Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Not Just Tourists...
I’m not sure any kind of blog posting will fully elucidate our experience in Egypt, but I also think that it’s probably important for me to try [smile]. Because it was unlike any other traveling experience that I have had. Instead of simply summarizing our trip, however, I think I will attempt to share snippets of experiences and moments in a more creative writing style. But, since we all know it has almost been two years since I’ve been in the class room, and even then, as an art major, definitely not an English anything, it might take me a little longer to successfully express and illustrate what I wish to explain.
Not Just Tourists…
London, New York, Berlin, Chicago, Paris… most globe trotters, when visiting these grandiose cities, have found it necessary, at some point in their short jaunts around the city, to use public transport… more specifically, the metro system. The El, the Tube, the Metro…. Whatever the city people call it, each is an experience of its own. You can learn a huge amount about the culture that you are in and how the people interact, the speed of their life, and the things they value as important in life in the car of the train that moves through/under/over the city.
London was my first. And it terrified me at the beginning. It took me a good long time to understand the system and not get trampled when I was lollygagging/attempting to figure out where the hell I was and where the hell I wanted to be. I learned a lot there.
In London, if you ride the Tube before 10am, you will find passengers with their faces buried in tabloids, catching up on gossip and news that they will inevitably converse with co-workers about later. There was one morning I was riding the tube to the art museum, and in a car full of probably 30 people, I was literally the only one without a tabloid.
If you ride the Metro in Paris from the airport into the center of the city, there is a decent chance that you will be entertained by a man playing an accordion, which alone is not a sexy instrument, but paired with the romantic French language, makes you feel like you’re playing a role in a movie. You should be sitting next to the man of your dreams, and cuddling up next to him as the musician sings all your cares away and you are swept up in the romance of being in love [smile].
In Germany, waiting for the Metro initially, seeing the other wobbly trains, you wonder if it is really such a good idea to use this form of transportation, and you consider exactly how long it might take you to walk to your destination instead. But you get on the coach, because you have bought the ticket already, or at least you hope that is what you purchased from the machine outside the station. People smile at you on this train, and for us an old woman strikes up a conversation about my backpack, in German of course. We smile back and shrug saying one word to explain: “English?” And to our surprise, she starts chatting with us in English before we arrive safely to our destination.
New York is full of the hustle and bustle of the city. People are amazing to watch, and the interactions of the real New Yorkers are classic. While waiting for the train someone will yell out, in the traditional I’m-a-loud-New-Yorker-manner, “Hey, Uncle Frank, where’ve you been? We’ve been looking all over for you!” and then laugh. The tourists, of course, curious to see l what the hell he is talking about, sneak a peak in the direction he’s yelling at, only to find a rat the size of a loaf of bread, attempting to scurry his fat ass around the tracks.
Up until this past month, although different, there has been a stream of similarities in how people interact with us, the tourists, in the car of a metro train. They have been pleasant, at best, and at worst, ignored us completely. In Cairo, however, it was nothing like either extreme.
We are good at traveling. We find our way, we’re not afraid to ask questions when we need to, we jump in, we embarrass ourselves occasionally, we take chances, we get lost, we find ourselves… we always generally figure things out. It was mostly the same in our first day in Egypt; after finding breakfast, we found the metro station, bought tickets, and waited for the train to come to take us into downtown for our first day of sightseeing in the city. As we casually chatted to kill time while the train made its way to our stop, the huge differences of our cultures was, although apparent, not the most immediate pressing matter of the day. Thinking nothing different than any other metro, we jumped in and continued our chatting for only a few seconds before we went silent in new realizations of our present audience.
Now, I have been stared at before, I’m tall, and blonde and in different countries/situations people gawk at that sort of thing because its apparently rare everywhere except the US. But never have I unintentionally commanded the attention of an entire train car full of passengers. We weren’t even doing anything mildly entertaining, or embarrassing! We weren’t even in culturally inappropriate attire! And yet, looking around, every single person, man and woman and child was watching us. Not just because we were the tourists on the train speaking a different language. No, it was because we were white, women, non-Muslim, hair exposed, Westerners. Never have I felt more judged. Never have I felt so defenseless.
I remember leaning over to Whit and saying “It’s a damn good thing you can’t stare holes in people.” Juli is used to it. The staring. She is one of only five white people in her city. I am not used to it, and I wonder if I ever could be.
As we went through the trip, and traveled on the Metro a handful of other times, I began to figure out exactly what it was that made me feel so unarmed. Here at home, if someone is staring at you, first of all, it is not everyone, and most times when you look back at them, they almost immediately look away; embarrassed for being caught. They might be judging you, or disappointed with the ‘youth of today’, or who-knows-what, but generally when you make eye contact, they look away. Different situation same result; you catch someone staring at you because he thinks you’re attractive. You make eye contact and he either turns away immediately, or flirts with the idea, smiles and then turns away.
When caught or stared back at, we turn away. That is what we are taught. I remember my mother telling me in church not to stare at the old person in front of me with a walker, or the man who was in a wheelchair. In grade school we were vicious with our different phrases to deter staring: “take a picture it lasts longer,” “What, do you have a staring problem!,” “Mind your own business!,” “Mom, tell Erik to stop staring at me!”. We don’t stare, or at least we’re not supposed to. Especially if it is someone who looks different, talks different or acts different than we do.
In the Cairo Metro, they did not turn away. It did not matter how hard you looked back at them, or the different kinds of looks you gave them, they stared and stared and stared.
It was not this bad all over, but I think it was especially bad on the Metro because we were in such a small place with so many people. A piece of advice one woman gave us, was that a smile will go a long way in Egypt [it actually said something like this in the guidebook as well]. It was good advice and I think there is a huge amount of truth to it.
We read in our tour book later, that there are two cars for women and children only on every Metro train. We started using them halfway through the trip, and there was a huge difference. We were still stared at, but in a more curious way. They smiled when they were caught, if they were staring at all. We were all equal. Different, but equal.
Moral of the story, if you are a woman and find yourself in Cairo, traveling with only other women… ride the women only coach on the Metro.
Not Just Tourists…
London, New York, Berlin, Chicago, Paris… most globe trotters, when visiting these grandiose cities, have found it necessary, at some point in their short jaunts around the city, to use public transport… more specifically, the metro system. The El, the Tube, the Metro…. Whatever the city people call it, each is an experience of its own. You can learn a huge amount about the culture that you are in and how the people interact, the speed of their life, and the things they value as important in life in the car of the train that moves through/under/over the city.
London was my first. And it terrified me at the beginning. It took me a good long time to understand the system and not get trampled when I was lollygagging/attempting to figure out where the hell I was and where the hell I wanted to be. I learned a lot there.
In London, if you ride the Tube before 10am, you will find passengers with their faces buried in tabloids, catching up on gossip and news that they will inevitably converse with co-workers about later. There was one morning I was riding the tube to the art museum, and in a car full of probably 30 people, I was literally the only one without a tabloid.
If you ride the Metro in Paris from the airport into the center of the city, there is a decent chance that you will be entertained by a man playing an accordion, which alone is not a sexy instrument, but paired with the romantic French language, makes you feel like you’re playing a role in a movie. You should be sitting next to the man of your dreams, and cuddling up next to him as the musician sings all your cares away and you are swept up in the romance of being in love [smile].
In Germany, waiting for the Metro initially, seeing the other wobbly trains, you wonder if it is really such a good idea to use this form of transportation, and you consider exactly how long it might take you to walk to your destination instead. But you get on the coach, because you have bought the ticket already, or at least you hope that is what you purchased from the machine outside the station. People smile at you on this train, and for us an old woman strikes up a conversation about my backpack, in German of course. We smile back and shrug saying one word to explain: “English?” And to our surprise, she starts chatting with us in English before we arrive safely to our destination.
New York is full of the hustle and bustle of the city. People are amazing to watch, and the interactions of the real New Yorkers are classic. While waiting for the train someone will yell out, in the traditional I’m-a-loud-New-Yorker-manner, “Hey, Uncle Frank, where’ve you been? We’ve been looking all over for you!” and then laugh. The tourists, of course, curious to see l what the hell he is talking about, sneak a peak in the direction he’s yelling at, only to find a rat the size of a loaf of bread, attempting to scurry his fat ass around the tracks.
Up until this past month, although different, there has been a stream of similarities in how people interact with us, the tourists, in the car of a metro train. They have been pleasant, at best, and at worst, ignored us completely. In Cairo, however, it was nothing like either extreme.
We are good at traveling. We find our way, we’re not afraid to ask questions when we need to, we jump in, we embarrass ourselves occasionally, we take chances, we get lost, we find ourselves… we always generally figure things out. It was mostly the same in our first day in Egypt; after finding breakfast, we found the metro station, bought tickets, and waited for the train to come to take us into downtown for our first day of sightseeing in the city. As we casually chatted to kill time while the train made its way to our stop, the huge differences of our cultures was, although apparent, not the most immediate pressing matter of the day. Thinking nothing different than any other metro, we jumped in and continued our chatting for only a few seconds before we went silent in new realizations of our present audience.
Now, I have been stared at before, I’m tall, and blonde and in different countries/situations people gawk at that sort of thing because its apparently rare everywhere except the US. But never have I unintentionally commanded the attention of an entire train car full of passengers. We weren’t even doing anything mildly entertaining, or embarrassing! We weren’t even in culturally inappropriate attire! And yet, looking around, every single person, man and woman and child was watching us. Not just because we were the tourists on the train speaking a different language. No, it was because we were white, women, non-Muslim, hair exposed, Westerners. Never have I felt more judged. Never have I felt so defenseless.
I remember leaning over to Whit and saying “It’s a damn good thing you can’t stare holes in people.” Juli is used to it. The staring. She is one of only five white people in her city. I am not used to it, and I wonder if I ever could be.
As we went through the trip, and traveled on the Metro a handful of other times, I began to figure out exactly what it was that made me feel so unarmed. Here at home, if someone is staring at you, first of all, it is not everyone, and most times when you look back at them, they almost immediately look away; embarrassed for being caught. They might be judging you, or disappointed with the ‘youth of today’, or who-knows-what, but generally when you make eye contact, they look away. Different situation same result; you catch someone staring at you because he thinks you’re attractive. You make eye contact and he either turns away immediately, or flirts with the idea, smiles and then turns away.
When caught or stared back at, we turn away. That is what we are taught. I remember my mother telling me in church not to stare at the old person in front of me with a walker, or the man who was in a wheelchair. In grade school we were vicious with our different phrases to deter staring: “take a picture it lasts longer,” “What, do you have a staring problem!,” “Mind your own business!,” “Mom, tell Erik to stop staring at me!”. We don’t stare, or at least we’re not supposed to. Especially if it is someone who looks different, talks different or acts different than we do.
In the Cairo Metro, they did not turn away. It did not matter how hard you looked back at them, or the different kinds of looks you gave them, they stared and stared and stared.
It was not this bad all over, but I think it was especially bad on the Metro because we were in such a small place with so many people. A piece of advice one woman gave us, was that a smile will go a long way in Egypt [it actually said something like this in the guidebook as well]. It was good advice and I think there is a huge amount of truth to it.
We read in our tour book later, that there are two cars for women and children only on every Metro train. We started using them halfway through the trip, and there was a huge difference. We were still stared at, but in a more curious way. They smiled when they were caught, if they were staring at all. We were all equal. Different, but equal.
Moral of the story, if you are a woman and find yourself in Cairo, traveling with only other women… ride the women only coach on the Metro.
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