So, here's the thing, Egyptians are sweet talkers. Real sweet. There are about thousand expressions to learn, but the one for right now is, "Just five minutes."
Before the actual flight over here, we had a day-and-a-half pre-departure orientation/culture-adaptation workshop in D.C. One major point I picked up on and thought might come in handy later then, was "reading between the lines" of people's speech and expressions. Right now, it's 3:45 in the AM. I walked over to my neighbors front door 6 hours ago. Guess what phrase the conversation started with?
This is kind of like when the taxi driver tells you, "It's on me." He was impressed with your Arabic (the Arabs know their language is hard and are proud of it. They respect it when others take the effort to learn it) and doesn't extend his hand to accept the payment immediately. He doesn't mean don't pay me.
I was caught off guard by the first taxi who pulled this one. I nearly believed him. I almost just thanked him and climbed out, but figured paying at least half would be appropriate. So I offered him the 5 Egyptian pounds out of the 10 total. He smiled. And then said, still smiling, "The other five too."
Point in case here, any estimate of time (for a casual event, that is) valued at less than about two hours holds no water and is not worth its salt. Also reading "between the lines" requires cultural understanding and experience.
Other examples of smooth talk from Egyptians:
Myself, Joey, and Ryan were eating outside of Tibawy restaurant. Three young Egyptians students, probably about 20 years old each, keep stealing glances our way. One was practically staring. I suppose it's not every day you see three white dudes talking Arabic in a funny accent on the streets of Alexandria. I turned towards them, smiling, and said, "We pretty much look exactly like Egyptians, huh?" kind of playing with the obvious. "No. There are no Egyptians with that beauty," he responded!
It doesn't seem to matter where your from, when you say your from such-and-such place, the response is "[those people are] the best of people."
There is another one that I am not remembering at the moment...I'll write it down here when I remember it, God willing.
Before the actual flight over here, we had a day-and-a-half pre-departure orientation/culture-adaptation workshop in D.C. One major point I picked up on and thought might come in handy later then, was "reading between the lines" of people's speech and expressions. Right now, it's 3:45 in the AM. I walked over to my neighbors front door 6 hours ago. Guess what phrase the conversation started with?
This is kind of like when the taxi driver tells you, "It's on me." He was impressed with your Arabic (the Arabs know their language is hard and are proud of it. They respect it when others take the effort to learn it) and doesn't extend his hand to accept the payment immediately. He doesn't mean don't pay me.
I was caught off guard by the first taxi who pulled this one. I nearly believed him. I almost just thanked him and climbed out, but figured paying at least half would be appropriate. So I offered him the 5 Egyptian pounds out of the 10 total. He smiled. And then said, still smiling, "The other five too."
Point in case here, any estimate of time (for a casual event, that is) valued at less than about two hours holds no water and is not worth its salt. Also reading "between the lines" requires cultural understanding and experience.
Other examples of smooth talk from Egyptians:
Myself, Joey, and Ryan were eating outside of Tibawy restaurant. Three young Egyptians students, probably about 20 years old each, keep stealing glances our way. One was practically staring. I suppose it's not every day you see three white dudes talking Arabic in a funny accent on the streets of Alexandria. I turned towards them, smiling, and said, "We pretty much look exactly like Egyptians, huh?" kind of playing with the obvious. "No. There are no Egyptians with that beauty," he responded!
It doesn't seem to matter where your from, when you say your from such-and-such place, the response is "[those people are] the best of people."
There is another one that I am not remembering at the moment...I'll write it down here when I remember it, God willing.
That saying reminds me of Syria....what's the expression they use in Arabic? Is it خليه علينا or something else?
ReplyDeleteبالضبط كده! لكني بس سمعت "خليها علي". كيف حالك يا حبيبي اتمنى لك حاجة ماشي زي الفل معك : )
ReplyDeleteاتمنى *كل حاجة...
ReplyDelete