What happens when a white guy attends an South Asian culture festival in the middle of an Arab city and tells a suited delegate "Masaa al-kheir, aap kaise hai?"
A: A very confused Indian ambassador
Last week I attended the opening ceremony of Indian Culture Week, organized by the Indian Embassy and the Maulana Azad Center for Indian Culture. Coming from a multicultural American perspective, it astounded me to see Indian Egyptians in the audience. There is diversity in Egypt, I guess I just didn't see it as obviously as in America.
Another thing: In Egypt, there doesn't seem to be such thing as political correctness. For example, my Arabic teacher freely admitted to disliking Japanese people "because they don't say anything in class." But he did say they were very well-organized and motivated, so I don't really know what to think.
As for Indians, when we were walking through a bazaar one of the shopkeepers saw my friend Ihsaan and asked, "Tikka tikka accha accha?" mumbling something about 7-Eleven that we didn't figure out until we'd walked away. (For those of you who didn't get that, it's like saying "Mazal Tov bagel I-just-dropped-a-penny" to a Jew or "Watermelon Basketball" to an African-American.)
At the risk of offending even more people than I already just did, I'll assume you understand when I say that stereotypes here are not only appropriate; they're a means of entertainment. That said, stereotypes here can be both good and bad. The difference is that it's not considered offensive among many Egyptians to talk about other races and cultures in a value-judgment way--partly, I think, because they make fun of themselves so much already.
Many things we'd take extremely seriously in America are laughed off here. I've heard about drivers who get in accidents around Cairo and get out of their cars, yelling at each other about how stupid the other was, when one cracks a joke, defusing the situation and allowing them to go their separate ways.
Anyway, all this just goes to show you that there's much more to Egypt (and any other culture for that matter) than initially meets the eye. Here, an Egyptian ministry official speaks about the importance of cultural relations.
We met the Indian Ambassador, which I realize is not too special since there's two for every pair of countries (India-Egypt, Egypt-India, US-Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan-US, etc), but it still was a thrill to get so close to the levers of power. Not too close though, since his chauffeur almost backed into us as we were standing in the street in his designated parking space.
In yet another paradox, last Thursday I found myself at the Opera House once again, watching a film in Hindi/Punjabi with Arabic subtitles, while my Indian friend translated the Hindi for me as I combined my little understanding of this and the Arabic subtitles to tell my three Egyptian friends what was going on, (because they couldn't understand the standard, formalized Arabic too well). To complete the night, we ate at Nawab, easily one of the best (and least expensive) Indian restaurants in Egypt. I couldn't decide whether Shukran or Shukria was the best response to the manager telling us where to sit, so I settled on Shukrian.
Finally, the closing ceremony last night featured a 40-minute dance recounting the story of Krishna, a Raas team from the state of Gujarat, and a contemporary fusion band called Talaash made up of two guitarists, a drummer and a maraccist. No, not racist. Maraccist.
...and that's The Word, Stephen.
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