One of my new interests here is the concept of 'street graphics', which really just means I like looking at advertisements, announcements, and graffiti. I made Caitlin take a picture of this sign because the Arabic says "Not everything big is sweeter..."
It also seems like a good stand-in for a lot of Alexandrians' attitude toward their city versus Cairo. When I was in Cairo, all the native Alexandrians I met said it was a much better city, more beautiful, cleaner, and the people were nicer. Less chaotic than Cairo, they said. Smaller. Sweeter. A lot of native Cairenes worried that I would be 'bored' because Alexandria was 'basically just one street.' Both of these are probably huge exaggerations, but I have to laugh at the idea of Alexandria being made up of one street. It may be smaller than Cairo, but it's still pretty huge. I wonder what the people of Cairo would have to say about Middlebury? Probably ' it's basically just one house."
2 comments:
I love this observation and interpretation of street graphics - an inspiration to pay a closer look here in Spain...and I actually write entries in my blog. Thank you. xoxo.
Aside from the fact that I'd prefer onions to cherries, this is all very intriguing. Jessamy, the sign was in Arabic, but the mall name was in English. Is that common, to see signs written in two (or more) languages?
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