{"id":46781,"date":"2016-04-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/46781\/what-happens-when-a-lebanese-marries-a-foreigner"},"modified":"2016-04-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T00:00:00","slug":"what-happens-when-a-lebanese-marries-a-foreigner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/en\/46781\/what-happens-when-a-lebanese-marries-a-foreigner\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens When A Lebanese Marries A Foreigner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><big>I had been living in the States for quite a while, so when the day came and my American boyfriend proposed, the trip back to Beirut had become inevitable! He had to meet my family and discover my hometown. Here\u2019s what happened.<\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <b><big><big>Fatalism<\/b><\/big><\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/49.media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_lmosquXlvs1qgvo7ho1_500.gif\"width=\"100%\"><\/p>\n<p>  <big>First my parents welcomed the engagement news in the weirdest way possible: why in the world couldn\u2019t I find one single good Lebanese man to marry instead of a foreigner, and why so far away? A European guy might have been a better alternative, maybe? <\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <b><big><big>Lost in translation<\/b><\/big><\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/31.media.tumblr.com\/749671552f692149d366f58a0771f3c5\/tumblr_inline_mv7j8isYUe1qm9y0a.gif\"width=\"100%\"><\/p>\n<p>  <big>The day we arrived to Beirut, where <b>20<\/b> of my closest friends and relatives were picking us up at the airport, my mom greeted us with her usual <i>to\u2019obrineh<\/i> (good luck explaining to my fianc\u00e9 why my mom would welcome us with \u2018bury me\u2019). And my fianc\u00e9 wouldn\u2019t understand why I was calling everyone \u201cMy Love\u201d (<i>Habibi<\/i> and <i>Hayete<\/i>).<\/big> <\/p>\n<p>  <b><big><big>Food coma<\/b><\/big><\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/RSjIuNI.gif\"width=\"100%\"><\/p>\n<p>  <big>Obviously my mom had prepared a huge Lebanese feast over which my entire family gathered (she had been cooking for three whole weeks and storing all the yummy food in the \u201cspecial events freezer\u201d). Needless to say, this lunch and every other meal we had lasted 3 hours, which gave my family plenty of time to share with my fianc\u00e9 the essentials of the Lebanese language (mainly name calling).<\/big> <\/p>\n<p>  <b><big><big>The wedding experience<\/b><\/big><\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.stepfeed.com\/uploads\/2016\/02\/10082533\/20160210-dr-who-i-dont-want-to-go.gif\"width=\"100%\"><\/p>\n<p>  <big>During our stay, we were invited to a wedding. Of course I had mentally prepared my fianc\u00e9 to the whole nine yards (zaff\u00e9, zalghouta, huge fireworks, fancy everything, etc.) but as we say \u201cel 7ak\u00e9 mech metel el chawf\u00e9\u201d and needless to say, he had the shock of his lifetime. <\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <b><big><big>No touchy<\/b><\/big><\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/spFCn.gif\"width=\"100%\"><\/p>\n<p>  <big>It took my fianc\u00e9 a while to get used to all the \u201ctouchy\u201d greetings that is typically Lebanese: while the men might seem macho, they are definitely gonna greet their bros with a big kiss on the cheek and the hug that comes with it. <\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <b><big><big>The daily cultural shock<\/b><\/big><\/big><\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.stepfeed.com\/uploads\/2016\/01\/28124500\/20160128-sf-wedding-not-oay2.gif\"width=\"100%\"><\/p>\n<p>  <big>This involves the crazy driving around, the military checkpoints, and the ladies with their full make-up on dressed like they were going clubbing even though they\u2019re only going to the grocery store.<\/big><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><big>I had been living in the States for quite a while, so when the day came and my American boyfriend proposed, the trip back to Beirut had become inevitable! He had to meet my family and discover my hometown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":413847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","_preview_accessed":0,"_lftp_listicle_injection":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"media-embed-type":[],"class_list":["post-46781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"authorship":[125],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.5 (Yoast SEO v28.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What Happens When A Lebanese Marries A Foreigner<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I had been living in the States for quite a while, so when the day came and my American boyfriend proposed, the trip back to Beirut had become inevitable! He had to meet my family and discover my hometown.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beirut.com\/en\/46781\/what-happens-when-a-lebanese-marries-a-foreigner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Happens When A Lebanese Marries A Foreigner\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I had been living in the States for quite a while, so when the day came and my American boyfriend proposed, the trip back to Beirut had become inevitable! 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