Al Mandhari 1

AlWaleed Al Mandhari
Professor Lusine Makarosyan
English 114B
15 March 2016
Collections from a culture
I grew up in the sultanate of Oman, state of Ibri to be exact. I
consider my family a small community because we were closed. None of
whom we see as strangers or outsiders knows what happens inside our
homes, when it came to raising our children and opening to outsiders we
were too overprotective. It may sound ridiculous for a family to have such
rules but its a way of life that passed on for centuries and we just cant
afford to try a different lifestyle. The area I grew up in was divided
between tribes, and I as the eldest son to the head of one of the biggest
tribes in the region I had certain duties and responsibilities that some
would consider a heavy burden for a child to grow up with, or even
outrageous. This family ideology that descended from long ago, along with
our very own traditions holds us hostage to opening up to the society we
live in and inviting what we consider strangers into our lives and homes. I
dont know whether its fear of losing status between tribes, or fear of
opening up that we as a community or as a family have but I know that
its holding us back.
My upbringing was kind of sophisticated, it wasnt what a typical
child would go through, instead I had to learn things that in now a days no
one would consider useful or would even know that it still exist. A typical
child would have grown in an environment with children of his age and

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would learn his way until he matures, but when it came to our family we
raised our children to be independent and far from the outside world so
that was an intangible barrier because we lacked the necessary
communication skills to interact with others. In addition to the intangible
barrier I just mentioned there is a barrier I consider both tangible and
intangible at the same time which is class, or social status. Its intangible
in general but it becomes very physical in some cases, for example
marriage.
Marriage in our society as a whole was different than what you see
in western societies. A man doesnt propose to a woman directly and a
woman cannot be seen with a strange man alone, that would question her
family and her upbringing or would even isolate her family from society
itself. In our society the elders of your family are the ones who are
supposed to propose, not to the woman but rather to her family which
then if they see that the man is fit for their daughter they agree to the
marriage. So as you can see marriage is very complicated in our society.
Some families now a days which consider their-self modern does not
follow the traditional rules, some of those families are marked in a black
list in societys eyes. Going back to my family in specific, I have a
responsibility myself to my family being the eldest son to my father the
head of the family that is to get married to the daughter of the head of
another one of the big families in the region so that we can strengthen our
grip in other territories. I am proud that my responsibilities are of great
value to my family and I am grateful that I have the chance to prove
myself a worthy heir to my father. Knowing that my responsibilities are of

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great significance to my family I grew up with the idea of watching over

my actions and words so that it may reflect the best of my background
and how I was raised.
Returning to what I said before about lacking certain communication
skills, it was indeed hard for me to adjust to the outside world considering
that I was raised in a closed environment, not that I hated my fathers
house, it just wasnt anything close to my personal experience with the
outside world. Recalling my experience in the first semester in the
university, I couldnt bring myself to ask a question when I didnt
understand in class, though I remember being able to speak in front big
crowd earlier in my life I just couldnt bring myself to ask a question,
maybe because most crowds I stood before were family and friends or
employees and servants. Whether it was due to the way I was raised or
due to the difference in situations I just felt awkward speaking in class.
The cultural space I grew up in indeed had many barriers, whether it
was the huge walls that surrounded our house or the traditions that
shaped us, they were all of great significance to how I came to be today.
That being said, I had an advantage that other children my age didnt
have which was knowing where I came from, and where I was going in life.
Though it may not seem much, this had the greatest impact in my life.
Growing up knowing the history of my name and how it became of
significance in society, and I got very attached to the idea that my name
is an honor and I must preserve it at all costs. I believe that teaching a
child that would give him a sense of self and belonging. In my fifth grade I
had to go to my friends house to work on a project, when it was dusk his

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father came into the room and asked us to prepare to go to the mosque to
pray. As soon as we finished praying my friend hurried back to his house
but I waited for a few minutes which was extremely rare for a child my
age to do. Most would hurry home, as I stood to leave my friends father
approached me why didnt you leave when you finished praying as your
friend did he said, my father said that I should ask God for guidance and
mercy after every prayer I replied, whats your fathers name son? he
asked. As soon as I stated my fathers name and my family name the man
which was my friends father embraced me and said youre the
descendent of a great bloodline, that incident which I didnt understood its
significance at the moment was the one that shaped the way I view my
name today. I didnt know what drove the man to embrace me as if I
saved his life but it made me question his actions till this moment. His
words echos in my mind every time I want to say something or even do
something. This incident strengthen the bond between me, my family, and
my name. This type of belonging and sensing the importance of self will
guide a human down a straight path.
Our culture is very attached to the Palm Tree due to the hard conditions
our ancestors lived in. because water was so scarce and the only thing
that helped them survive was that tree they came to treat it as something
sacred or similar and cared for it so much that even now a days when
water is found at every corner I had to learn about it and respect it as well
as help preserve it. When I think of it I remember eating the dates every
morning with my father and drinking fresh milk that was milked moments
ago from a cow or a camel. It was a tradition in our family passed on from

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long ago that the father and his sons would have this as breakfast every
day. Although this was a traditional breakfast our ancestors used to eat
because they had nothing else, my father wanted to show me that we are
who we are because of those who lived before us and he wanted me to
appreciate that I have and compare it to what our ancestor before us had.
In The Pomegranate Trees William Saroyan describes a similar type of
conditions where my ancestors lived Here in this awful desolation a
garden shall flower, fountains of cold water shall bubble out of the earth,
and all things of beauty shall come into being. My ancestors settled in a
featureless desert except for palm trees and imagined it to be the
heavenly garden it is today. The difference between Saroyans garden and
my ancestors was that his garden remained an imagination but ours came
to be true. Maybe it remained an imagination because he was the only
one dreaming of it while my ancestors were a group of many visionaries
working together.
All of that being said, experiencing different cultural spaces has
been rewarding. My trip to the Getty Villa was unique in its own and
somehow related to my own. For example, Romans of ancient Rome had
the utmost care for what they grow of plants, so did our ancestors and so
we did and will continue to do. Los Angeles is a unique mix of different
cultural spaces, you can experience almost every culture here. Although I
found a connection between my culture and ancient Rome I couldnt find
any similarity between my culture and the American culture in general,
maybe I didnt dig deep enough, but experiencing those many space is
changing my perspective of life, humanity, and evolution in general to the

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best. Now that I came in contact with all of those cultural spaces I have a
better understanding of the way the world evolved and how different
cultures came in contact with each other and how cultures were
developed and spread. It was a rewarding experience digging my past and
recalling some memories of my childhood, some were awkward, some
were joyful, and some were painful, for better or worse those are the
molds that shaped me to be the man I am today and for that I am
grateful. I could say that learning about different cultures gave me some
sort of understanding of human social evolvement, and that this
knowledge is essential to me so that I can evolve socially.

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Works cited
Saroyan, William. The William Saroyan Reader. New York: G.
Braziller, 1958. Print.