Saving Face

Ramadan is here again and like every year it means the rules for eating around town have totally changed.  Kabob guys no longer stand in the middle of the street during the day wafting the smell of barbequed meat at passerbyers, noodle carts are tucked into the corner allies out of the main line of vision.  Since fasting is suppose to last from sun up to sun down, the middle of the summer is the hardest time of the year to properly abide by the call to abstain from water or food.  Right now our sun is rising before  4am and setting after 7:30.

I have a few neighbors who are trying to be faithful in the fast, but the longer I am here the more I see the smoke and mirrors which is many peoples dedication to Ramadan.  Tonight my friends and I went to a nice Uyghur restaurant by her house… we wanted to sit outside on the patio under the bright stripped canopies.  The waitress’ first question was: “Are you  wanting to eat right now?”  When we said “Yes”- and answer that indicated we were not participating in the fast, she motioned us to move indoors.  “These seats are only for those eating after iptar  a word used to describe the evening breaking of the fast).”  We stepped into the restaurant only to be met by a wave of hot sticky air. The cool almost night air seemed much preferable to the stuffiness of indoors.  I checked my watch, iptar was only 20mins away.  “If we promised not to eat until afterwards can we sit out there?” I asked hopefully.  “Sure, no problem if you are willing to wait you can sit there.”

We sat outside enjoying the cool breeze, even though they knew none of us were fasting they still brought out the required nan and melon to eat first to help us digest our food.  The whole thing was just an act to save face.  Our waiting until the sky was dark, and starting with a piece of watermelon made the restaurant look like it only catered to the most devote.

I Can’t Tell a Lie

Aforementioned Ramadan is once again upon us, but the fast is more than just abstaining from food and drink while the sun is in the sky, it is a month that calls all Muslims back to a holier way of life. There are more beggars on the street, and I am sure they make more than double the money this month, since it seems everyone is stopping to give them loose change. A gift of alms during the month of Ramadan is considered to be even more generous.

Last week I learned another aspect of life that is affected by holiness rehaul of Ramadan. My friend and I were souvenir shopping for her at the market. While we were bargaining, one of my favourite sellers said. “That is the real price I paid for it. I can’t lie to you because it is Ramadan right now.” Wow, honesty is the policy only when you are not eating. I guess now is the time to go shopping.

(Yes, this picture was taken in 2005 when my family came to visit. I often use file footage instead of running around all day with camera in hand)

My Job Just Got A Lot Harder

The month of Ramadan has started again; this is a hard time of year to live in a Muslim neighbourhood. Whether or not, I as an outsider, choice to join in the fast or not, there is guilt involved in eating on the street insight of many hungry people. I often feel bad if I start to prepare my dinner before it dark out since it is like knowingly allowing the delicious aroma of my food to tempt them.

For the past month or so I have been helping fill in for my friend at a foreign run café in town. The means I go each day and spend a few hours sipping coffee or fruit shakes with the staff, and helping the local manager think through what needs to be done. Talk about an dream job, nice hours, and little responsibility.


But Ramadan at a café is even harder. Some of our staff is fasting, so they spend their day in the kitchen cooking food for other to enjoy. They smell the intoxicating smells that go with their job, but can not even taste the sauce to see if it is right. Ramadan fasting rules are quite strict actually forbidding water from sunup to sundown. This is murderous on a hot summer day in the kitchen with the oven and stoves going full force. So, out friendship I am not eating or drinking while I am there either. Trust me when I say a day at a café with no coffee in hand is less than complete. This month my job is going to get a whole lot harder.

Rules for Ramadan

We are now almost half way through the Muslim month of fasting known as Ramadan. During this month followers of Islam world wide abstain from eating everyday from sun up to sun set. It is an interesting time here where I live in Central Asia since the government itself does not believe in Islam and in many ways tries to suppress any religious expression. Students who attend University are not allowed to practice any faith during the duration of their studies, however many of them ignore this rule and still try to live out the faith passed on to them from their families.

For those students who do decide to fast there are many obstacles to over come. There are no restaurants open on campus that early in the morning, and they would get caught trying to leave campus before sunrise. The school also hires other students to rise early in the morning and walk the halls. Their job is the listen at the door ways of each dorm for rustling or any noise that might indicate that someone is breaking the rules. The students who do choose to fast must either awake even earlier, learn to eat in the dark in complete silence, or as most of them do, just choose to skip breakfast and wait until sunset to eat their first meal of the day.

One thing I notice every year at this time is how much the fast is not about fellowship with god, but about letting all your neighbours know how pious and faithful you are. They fast to get noticed. From everything I have read on fasting it seems like it is kind of missing the real point.

Eating Humble Pie and Everything Else

This week marked the end of the Islamic fast. After a month of only eating when the sun is set, the Uyghur people break the fast in style by feasting and eating. If you have been keeping up with this blog since last year, you may remember all my rules for eating (or should I say not eating over the holiday).

Over the first two days of the holiday this year I visited seven different homes, and thanks to my trusty rules of eating I was able to get away with only minimal snacking: several pieces of cake, a few pieces of fruit, and a handful or two of candy, two bowls of soup and two steamed stuffed buns. I walked away from my two days of holiday visiting without that constant uncomfortable stuffed feeling. I was so proud of the fact my pants still fit I started boasting to all my uncomfortably over stuffed foreign friends about how well I had learned to survive the onslaught of food, and how comfortable I still felt.

But you know what they say about the prideful having to eat humble pie… on the very last day of holiday visiting I only had one home to go to, and it was one of my friends who is a college student. Her parents live in another town hours away, but they do keep a small apartment here in the city, which is where she had invited us. Both of her parents happened to be there and thought it was a big deal that their daughter’s ‘American’ friends could join them.

We sat down to a table covered with nuts, fruit, and candy. After ten minutes of munching out came the spicy jelly noodles with chick peas. Next, it was followed by a large plate of mutton stew. Our host kept putting more pieces on our plate, she wanted to make sure we got all the big chunks of meat. To help sop up the extra gravy the mother had made a pile of handmade noodles. By this time, I was starting to feel the discomfort coming one. Once the stew was cleared away we were given melon (normally the fruit coming out again is a good sign that the meal has come to a close) but yesterday it only indicated intermission. We still had a large plate of pollo (the rice, carrot, and mutton dish that is very famous with the Uyghur people) and big bowls of soup. Once all of the above had been consumed, the fruit was brought back out, only this time the father insisted that we all try a fresh big pomegranate from their home town. The whole meal of course was washed down by cup after cup of tea. Okay, so maybe during the 3 and half hour ordeal humble pie wasn’t on the menu, but I am pretty sure every other food known to man was.