Your Typical Mix of Romance, Tragedy & Subculture

On Wednesday 3rd of October I attended a play held in Katara titled Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad. The play was heavily glocalized in terms of production design and content .The script was tweaked to be made applicable to the events which occurred/are occurring in Iraq. Globalization can be seen by the fact that the Iraqi Theater Company is touring to certain countries to showcase their adaptation of the famous Shakespearean play.

To be honest I was quite hesitant to attend. Being a huge Shakespeare fan, I automatically thought that it would be extremely unoriginal since ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a play that has been taken on heavily. However, I was pleasantly surprised to how original and glocalized the play was. Also, the production was extremely beautiful and simple. The mood of the scenes was incorporated in the lighting and sound used. The sound was somewhat manipulated to act as a constant reminder to the war and tension in Iraq.

My friends and I are really into plays and have very similar tastes in terms or music and television shows. I guess we internalized the same cultural attitude. There’s a sense of reassurance one gets when having similar social interactions with a group of individuals. Interestingly enough I heard about the play from a person who isn’t part of my close social network. Even though the person was a weak tie, in a social network sense, he virtually introduced me to the play by posting the link on Facebook. Having diversity in a social network proves to be beneficial in terms of accessing knowledge. By posting the link on Facebook he passively influenced his Facebook friends to know attend or at least know that this event is taking place in Doha.

During class a metaphor was used to describe identity and the ways in which we perform in our everyday life. The metaphor suggests that social roles are like dramatic performances “enacted” on a public stage. While watching the play I couldn’t help but think of the metaphor and how it applies to the different roles we play in different situations. My student self is completely different to my role as a daughter. In our roles we act depending on whom we’re interacting with and what is expected of us. The actors in the play were doing so in trying to communicate a certain message about the destruction of war and the destructive tension between different religions.

Also, the subcultures within the play could be applied to our everyday life. The mujahedeen and the musicians stood out as subcultures. In the play the mujahedeen took part in destruction, which essentially led to the death of the two main characters. The intensity of the subculture was evident by the fact that the character had no problem getting himself killed in the name of what he and his subculture believes in. The musicians on the side of the stage were not part of the play yet they provided an interesting soundtrack.

The evening spent made me realize the ways in which pop culture is diffused and the power of interpersonal word-of-mouth communication.

Everybody works but father

“What does your dad do?”

“My dad? Uh, he’s a lecturer,” I looked down at my feet, which were making patterns in the playground’s sandy grit.



“Oh, what subject does he teach?”

“Language,” I muttered, gritting my teeth. I knew what was coming next.

“Interesting. Where?”

“Well,” I was thinking fast about how I could change the topic, “He doesn’t teach anywhere as of now…”

For as long as I can remember, that was the one reply I had for that seemingly harmless “where does your dad work” question. I was beginning to give up hope that my answer would ever change.

“Uh, no, he doesn’t work right now.”

It did come up more often back then in high school, when I was in the process of interacting and developing a social identity.

And it wasn’t a pleasant question.

“Oh, he’s a lecturer. Hey, I love your shoes! Where did you get those from?”

Dad had a history of being constantly in and out of jobs. Six months here, two months there, yearlong gaps in between. Looking back now, I think I can pin the inconsistency on spikes in he-cession.



Nonetheless, it was to transform my societal outlook forever.

That was the time that saw my dear mother become "Mrs. Dad" when circumstances made her take over as the family breadwinner. She worked round the clock—7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at her workplace, then longer hours back home.

My dad?

That is the funniest part.



His shift would begin everyday at around the same time, lasting the same number of hours.

Only, he would make breakfast, sweep and mop, tidy rooms and prepare lunch. I think he could have related very well to the following review from the 1983 comedy drama film, Mr. Mom:

“Jack soon finds himself overwhelmed with laundry, cooking, cleaning and other household chores. He is frustrated with the never ending menial tasks. His only social contracts around the house are his children and though he tries to engage them in work, he is often left feeling frustrated and alone. Jack shouts at his wife, ‘My brain is like oatmeal. I yelled at Kenny today for coloring outside the lines! Megan and I are watching the same TV shows and I’m liking them! I’m loosing it.’”

Only, I must say, life wasn’t all that rough. Mom and dad adapted to the bizarre responsibility transverse. I did too.

Before long, I had spent 12 years living in this role reversal. Although the family responsibilities clearly appeared uncomfortably topsy turvy to me…..well, I was okay. It was just the way my family worked—dad cooked and cleaned, mom brought in the money. I was habituated.

Yet when that question was asked, I would always be “thinking fast about how I could change the topic.” One more time, I used to brood, and I’m going to snap. “No, my dad doesn’t work for god sakes!! Only mom does. But you what? That is okay with me! Because they have managed to make it work so well…”

Come to think of it, although it was always okay with me, I knew, even as a fifth grader, that it would never be so with society.

Society.



That rigid structure of standards and values everyone wishes to be a well- integrated part of.

If you function out of norms, you are the odd one out.

For all those years before my father finally got a steady job, my family and me-- despite being financially well off-- were the odd-ones-out.

That is how society is fundamentally structured. The male and female spheres of responsibilities have been laid out quite distinctly, almost as a stringent law of nature that has to be respected and abided by. The man pays the bills; the woman takes care of the children. She can have a career, which is becoming increasingly common these days, but home and hearth still remain the top priority.


Although this concept is increasingly changing in today’s fast-paced, modernizing society, an absolute gendered division of labor in the private realm is still a difficult idea to digest.

“I just think that’s absurd,” said sociology professor Geoff Harkness, and I couldn’t agree more. What’s wrong so long as a family manages to function?

But modern society is yet to catch up with the notion. I think we were a family at the wrong place at the wrong time. Hopefully, a few years from now, society will be much more receptive to the idea.



Oh and dad, if you are reading this, I just want you to know that you make the best pea and potato soup ever.

An International Cultural Meeting of Youth

Cultural mediation helps local and foreign citizens relate better with each other. It helps them understand their different backgrounds and interact positively with each other. “The main characterizing elements of cultural mediators are communicative competence, empathy, active listening and good knowledge of both the hosting country and country of origin (culture, laws, traditions, etc.)” (“What is,” par. 1). Cultural encounter is the experience of meeting and interacting between people in a cross-cultural visit from different cultural backgrounds. My first cultural encounter occurred when I volunteered in the first International Cultural Meeting of Youth, which happened in March 2011 for the first time in Qatar. There were around 15 to 20 French students who took Arabic and came to learn the language better, and some of them wanted to work in Qatar. My social role was to guide them during their visit and host them through this voluntary organization.
When they arrived we greeted them and asked them, “ What do you want to see in Qatar, and what did you hear before about Qatar?” They told us that they didn’t know about Qatar until their Arabic professor told them about it. They visited, and they were thinking that Qatar is so boring with sand and that they came only for an educational purpose. Also, they came because of the big attention that Qatar has for sport. Perhaps they were feeling some cultural shock.

We took them to several places in Qatar because this meeting was supposed to exchange cultural values and norms. We took them to Katara, The Pearl, the Islamic Museum, Fanar, Cultural Village, malls, Doha Land, and Souq Wagif. While we were doing these tours, social interaction happened between us because we were presenting ourselves as a model of Qatar society, so they started to ask questions about our customs, traditions, symbols, and why we do certain things. They were really open-minded and smiled and said hello to everyone. When we were in the bus some of the girls opened the window and said hi to everyone in the other cars, so the others (young boys) understood their greetings differently and chased us, and we had a big problem. I explained to the girls that we don’t do this here in Qatar because it will be understood in not only friendship but as an odd invitation because our cultural expectations are different.

The French people really loved Souq Wagif the most because it combines many different things: shopping, entertainment, showing different performers, and it is multicultural where there are many things from outside Qatar. Souq Wagif represents the cultural heritage of Qatar. This imaginative place has an awesome scene for taking pictures. While we were there some of them took pictures of us, and we told them not to put our pictures on Facebook but to keep them for themselves, yet we weren’t really comfortable with that. They were violating our private boundaries. One week after they went back, all our pictures were in Facebook, and we are not allowed to put our pictures on public display, so we told them to remove them. It was really trying because it took a lot of time to check on every single one of the 35 of them who were displaying our pictures. If our parents had known about it, we would have been facing a big problem because we save our pictures, and no one can view them online. The French people didn’t understand that because our public and private boundaries are different than theirs.
They really enjoyed their time, and they were shocked that we are really kind comparing to the other people from other countries, but I really find them kind, also. I think they still have some wonders and unanswered questions about our country. They didn’t understand the cultural structure because I think they stayed for a short time. They had many questions for me about Qatar, about our society. There isn’t enough education outside about Qatar. That’s why our cultural exchange showed them that Qatar is really a beautiful, unique country. In addition, we spread our cultural religion, identity and showed the right picture of Qatari people.


Work cited:
“What is cultural mediation.” Immmiweb. n. d. web. 2 Nov.2011.

Lady Wildcats

"Social interaction is an everyday event where at least two people communicate and respond to each other through language and symbolic gestures" (p118). I thought one of the perfect examples to go along with that definition is our Lady Wildcats basketball team. The Lady Wildcats team is a basketball organization that was formed two years ago at the Northwestern University in Qatar, and was immediately recognized as being one of the strongest girls’ basketball teams in Qatar Foundation. Before joining the team, I would always come to all the girl’s basketball games and cheer on the team.



It never occurred to me how different it would feel to be part of the team as opposed to a supporter of our university teams. There is so much communication that occurs between team members and many terms, basketball plays that are used during games and practices, which an outside bystander would not usually understand. There are even certain hand gestures that you have to be aware of while playing, either from team members or the coaches or even the referee’s crazy, constant hand signals.



“Division of labor is when work is broken down into various tasks, where each task is performed by people trained to do that task” (p118). Division of labor brings different types of people together and creates a sense of solidarity among groups of people. Division of labor could be applied to basketball as well, as each member on the team has a specific task to accomplish, whether she/he is the post, wing or point guard.



Each person on the Lady Wildcats has a task and we all communicate with each other, either through hand gestures or calling out basketball plays, when we are on the court to make sure our task is fulfilled. This definitely does create solidarity between the team members and we all work together to achieve our goal.
There are social statuses given to various people on the basketball team. Those statuses are achieved statuses and are given to people based on their personal effort and ability.



In sociology, collective effervescence is described as being a percieved energy felt by a group of people. In my opinion collective effervescence is best understood when referring it to a sporting event, such as basketball, as both the people cheering in the stands and the people who are part of the team have that perceived energy that everyone experiences as they watch/play the basketball games.