Cultural Sensitivity & Laws in Oman

Today our staff meeting was all about what we can and cannot do in Oman, and what we should and shouldn't do at school. Here's what I learned today.

1) Women should be respectful of the culture here and have our shoulders and knees covered when in public places.  Shorts are ok at the beach.

2) Offensive hand gestures are illegal and if I get caught giving someone the finger, I can be arrested. Same with swearing.

3) If needing customer service some place or wanting to get something done quickly, send a woman to ask, not a man. This is the complete opposite of what I was expecting, but it's apparently true. Women get stuff done in this country!

4) I can get a ticket if my car is dirty.

5) I need a liquor license to purchase alcohol from the store to consume at home, but don't need one to drink at the few bars here.

6) Apparently bands can't have more than 3 members, and live music isn't allowed in hotels that are 3 Stars or less due to some seedy things happening with "dancing girls." I'm not really sure about this one, could just be rumours.

7) Kissing & sex scenes are highly inappropriate and you won't find any such content here. The Wolf of Wall Street was playing in the local cinema and 55 minutes of it was cut out lol. Guess I won't be going to the movies here. The plus side to this censorship is that I don't need to monitor what my students search for on the internet, because the Sultan does it for me!

8) Muslims don't eat pork and find pigs highly offensive. Books about pigs are not recommended reading material. We can discuss that these books exist and discuss differences in cultures and beliefs, but for the sake of being culturally sensitive, we are asked to not read books about pigs.  Chicken Little was always my favourite book anyway.

9) Atheism is a concept that Omanis cannot comprehend. Again we can discuss the concept in class, (not something I'm obviously going to be doing in Grade 2) but we as teachers cannot claim that we are atheists or we could get deported. All expats must claim a religion to gain a work visa. Oh and all religions are accepted here by the Omani people.

There were a few other topics that we need to approach in class carefully, but they don't really apply to me and they aren't really for a public blog. If you really want to know, send me a message and I'll tell you the rest.

In general, the Omani people are extremely nice and very forgiving of us more "liberal" Westerners. But Islam is a conservative way of life and as foreigners in their country, we should be culturally sensitive and respectful.

First Impressions - The City of Sohar

Today is Day 3 of living in Oman and I have WiFi access at my apartment now so I think it's time for me to share my first impressions of the city of Sohar. Ok so first, it's not really a city. The best way that I can describe Sohar is that it's a bunch of random buildings in the desert connected by lots of really nicely paved roads. On my first day I asked where "downtown" was and I was told that Safeer Mall is probably the closest to a "downtown" I was going to get as it's the busiest place because Carrefour is located in it. This mall is where I got my Sim card on my first day and there was maybe 15 people in it, and the other teacher I was with, knew half of them. Sohar is small. I'm literally living in a small desert town. And everything is spaced out, tons of extra space everywhere. Taiwanese would go crazy with all this extra space, they'd easily fit a million people in the space between my apartment and my school (a 20 minute drive). Yes I have another long-ish commute to work, however the traffic here is much much different than in Taiwan. There is a main road that runs through Sohar and I think goes all the way to Dubai one way and to Muscat the other way. The speed limit on this road is 120km, and everybody drives 120 or faster. My car actually has a warning beeper that goes off if I exceed 120. I first discovered this warning beeper my first night in Oman when the school had a driver pick me up at the Muscat airport and drive me the 2 hours to Sohar. I was trying to sleep in the backseat but every few seconds a super annoying little beeper went off, I was literally about to loose my mind. I've only actually made my car beep twice. As of now I'm driving in the slow lane, trying to find my way around the city. The road ways are very unique, and I've never been to a city that's had roads designed like this before. As mentioned earlier, all roads are very nicely paved, I haven't seen a single pot hole yet. To get on to the main road you need to find a round-a-bout, and to switch directions you also need to wait until you reach a round-a-bout. I end up driving much farther than needed simply because I can't get off the main road until I reach a round-a-bout. There are service roads that run beside the main road, and you just need to know when to take the service roads or when to take the main road as they only connect at the round-a-bouts. Because of these round-a-bouts, there are no traffic lights. I haven't seen a single traffic light yet, all intersections are round-a-bouts. The speed limit on the service roads is 80 I think, but it's more like 100. The roads are designed to drive fast and drive further than necessary, it's like the designer had "gas guzzling" in mind. I'm going to see if I can lease a hybrid. Obviously.

Other than Sohar being a small desert town with crazy fast roads, there's also TONS of construction going on. Sohar looks like The Desert of Dreams,  "if you build it, they will come." Who? I have no idea, because there's very few people here, but massive development going on. Major road construction, major apartment block and building construction, yet so much open desert. There's tons of shops and restaurants that run alongside the service roads almost like strip malls, but everything looks closed or in process of being built. It's a strange little city, very modern, but so very much in the random desert. As far as the people go, there are so many foreigners here, way more than in Kaohsiung. And everybody is really really nice. And EVERYBODY speaks English, I can't really understand what they are saying (yet), but it's English! More first impressions and photos to come later. I'm off to the Sohar Beach Resort (apparently THE place to be) to meet up with some co-workers and check out the beach. Oh one last thing, I saw a camel today :)

Why I'm Moving to Oman (a country in the Middle East)

Alright so this post was supposed to go out 4 days ago when I was sitting in the Chicago airport for 7 hours awaiting my 13 hour flight to Dubai, BUT the Chicago airport does NOT have free WiFi access (jerks) so I'm posting it now, day 3 of living in Oman. 

Moving to Oman 

When I tell people I’m moving to a country in the Middle East I get the strangest looks.  Most people try to be nice and say “oh, wow, what makes you want to move there?” Others are a bit more blunt and ask why I would want to do such a foolish thing. In response I’ve been telling people that I’m going because it’s a good job, with good pay, and good benefits. And it is. And this is the kind of answer that my friends and family expect and accept, because as we all know, money makes people do crazy things. But that’s not the REAL reason why I want to go to the Middle East. Sure 0% tax, and a good benefits package are appealing, but I would never trade in my short shorts and my access to liquor for just money! I’m moving to Oman because the Middle Eastern culture ACTUALLY interests me and I want to explore another part of the world.  I think there is more to the Middle East than what we see in the media and I want to experience it. I’m curious about the people, customs, food and landscapes of the Middle East. I want to gain a better understanding of these people and their culture. I want to fall in love with parts of their culture, and learn to accept parts of their culture I don’t like. I want to discover new foods and weird delicacies.  I want to learn to tolerate, appreciate and recognize another language, maybe even learn to speak it. I want to barter over spices, rugs and copper in the souqs. Maybe break out in a song from Aladdin while shining up some genie lamps. I want to smell and see frankincense. We’ve been singing Christmas songs about frankincense for years and does anybody know what frankincense is??  Well I’m going to find out!

These are just some of the things that I want to experience. I enjoy learning about a new culture and exploring a foreign country. I've done my homework on Oman, and I think it's a country I'm going to enjoy living in. I’ve lived in North America, Central America, Europe and Asia. It’s time for me to take on the Middle East.  Every time I move to another country and experience another culture, I gain a deeper understanding of the world and myself. I'd like to think that all these experience have helped me become a more tolerant person of cultural differences, and helps me bring a wider perspective to my classroom.  So why am I really moving to Oman? To learn.  And I also really really want to ride a camel.