You know you're an Arab when...
I read this on my friend's blog, it's hillarious
Your father is a doctor or engineer.
You have a Persian rug in every room.
You have an endless supply of pistachios, dates, and pumpkin seeds.
You actually like yogurt drinks.
You either tip 2% or 50% but never 15%.
Your parents say you're becoming Americanized anytime you get into trouble.
You hug and kiss relatives you have never seen before in your life.
You curse at your teachers or strangers in Arabic.
You wonder whether a cute girl is Arabic and go up to ask her just to start a conversation
You have to constantly remind your American friends to take off their shoes when they enter your house
You flip out when someone mistakes you for a Mexican or Indian.
You can spot an Arab a mile away and they have spotted at you because they keep staring.
You have Thanksgiving dinner with rice and "bamiyah" (STEW)
After a family meal, the women fight to the death over who should wash the dishes while the men sit on their behinds and discuss politics, waiting for their tea.
You walk down a street with Arab stores and you are trying to eavesdrop on others' Arabic conversations.
Your parents want you to become a doctor or engineer.
You use your forehead and eyebrows to point something out.
Your mother yells at the top of her lungs to call you to dinner even if you're in the next room.
You have at least thirty cousins.
You have a 4 cousins, an uncle, a brother-in-law and 7 friends named Mohammed.
You have told your kid not to walk the floor barefoot or they'll catch a cold.
You arrive one or two hours late to a party and think it's normal. ...all arbs are late- all the time!
You are standing next to the largest suitcases at the Airport.
You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
You say bye 17 times on the phone.
When your parents meet strangers and talk for a few minutes, you discover they know one of your uncles back home.
Your parents don't realize phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs when making long distance calls.
Your friends tell you to be quiet when you are on the phone with your family because now you are screaming at the top of your lungs.
Your mother has a minor disagreement with her (or your dad's) sister and doesn't talk to her for ten years.
You hide everything from your parents.
Your mother does everything for you if you are male.
You do all the housework and cooking if you are female.
Your relatives alone could populate a small city.
Everyone is a family friend
If you are male, you only date Westerners and even secretly get engaged to one to scare your family, until you finally end up marrying an Arabic girl.
If you are female, every guy you know dates Western girls who walk all over him, then when he's finally ready to get married, he comes to ask for you.
You avoid public places when with a member of the opposite sex, especially if there is an acquaintance within a 250 miles radius
You went to a university as far away from home as possible.
You still came back home to live with your parents after you graduate.
You teach Westerners swearwords in your Arabic.
You always say "open the light" instead of "turn the light on"
You're walking out of customs with your trolley at the airport and you see at least twenty-five members of your family who have come to pick you up.
You go back to your parents' country and people treat you like a member of...the royal family.
Your parents drink 6 cups of tea a day
You've had a shoe thrown at you by your mother
Your father is a doctor or engineer.
You have a Persian rug in every room.
You have an endless supply of pistachios, dates, and pumpkin seeds.
You actually like yogurt drinks.
You either tip 2% or 50% but never 15%.
Your parents say you're becoming Americanized anytime you get into trouble.
You hug and kiss relatives you have never seen before in your life.
You curse at your teachers or strangers in Arabic.
You wonder whether a cute girl is Arabic and go up to ask her just to start a conversation
You have to constantly remind your American friends to take off their shoes when they enter your house
You flip out when someone mistakes you for a Mexican or Indian.
You can spot an Arab a mile away and they have spotted at you because they keep staring.
You have Thanksgiving dinner with rice and "bamiyah" (STEW)
After a family meal, the women fight to the death over who should wash the dishes while the men sit on their behinds and discuss politics, waiting for their tea.
You walk down a street with Arab stores and you are trying to eavesdrop on others' Arabic conversations.
Your parents want you to become a doctor or engineer.
You use your forehead and eyebrows to point something out.
Your mother yells at the top of her lungs to call you to dinner even if you're in the next room.
You have at least thirty cousins.
You have a 4 cousins, an uncle, a brother-in-law and 7 friends named Mohammed.
You have told your kid not to walk the floor barefoot or they'll catch a cold.
You arrive one or two hours late to a party and think it's normal. ...all arbs are late- all the time!
You are standing next to the largest suitcases at the Airport.
You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
You say bye 17 times on the phone.
When your parents meet strangers and talk for a few minutes, you discover they know one of your uncles back home.
Your parents don't realize phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs when making long distance calls.
Your friends tell you to be quiet when you are on the phone with your family because now you are screaming at the top of your lungs.
Your mother has a minor disagreement with her (or your dad's) sister and doesn't talk to her for ten years.
You hide everything from your parents.
Your mother does everything for you if you are male.
You do all the housework and cooking if you are female.
Your relatives alone could populate a small city.
Everyone is a family friend
If you are male, you only date Westerners and even secretly get engaged to one to scare your family, until you finally end up marrying an Arabic girl.
If you are female, every guy you know dates Western girls who walk all over him, then when he's finally ready to get married, he comes to ask for you.
You avoid public places when with a member of the opposite sex, especially if there is an acquaintance within a 250 miles radius
You went to a university as far away from home as possible.
You still came back home to live with your parents after you graduate.
You teach Westerners swearwords in your Arabic.
You always say "open the light" instead of "turn the light on"
You're walking out of customs with your trolley at the airport and you see at least twenty-five members of your family who have come to pick you up.
You go back to your parents' country and people treat you like a member of...the royal family.
Your parents drink 6 cups of tea a day
You've had a shoe thrown at you by your mother
Technorati Tags: arabs, arab, list, ethnic jokes
32 Comments:
At 11/26/2005 11:25 AM, Anonymous said…
Ha Ha ! I am definitely and Arab :)
But the only slight difference is that my dad threw that shoe at me not my mom!
At 11/27/2005 3:25 AM, Bubidu said…
I didn't wanna comment on this but you really pushed me..lol
I actually counted my immediate cousins they were 16, i still think it's too many..
my dad is an engineer, so am I.. lol
we have persian rugs backhome, thank god not here, i really like contemporary stuff..
I can't convince my mother that the phone speaker adjusts the volume so it doesn't make a difference if she yells at her father-in-law, and yes she yells a lot, so do all of my aunts..
i can only think of 2 muhammads (sounds weird i know)..
it's true.. i hide a lot of things from my parents..
i cannot digest breakfast without having a cup of tea.
and yes everytime we visit our home country there are over 25 ppl picking us up..
At 11/27/2005 7:21 AM, Anonymous said…
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
(these are called in Egyptian
كلمتين السلم)
At 11/27/2005 11:49 AM, Betqa said…
Hilarious... I'm not Arab, but my fiance is (well, half).His dad is an engineer and mom is a doctor and they both throw shoes at him...
Anyhow, I think your blog is great. I'm a Canadian expat now living in Slovenia and have been to Jordan twice this year...
Kepp up with the entertaining posts!
Cheers,
Beti
At 11/27/2005 12:07 PM, x said…
hana, that's hillarious, I wonder why shoes are their favourite projectiles.. I guess we better be thankful it's nt "2ob2ab"
Ahmad, my dad is an engineer and I'm going to be one soon, I have over 50 cousins..... from my dad's side. We have the persian rugs here (yes we brought them over from motherland Syria), we have a few mohamed's but many mahmoud's after my grandfather. I avoid all popular arab hangouts, in fear of gossip spreading like a california wild fire. Tea releaves depression, at least for me. Last time my mom was in Syria, there's literally a bus of people waiting for her. When my dad calls from work, I just put the handset down and i just listen to the faint voice coming from the east. When I was in Montreal, I tried my best to listen to every arab conversation going on around me. When my friends an I play soccer, we swear at the other team in arabic.. I can go on forever, so I'm gonna draw the line here :|
Masreya, see it happens so much, you even invented a name for it!
betqa, thanks for dropping by. Those arab genes are nuts, even being half arab your husband experiences all of these things.. I hope you were never in the crossfire. :D
keep coming by eh ;)
At 11/27/2005 12:48 PM, Sabri Hakim said…
:-)
At 11/27/2005 1:31 PM, Sinan said…
LOL great list!! Almost all of it apply on me too :P There's no escape I can't hide :P And what's the deal with persian rugs really?? I mean my dad used to go UAE espcially to buy some!!
At 11/27/2005 8:04 PM, Roba said…
LOOOOOOL!
Quite racist bas hilarious.
Among my favorites was this:
You always say "open the light" instead of "turn the light on"
We have the opposite problem in my family, cause we translate English into Arabic and not vice versa.. so it's like.. wear nailpolish.. albes manakeer.. and my mother has a piss fit! "Inti," points up and down at me "koleyatek, bedek tilbesi manakeer?"
At 11/27/2005 10:38 PM, Anonymous said…
Funny - many of these apply to my husband and his family.
At 11/29/2005 3:05 PM, x said…
Sinan, it's funny because it's true. Gotta love these lists.
Roba, I tend to do that too.
Give me a hand = a3tini eid
care for a coffee = btihtam bil ahwe
At 11/30/2005 1:56 AM, Dina said…
Hilarious! I laughed so hard that I almost spilled my tea on the persian rug ;p
At 6/02/2007 11:50 PM, Anonymous said…
:)
OMG I LOOOVE THIS LIST! SERIOUSLY IT IS ALL SO VERY TRUE. MY DAD HAS 7 SISTERS AND EACH 1 HAS AT LEAST 6 CHILDREN.AND SOME OF THEM HAVE CHILDREN!I HAVE LIKE 5 PERSIAN RUGS IN MY LIVING ROOM AND MY PARENTS ALWAYS EAT PHISTO(PEANUTS)AND MY DAD IS AN ENGINEER!LMAO!OK BEFORE I START RATTLEING ON ILL JUSTSAY 1 MORE THING....THE COMMENT THAT IS ABOVE THIS COMMENT IS VERY OFFENSIVE AND THE PERSON WHO WROTE THAT SHOULD GO TO HELL!
>:(
At 7/13/2007 4:39 PM, Anonymous said…
hi my names mohamed im from palestine and omg this list is true i counted my cosins i have 75 on my dads side and 80 on my moms side wow thats crazy i have had a high heel thrown at me more than once my mom and dad yell at the top of there lungs when making a phone call back home (so do i)i have to have shy (tea) everyday my mom and aunts fight over the dishes when there almost done becuse my sisters and cosin wash them when they are fighting. all my friends know how to sa shramota and kus imak i counted there are over 35 mohameds in my famly including me
At 1/03/2008 6:45 AM, Anonymous said…
Anonymous, there's no reason to call people names. Besides, Muslims don't do that--its forbidden in Islam.
My parents just have to have tea every 15 minutes, practically. They throw shoes at me when I forget to pray or miss prayer time, I hide everything from my parents, true. I teach little Western kids in my neighbourhood swearwords in arabic. =D. And my parents want me to become a doctor--and my favorite--we say, "open the light" instead of "turn the light on". XD this is hilarious.
At 4/23/2008 12:36 AM, Anonymous said…
HAHAHA! this applies to me soooooo much. when i visit Iraq, the whole towns there to see me off the plane.
:D rofl.
At 10/05/2008 2:43 AM, Anonymous said…
ive gotten the slipper before
my mom once got me with a pinata stick
she was feeling pretty festive
At 12/01/2008 12:27 AM, Anonymous said…
wallah all i can say is this is true and a half! i just noticed wheni read this that i have 53 cousins, my mom throws her shoe at me atleast once a month but its all good. i think that its a lil racist but its still too funny! i have called a teacher a "kalbeh" a "charmootah" in frnt of her face but she deserves it for being racist
anyway nice list tho and it applies 110%
At 12/30/2008 8:19 PM, Anonymous said…
Here's a list of some that i made up:
There is no such thing as quiet time
Your middle name is your father's first name.
Your Mom has a creative nickname:''Num Num'',''No No''etc
You have a difficult Arabic name so you come up with an Americanized version of it like "Sam" or "Mike."
Your parents love Um Kalthoom
Rice & Bizzer are staple foods in an arabic diet
You hug and kiss relatives you have never seen before in your life(you basically hug and kiss everyone arabic!)
If you are male, you're named after your grandfather or great-grandfather.
You watch the hell out of Arabic Satellite
You fall out with your parents alot
You have more then 4 kids.
You say the letter "h" like "etch."
If you are an Arab woman, you dye your hair an obviously fake shade of blonde that is nonexistent in nature and swear that it's natural.
Your parents pity anyone who is not an Arab and think all other cultures are morally corrupt.
Your parents Say your becoming more like the people in the culture where you live (if you live in Europe Or Usa)if you get in trouble
Your Parents will say you did good but never Perfect
No matter how hard you try to be perfect your parents always yell''stop messing up , you'll never be perfect like me''
Your parents always compare you to their friends children that they think are perfect
your terrified of your dad
If your the oldest (with 2 or more younger siblings) your parents consider you the ideal for your younger siblings
and when you do something wrong your younger siblings will copy you
You think English music is quiet compared to Arabic music
You have to take a nap for at least 2 hours in the early evening (1-6)
You think it's odd that all the shops stay open till 4 in the morning in arabic countries if you live in Europe or Usa
Your not surprised when your aunt or your mother tell you they're pregnant (it's only the millionth time, nothing new)
At 1/03/2009 8:31 PM, Anonymous said…
well person below who said "muslim suck balls"
this is juss bouts arabs not muslims. NECK!!!
&& im a arab muslim & damn proud. and i know a lot about my religion but i guess you must not know anything about being cristation..you prbly dont even know why you celebrate xmas.
not all hail jesus.
ALL HAIL ALLAH
ALLAH AKABAR. LAHILA AHILALA
At 2/10/2009 4:40 PM, Anonymous said…
HaHa... SO True, So True but one thing was forgotten, how about you know your arab when people swear all kinds of swears just for you to eat or drink anything even if u just ate....
At 12/29/2010 2:34 AM, Anonymous said…
Hahahah i love this:)
well my names Eman and I used to live in Jordan my dads arab and my moms american so we moved there for a few years I have 1 uncle named Mohammad and about 5 cousins named Mohammad:) its crazy theres a persian rug almost in every room of my house. other than my room of course. my parents do say i'm acting as an american acts when I get in trouble even though my moms american.And everytime we would go out of the house you get stared down by every guy that passes by!! well i gotta say i really do actually miss that arab life!!!:) I love Jordan<3
At 12/30/2010 11:05 PM, Anonymous said…
:p hey im sairah and my sister is eman she posted to:/im my dads little girl and i love him as much as my mom but a bunch of stuf is true on that post thing its really funny i laughed my head off when i saw it:p I LAUGHED MY HEAD OFF AND I MEAN IT:P BYE BYE
At 12/30/2010 11:08 PM, Anonymous said…
that is way stupid that thing is stupid what that thing says
At 12/30/2010 11:34 PM, Anonymous said…
hey my name is lailah and i cinda think this blog is mean because im helf muslim and thair saying mean things about muslims bye yall...
At 2/24/2011 9:51 PM, Anonymous said…
HAHAHAHA... its sooo true!!! im from palestine, born in jordan, and live in america... all the things on here are true and there are some more.. PROUD TO BE AN ARABB!!!!!!!!!
At 4/02/2011 10:09 PM, Lulu said…
Lol! I've also noticed that when using touch screens, arabs always use their middle finger!!!
At 10/13/2011 12:03 PM, Angel said…
hahahahahahaha ... i cracked up READING THIS ! lol ...
BUT I GOTTA SAY Some of these are so true ... !!!!
but not all ... I'm an Arab and a Muslim,i lived my whole life in Jordan ... I've been away to London once on a vacation ... but my English actually is better than my Arabic(especially Grammatically)...
At 10/19/2011 6:49 PM, Anonymous said…
My great grandfather (from my mom's side)was Palestinian. My mother's maiden name is Kawas. We are Christians. She married my father, a Honduran. I live in Honduras. I was surprised to find that even if I am not fully Arab, a lot of these are true. Hahahahaha. My mom does love tea.
At 3/01/2012 12:52 AM, atlanta hotel said…
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At 4/02/2013 4:18 PM, Anonymous said…
Haha! I am Arab too. I'm not Arab from my mom i'm Arab from my dad, and he was the one that threw the shoe at me! I am actually really happy to be an Arab even-though I forget some of my cousins names because i have so much. I am like 98% Arab, I don't know ALL the words but i know most. I answered all the statements above and they all were true about my family!!!
At 4/07/2013 11:21 PM, Anonymous said…
There must be something wrong with my family. LOL I'm Irish-decent Australian. I've noticed many of these traits in my partner which made me laugh (he's Lebanese), but what made me laugh the hardest was that I was able to say, "Hey, that's me! or That was my mum/dad/grandmother!"
Yep, I've had shoes thrown at me by my mum and I've thrown mine at my own kids.
The middle name being that of the father/grandfather is also true in my family, including my own children.
I have almost 50 cousins at a rough guess, not completely sure though, I lost count.
My grandmother's house was covered in Persian rugs.
My mother would have 6 cups of tea just for breakfast.
I've seen similar things on other sites, such as using bucket loads of olive oil on everything - that was one of my aunts. Having a yard full of fruit trees and trading boxes full of fruits and vegetables with every friend and neighbor - that was my grandmother.
I've only ever known one Mohammed, but I've known more Michaels that is remotely sane.
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