cultural conversations

today my professor for arab women writers invited some of her jordanian students to our class and we spent the period discussing any cross-cultural issues that came to mind. it was incredibly interesting and lots of fun to interact with the jordanian students and contrast their views to ours on subjects that don't always come up in daily conversation. some of the highlights:
--during a discussion about gender relations, an american student brought up the idea of stay-at-home dads, and asked the jordanians whether the husband being the one to stay at home while the wife works occurs often in jordanian society. the response from the jordanian students was to burst out in uncontrollable giggles at the ridiculous notion of a stay-at-home dad existing in their society. while granted this idea is by no means a majority occurrence in the u.s., i think we're at the point where it's common enough that people wouldn't blatantly laugh at the mere suggestion of it. the differences in our perception of this concept is a great illustration of the significant societal and cultural differences regarding the roles of men and women.
--one of the jordanian students asked us whether what he had seen in movies/tv shows was accurate: that americans tend to move in together before marriage. in jordan this is something that absolutely never occurs: there is not even any physical contact before marriage, nonetheless living together, and the jordanian student explained that he did not understand why in the world americans live together before marriage because isn't that pretty much the same thing as marriage? it was intersting to me to note that i find the jordanian tradition equally as strange and illogical as he finds our ways, and all of the americans generally agreed that we found it most logical to move in with someone before marrying them in order to really get to know them and know that you're fully compatible before committing to marriage. although we came away from the discussion understanding each other's motives a little better, i don't think either side felt drawn to change their views on the subject.
also, this reminds me, a couple weeks ago i was watching tv with my host sister and the movie 'dirty dancing havana nights' was on. i'd never seen it before so i stayed to watch, and about halfway through i had noticed how the movie seemed to be overly drawing out the lead-up to the main couple's first kiss, because every time they came close the scene would change. when the movie ended with still no kiss, i got a little suspicious and realized that it wasn't the movie itself but the jordanian channel it was broadcast over that had deleted all the physically intimate scenes. another great illustration of cultural differences haha.
--one of the jordanian students had asked us whether we had voted for obama (all but two or three of us had- i guess you get a certain type of person who comes to study abroad here), and then later in the discussion asked us why we'd wanted to study arabic or the middle east. one of my classmates said something really interesting that i feel to be true: our generation's formative years were mostly lived during the bush era, during the post 9/11 years when the middle east took a spotlight in american foreign policy, and even if only subconsciously, we were all influenced by that in one way or another. for the majority of us, there was a strong sense of dissatisfaction with our government's actions and attitudes towards the mideast, and a desire to change and improve this. i myself don't have grand-scale political ambitions for my knowledge of arabic and the middle east, but i think part of my motivation is my belief that even one individual has the ability to increase understanding between cultures, both as a positive representative of america while abroad here, and as a window for my community at home into the reality (rather than the news stories and politics) of people and life over here. i know that when i come home in one piece with stories of friendship and a beautiful culture, i will be dispelling the perceptions of at least a few of those around me that the middle east is full of terrorists and that my being here is an irrational daily risk to my safety, and even if that were my only reason for being here that in itself would be a valuable and worthwhile use of time.