1. You make Turkish coffee before leaving home,when getting to the office,after lunch, when having guests, before the guests leave, after the guests leave and before going to bed.
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2. When shops have sale they call your mom.
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3. You still have, stored in suitcases, clothes that you used to wear when you were five .
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4. You call an olderperson you've never met before "Ammo" or "Khaltu".
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5. You hide everything from your parents, but they still think they know everything about you, and make you believe that they actually do.
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6. People are never happy with what you've achieve;
if you Graduated from school they'll tell you "Oqbal el Shahadeh el kbeereh", and when u get that "Oqbal el Aroos or Areees", and when
you get that "Oqbal ma nefrah be Aoulad-kum", and when you get that "Oqbal ma tefrahu bi shahadit-hum", etc...
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7. If you are a boy you start worrying about the Mukhabarat when you reach puberty.
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8. Getting a visa to Europe or the States is like getting a baby, everybody tells you "mabrook"
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9.You learn how to beg the personnel at the airport to allow the excess baggage you've got as soon as your father stops doing that for you.
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10. Your dream is holding a different passport.
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11. When you FLY BACK home you find 20 people waiting for you at the airport.
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13. Every time you fly back home you meet relatives you never knew existed,and
they look nothing like your family.
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14. You look for universities as far away from home as possible.
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15. You always curse at Arabs when you are back home, but when you live abroad you only make Arab friends.
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16. When you come back from University you still have to live with your parents, and fight over curfew allover again, as if you never left
them before.
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17. Your relatives alone could populate a small city.
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18. Everyone is a family friend.
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19. You fight over who pays the dinner bill.
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20. You teach Westerners to swear words in your language.
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21. When you go on a date you start thinking of lousy places where nobody would go to so you wont bump into family or friends.
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22. You end up in a lousy place and still bump into the relative with the biggest mouth.
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23. You think you are liberated when you can't even smoke in public
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24. If you are 25 and not married yet, your parents make you feel that you are getting too old.
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25. Getting married becomes the only way you can escape your parents.
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26. You tell your friends how to rebel against their parents when you can't even stay out past midnight.
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27. You always say "Open the light" instead of "Turn the light on" or "get down
from the car" instead of "get out of the car."
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28. You pronounce your p's as b's (bebsi and bolice)
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29. You ask your dad a simple question and he tells you a story of how he hadto walk miles just to get to school.
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30. Your parents were ranked first in school.
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32. Your dad swears at you with words that affect himself (Ibnil kalb)
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33. You tell everyone that you are a successful businessman back home" when you are really just an unemployed goat herder.
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34. You feel uncomfortable saying the word 'tease' in English.
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35. You smoke as if there is no tomorrow and you only smoke MARLBORO REDS.
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37. You only walk on the streets in groups of seven or more people and talk really really loud in Arabic together.
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38. You wear a black leather jacket, even when it is 100 degrees outside.
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39. you think its cool to dance and smoke at the same time
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40. If you are an Arab girl you give the look of death to another Arab girl who looks better than you.
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41. Your aunt is always asking when she can dance at your wedding"