It’s been over two weeks since I
last saw Nasser. Unfortunately I was too busy in the week leading up to spring
break to meet with him, and both of us were out of town on spring break. Turns
out he went to Orlando and Miami for spring break with his sister and
brother-in-law. He said he had a good time but that it was very crowded and hot
there. I told him that we went to a different part of Florida and we discussed
the differences in our breaks.
Apparently somewhere Nasser saw the
documentary Food Inc. and was
immediately affected by its message. This was the starting point for much of
today’s discussion. I have never seen the movie but I understand the point that
it is trying to make. Nasser explained to me how the chickens were raised in
inhumane conditions and all the growth hormones that they are given. Being a
business major, and a conservative I generally disagree with most of the views
that films like these try to convey. I’m sure everyone has had a semi-heated
political discussion at some point, but it gets even more difficult when the
other person has a different first language. Our conversation took us from the food industry to
government regulation, to the economy, socialism vs. capitalism, and other related
topics. We both shared our viewpoints on each subject and most of the time we
just agreed to disagree.
It was interesting though to get
Nasser’s opinion on these various issues. He told me that in Saudi Arabia this
kind of thinking was discouraged and that he had very different views from most
of the people in his country.
There was even the possibility that he could get in trouble for such
thinking. He jokingly said that some people have even called him a socialist,
but I think it was more in jest than an actual insult. This is nothing really
new as my understanding of Saudi culture is that there is a need for conformity
and questioning of the government is generally discouraged. Which is a bit
ironic in that Nasser was in favor of more government regulation and
intervention of industry here in our discussion. Yet his own government is
regulating his speech and thinking in a way. I doubt that it would be possible
to make or even show movies like Food Inc.
in Saudi Arabia, but luckily here in America we can.
After all of this serious political
discussion we agreed that next week we would discuss something much lighter and
try to do something more fun than just sit around and talk. Its great to get
each other’s views on serious subjects once in awhile, but its important to
just have fun too. We did learn a lot of new words through this discussion, I
am getting better at understanding what he is trying to say and having the word
that he is looking for. This generally makes things go much smoother and helps
avoid confusion as he is trying to find the right word and I am trying to understand
what he wants to say. I am still impressed at how good his English is, and I
think that it takes a pretty good grasp on the English language to have such a
serious conversation and effectively convey your meaning. As always I look
forward to next weeks meeting, which hopefully won’t be quite a serious.
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