An International Cultural Meeting of Youth

Cultural mediation helps local and foreign citizens relate better with each other. It helps them understand their different backgrounds and interact positively with each other. “The main characterizing elements of cultural mediators are communicative competence, empathy, active listening and good knowledge of both the hosting country and country of origin (culture, laws, traditions, etc.)” (“What is,” par. 1). Cultural encounter is the experience of meeting and interacting between people in a cross-cultural visit from different cultural backgrounds. My first cultural encounter occurred when I volunteered in the first International Cultural Meeting of Youth, which happened in March 2011 for the first time in Qatar. There were around 15 to 20 French students who took Arabic and came to learn the language better, and some of them wanted to work in Qatar. My social role was to guide them during their visit and host them through this voluntary organization.
When they arrived we greeted them and asked them, “ What do you want to see in Qatar, and what did you hear before about Qatar?” They told us that they didn’t know about Qatar until their Arabic professor told them about it. They visited, and they were thinking that Qatar is so boring with sand and that they came only for an educational purpose. Also, they came because of the big attention that Qatar has for sport. Perhaps they were feeling some cultural shock.

We took them to several places in Qatar because this meeting was supposed to exchange cultural values and norms. We took them to Katara, The Pearl, the Islamic Museum, Fanar, Cultural Village, malls, Doha Land, and Souq Wagif. While we were doing these tours, social interaction happened between us because we were presenting ourselves as a model of Qatar society, so they started to ask questions about our customs, traditions, symbols, and why we do certain things. They were really open-minded and smiled and said hello to everyone. When we were in the bus some of the girls opened the window and said hi to everyone in the other cars, so the others (young boys) understood their greetings differently and chased us, and we had a big problem. I explained to the girls that we don’t do this here in Qatar because it will be understood in not only friendship but as an odd invitation because our cultural expectations are different.

The French people really loved Souq Wagif the most because it combines many different things: shopping, entertainment, showing different performers, and it is multicultural where there are many things from outside Qatar. Souq Wagif represents the cultural heritage of Qatar. This imaginative place has an awesome scene for taking pictures. While we were there some of them took pictures of us, and we told them not to put our pictures on Facebook but to keep them for themselves, yet we weren’t really comfortable with that. They were violating our private boundaries. One week after they went back, all our pictures were in Facebook, and we are not allowed to put our pictures on public display, so we told them to remove them. It was really trying because it took a lot of time to check on every single one of the 35 of them who were displaying our pictures. If our parents had known about it, we would have been facing a big problem because we save our pictures, and no one can view them online. The French people didn’t understand that because our public and private boundaries are different than theirs.
They really enjoyed their time, and they were shocked that we are really kind comparing to the other people from other countries, but I really find them kind, also. I think they still have some wonders and unanswered questions about our country. They didn’t understand the cultural structure because I think they stayed for a short time. They had many questions for me about Qatar, about our society. There isn’t enough education outside about Qatar. That’s why our cultural exchange showed them that Qatar is really a beautiful, unique country. In addition, we spread our cultural religion, identity and showed the right picture of Qatari people.


Work cited:
“What is cultural mediation.” Immmiweb. n. d. web. 2 Nov.2011.

From the big screen to your life!

Have you ever thought about the huge role of culture in our life? or at the great hole it creates when two cultures fail to communicate? if you haven't realized or experienced that, movies make a great way to portray this image and present culture's impact on the life of ordinary people, just like us.

When I first saw the trailer of “Cairo Time” I was attracted by the story which mainly revolved around the meaning of love and traditions in both the middle east and the West. When I found out that Ruba Nadda (the writer/director of the movie) is a syrian - Canadian I didn't find it hard to believe what the character was going through in the movie. The director explained how that she personally experienced this cultural differences when she was young and was visiting Egypt with her mother as she mentioned in the making of the movie.

The movie made it obvious that the culture within us is never noticed until we observe other's cultures and traditions. Through the experience of the main character Juliette (played by: Patricia Clarkson) we get to see the adventure of getting into a new society filled with different customs, values and norms.

However, there must be thousands of movies which revolve around the differences in cultures. Some might talk about love, friendship, family relations or it might turn to social conflicts and cultural misunderstanding  like what is shown in the movie "Amreeka" which is mainly a political movie talking about a Palestinian woman and her son trying to fit-in and get used to the American society.

What made me interested in this movie is what it's writer/director Cherien Dabis said in her interview with Marian Lacombe,  when she simply commented on her self by saying that she was: " not American enough for the Americans and not Arab enough for the Arabs." What Cherien Dabis portrayed in the movie was a reflection of her own experience when she personally had to face that "Cultural Shock" back when she was young.

Also, one of the recent movies I’ve seen and had this huge cultural sense was “Eat Pray Love” which highly focused on the huge differences between the American culture and three other rich cultures (Italy, India and Bali) and the process of exchanging some of our own culture with others which is known as "cultural diffusion."