Some notes on awkwardness and Orientalism

So, my birthday has come and gone. Most of the Brits were off on their respective adventures-- Charlie wandering around somewhere in the Sudan (apparently he can do that) and Alex was off making desert romance in Siwa, an oasis I have yet to visit and am more or less reserving for our "Thanksgiving" break. We all headed down to Cap d'Or for the night and proceded to celebrate the landmark day in the only fashion worthy of it-- drinking bad bad Egyptian beer. The atmosphere was nice, at least-- so nice that, once Sheikh Ali caught wind of the occasion, he spread the news among the rest of the bar and we ended up having a round bought for us.

Classes have suddenly become serious-- can't really avoid that. Eagerly anticipating the trip the Sinai this coming week (Norman and I have planned for the best and the worst--I think Alex is coming too) and will be a relief for the ongoing torpor.

Most awkward moment of my life was yesterday-- had a massage at the Cecil Hotel (Durrell's old place). Expected there to be a male massuse...there wasn't. So, standing there, speaking Arabic to an extremely pretty Muslim girl (as I discovered later) and only wearing a towel...only to be rubbed down with lemon oil by her and then questioned (as she giggled) about "how it was possible for me not to have a habiba" and that she would like to "find a nice man like me"...made for some awkward moments. Worst massage ever. Unfortunately there are no Turkish hammams here as there are in Cairo. Damnation.

I had a snob moment, too: when I was inquiring after the price of a massage (in Arabic) and the two receptionists (one of which was the girl who would massage me) were giggling over my Arabic, saying I "was of honey" (quite literally), a random, very seedy looking man in a suit who was reading a poster on the wall turns and says, in English: "I was shocked to hear you speaking our language. Normally foreigners don't bother."

I was so irritated at his tone and his sort of sneer at the word "foreigner" that I answered, slowly: "Normally, a person begins a conversation with 'Salaamu-'alaykum' or 'Good evening.'" He was somewhat shocked-- and the girls were scandalized. Later, they told me he was the head engineer for the building--hence the haughtiness. Doctors and engineers here are akin to godlike figures; working men have little worth. Actually, it's pretty common to see what I remember my father referring to as a "cocaine nail" -- the pinky fingernail grown out about an inch-- just to indicate that the person doesn't work with his hands. This man had very long fingernails.

Then began the round of personal questions, after which I told him he was rude and asked the girls for a massage. I suppose that's a landmark: by now, I've gotten used to the class mentality, the chauvinism, the strange invasions of one's personal life. But it doesn't mean that I have to incorporate them into my personality-- accept them only as far as is necessary to survive and appreciate them as the idiosyncrasies of a culture very different than my own (despite its efforts to the contrary).

A note on Orientalism, because I've been accused of it a lot as of late. I think that, at least in the American university system (and I recognize that Midd doesn't represent all), in the field of Eastern studies we are extremely well-equipped to recognize our outsider-ness and search for the uniting factors common to the human experience. In fact, I've never really felt tempted to say that "the East" as place was something uniformly backwards and sensual and all that jazz. However, to say it is the same as "the West" is just as wrong-- there is certainly a gap between the two-- and to say that "the West" is the problem, that in art, literature, common experience, we project the negative or undesirable aspects of our culture onto the East is also the problem.

Interestingly, every Egyptian I've spoken to on the matter has been much more of an Orientalist (in the Bernard Lewis sense) than I am: they speak of progress and the "old Egypt" and the virtues of the West more than we do. Technology, politics, development...even down to how clean the streets are-- old men in coffeeshops look to Europe and America as the paradigm of what Egypt should be, rather than what it is presently. Is this a product of colonialism? I don't know exactly. It could just be that, after occupying the country for so long and imposing our own viewpoints on the people that they have simply taken them for their own. But I don't think so.

There is such a think as what is good, what is bad. The British were here for decades and left a liquor impact here to such an extent that the word "al-whisky" is used to refer to all alcohol, not just whisky proper, I'm assuming that's because it's all they drank. But the whisky that's made here is awful, and they don't know it. The beer is terrible, and they don't know it. The decorations are awful, and they think they're amazing. I'm actually sort of distressed by that: I remember Vera telling me that Mona pointed out a head of Cleopatra (one of those awful touristy things) and saying it was amazing. And I get criticized for wanting brass trays and cushions on the ground because they're "backwards" and Bedouin (interesting relationship that the populous has with the Bedu...to be discussed later).

Anyway, I've got to stop being depressing.