijazi mother in law..who gives a major wedding to arise the jealousy of other hijazi mothers who try to find an "Ace" girl to give an even bigger wedding..As for the girl in question her family might consider it a defeat and shameful act thus an uncessful marriage so they do not make a big deal out of it even if the jeeeeedah boy is fantastic...
It quite surprising how things work here...And quite double standard..Although the men from jeeeeedah have nothing to envy the men from riyadh.. I mean capital N nothing at all.. on the contrary..
But more of the Do and Don't of marriage later...
As for the eastern province...known as "where the oil is!" well their quite neutral really..they are not really loved or hated..They fall into the category of "whatever"...
Now that you know the basic principles...Let's start with the real stuff...Gossip!
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Intro
a>Courage does not always roar. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow".
In my case..It takes a lot of courage, writing and thinking for that matter to start a new blog..Not only because it is a new experience but also because there will be total exposure to the world wide web...
Very reserved by nature with a tendency to be a pshycoanalyst for free this is quite a tough cookie to handle...
Anyways enough with the bashful timid first steps and more about myself...
I find it only fair if I am going to talk about personal experiences..society..and other "saudi perspective" things ..That my readers should know the basic principles about me...
My name is Mashael Alhajeri...."Masha" to my friends...very common name..very popular...and very saudi...As for my tribal family name they are what we call "badou /bedouins" another meaning for "all over the place"...actually most of the saudi families are tribal...and bedouins...and all over the place...
Since at some point of your life you will defenitely encounter an "Alhajeri"... Let it be me...
If you did not know by now (might check out that part of your brain..you know where the senses are) I am of "F" gender...yep a saudi girl!!!!l..and yes we are out there...even in blogs...(There is actually a competition going on who is the first saudi women to......But more of that later) and no I am not going to have my hand cut off for writing in an electronic device in the middle of the night...
I remember not so long ago (since I am in my early twenties:) when asked about my country...people would ponder...try to visualize a map or half a map or sometimes their own country..and then say something like "Is it close to libya?"
At that moment libya was the "IT" scene..a little bit of war...a little bit of oil..a little bit of blackmailing...Now we and our fellow neighbours (lucky us) are the "IT" hollywood big movie, 10 oscar scene...more war...more oil..and more blackmailing...
Since Saudi Arabia with its location and urban myths is know to all homosapiens even in Moba-Togo..There is no need for geographical or political weather forecast for that matter...
And let us start by my real mission here...The truth about these mythological legends and all these so called "The princess" "beneath the veil" "Saudi men are from earth and saudi women are beneath the earth" " Saudi/riyadh/jeddah/discriminated girl" novels ....
If you want the real thing? and only the real thing? you will have it...
N.B: please make note that everything that is said and will be told contains no harmful ingredients to personal reputations. For best results will leave addresses, shoe size, morning pictures, weight,numbers, names and emails anonymous. If you are saudi and persist on having a different opinion or want to share your story with us please consult Masha_ksa immediately.
In my case..It takes a lot of courage, writing and thinking for that matter to start a new blog..Not only because it is a new experience but also because there will be total exposure to the world wide web...
Very reserved by nature with a tendency to be a pshycoanalyst for free this is quite a tough cookie to handle...
Anyways enough with the bashful timid first steps and more about myself...
I find it only fair if I am going to talk about personal experiences..society..and other "saudi perspective" things ..That my readers should know the basic principles about me...
My name is Mashael Alhajeri...."Masha" to my friends...very common name..very popular...and very saudi...As for my tribal family name they are what we call "badou /bedouins" another meaning for "all over the place"...actually most of the saudi families are tribal...and bedouins...and all over the place...
Since at some point of your life you will defenitely encounter an "Alhajeri"... Let it be me...
If you did not know by now (might check out that part of your brain..you know where the senses are) I am of "F" gender...yep a saudi girl!!!!l..and yes we are out there...even in blogs...(There is actually a competition going on who is the first saudi women to......But more of that later) and no I am not going to have my hand cut off for writing in an electronic device in the middle of the night...
I remember not so long ago (since I am in my early twenties:) when asked about my country...people would ponder...try to visualize a map or half a map or sometimes their own country..and then say something like "Is it close to libya?"
At that moment libya was the "IT" scene..a little bit of war...a little bit of oil..a little bit of blackmailing...Now we and our fellow neighbours (lucky us) are the "IT" hollywood big movie, 10 oscar scene...more war...more oil..and more blackmailing...
Since Saudi Arabia with its location and urban myths is know to all homosapiens even in Moba-Togo..There is no need for geographical or political weather forecast for that matter...
And let us start by my real mission here...The truth about these mythological legends and all these so called "The princess" "beneath the veil" "Saudi men are from earth and saudi women are beneath the earth" " Saudi/riyadh/jeddah/discriminated girl" novels ....
If you want the real thing? and only the real thing? you will have it...
N.B: please make note that everything that is said and will be told contains no harmful ingredients to personal reputations. For best results will leave addresses, shoe size, morning pictures, weight,numbers, names and emails anonymous. If you are saudi and persist on having a different opinion or want to share your story with us please consult Masha_ksa immediately.
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