Sometimes I feel like Pakistani culture is stalking me. It's everywhere I turn. Maybe it always was, and I just never noticed it? But you know what I'm talking about, right? Have you been inside a Pier 1 store recently? I feel like I'm back in Karachi up in there! And all the "chai" at every coffee shop, and elephants! I feel like everywhere I go I see pictures, figurines, paintings - all elephants, and usually they're all decorated too.
Today I had TWO run-ins with this phenomenon, one real and one probably not.
First, I was in the grocery store and saw this hoity-toity yogurt called "Chobani." It's not likely the same thing, but M brings back sackfuls of dried fruit called Khobani when we're in Pakistan. He's even asked his mother to bring some when she visits if we're running low. It's just a dried apricot, I don't know what makes them so special that they need to be imported? But they're really dried into hard, acorn-looking balls, not like the dried apricots I see here in grocery stores. Anyway, I did a double take at the grocery store looking at this maybe-apricot Chobani yogurt.
"Why is that lady taking a cell phone picture of the yogurt?"
But THEN! At a clothing store, browsing the jewelry counter clearance stuff (always shopping the sales, looking for gifts for Pakistan!) I found this "Zevar" brand costume jewelry. Zevar means jewelry in Urdu!
"Security, please scan the jewelry department."
Now that one - I'm pretty sure is no coincidence. Right? What do you think?
7 comments:
"Sometimes I feel like Pakistani culture is stalking me"
Haha, I love the way you express yourself! And as a Pakistani who lives outside of Pakistan, I feel the culture following me too. No matter where I travel I see desis everywhere, sometimes I feel my mind is playing games :)
And I don't understand the deal about khobanis, they taste very funny!
...i would think its more of a general amalgam of 'desi' culture, rather than anything specifically Pakistani.
You do find elephants with similar saddles in other subcontinent nations.
Haaay don't knock da khobanis maaan, since u are in a unique position of being inside on the outside with our culture, its going to be fun reading here :) Grt blog, im adding you to my blogroll!!
yay for Pakistani culture!
www.thepersonalrelationsdepartment.blogspot.com
Anonymous- the only thing worthless around here is you.
GW- I think in the years since M and I met and got married, there has been a lot of incorporation of desi culture into American culture, but I probably would never have noticed it as much if I wasn't married to a Pakistani. I think that most people don't realize how much influence the subcontinent has had on food, fashion, music, movies, etc. in recent years. I love it!
I agree with Southern Masala - it's just the typical incorporation of various cultures into American culture. Of course, it works both ways - so much of American culture can be seen around the globe. The book Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures gives a really great explanation of this phenomena. (And it's written by a GMU economist.) I highly recommend it, especially for people in intercultural/international relationships.
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