Like Annie Jacobsen, I recently took a long Northwest Airlines flight, #53 from Amsterdam to Detroit, on which I observed several Middle Eastern passengers. Including one who sat down immediately next to me! Blocking my access to the aisle! Who then began reading a book full of Arabic! And looking nervously around the plane! Oh my god, oh my god, help me, we're all going to DIE! EEAHEEAHEEAHEEAHEEAH!
As I girded my metaphorical loins in anticipation of poisoning my seatmate to death with the remains of my so-called "chicken" "dinner", she turns to me and asks where I'm from. Turns out she was flying to Nashville, my hometown, where she is a nursing student and her husband a mechanical engineer, after a two-month visit to her family in Tehran. We had a lovely chat about living in the South, and the current troubles in Iraq. She showed me several pictures of her family at various gatherings (a birthday party, her cousin's engagement), including several fascinating pictures of the ruins at Persepolis. We landed in Detroit without indicent and wished each other well.
However, when I went to claim my luggage in Detroit en route to customs, it never appeared! Apparently my bag was stuck in Amsterdam, or perhaps Vienna!! Coincidence? I think not!!!
(Rabid conspiracy-mongers have suggested that perhaps my bag was still in the Frankfurt Flughafenbahnhof, but such theories, which cast undue aspersions on the honesty and efficiency of the German people, are striclty without credence.)
Didn't realize you were from Nashville :) - somehow the berkeley touch covers it pretty well
Posted by: Suresh | July 29, 2004 at 11:48 AM
I wonder if she had really been reading Arabic! Persian and Arabic are two different languages, but use almost the same alphabet.
Persian to Arabic is like say English to French. Many Arabic words have crept into Persian. In the past, when a Persian writer wanted to show off, he would put some Arabic into his book. But now it's quite the opposite, learned Persian people try to show off by using entirely original non-Latin non-Arabic words!
Posted by: | July 29, 2004 at 03:01 PM
You're right, she wasn't actually reading Arabic, but Farsi. (It was a book about Persepolis.) But the differences between the Farsi, Urdu, and Arabic alphabets are pretty subtle to uneducated westerners like myself, not to mention all those other languages that use Arabic scripts. For all I knew, she could have been reading Turkish or Kashmiri.
Posted by: Jeff Erickson | July 29, 2004 at 05:10 PM
"...For all I knew, she could have been reading Turkish or Kashmiri."
That is a mistake easier to correct than learning to distinguish between Farsi and Arabic writing; the Turkish language uses the latin alphabet (with some letters with umlauts, etc.).
Posted by: b | September 25, 2004 at 01:47 PM
Lovers of Islam Unite! - Pancakes for Mohammed, peace be upon Her
Keep your calendars open for Sunday, March 18th, at 11 AM for the first annual Pancakes for Mohammed, peace be upon Her, Sunday Pancake Fundraiser at Dennys. This is a great way to raise money for our Islam saving cause while eating great pancakes. And remember, “Hold the sausage please!”
For those of us who are trying to convince our Muslim brothers and sisters about the true gender of the Prophet, peace be upon Her, come out and speak up and bring a few shekels to donate. Also, be sure and bring your best drawing of the Prophet, peace be upon Her. I propose that each group vote on the best depiction of the Prophet, peace be upon Her and pay for the winning artist to eat for free.
Now remember, drawing the Prophet with a bomb on Her head has already been done, so please, choose something else.
Posted by: the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon Her | March 10, 2006 at 03:24 PM
PREDICTION: A VIEW OF NEW YORK AT 11th SEPTEMBER 2015 http://www.alah.hu
Posted by: Bíró Zoltán | May 10, 2006 at 10:31 AM