~ Shallow.

[Roshina]

Looks like we're on the same page all the way, Admin Khana! I don't believe in this "pure Pukhtun/ pure Muslims" stuff at all - and that's why I put them in quotations.

Modesty is another issue. Why conclude that a girl is modest just because she covers her hair or arms? I've seen SO many hijabi girls doing some of the most unacceptable things on earth. However, that's not to mean that ALL hijabi girls are like this, OR that men don't do these things.

Some of the guys I know who happily marry girls from back home themselves have crossed many bounds of Islam and Pashtunwali. One once told me, "That's why we don't let our sisters drive or go to college. If we men do it with girls (Muslim girls), then our sisters can do the same if they have the opportunity."

I find it quite appalling that Pashtun women are almost always accused of becoming "westernized" (the term/label means different things to different people) or having left Islamic values and cultural standards but the males are seldom accused of the same. Oh, wait, that's not very true. My mom doesn't want me to marry a Pashtun raised in the west because, she says, he won't know how to take care of me

[Admin Khan]

Brilliant question..
How I explain it.. hmm..

Here's my theory.. the girls over here adjust to this lifestyle, meaning, they wear jeans, they go to school, they wear make up, they plug their eyebrows, they wear high heels, they become independent, they start to have a mind of their own, an opnion of their own a will of their own. This is considered Western and very very VERY bad in many families. A woman is not supposed to have a mind of her own. She is not supposed to be critical. She is supposed to pop out babies and take care of her mother-in-law and husband and look like a doll while doing that. That is her role in many many families. Why is a doll called "Nawaki", the belittlement of "Naweh"?

Of course there are PLENTY of girls who have lost their culture and Islam in the West.. but that doesn't mean that all of those girls are like that.. just like it can't be assumed that all the girls in Pakistan/Afghanistan are 'pure'. But those people are inconsiderate of the fact that.. the SISTER of that very guy who is getting his wife from Pakistan is born and raised in the West as well.. that she herself falls into that generalization. The daughters of those women who say that girls in the West are bad ARE girls in the West. By saying that, these women don't only slap all these girls in their faces - no they slap themselves in their very own faces saying that they were incapable of raising a daughter to be a moral woman.


On a different note, those people want obedient women. They want submissive and dependent women. It's difficult to find that over here, difficult to find dependent women in the West. And the people are scared that.. if something happens and the guy makes a mistake (or tons of them) that she'll leave and they'll have to go through the hassle of finding a girl again with a bad reputation. They just want a daughter-in-law who does the Khidmat for her husband and his family, doesn't want anything, doesn't say anything.. and since the girls over there were - supposedly - brought up in such an environment they are willing to walk that extra mile, just to be sure that they are taken care of by a submissive daughter-in-law. =)

Thank you for your response Mayana, I appreciate it.

They would also even go as far as saying, "Da kharaj khalag der da aala wateley jhi, oh speen stargi jhi"

I guess we can blame the media as well for brain-washing the people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The majority of the the movies show the audience how we date and party. Have you had one of those encounter's with someone from back home asking "can you pray?", "can you speak Pashto?" "have yo done this?" They look at us like aliens. Is it there fault though?

[Roshina]

^ I once watched a Pashto drama (titled "Ganjay Banjari") in which the girl was raised in London. The audience is introduced to her when a family asks for her hand in marriage. Her Pashto was HORRIBLE (no, wait - she didn't speak it at all, I think), she had dyed her hair blonde, she had so much make-up on that she looked almost white, she wore pants and shirts, and so on. Her attitude was beyond despicable, especially towards her husband and parents-in-law. On her wedding night, she commanded her husband to sit on the floor while she sat in the bed. A few days later, she commanded her mother-in-law to clean the house and that she wasn't her servant to be doing that kind stuff. She slapped her husband a couple of times.

When our own dramas portray as such kind of women, it's no wonder our folks are scared of us -- and are surprised when they see that we actually DO have a good personality and have kept our culture/religion perhaps more strongly than our people back home! My relatives were shocked to hear that my mom doesn't wear pants and shirts, lol. According to my mom, they were even encouraging her to do it - and she was like, "I don't like it when my daughters wear pants and shirts, so how can I do it myself now?!"

However, in the last episodes, the girl does something very surprising, and it's something out kindness.

I guess the point was that Pashtun women raised in the west aren't 100% bad; they're only 96.8% bad.

[Mayana]

But shouldn't they take more pride in saying.. "My daugther-in-law is a doctor" or.. not even that.. but "My daughter-in-law is active in XY organization, she is involved in .. , she takes part in..., she is a respectful woman, she doesn't talk bad about people." They don't take pride in these things. It doesn't matter what public affair women are involved in, they're just a "disgrace to the race". People are not appreciated for who they are.. but for what they look like and what they own.

Thank you for your response Mayana, I appreciate it.

They would also even go as far as saying, "Da kharaj khalag der da aala wateley jhi, oh speen stargi jhi"

I guess we can blame the media as well for brain-washing the people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The majority of the the movies show the audience how we date and party. Have you had one of those encounter's with someone from back home asking "can you pray?", "can you speak Pashto?" "have yo done this?" They look at us like aliens. Is it there fault though?

Yes, I have made MANY many MAAANY such encounters. People will ask me a simple question in Pashto/Dari like "What do you study?" and I'll reply in that language.. and they'll go insane "OOOMAAAIIGOD YOU CAN FORM A SENTENCE IN YOUR MOTHER LANGUAGE!"



Even my uncle back home.. I asked my dad to request that my uncle send me a few Pashto and Dari literature books from Qandahar.. my dad told him and my uncle called and asked to speak with me. When I talked to him, he went off for 20 minutes saying how surprised, amazed, shocked and grateful he is that I can first of all even understand Dari, secondly read both and thirdly have interest in those subjects. It's sad that it is assumed that we lose touch with our roots..


And I wouldn't blame the media, there is no need FOR the media. Our own people are sensationalist enough. If I dance at a wedding in California, how long do you think will it take for my uncle's wife in Karachi and my aunt in Qandahar to call and comment on my dancing? Because those videos travel around the world.. If a someone does something bad, the WORLD knows about it tomorrow but people don't even mention the good deeds people do. So if a girl cancels her engagement today in New York, the girl's father's sister's mother-in-law's sister-in-law's grandson's fiancee's brother's sister-in-law's family's neighbor's coworker in Quetta knows about it in a matter of 4 days. But if this very girl graduates from Zaytuna college with a PhD in Islamic Studies and writes a book in Pashto about the Fiqh of Marriage, nobody talks about it. Why? Because it's not as exciting as a canceled engagement. =)

If only the bad things are mentioned, of course people are gonna think bad. But we can't blame anyone else for that, it is our own society that does that - selective reporting of irrelevant information about irrelevant people's life limiting EVERYONE in their freedom to do what they want.

[Feroza_Banu]

back in the days when people (ladies) would go khastgari(maraka)... they would mainly be looking at how the girl is fat (chubby), fair skin, and how their mouth and body smells hahahahaha

my mom tells me story that back in the days women used to smell the girl's mouth and body that they had gone khastgari(maraka) for. and they mainly were interested in catching the girl when she was exiting hamaam(washroom)so that they would know how the girl exactly looks, without make up...

u call now aday's people shallow?... imagine being smelled by ur khastgars !

[Feroza_Banu]

^i am dead serious... there are some people that have a certain smell in their body or in their mouth that nothing can wash away... some people just have odors...

so older ladies had always heard stories like this and to be careful about their son not ending up with a girl like that they would smell their mouth and body... mostly mouth

[abubaker]

back in the days when people (ladies) would go khastgari(maraka)... they would mainly be looking at how the girl is fat (chubby), fair skin, and how their mouth and body smells hahahahaha

my mom tells me story that back in the days women used to smell the girl's mouth and body that they had gone khastgari(maraka) for. and they mainly were interested in catching the girl when she was exiting hamaam(washroom)so that they would know how the girl exactly looks, without make up...

u call now aday's people shallow?... imagine being smelled by ur khastgars !

they still do that

[Feroza_Banu]

^oh really?

[abubaker]

^oh really?

absolutely they still consider chubbiness and light skin to be beautiful.

I am telling you man we are racist

no matter how bountiful a girl may be if she is dark, wai thora mushkandai da, thora qarghai da lol

[Feroza_Banu]

^lol true... no i was refering to mouth smelling.. i thought u r saying tht still exists

[abubaker]

^lol true... no i was refering to mouth smelling.. i thought u r saying tht still exists

never seen it happen but, the shower thing hapened to my cousin onece in peshawar lo, she almost the beat the c..p out of the woman

[Feroza_Banu]

^loll.. i am sure it still happens... pashtoons havnt changed much.

[Mayana]

we are not shallow we are just saada.

Mayana our ladies when they gwt educated think they are the smartest person on earth they start demanding things we never heard of.

cook food for us, do the laundry. In our culture this is all the womans job.

Who's gonna raise your children? And how will they be raised by a woman who cooks nice and looks stunning but has 0 Hayaa?

As for the education and getting arrogant, I disagree. It's simply false, some of the most humble and wife-material women I know are doctors, house-wives, mothers of 3 children all at the same time and under the age of 30. It is possible. =)


And I wasn't just referring to the marriage-related shallowness, how about our attitude toward people of other races? Or people of other faiths.. do you think we are shallow in that matter as well?

[pekhawar]

We are definently racist. Just imagine a Pashtana saying he/she is marrying a French man or white man. We would not even know who the French man is and immediately we will start badmouthing.

[Mayana]

LOL like this woman in my family who refers to her Asian real estate agent as "Cheeneezaka" or who refers to browner people, like Bengalis or Sri Lankans as "Khiran Piran" simply based on their skin color. Pretty sad =/

There is this saying..

"Are you laughing at the painting or the painter?" Think about it..