The Arab Expats

i agree to everything you said,, i want to be an expat .. i think its a great experience to live ( 3am ba7ki min kul 3a2li ) biddi a3eeesh la7ali and be a total stranger

hey Tala, i seriously love it bardo 3m b7ki min kul 3a2li i encourage everyone who wants to

Nice post wonders.

To me being unknown is THE best thing about being expated.

I like to add:
Depending on what country you are expated to, there is complete religious freedom and nobody judges you if you don’t follow the religion.

I take it that you haven’t been -in exile- that long. Give it five years
I was more excited than you are right now. With time, it starts fading and fading, and what’s left is how much you miss and long for the warmth of the old days that have already passed you by

ps: Whining, not winning. I’m sorry I had to say it before Hal discovers it, she always does

Qwaider,
I am quite the opposite. First I missed Jordan like crazy, I talked to myself walking down the street. ten years in the US, I went back home twice, the second time only for 48 hours. it is just not the same anymore.

Good post wonders, I agree that we, or at least I, whine too much, But that’s because of old times not today’s Jordan.

100% TRUE …

Thanks 7aki, good addition i missed that

Qwaider i have been here just one year, hmmm.. will let u know in 5 how things r going thanks for the correction

Globalorama, i hated it at first too but after my one week visit to amman two months ago, i started enjoying the whole expat thing more…

thanks Anas…

loool…yea, i needed to read sth like this.
im also going to add the casuality of social obligations.. you dont have to pull out all the bells and whistles everytime anyone comes over, you can just take it easy and not do anything.
not to mention that you will *never* get any unexpected visitors and ppl who just show up at your door at 11pm expecting you to invite them over to spend the night!
in the expat world, any visits are always coordinated days/weeks in advance cuz everyone’s so busy

thanks for the addition tinkerbella, also there are no sudden visits at lunch time

You know it also works the other way, like i’m Jordanian but i’ve lived abroad all my life, and when i got back to Jordan (this year) I realized that i can be treated, to a degree, as an expat. Like you can always give off this attitude that you’re clueless about the culture and social norms here CUZ YOU DIDN’T GROW UP HERE, and you find that you can escape a lot of the rules and judgemental attitudes from people especially social obligations, which truthfully i am actually clueless about many of them.

I get away with that all the time, especially cuz english is my first language, and so sometimes if i feign ignorance of the Arabic language (which i actually understand perfectly), i get excused for not getting “it”….

Its sad that i have to do that, play dumb, but then again its to avoid having people judge me on their cultural standards that seriously i have no reason to be subscribe to

i SO agree on the independance part and everything goes ur way, ya allah there’s nothing better than going back home to 0% nagging, and 100% ownership!

and i agree, i love my folks, but they get on my nerves big time! im gonna kick my kids out at 18 the american way! lol

that’s another way of looking at it Maha loved the part where u pretend not to understand…

loool VA i might do that too…. only if u are living as an expat otherwise relatives will be all over you.. back to square one it’s awesome to be an Expat!