Students: Pakistan is changing

When senior Omar Memon moved into his Tulip Tree apartment his junior year, he lived on pizza and burgers. Like many students, he missed home-cooked meals but did not know the first thing about cooking. Back home in Lahore, Pakistan, his family hired people to do everything from cleaning the house to making tea. \n“When I moved into my apartment, I started cooking, which was interesting, because never in my life had I even made an omelet,” Memon said. “I still don’t make omelets, but I learned to make two easy dishes and we survive on those.”\nMemon and other students with Pakistani heritage said people of different ethnicities often have misconceptions about Pakistan, and they cite Western media as a large cause of the problem.\n“Comparing the two countries is like comparing apples to oranges,” Memon said. “What works in one country may not work in the other.”\nIn Pakistan there is a heightened emphasis on the family, Memon said. Everyone eats together on Sunday, and when there is a special occasion, such as a birthday, family members are expected to show up at the house. No invitation is necessary. \nAnother cultural difference is that the work week lasts six days.\n“When I got to Indiana I wondered, when do these guys actually go to school?” Memon said. “On Thursday happy hour starts at 5 p.m. and lasts Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I thought, they go to school half of the week and party the rest.”\nDespite the extra day of work, Memon said Pakistanis have a relatively weak work ethic. In the United States, he said, people are always working to be above the competition. Work in Pakistan is fairly laid-back, perhaps to a fault.\nThis lack of motivation does not help a developing country in its struggle with infrastructure problems, namely power, freshman Aoun Jafarey said.\n“We’re still stuck 40 years behind when it comes to power,” Jafarey said. “We have the capabilities and the money but not the initiative.”\nWhile there are motorways, the equivalent of American highways, they only run between a few major cities in Pakistan. Other roads are often unpaved and the streets can be poorly organized, Jafarey said.\nDespite these problems, Pakistan is a country that is becoming more modern with time, said Juhy Ali, a junior.\nAli has never lived in her parents’ home city of Karachi. However, she traveled to Pakistan over winter break, and prior to college she visited family there annually. During her latest visit she noticed the transformations taking place in the provincial capital.\n“Karachi is changing,” Ali said. “The city opened its first ice skating rink, which is a big deal because it’s so hot there. There are coffee shops and wireless Internet, too.”\nWhile Jafarey said most Pakistanis are conservative and believe anything Western is haram, or not allowed, Ali had a different experience over winter break. She packed more traditional clothes but ended up wearing jeans. \n“When I go to the malls I see girls in spaghetti straps,” Ali said. “The upper class is pretty Americanized, but the lower classes just don’t have the money to do that.”\nPakistan has a prominent middle class, but it also has extremes of poverty and wealth, Ali said. Despite the many improvements taking place in the country, all three students said many misconceptions and negative stereotypes are associated with Pakistan.\n“People think we’re a terrorist nation,” Jafarey said. “I get a lot of jokes about it, but we’re not.”\nJafarey attributes some of the misunderstandings to Western media. Karachi has its share of problems, he said, but the media makes the problems seem worse than they really are.\n“When a bomb goes off, (the media) makes it out to be something huge, like we’re falling apart,” Jafarey said. “It’s not that big of a deal. Baghdad is a war zone; Karachi is not. Yes, we don’t have everything, but we’re working on it.”\nJafarey, Memon and Ali all agree that Pakistan is not the dangerous country the media claims it to be. In fact, Jafarey and Memon both said they feel the safest in Pakistan, the country they call home.\nA lack of communication between different ethnicities on campus only helps to facilitate a lack of knowledge, Memon said.\n“People need to be more open to everything,” Memon said. “We are all in college now and we should make an attempt to make a connection and see what’s happening in other parts of the world. There should be more of an effort on the American side to talk to other people and find out what’s happening and why.”