Arabic Anime (Alternately: Je Déteste Vous, Gérard Depardieu)

For those of you who know anything about Japanese cartoons, commonly referred to as anime, you know that they enjoy a large popularity in the US under their dubbed versions and that the artistic style incorporates generalized mouth movements so you don't get lip reader's syndrome (did I just make that up? yes I believe I did), which I define as the disconnect between seeing words form on someone's lips but hearing different sounds and different word lengths.

Though I experience this daily with Noor (which as I recently found out is not only dubbed in Syrian Arabic but the character's names have been changed as well -- ex. Noor is actually Gümüş. In Arabic her name means light but in Turkish it means silver...) nothing is as terrible as the French movies. Any and all new releases here are dubbed in French, which means you get terrible lip reader's syndrome AND really awful voice actors. Why do Orlando Bloom and Val Kilmer sound the same??? Probably because they were both dubbed by Gérard Depardieu... The Great French Schnoz.

Seriously, he is the undisputed god of french cinema and I would be hard pressed to name more than ten french movies I have seen without him ("Amélie," "Indochine," "And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen" [which was filmed in Fes and Essaouira!], "Les Choristes", "La Belle et la Bête", "Tout va Bien," "La Cage aux Folles," and "Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran") AND he has also been in quite a few English movies that I've seen (Hamlet, Les Misérables, The Man in the Iron Mask, 102 Dalmatians...) Also, "Manon des Sources" doesn't count as a French movie without Sir Schnoz because he was Jean de Florette in "Jean de Florette", the movie directly preceding "Manon" as Manon's father... plus his wife was in both of them anyway.

That was a pretty lengthy digression. Anyway, what I thought was interesting about cartoons here was that Looney Tunes are played as-is (yay for childhood memories) but anime is dubbed in Arabic. No, I don't get lip reader's syndrome but it does blow my mind that anime can be so popular and, on a slightly more contrite note, it probably sound weird for the Japanese when they hear the English dubs that I am so used to.

I might be just a little more French than I let on....

P.S. - as I was typing this entry, the anime episode ended and now MBC3 is playing Batman... dubbed in Arabic. And the lip movements work suprisingly well. No not that Batman, the cartoon one... Though that is on my top ten list of things to do once I hit American Soil. The other in no particular order are:

• use my own bathroom, including a decadent long, hot shower
• buy & eat a king size hershey's bar and a bag of m&m's
• get a haircut
• hug Matt until it hurts
• catch up with dad about Thailand
• visit Mom & Katie
• eat: homemade spaghetti, a big breakfast, & a steak
• buy a new pair of headphones to replace the ones I blew out in Fes
• drive my car, Vesper, for the first time in 7 weeks
• See: The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, Hancock, Hellboy II, Wanted, Wall-E, Get Smart, Kung Fu Panda, Narnia: Prince Caspian ... hopefully some of those are already at the dollar cinema!
  

Ok, so that may seem like more than ten things but it's my list so... deal with it... or help me do all those things as soon as possible!

Next guy who calls me "gazelle" is getting punched in the face

I know I promised this post awhile ago, but what I was going to write has morphed in to my term paper for the end of the study abroad which is most likely going to be entitled "Sunglasses are my Hijab" so instead enjoy an explanation of what I meant by the title I gave.

Julia Prior wrote
at 3:26pm
can i call you gazelle?

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 4:25pm
do and I'll punch you in the face... oh and it's pronounce "Rha-zelle"

Julia Prior wrote
at 4:26pm
okie rha-zelle.
and i dare you. :-p

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 4:34pm
I'll get right on that... in like a week when I'm back. Watch out or POW right the kisser!

Julia Prior wrote
at 4:37pm
oh i look forward to it. i think i found a new pet name for you. why do they call you gazelle? cause you're so unnaturally tiny? just tell them you're not small, your travel size! which is convinent considering how much traveling you do.

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 4:55pm
gazelle is actually a generic catcall, because in the streets, the men believe that they are lions in the Serengeti and since women don't belong there, they need to be intimidated to stay at home, so we are the prey -- the gazelles -- since we apparently frighten easily but are extremely graceful... and they'd all like to "catch" one of us (read: get our number) since they live in a sexually repressed society and since women are kind of hard to meet due to the rather rigid segregation of the sexes

Oh, and that's the opening line of my term paper for the study abroad *wink*

Julia Prior wrote
at 5:11pm
hahaha im totally going to still call you gazelle. only when i say it, im refering to your tiny-ness... and frighten easily? obviously they don't know you. just take away your midol and theyll be the ones that frighten easily

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 6:50pm
Surprisingly, my best way to counteract the negative rha-zelle vibes is to walk around with my sunglasses on and my headphones in and ignore them while listening to something empowering. When you walk down the street like you own the place and stare down anyone who looks your way, they tend to leave you alone. The one or two times I actually called a guy out who said something to me (like: "ello boo-tiful" because they can't pronounce for shit) they almost immediately say "I'm sorry, please forgive me" or something like that and run away.

Julia Prior wrote
at 6:52pm
theyre not used to women standing up to them. or talking in public.

Mely Rabalais wrote
at 6:54pm
Well, that's true. Ok, seriously how bored are you at work that you have time to respond to each of my posts within five minutes? are you facebook stalking me?

Waste Management In Rabat

Currently in class. My stomach isn't feeling well, so even though Casey's host mom is throwing a wedding party for her former host daughter and we're all invited, I'm not so sure I want to go. Not really interested in the lecture... But Steph seems to be enthralled so someone is getting something out of it.

Tomorrow we have oral presentations in Arabic... I will be talking about the Hassan Tower gardens, my favorite place in Rabat.

So, I updated my iTouch software and got new programs, including this lifecast thing so we'll see how this works. ttfn!

Posted with LifeCast

In Class Essay

التعبير:

أنا أدرس في جامعة «سبت إدوردز.» الجامعة الصغيرة في مدينة «إوستن،» حيث العاصمة ولاية «تكساس.» أنا أسكن في بناية شقّة ١٢، رقم ١٦. أنا أعمل قي خامعتي. أنا معيدة بصف السياسية الدولية. مدينة «إوستن» صغيرة و جميلة. جامعة «تكساس» قي المدينة كذلك، و الجامعة كبيرة جداً. أنا لا أحب ذلك. هي فيها ١٣ كليات و ٥٥٫٠٠٠ طلاب. أنا أحب جامعتي الصغيرة، و أنا أشتاق إليها جداً.

Essay:
I study at St. Edward’s University. The small university is in the city of Austin, where the capital of the state of Texas is. I live in apartment building 12, number 16. I work at my university. I am a teaching assistant in an international relations class. The city of Austin is small and beautiful. The University of Texas is in the same city, and the university is very large. I don’t like it. It has 13 colleges and 55,000 students. I love my small university, and I miss it a lot.

Atai

So, I'm sitting here at the CCCL on a breezy but overly-sunny afternoon (are there ever clouds here? no.) studying for my midterm tomorrow and considering reading the assignment for our afternoon session, and Brahim makes some tea. I lean over into his line of sight and say "Ya Brahim! B-shael atai?" and he responds "For you? Free! I invite you all to tea!" He's so awesome, even if there are two lumps in my little glass. That's right, there's no such thing as splenda here. My dentist is going to have a cow when I get back...

Anyway, things are going well. Still don't know what I'm doing this weekend. It seems like a sizable group is headed to Tangier, but I still want to explore Salé and find a beach or two around here that's not overcrowded and, well... basically I want to work on my tan a bit more. I'd also like to check out Chellah and maybe just relax. I'll need to read my rough guide to determine if it's worth it to go to Tangier; it might not be...

Still have those three posts and other ones coming at ya. I have them written in my head, it's just hard to find time to get them out on my computer what with all the homework and other stuff I am doing. Sadly, sleep doesn't factor much in to that "other stuff" Which reminds me, my host cousin made cornbread yesterday and I had a piece for breakfast. Wonderful, if a bit too margarine-y.

Got to go, need to study more. Bye!

This is not an Update...

But it is an opportunity to tell you about my friend Brad's blog. He updates a LOT more than I do, with a lot more depth, but I must stress that he and I don't do everything together... Take it in stride and enjoy. I have added a static link at the top of my "Interesting Links" sidebar. If you haven't taken notice of them yet, do so. Some are interesting, others are informative, and others (like the Noor summaries) are just flat out silly.

Ta!
Mely

Saana Helwa ya Jamill....

سنة حلوة يا جميل
سنة حلوة يا جميل
سنة حلوة يا ملّي
سنة حلوة يا جميل!!!

Yeah, I just sung happy birthday to myself. I don't officially turn 20 for another 10 hours (I was born at 6:45 am and I'm taking in to account the fact that there's a 6 hour time change) but yeah, it's my birthday! In Morocco, that is. Got to wait another 4 hours and 15 minutes for Texas to catch on.

By the way: Sorry mom. 6:45 isn't a pretty time of the morning, and it was a Tuesday. Here I am, two decades later sitting in the lobby of a riad-esque hotel in Essaouira, Morocco listening to Jazz and Gnaoua fusion.... you couldn't have ever even imagined.

I love Morocco. I know I bitch about the gazelle thing and the "spaghetti" (don't worry, you didn't miss it. Those rants are still coming up...) but it's nice here. Today I had a guy who I was bargaining with tell me that I wasn't American. I live in Rabat, I'm a nice Moroccan girl now. And, I did almost the entire part of bargaining in Arabic, mostly excluding drawing numbers in the air because I'm not so good with numbers to begin with and having them in Darija makes it worse (fifteen is supposed to be Ham-set-asher, but it becomes hm-starsh, for example). Another shopkeeper tried to convince me that Essaouira is the most wonderful place in the world and that all the American, Austrailian, British, and New Zelander..ish? ian? women that he knew of had moved there, bought a house for 3 mil dirham (something like $430k with a decent exchange rate) and married nice Moroccan man. I said, thanks no thanks... I already have someone special.

to quote the timeless Richard Blaine: "Here's looking at you, kid."

So, I change my profile picture to be one that I snapped at the Musée Marrakech. Well, technically my friend Steph snapped it for me. She's my cousin (we've taken to referring to everyone by host family ties, including the four students who all live with different branches of the same family, so they're the "four cousins") and lives in the house below mine. My roof looks down into her family room, as does my bathroom window. We've had cute moments of "Romeo oh Romeo" and "Rapunzel, Rapunzel..." Anyway, we've taken to shopping together and today we bought quasi matching scarves, though I got a better deal by 20 dhs. We got seperated as we shopped, and I ran into her two hours later, cornered in the back of an old antiques shop by a guy who was fascinated that she was from America. I swooped in, said some stuff in Arabic (yes, we're students studying in Rabat from America. No, Texas does not have cowboys and a "sahara" (if you say the sahara desert, you're being redundant, fyi) and oh! look at the time, wasn't dinner at 5:30? Let's be going now. Ma'slama, we will return tomorrow inshallah for tea!)

The we wandered away from the hotel because dinner wasn't actually until 7pm. She wanted to find a pair of linen pants so she could dance at the festival (interestingly enough, she eschews all technology except her iMac and digital camera, and will only on occasion watch TV, and has a polaroid camera that she uses for special shots; not even a cell phone!) where we snagged some free mint tea because I'm addicted to the stuff and it's been bothering me that I haven't had any good stuff to drink since I left Rabat. This shop is where I was pressured into finding a nice Maroccan man to settle down with... uh, no thanks. I did get tea (I can't even describe to you how much it thrills me when I get tea on the cheap or for free).

So, tonight is first night of the festival and tomorrow is the last. Everyone in the group went out to explore the musical options, but I had it on good authority (Fadoua) that one of the best bands was going to be a Jazz ensemble at then end of the square where the hotel is located. With that in mind, I walked up the additional flight of stairs from where my hotel room is on the third floor (actually the 4th; they number Euro-style here) to the terrace café where I bought a pot of Mint tea for 10 dhs. Not a bad price, but it wasn't terribly good tea either. One should never have to add their own sugar, and I did. But it did buy me a comfortable chair in the light under a pavilion tent on the terrace (which was otherwise deserted except for the hotel staff) and a good view of the crowd at the stage. I could hear the music, layered with a hour of Will Smith's songs and Stayin' Alive from the terrace two houses over; I'm pretty sure it's a club of some sort, nifty. So I read my Star Wars book (now on sacrifice) and listened to the music. I can still hear some band, even though I'm in the Hotel Lobby on the first (not ground) floor.

I'd really like to come back to Essaouira when the festival isn't going on. I'm sure it's the idyll seaside village I detect beneath this massive press of people who have decended for these two days of crazy rasta-ness. That's right, I said rasta. This place is dreaded hippie heaven, and by that I mean dreadlocks and lots of them. Weed is probably present around here in droves, but I'm staying away from the press of the crowds. Not only do I hate pot, but it just so happens to be very, very illegal here. Also, speaking of terrible things, one of the girls had her backpack stolen off the beach today. She didn't leave it alone, but the two people who were watching everything while the others wandered around fell asleep and someone picked up her bag and walked off with her passport, camera, and massive stash of gum. She's most upset about the camera since it was a digital that held ALL of her photos for Morocco. It's sad; I can't imagine how awful that must be and I know that I've been doubly careful with my stuff since I left Houston (that's right, even in Atlanta and Madrid and on the plane, if I lose my laptop or camera or iTouch, someone's getting hurt).

Ok, this post is really long and Matt just got on Skype, so I'm staying up late to hear him tell me happy birthday. Haven't figured out how I'll talk to dad yet, especially since his birthday is in two days.

so, oooone more time! Saana Helwa ya Jamill, Saana Helwa YA Jamill, Saana HELWA ya Mely, Saaaaaaaaaana Helwa YA Jamill!

Thank you and good night!

P.S. - Ok, so here's a little something I just received from a friend of mine:

Hot Damn! You're Old
June 27 at 9:11pm

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Mely-Queen-of-the-Moroccan-Land-Rabalais... Happy Birthday to you!
Love,
Your Lover,
The Lovely Bethany