Elena Lien on Egyptian Americana

By: Elena Lien

October 22, 2010

I came to Egypt expecting an onslaught of unfamiliar sights, sounds, and tastes—the rich experience of life in another culture. I was not naive enough to expect that my days would be filled with camels and Nile sunsets, but I also did not expect Egyptian culture to sometimes feel more American than America.

For one thing, the prevalence of English in Cairo is quite striking, and signs in many parts of Cairo are as likely to be written in English as in Arabic. It is not uncommon to hear young, wealthy Egyptians speaking Arabic interspersed with colloquial American phrases, and I have also come across published materials such as Cairo activity guides or cell phone advertisements written in a mixture of English and colloquial Egyptian Arabic (transcribed via a combination of English letters and numbers).

The prevalence of English in Egypt is not surprising in light of the major role tourism plays in Egypt's economy. As a financially strategic language, English is a typical component of an Egyptian education, and most Egyptians begin learning English in kindergarten. Not only English, but American fast food restaurants fill the Egyptian cultural scene. This is especially true in the wealthy neighborhood of Zamalek, where my dorm is located, or the new suburbs that surround American University in Cairo (AUC), where I go to school. However, it is not difficult to find American fast food even in the heart of downtown Cairo.

In fact, despite its cheap reputation in the United States, American fast food is a relatively expensive option for the typical Cairene and, from what I can gather, something of a status symbol. Whereas the American students I live with complain about the paucity of "authentic" Egyptian food in the AUC bubble, the Egyptians I see consuming delivery KFC chicken or hamburgers at the local Hardee's seem perfectly content to forgo ful and ta'amiya (fava beans and Egyptian falafel) for American fare. AUC itself has just two restaurants serving food from the Middle East, in contrast to two McDonald's, a Subway, a Cinnabon, and a bagel shop.

American pop culture has obviously also made inroads into Egyptian society. As just one example, I once saw a flower shop in downtown Cairo called Titanic that advertised its wares with the iconic image of Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet standing at the bow of the doomed ship. It is no surprise that Egyptians adhering to more traditional values are often appalled by this influx of Western culture. In a study by Nicholas S. Hopkins, Sohair R. Mehanna, and Salah el-Haggar, as published in People and Pollution, the authors note that many Cairenes consider moral pollution to be one of the greatest environmental threats, degrading the traditional structure of interpersonal interactions.

For these Egyptians, "moral pollution" consists of things like public displays of affection and drunkenness, activities that are generally more acceptable in Western culture. On the other hand, for Americans visiting Cairo, the perception of Western women as sexually loose can manifest itself in regular harassment from Egyptian men who see Americans as acceptable targets for blatant sexual advances. As an American, I often find myself cringing at the elements of American culture I see in Egypt, noting the irony that this "American" culture often manifests itself in ways most Americans would find unacceptable. For instance, despite America's association with fast food, I have purchased more fast food in one semester in Egypt than I have in five years in the United States and see people eating fast food here at a frequency far above that in the United States.

In terms of sexual conservatism, Egyptian students wear T-shirts on campus with English phrases so obscene they are not appropriate to post on this American university's forum. Hosts on Egyptian television also frequently wear much more revealing clothing and heavy makeup than would ever be acceptable to audiences in the United States. I would not claim that American culture is actually more conservative than Egyptian culture, but I think the degree and manner of American liberalism is misinterpreted by mainstream Egypt, perhaps due to the fact that many Egyptians' knowledge of America comes primarily from Hollywood.

To be sure, Egyptian culture is likewise misinterpreted by Americans, and, were I an Egyptian studying in America, I doubtless could write an essay making similar observations about cultural misrepresentations. I think it is important to recognize that, once a society adopts elements of a foreign culture, those elements cease to be foreign. Ultimately, what a culture chooses to adopt from another society says more about that society than about the original culture.

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