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Jan. 22nd, 2005 08:56 amLast night was truly the Uzbek guesting expereince from hell. And it contrasted so horribly with the lovely people who have been dropping by and bringing us nice things for Kurbon Hayit.
Kurbon Hayit (Hayit is Eid in most of the Arab world) is a holiday all about sharing with neighbors and giving to the poor. On this Hayit people are celebrating those who have done the haj (pilgrimage to Mecca) that year. Rich people sacrifice a sheep and dole the meat out to the poor, and just about everyone visits their neighbors and brings them food and sweets. Our neighbor, Vika, who we thought was Russian is actually Tartar and thus Muslim and showed up at our door with a bowl of plov and fried dough. Malika opa insisted on having a lesson yesterday despite the holiday and showed up with her daughter and a big chocolate cake (now don't get too excited - Uzbek's still don't really understand the concept of chocolate cake - this was more chocolate colored than actually chocolate flavored). This was all so sweet and lovely I was completely tickled.
So R and I decided to drop in on my neighbors from last year with a nice bottle of white wine from the commissary. The mother of the family, Yulduz opa, was off visiting some others so we sat and ate chak chak (honey covered fried dough) and other sweet stuff with the father, Ravshan aka and some of the daughters sat with us off and on.
This is the first time I've really had a chance to sit down with an Uzbek male who feels comfortable with me, without Uzbek women moderating his commentary. It was scary and wrong. After a glass of wine and some sugary foods he starts talking about how it isn't natural for women to work - how they shouldn't ever have to leave the house. It is the horrible economic conditions that force women to leave home where they are so comfortable. When I raised an eyebrow and suggested that maybe some women might want a life outside the home he rejected my questioning of what was obviously a blatant statement of fact by telling me that I was American and we had the feminism so of course my situation was different. Uzbek women, deep in their heart of hearts, apparently never actually want to leave home and just want to stay in the house and have babies and take care of them. Finally that topic seemed to be exhausted and we seemed to be transitioning to more polite conversation when he started in on the babies. "And why aren't you pregnant yet?" I replied with an explaination of my career ambitions, our economic situtation, and our plan to start trying in fall of 2006. He scoffed at that saying that we needed to have babies immediately and that God would feed them and really I would be much happier staying home and having babies. So much for my Americanness with the feminism and everything.
As if that was awkward and awful enough, after expounding his views on women and pregnancy, he moved on to the topic of how ordinary the wine we brought was. I think I hid how much I was taking offense very well, when he started talking about how the only thing special about the wine I brought was that it had a fancy foreign bottle and that foreign firms know marketing and Uzbek ones don't. He said it tasted like the wine he used to buy for 50 tiyins a bottle (a tiyin is an Uzbek cent). He remembered vividly picking cotton and drinking the cheapest wine around because he was a poor student in those days (students were often forced to pick cotton during the summer in the Soviet period). He swore up and down that all foreigners who tried Uzbek wine thought it was the best and even though the sweet red wine is the most common in the stores now, you can find Uzbek wine just like the nice bottle of dry Italian white wine that we bought in most stores around here. (My internal reply was a resounding BULLSHIT!, but I managed to contain my mirth until we left.)
Kurbon Hayit (Hayit is Eid in most of the Arab world) is a holiday all about sharing with neighbors and giving to the poor. On this Hayit people are celebrating those who have done the haj (pilgrimage to Mecca) that year. Rich people sacrifice a sheep and dole the meat out to the poor, and just about everyone visits their neighbors and brings them food and sweets. Our neighbor, Vika, who we thought was Russian is actually Tartar and thus Muslim and showed up at our door with a bowl of plov and fried dough. Malika opa insisted on having a lesson yesterday despite the holiday and showed up with her daughter and a big chocolate cake (now don't get too excited - Uzbek's still don't really understand the concept of chocolate cake - this was more chocolate colored than actually chocolate flavored). This was all so sweet and lovely I was completely tickled.
So R and I decided to drop in on my neighbors from last year with a nice bottle of white wine from the commissary. The mother of the family, Yulduz opa, was off visiting some others so we sat and ate chak chak (honey covered fried dough) and other sweet stuff with the father, Ravshan aka and some of the daughters sat with us off and on.
This is the first time I've really had a chance to sit down with an Uzbek male who feels comfortable with me, without Uzbek women moderating his commentary. It was scary and wrong. After a glass of wine and some sugary foods he starts talking about how it isn't natural for women to work - how they shouldn't ever have to leave the house. It is the horrible economic conditions that force women to leave home where they are so comfortable. When I raised an eyebrow and suggested that maybe some women might want a life outside the home he rejected my questioning of what was obviously a blatant statement of fact by telling me that I was American and we had the feminism so of course my situation was different. Uzbek women, deep in their heart of hearts, apparently never actually want to leave home and just want to stay in the house and have babies and take care of them. Finally that topic seemed to be exhausted and we seemed to be transitioning to more polite conversation when he started in on the babies. "And why aren't you pregnant yet?" I replied with an explaination of my career ambitions, our economic situtation, and our plan to start trying in fall of 2006. He scoffed at that saying that we needed to have babies immediately and that God would feed them and really I would be much happier staying home and having babies. So much for my Americanness with the feminism and everything.
As if that was awkward and awful enough, after expounding his views on women and pregnancy, he moved on to the topic of how ordinary the wine we brought was. I think I hid how much I was taking offense very well, when he started talking about how the only thing special about the wine I brought was that it had a fancy foreign bottle and that foreign firms know marketing and Uzbek ones don't. He said it tasted like the wine he used to buy for 50 tiyins a bottle (a tiyin is an Uzbek cent). He remembered vividly picking cotton and drinking the cheapest wine around because he was a poor student in those days (students were often forced to pick cotton during the summer in the Soviet period). He swore up and down that all foreigners who tried Uzbek wine thought it was the best and even though the sweet red wine is the most common in the stores now, you can find Uzbek wine just like the nice bottle of dry Italian white wine that we bought in most stores around here. (My internal reply was a resounding BULLSHIT!, but I managed to contain my mirth until we left.)
