My favorite facial expressions

A phrase in arabic I've now grown accustomed to saying is "I live in India." Everyone 'round these here parts knows me as the American kid, or 'ibn Ghazi' or whatever. Well, people remember my dad and tell me stories about him, and they are quite funny. My dad's old friends make it sound as if he was a big punk-ass kid. I don't quite believe the hype, but it's fun being around to hear the same stories from so many perspectives.

Well, back to the facial expressions. The questions about where I live are simply intended to be small talk and I'm expected to render the answer of "Tennessee." I guess I could give a "TN" answer and I wouldn't be lying. In any case, as much as Chicago or Philadelphia would be surprising answers to their query, India is just on another level. I've been quite enjoying the double take, complete with wide eyes and extra vocalized "BIL HIND?" that accompany my response. At that point it is inevitable that one of my cousins explains why I'm living in India and basically gives my qualifications to someone who is also "in the family."

The next question to which I am invariably on the receiving end is "Do you speak Indian?"
I can't imagine the a country with so many languages spoken right here (Arabic, English, French, Armenian, and a few less known ones) is so full of people who think that India has ONE language and furthermore that they believe that language is "Indian." What I'm seeing is another principle difference in Lebanon and India. Lebanon is a miniature country. In fact there are only 32 countries smaller in area than Lebanon and most of them are island nations, or minor independent principalities (Monaco for example). India, on the other hand is its own subcontinent! I try to explain to people that India is basically like Europe when it comes to variety. With 22 OFFICIAL languages (plus at least literally 500 more) and a variety of food that boggles the mind, plus the different approaches to the different religions, India is basically its own continent. Turn back the clock just a few years to before the partition and Pakistan and Bangladesh (and in some sense Sri Lanka) join the mix and you really do have a continent.

Lebanon, on the other hand, is not exactly part of anything. It's sort of mediterranean, sort of middle eastern, sort of arab, sort of an ocean country. I don't think of Lebanon as part of the same subcontinent to which saudi arabia belongs, although I guess it is. I seems much closer in form to Egypt, but Egypt really IS in a different continent.

So there we have it, another amazing difference in two nations that couldn't really seem further apart. One is its own continent, one is fighting hard to make its own identity within the midst of several continents.