Growing up our parents were never really super arab. If had to put them on a
sort of scale...of arabness, I would say they were somewhere below the middle.
Well I think that's actually a good thing if you think about it.
That means that they're more easygoing and more open-minded.
Don't get me wrong, they still preferred the doctor and engineer route, they still use olive oil
and black seed oil to treat any and every illness out there,
my mom did one time throw a slipper in my general direction.
That's an exaggeration. Come on.
No it happened, I swear she was angry.
Fake news!
No! No.
You deserved it!
No. No I didn't!
But here's the thing, here's the thing, regardless. The problem is these stories don't match up well with my friends.
You're just sitting there awkwardly with your friends trying to
you know, contribute a story to the conversation.
Man yesterday I was just sitting there playing cod and my dad walks in he's like
[HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WASTING YOUR TIME?!]
And he got out his belt and then my mom who was like downstairs like
drinking her [tea] and stuff, she came up and she's all like [my love] you need
to study to be a doctor so you can marry your aunt's daughter Sarah and then she
like flung a slipper in my face.
(awkwardly laughing)
Ya, um, yesterday I...ah...ate [date cookie] and [thyme].
Ya I think food is the only cultural thing we really have going for us. Otherwise we're
not really Arab. I mean if there was a game show called How Arab Are You, we'd
lose every single round, well other than the part about being punctual.
Welcome to...
How Arab Are Youuuu!?
And now our first contestant, Hamoude!
[Umm...Me?]
Or is that me? He's talking to me, isn't he?
Our next contestant, Abodeeee!
Alright, for our first question, What is the first thing you do when you wake up?
Ummm...brush your teeth?
[Wrong!]
You drink [tea].
Next question!
How many kisses do you give when saying hello?
oh yeah that's uh...[Wrong!]
It's three!
Okay next question, what is the ideal number of times you honk when driving?
Um...I think you probably shouldn't-
[Wrong!] trick question, you always honk when you drive!
Next and final question, how much perfume is just right? I think most people tell you to...
[Wrong, Wrong!, Wrong!]
The right anwser is
the whole bottle or nothing
well I think because we don't seem very cultural it's
hard for people to pinpoint where we're from. So a lot of times you know when
people like to ask that question, you know, Where are you from?
Which usually means like what's your ethnicity? Where your parents are from?
They are really surprised by our answer. On one hand either they're Pakistani and are
devastated to find out that the last 10 minutes of Urdu meant zero to me or they're
Arab and they're super unimpressed with my lack of Arabness.
Yeah and our skin color is a bit darker than most Lebanese, so that doesn't really help. I mean like
maybe, it's maybe it's like 5% darker but you gotta you gotta get all the points you can.
And our broken Arabic definitely does not help.
Ya I mean, even though our Arabic is good enough to understand what people are saying we
don't really know what we're supposed to say back sometimes. I know my friends
like to introduce me as being Lebanese, especially when it's to an older uncle
and sometimes that tends to get me in awkward situations where I kind of
expose my lack of Arabness. Like one time, my friend introduced me as being
Lebanese and the store owner got really excited!
[Welcome!]
o...ah...(unsure of proper arabic response)
As salamu alkium.
As salamu alkium? What?
Are you arab or what?
Yes, from Lebanon.
You're Lebanese?! Habibi, you could be adopted you know.
Ya, it kinda happens a lot even with family like even with a [grandma] and [grandpa].
I'll be sharing a story and somewhere along the line I realize that, hey I don't know what the
next word is in Arabic or the next sentence and so I decide that my
technique is to just give up you know like abandon the thought
completely, so in the middle of my, my conversation when I'm talking I'll just
kind of drift off and mumble and end off with yeah , ya3ni, you know. And I think it
works out because I don't really know if they understand what I'm saying to begin with.
Thing is, most people speak to me every other language except Arabic.
Like one time, I was sitting on the bus and this older guy sits beside me and
start speaking Hebrew to me.
Yeah I've had people ask me if I was Jewish.
Well you know what, that's why sometimes I think it's better just to play along
just kind of try to figure out what they're saying and not make a whole
awkward deal about it. Like a lot of my friends tend to be
Pakistani, so their parents tend to think that I'm Pakistani and I'll be in
situations where it's kind of been a bit too late to let them know that I have no
idea what they said. So I try to figure it out.
Ah, as-salamu-alkium.
Is Bilal home to play at the park?
oh, okay mm-hmm yeah okay I'll see him there.
hey how'd you know I was here? Oh your mom told me, at least...I think she did.
So, if you're like us, it tends to feel like you're in this awkward lonely middle where
you're not too cultural for your own group and other ethnicities think you're
the same group as that, but they realize you're not and quickly get pushed into the
middle. The awkward lonely middle.
But there's good news, cuz the lonely middle isn't so lonely anymore.
If you're like us you're part of this many first-generation Muslims that
spoke mostly English and never really got into the whole cultural stuff from back home.
And not to mention, you're seeing a bit of a shift with future generations
especially with a lot of interracial marriages going on,
I mean we were at an interracial [marriage] just the other day. Right Abdul Rahman?
Yep! Hey look even closer, Mohamad himself
will have Lebanese-Pakistani-Canadian kids in the future, insha'Allah.
And I don't think anyone
will care about the order of those words in the future.
So, if you're like us and
you aren't very cultural, you're part of this awkward middle, then welcome or I
guess I should say [Welcome in arabic].
Thanks so much for watching!
Hope you guys enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed making it.
I know it's a lot different than our usual type of content
So let us know in the comments below what you honestly thought about it.
Did you hate it? Did you love it?
Cuz we're hoping to make more, so hopefully you loved it.
If you're looking for any sort of stories, whether, it's just these personal funny stories, or more of the
higher quality, Hollywood type of short film kinda stuff,
Subscribe and join the journey!
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