Salah CP #2
Date/Time:29/3/2015 17:45 - 18:45
Location: Starbucks on W. Tennessee St.
Abdulla and I spoke for a while about the cultural differences between living in the Middle East and
the US and how he had to adjust when he first got here. For example, in the Middle East, it is common
for very good friends (males) to hold hands.
He said that he tried that when he first came to Florida, but told very
quickly that this wasn’t done amongst friends in the US.
We talked a bit about my name
being Arabic in origin. I told him that when I was young, my parents
lived in Kuwait and my father was influenced by the local Arab tradition of
naming their children in the style of ‘son of the father'. My name
reflects this, so my name is very Arab sounding, even though I am not Arab and
don't speak Arabic (other than a few words). Abdulla's name is less
common than the when it has an 'h' at the end.
I told Abdulla that his English was better than many other CIES
students and he told me that could be because he studied English at a language
school in Cambridge, UK for 6 months. He
was living with a British host family and enjoyed the experience.
Abdulla
was living in Jacksonville as his scholarship was at UNF, but he had to
transfer to FSU when that program ended.
In his free time, he likes to edit films and even worked in this field,
for a Marketing firm, back in the Middle East.
He asked me how he would tell people that he had worked in this
field. I said he could tell them he ‘produced
educational films for the public’.
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