Online dating, Jordanian Style

I noticed that to a majority of Jordanian women, online dating consists of the following

#1 Creating a profile on Myspace or Facebook, with or without a picture, or even with a fake picture(of a baby, Nancy Ajram, Elisa, Haifa Wahbi, a semi-naked Western female, a flag etc)

# 2 Leaving the profile blank

#3 hoping that the guy of her dreams would like her picture(or that of Haifa Wahbi) and would contact her to ask for her hand in holy matrimony.

Of course, I am not making things up and I have statistically valid data to prove it

o Out of 82 profiles(the sample size) for single females on facebook, only 33 bothered to write any thing

o Out of 30 profiles(the sample size) for single females on Myspace, only 15 bothered to write anything.

This tells me one of two things about this sample:

o 50-60% of the sample does not know how to fill a profile, maybe due to linguistic deficiency.

Or

o 50-60% of the sample, views themselves as a "beautiful" women with nothing to say or intrinsic value to reflect, nothing to contribute. Just a Barbie, a Brittany Spears of sort, with no brains to go with the looks.

Either way, this is a sorry state of affairs.

Considering the sample size is statistically big enough, I can say with some confidence that what applies to this sample applies also to the larger population pool.

To be fair, I am willing to bet that profiles of guys on the internet will only perform slightly better. Maybe there is stuff written in the profile, but in all likelihood the content itself is crap. Hence the usual complaint of women about descent men being in short supply.

I also expect these numbers to change a bit one or two years down the line for the following reasons:

A) Thanks to this blog post :-)

B) Linguistic deficiency is likely to decrease

C) Hopefully, more women will have content to write.

Engagement Customs

I had the lack of fortune (neither being fortunate nor mis-fortunate) of attending an engagement "Jaha." Now, I have been to several wedding "Jahas" before, but this was my first time in a fully fledged engagement Jaha, where the family of the broom-to-be, along with some VIPs goes to ask for the hand of the bride-to-be.

I found this custom to be totally useless and a waste of time. Just like various vestigial structures in human anatomy, this custom has lived on long after its function has been rendered obsolete.

I must concede that the problem of sticking to obsolete customs is not limited to the Jordanian society, but other places also, including the west.

But I digress; I have no concern with the west for now; their customs and traditions in question are generally on the benign side. That is defiantly not the case with the custom of "Jaha." As a matter of fact, I can at least point out four big problems with this concept:

1) It does not place any value on the individual, but the value is derived from the clan, the tribe, the VIPs and the family. The elders have to do the talking, and the "young" broom-to be has to keep his mouth shut. The person in question could be a rocket scientist, and he would still have to allow someone else to talk, even if this person was illiterate.

2) The whole thing assumes that the bride-to-be has no power over yes or no, as she is never present, but instead her father has to do the acceptance or refusal on her behalf.

3) No women are present. This made sense when women did not contribute to the society and had the kitchen as their sole domain. Now things have changed. It would not hurt if various VIP women started to be included in this stupid custom. After all, we started to have female ministers and members of the upper/lower house of the parliament. If they are good enough to run a ministry, or represent the "people," why not be part of a stupid "Jaha."

4) In none pre-arranged marriages, the whole thing is an act. But if one is going to act, why act some stupidity he/she inherited from antiquity.

I know that old traditions/customs die hard. While we can not get rid of our vestigial organs, we can make a conscious choice to replace our customs with new ones or update them for the times. We need to be aware of how stupid, degrading, retarded, and useless they can be. We really need to ask if they are appropriate for the 21^st century.

Arab Values

I was reading some article in the Dustour news paper where they interviewed some people about the subject of "Interracial" and inter-religious marriages.

One of the people interviewed started mumbling about the Arab values and the inconsolable difference between Arab culture and Western Culture.

Needless to say, this got me really annoyed. You see, there is a general assumption about the static nature of Arab values and culture. On top of it there is the misguided belief that values are shared between people in the various Arab countries or even within the same country.

First of all, I would like to get one thing straight, the values were always changing at different points in history, going from one extreme to the other, pretty much like a pendulum. For instance, the era that produced "A thousand and one nights" can be one example of a rather "liberal period." And then the rise of Wahabis in the Arab peninsula can be considered the pendulum swinging the other way around.
Another example is Jordan itself, it was more liberal up the mid 80s and then it went through a period of conservatism which we can not rid ourselves off even to this day.

Secondly, moral and cultural values differ between the different Arab countries and also within one county or even city; West Amman is "liberal," whereas east Amman is not. Amman as a whole is more liberal than say Maa'n.

Then we look at countries; Jordan is more "liberal" than Egypt or KSA, but less so than Syria or Lebanon. For example, a lot of Jordanians might get a cultural shock if they went from Jordan to Lebanon. And a lot of the Lebanese would consider the Jordanians culturally retarded when they visit here.

Third, a lot of the so called Arab values have not even survived to the 21st century. Most people have lost their honesty, generosity, and many other things that are parts of the core of Arab values. The only thing that people mean when they talk about "Arab values" is the relationship between the sexes, and drinking and they leave all the real important issues unmentioned.

So in view of all of the above, the talk of Arab culture as static and a none changing fact taken for granted is not only misguided, but obviously a sign of historical and cultural ignorance. The core of Arab values is not what people are talking about.

Tribal Law

I knew this from before, but it did not get to the foreground of my brain until today.

We are now almost 8 years into the 21st century and tribal law is still applied in matters related to accidental killings.

Yes, if someone ran over someone's child and killed him by accident and even if there were witness to testify to this, the driver in question would still have to go through the archaic process of "Atewh" and paying the "Dyeh" as compensation. And this process can almost destroy the life of the driver in question, because sometimes, the family of the deceased might decide to secure their retirement from the "Dyeh" money. Not to mention that the guy could rot in jail until the family of deceased decides that they have no problem with letting him out.

This process makes no sense what so ever. What even does not make any sense is that the government has no problem with it. Maybe modernizing only applies to certain things, but not to others.

I am not sure how this process can be replaced. But we need not look very far; many countries have never had any tribal laws and are doing just fine and have rather successful civil laws in place.

Deportation

I was walking on the pavement(street) when I noticed a verbal fight between an Iraqi who was driving an Iraqi car and a Jordanian driver who was driving a Jordanian car.

I have no doubt that Iraqi guy was driving like a jerk(not because he is Iraqi but because 90% of people who have BMWs or Mercedes in Jordan drive like jerks, irrespective of their nationality.) I am blogging about this because the Jordanian guy was threating to have the Iraqi guy deported.

Now, I have seen this situation at least 10 times before; A Jordanian threating an Iraqi or an Egyptian person to have him deported. To me this shows:

1) A mean streak in the Jordanian people. ( Would these people be happy if some Jordanian living in the UK was threatened with deportation)
2)There is a general misuse of power from the people in the government. I have no doubt that this person who is threating has a relative in the police or Mokhabarat(secret service) and I have no doubt that their relative would be glad to have the person in question deported. Hence, my point number 1

I am not sure if there is any remedies for this situation. Maybe in 20yrs when there is no "Wasta" or when people are tested for having an evil streak before they get hired for the police or the secret service.

Or even better, maybe in 20yrs time, all Arabs would be allowed to stay anywhere in the Arab world without worrying about residency issues or being deported. Just like they now have in the EU(actually they have had that for more than 10yrs now)

Anti 4 x 4

I stumbled on a UK based anti Urban 4x4 website. It got me thinking, we need to be "anti" urban 4x4 too. Hell, we need to be "anti" any car that has an engine bigger than 2.0 ltrs.

Why? Because these cars are great polluters and guzzle up fuel like there is no tomorrow. They produce twice the emissions of the regular 1.4-2.0 ltr cars and therefore harm the environment twice as much.

So why doesn't the government do something about it? Why does doesn't the government have any fuel consumption, or EU like emissions requirements for new cars? Come to think about why doesn't the government have any regulations of value when it come to cars?

Previously, I talked about the child seat issue. We have no regulations for that. Car safety is not an issue for the government, so we have no regulations to deal with mandatory air bags, promotion of dry air/nitrogen tire filling, or a minimum safety when it comes to car crash tests. I am not sure what the representatives in the lower house are busy with, but I have no doubt in my mind that whatever new law they are working on, it will not add much value to the lives of us "average" citizens.

Marriage Age

I was happy to know that the average marriage age for women in Jordan went up to 27. I hope that it will go up to something like 29 or 30. Women need to work more before they get married and Jordan really needs to put the breaks on population growth.

I did not get the chance to check the main reason for the increase in the average marriage age, but I am willing to bet that the cause is more economic than it is social. Yes I think that more people are dating today and more women are working and slightly delaying marriage, but the economic situation probably did cause more men to delay marriage until they can secure the ridiculous financial requirements of marriage in Jordan.

One step that the government should take to help reduce the population growth rate is to increase the legal marriage age to something like 21. I am sure many people would want to hang me over such a suggestion, but if the government assumes that people will listen to what the TV advertising says and use birth control, that will not work.

I am willing to bet that at least one quarter of Jordanian men will not stop impregnating their women until they get a male child. There is nothing any TV advertising or other mass media campaign can to do change the mind of such people. A possible tactic the government could use is to tax people who have more than 2-3 children. Of course this should not be applied retroactively. And if that does not work, the government should put these people in jail for acting so irresponisbley.

I know these suggestions are very radical and fascist on my part, but it can take tens of years for social habits to change on their own, especially in a country like Jordan. By then the Jordanian population would have doubled or tripled and it would be too late

Jordanian Humor, part 2

In view of the comments I got on my previous blog post, I decide to elaborate:

What makes a great comedy, not just an average comedy?

I think the ultimate acid test for great comedy is:

* It should make you laugh your ass off.
* It should withstand time and repetition. i.e., even after seeing it so many times 20 years later you should laugh your ass off.
* People who speak the same language but who live in another country should find it equally funny.
* Even though it is being viewed on the screen, the audio only version should be funny also.

Currently the available Jordanian comedy fails on all of these accounts.

The first two are somewhat self explanatory. As for the third, I think most people from Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt would not find the Jordanian sense of humor very appealing. However, the reverse is not true especially in the case of the Lebanese and the Egyptians.

I do not think that it matters that we as Jordanians think of ourselves as funny people, the ultimate test of funniness is if others who speak the same language as we do consider us funny. Alas, that is not the case.

With regard to the fourth requirement, I noticed that you can just listen to the best comedy without watching it and it would still be as funny as if you were watching it. Again, I do not recall watching any Jordanian humor that passes this test.

Jordanian Humor

It is generally agreed on outside Jordan that the Jordanian sense of humor pretty much is anything but funny.

So, I was thinking about how this situation can be improved a bit; In art, if one wanted to become good in art, he would study the work of Monet, De Kooning, Van Gogh, Giacometti, to name a few. These are the greats of Modern Art. Similarly, if one wanted to be good in philosophy, one would study Kant, Nietzsche, and so on.

Now, in my humble opinion the greatest works of Arab comedy were in the seventies, and though every Jordanian probably watched these great works at least 10 times, the Jordanian sense of humor is still annoying at best.

I am not sure if this would help, but I do not think it would be such a bad idea, if Jordanians who aspire to do something related to comedy took a look at the works of great British and American comedy shows and movies: Monty Python TV shows and movies, Faulty Towers, Saturday Night Live, Living Color, and so on.

I am sure that a lot of the comedy there is not culturally transferable. Nonetheless, I think that this can serve as a sort of inspiration. Furthermore, watching material of this sort can spark new ideas for new comic material, i.e., it would work as a catalysts for funny ideas to come out of the brains of those funny Jordanians to be.

Revised Eid

In the spirit of the Eid(actually this has nothing to do with spirit of the Eid, but with my need to offer my two(more like 10)cents,) I hereby offer my suggestions to improve the Eid:

1) Phone call before coming over to visit. The fact people do not call is a case in point regarding old habits dying hard. Back in the 70s most people did not have phones, so that is why they used to visit without calling advance. With everyone and his cousin having a mobil nowadays it no longer makes sense not to call in advance and see if people are staying home or going out.
2) Give gifts instead of giving money; if one got money, one spends it. That can not happen with a gift. Also with gift, one can remember a few years down the line that he got a certain gift from a certain person for the Eid of 2006.

Female Employee Quota

The other day, I went to visit one of my annoying customers (90% of my customers are annoying to varying degrees). Any, what is somewhat peculiar about this customer is that this customer is in Naour which is very close to Marj Al Hamam, and to Amman in general. I would even consider this customer inside Amman. The peculiar part is that this customer has over one 100 employees and not a single one of them is a female. So when I was there annoyed at this fact, that was when it hit me; why doesn't the government have a law that specifies a quota for women workers just like they did for the lower house?

I can already see problems in the implementation, especially in areas where companies do not have their own buses and the public transportation service to this area is poor.

Well for starters, the government can start with a very small quota, something like 5-10% for companies with more than 50 employees. Additionally, the Government need not fully implement such a project. It can start with a pilot project in the Sahab industrial zone, or something of sort.

One of the other hurdles that could face such an endeavor is the that fact that we are in the 21st century, and still some families prohibit their daughters from engaging in any sort of work or even seeking employment.

This is a very sorry state of affairs. But the Government has to start somewhere. And that somewhere is with a quota system.