Sunday, October 29, 2006

The -man

My first day of work as a senior resident I met my intern, Dr. Shuman

I couldn't get rid of my Jordanian habit of knowing the last name of every person I meet and trying to know where s/he is from.

I thought.... Shuman .....
I started to talk with him and tried to detect an accent..... nothing.
I looked at his hair, his skin color, almost completely examined him..... nothing.

Then I asked him, "Hey Shuman, where are you from?"

He said, "Wisconsin"

Hareega, "Ok where are your parent from?"

"From Wisconsin too"

"And your grandparents, do you know? Are you originally from Wisconsin?"

He smiled and said , "Yeah Wisconsin, we're all from Wisconsin"

I paused for a second and thought to myself whether or not I should tell him my secret.

Then I decided it to say it."Hey, listen, I think I know where you're originially from. I know that you're originally from Wisconsin, but I know where you're originally originally from."

He looked at me and seemed a bit interested, although not as much as I expected him to be. I continued.... "Dude, I think you're originally Palestenian. We have the same family in Jordan. They're Palestenian and they established a bank long time ago. IT's a HUGE bank now, huge."

He tried to complement me... "Yeah maybe.... who knows"

I answered, "Dude I know, ask your parents, they'll tell you"

I'm sure he was thinking then "God help me with this freak who I'll work with for one month", and I was thinking ,"That habaloneh doesn't know where he's from"then tried to joke a bit, "listen if you're gonna work in business one day especially outside America you can tell people that you're Palestenian and you're related to the big boss of that bank, I'm sure that will help you"

One year later.....We were sitting in the cafteria with a bunch of residents, and started talking about religion, then Dr. Shuman came in.

A resident asked him, "Hey are you Mormon?"

He smiled and said, "No I'm not" then he pointed at his badge , exactly at his last name ... shuMAN, and said, "What do you think?"

And 3 people on the table said, "OOOOO so you're Jewish"

I felt like an idiot kept finished eating my burritto.

10 comments:

lubna said...

You seem to quickly trust your instinct in many occasions. This is causing you public embarrasment;)
DHL ha?

Madi said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
YOU ARE SO DAMN GOOD MAN!
LOVE YA

Me said...

really funny stuff here...keep those stories coming, it seems like you have many of them!!

Anonymous said...

ell, you could look at it in these ways:

1. Jews used to call historical Palestine, as Palestine, so he might have thought that u meant that because he's Jewish, then Palestine is his homeland, you know as they claim that God promised them the land...So he thinks you are a Zionist

2. There are many Palestinian families whose last name ends with "man", such as Jackaman and many people think they are Jewish (they are Christians btw).Shouman are Muslims.

Hareega, that was funny. Keep'em coming!
Reminds of a Lebanese guy who was saying that "Elie wiesel" was Lebanese. So I've asked him do you who he is? Yeah some big shot. No but do you know what he writes, what he advocates? No
Walak he's a holocaust survivor, he's pro-Israel to the fullest, maybe ultra Zionists!

Some Lebanese also claim that Shakespeare to be of a Lebanese origin,you know Sheik-Spear , Sheik in Labanese means chief, mukhtar,sheekh mashayekh, Spear is a common Christian name in the Levant!

Okay,sorry for this lengthy comment :D

Roba said...

LOL! That's hilarious :D Hehehe, totally cracked me up.

Moey said...

hahahaha you remind me of [scrubs] for some reason..

Hareega said...

Lubna... I know fthee7a wara el thanyeh

Jad... thank you khayyo , loyal reader :)

summer.... I'll do my best, my memory isn't that great

Feras... totally agree with what you said. Look at waht Fareed Zakariyyah and Foad al 3ajami advocate for, horrible!

Roba, thank you :)

Moey, when you know let me know :)

Anonymous said...

Ever thought of having all your stories published in a book ? hmm .. I guess that's why you started a blog :) .. LOL that was one heck of a story shuMAN LOL .. Its almost a fact that any family name in states that ends with a -MAN is of a jewish origin :) .. I guess it skipped your mind being eager to "find his origins" :) .. hehehe .. thanks for making me smile ..

hey .. what happened to the poem you posted a while a go??? whats happening to your posts ! are they passing by some sort of a "Bermuda Triangle" ?! :S

Hareega said...

tealover... no, no book !

I deleted that poem, It looked like it had lots of mistakes, golt balash baktob wa7ad thaani ba3dain bel 3arabi, as-hal :D

Anonymous said...

LOOL, I love the Jordanian way of analyzing stuff :D :D