L stands for Love

One topic that has of course, been barraging my mind as of late, has been the issue of marriage, relationships and love.
In the year that I’ve been away, about 7+ of my friends have gotten hitched/engaged at ages ranging from 18 – 25. It’s shocking to say the least. Did I also mention that one of them was my brother marrying one of my friends? Intense. I discovered this over a Skype conversation + email.
In the hype of it all, I found myself someone who I actually considered a potential future spouse in China. Even when I denied the possibility and told everyone that I would not come back married, engaged or any other form of ‘taken’ in the relationship bar for the past year and some. To be honest, I met him only about two months before departure, so this made it intensely tight-stringed and especially rough on my mental understanding of the situation.
Recently I read an article one of my married friends posted on her Facebook profile (lovely aspect of social networking), and it was precisely in regards to this particular phenomenon of mass marrying/hooking up. It was essentially a list of ten points on whether or not you were ready to get married. Honestly, it was something I really needed at the time.
When I first met this guy, I honestly didn’t think of his looks, I was just like, “Okay, another Chinese Muslim dude, probably one who doesn’t know very much about what he’s doing or what the religion is about besides not eating pork and attending Friday prayer.” However, to my shock and eventually, happiness, I discovered this was certainly not the case with him. It turned out that he was the local Muslim youth leader (though not a local resident; simply attending school in the city) who organized several events for everyone to learn more about their religion and purpose in life. The more I met him, the more I became impressed with his dedication and knowledge about Islam, given the context I had seen of my “Muslim” relatives and the rest of the general populace in China. He never acted arrogant, was always respectful to everyone regardless of their opinions (some were so narrow minded, it made me clench my fists to hold back from grabbing their collars and screaming “WTF? WTF?? DO YOU NOT HAVE A BRAIN?!”) To see this beacon of knowledge and light amongst a mass of struggling fish was refreshing to say the least, and I fell head over heels for him.
It was the one and only time I ever told my mom about a crush, and the next thing I knew, all my family friends knew about it.
At first, I denied considering him seriously, especially because he couldn’t speak English, had never been to America and may not have even been interested in me in that way. However, the more I read and analyzed my own writing/emails about him, the more I realized that maybe my internal feelings were a sign from God that this one was different from all that I’ve ever possibly crushed on before as a silly girl.
Yet, even as I came to terms with the fact that yes, I did like him, I discovered that I suddenly had no idea what to do. First of all, what held me back most was the fact that I didn’t know if he even had any interest in me as a potential spouse, whether he considered me another Muslim sister who was a little different from the others, or perhaps simply a friend that his friend introduced to him in the hopes of expanding the Muslim community. The second reason, was that I was terrified that he would discover that I liked him. What would I do, especially if he didn’t like me back? What a huge embarrassment. I can’t tell you how much I sweated bullets over that. Particularly when I grew up with the innate tendency to ignore and pretend my crush didn’t exist for fear that they might discover I liked them. The third was essentially an extension of the second. When my mother, father, siblings, and aunts offered to help get to know his background, family, information and even see if he had any interest in me, I became terrified. Positively terrified.
Then, I had a little bit of recuperation time when I had to rush and pack to go home to America. In that period, I logically stepped backwards into the process and thought, why do I care if he likes me or not? The fact of the matter is, I don’t know whether or not we’re even compatible as a couple yet. Wouldn’t it be more practical for the both of us if we didn’t invest feelings just yet and tried to see if we could agree on views on life, religious practice and future life? If we couldn’t agree, what was the point of getting married to fight on our most fundamental beliefs?
Not that this thought was especially profound, but it allowed me to clear my head some. And it was upon my return to Phoenix that I finally faced myself and realized that I wasn’t ready to get married for a family yet. I just craved, wanted and needed that spousal love and affection, that one-streamed devotion to one person and vice versa. Not that such a feeling was wrong, but it certainly cannot found a marriage or family for the long term. At this point, my other question then led to, “what would be Islamically appropriate for me to do in order to keep in touch with him without overstepping my boundaries so that we could potentially discuss whether we could foresee marriage in the future?”
One of the hardest trials we go through as hormonal Muslim youth all throughout pre-marital life is precisely that. We are enamored by others, relationships, love and the concept of a single person devoted to you for you. However, in the goal of preventing ourselves from possibly falling down the wrong end, we try to stray from the vague possibility of any of that. Some of us can, some of us can’t. And all throughout this big, big abstract concept, we struggle to find ourselves, and fully understand what it is that constitutes a strong relationship between two objects of a marriage. Love is indeed a beautiful thing, but emotions are also easy to manipulate. Conflicts are always bound to happen and you can’t agree on everything, but in terms of foundational beliefs, it would be best to resolve that before investing your emotions. In essence, you can heal over time with conflicts before you are as emotionally attached to someone, but once that hook is in place, the scars left behind are stuck forever, and a majority of the time, they never fully heal.
I still dream of the day that I am married, happy and fully devoted to my husband and family, working towards a better tomorrow. But in the meantime, I have decided that my mental maturity hasn’t quite reached that state. In the development towards that process, I place my fate in God’s hands. If I am indeed meant to be with this person, God will give me signs and make it so that I can’t avoid it. And in the case that we are not meant to be, I will be given obstacles in my path towards it. God knows best, and I have no issues with that.

China, HSK and Muslims

I have my ups and downs with the Muslim population, and sometimes it really drives me insane. Recently, guess what it’s been? Cheating.

I grew up in America, home of creative licensing and copyrights. Maybe some of you may think I’m too high-strung, but I consider cheating one of the most dastardly things you can do growing up. I don’t care how desperate you are, it’s breaching the rights of your fellow classmate, teacher and if anything at all, your SELF. Cheating on tests is disgusting to me. I remember in high school, some of the grades would whisper to each other, “Whats the answer to number 56?” whenever the teacher trusted the class enough to walk out for some air or something. Thankfully my class never stepped out of line. Maybe in part because I was the principal’s daughter, maybe in part because the class as a whole had a higher standard of morals. Either way, I was fairly happy with my own condition. Oftentimes, if I accidentally caught a glimpse of what I knew to be the right answer, I would purposefully mark it wrong on my paper. Just because I felt it was wrong that I saw it. Maybe this was overboard or being a bit TOO careful, but I was satisfied with my own actions.
Growing up with this sort of belief, I have always been highly sensitive in tests and made sure not to mess around to convince others that I may possibly have been cheating. HERE now comes my issue with HSK testing and the Middle-Easterners who REALLY let me down.
HSK testing was on Sunday morning, starting at 9 AM. I came early, but forgot to bring my passport for identification. Thankfully the test proctor said to me, “it’s okay, I know you, go on.” So I went in. Thankful for his slip, I tried to sit in my rightful seat number but was told by the impatient woman proctor that I was in the wrong place. Turns out she was wrong though. I ended up shifting back three rows to where I was originally seated. Anyhow, the test started without much ado. Flagship kids filled up about five rows. I was smack in the middle.
Throughout the test, a proctor dressed in a bright red coat stalked the aisle beside our seats and would sometimes stop more surreptitiously and peer over our shoulders, sweeping her eyes over our test sheets. In fact, I would almost have considered her doing this for mere amusement as opposed to being anything close to making sure we weren’t cheating. After all, when I slipped my answer sheet beneath the test booklet, circling the answers on the book itself, she came by and pulled out the sheet, organized it over the section I was reading and said in a very loud whisper, “You’re doing it wrong, this first, this first.” (In Chinese) I was more than irritated, and sort of brusquely told her, that I knew what I was doing. After placing my answer sheet away again, she sauntered down the aisle and began shifting Andre’s paper ahead of me (he had placed it at a 90 degree angle, out of habit), discussing with him the issue of paper-placing DURING the listening section (excuse me, did you not realize we aren’t Chinese native speakers or LISTENERS for that matter?). After making her point she came back up the aisle, attempting to chat up several other students and then made a beeline back towards me, asking urgently, “where’s your passport??”
Thank you for organizing priorities lady. Not leaving when I didn’t answer, I eventually blurted that I had left it in the front with the bags (a lie), and not being able to do anything, she moved back to the front.
Now here’s my issue.
At the end of the testing, Earl noticed the people testing in front of him were all cheating. As they went around the room collecting papers, the Middle Easterner male in the front row slipped his paper down alongside the edge of the desk and showed his answers to the row behind him, allowing them to copy all the answers. Mind you, the ones copying? They were hijabis. Can I tell you the shame I felt when hearing my classmate tell me about this? Hijabis. Please. Do you realize what putting a headscarf even CONSTITUTES? It hurts me as a Muslim to see that people who also represent my religion can do things like this. Yea, maybe it’s ‘just a test’, but to me that reflects the fact that you are willing to bend to dirty methods to obtain results that are not rightfully yours. I don’t care how important this test may be to your career or future, by giving this fake result to your company, you are lying about your own abilities and only causing more problems for YOURSELF in the future. Yes, some may say, let them be, because they ll be reaping their own results. HOWEVER, to see people in my own religion doing dirty things like this makes me feel especially hollow, irritated, upset and depressed. Do you know what you represent? Not only are you a representative of your country, youre a representative of your RELIGION. Do you know how many people you have just affected thanks to a miss in judgment? Thank you so much for making my life just a little harder. And please, learn what that scarf means to all of us.