Day 107: Welcome to the “Yellow City”

(Her: Joanna)

You can literally feel you are in Jordan.  The dryness of Jordan felt like all of the moisture in my skin was being suck out of me.  Jordan is very different from all the cities we had been to so far.  Like how the picture depicted in my child bible, it is yellow and with buildings with 1 -2 stories high covering the endless number of hills that make up the city of Amman.

Jordan is the first country that I have been to who you will definitely feel 100% welcome.  No matter where you go, a local will say “Welcome” to you.  I think “welcome” may be the first or only English word they know.  It is such a pleasant feeling to be greeted and welcomed when you visit a foreign country.  

While you think that everyone in Jordan is nice and friendly, little did you know that when a female is walking on the street alone, the local might be commenting that you are a whore in Arabic while you think they are saying "Welcome" in Arabic - true story from a friend we’ve met who strolled on the street with her friend who knows Arabic.

Day 101: Wearing Too Much Is Wearing Too Little Amman

(Her: Joanna)

The Lonely Planet guidebook already gave me heads-up that the Middle East is more conservatively dressed than Western society.  In high thirty degree Celsius temperature, I have worn my light cotton T-shirt that covers my shoulder and long airy pants thinking that this is so covered up for this kind of temperature. 

Boy, was I wrong!  When I was walking through the market in Amman, firstly, there are proportionally less women in the market buying groceries than Asia or North America; secondly, 95% of the women are fully covered up with headscarf, long sleeves shirt/dress and full length pants/dress; thirdly, people were giving me so much attention either because I’m a foreigner or I have worn “too little”.  I instantly felt that I should probably wear long sleeves too.  I was a bit uncomfortable walking through the market and was clanging onto Charlie.  Everyone we’ve met was really friendly and welcoming us on the street but I was experiencing some kind of cultural shock and being a foreigner, I have no concept of what the socially acceptable standard is and being uncomfortable to be caught in between being respectful to a culture and not knowing. 

Being lived in the “Western” society, I was exposed to bikinis, tanks, g-strings, and short shorts.  I was a bit culture shock by seeing most of the ladies in Amman all covered up.  I completely forgot that I used to be part of a mildly conservative society in HK: you wouldn’t see too many short shorts on the street even in the summer, t-shirt covering the shoulder is more common than tanks, and even when girls wear tanks, they would wear something to cover their cleavage.  I guess when you grew up in that culture, you don’t even put second thought to the option of wearing less even when the weather is unbearably hot.