Egyptian People and Sterotypes -

Before you read this, I'd like to say that I'm 100% Egyptian (I'm a Coptic Orthodox Christian) but I live in America (Southern California).

Ok, so I know you don't see or talk to an Egyptian person everyday, but I know that for a fact once you hear the person saying "I'm Egyptian" your first thoughts are "Muuuummmy!, pyramids, deserts, and of course you can't forget walking like an Egyptian. Anyways, I'm just going to post some FAQ's about Egyptians.

Q:Do Egyptians speak Egyptian, Egyptianese, or Hieroglyphs?
A:Do Americans speak American or Americanese? No we speak Arabic.

Q: Do you guys worship your Pharaoh?
A:Err no. Egypt hasn't had any Pharaohs for a few thousand years. We have a President and we don't worship him. I mean come on! Imagine yourself worshiping Bush...

Q: Do Egyptians live in Pyramids?
A:No. We live in crappy townhouse like places usually.There are hotels and other places too for tourist. There are also places that have cleaner environments with less pollution though. The pyramids are there for tourist attractions and we don't live in them.

Q:Is there sand all around Egyptians?
A:No... Who heard of something silly like that. We have roads and everything (Although the roads are sometimes messed up in some places)

Q:Do Egyptians ride camels everywhere you go?
A:Uhh... not recently. We have cars. They only places that you'd see camels are usually the desert (which doesn't make up all of Egypt) or if you want to buy one for some reason.

Q:Do Egyptians walk like Egyptians?
A:Nope. And we don't dance like Egyptians either; we're usually good at belly dancing.

Of course after 9-11, stereotypes towards Middle Eastern people had to change, so here's a few FAQ's that still had to do with Egyptians, but this time through the Middle Eastern point of view and not Ancient Egyptians.

Q:Do all Egyptians have beards?
A:No. If they want to, they can go ahead and get one.

Q:Are all Egyptians Muslims?
A:Nope. There are Christians and Jews.

Q:What does "Al Combela!" mean? I hear a lot of the terrorist in Call of Duty 4 say it, esp. when a bomb is coming.
A:It basically means "The Bomb!" but just because terrorist can speak Arabic, doesn't make all Egyptians terrorists.

Q:Do Egyptians go around yelling "ALLAH!"?
A:No. Allah is the Muslim name for God and even Muslims don't go around yelling that.

Basically Egyptians aren't terrorists and neither is anybody who is Middle Eastern

Ok, I'll go away from the stereotypes and talk about the educational system(as Jisatsu asked).

When it comes to school, there are two types of schools: Private and Public (as in America) But both types branch off. For Private Schools, you of course have to pay for them but there are different private schools and they each cost different prices. Public schools are sometimes cost money too. It all depends on where the school is located and how good it is.

For grades, there are usually two grades for Kindergarten: KG1 and KG2. Then there's elementary school where it goes from 1st to 6th grade (6th grade was recently added, it has been debated on whether it should be kept or not, and has been gotten rid of numerous times). Then there's Middle School and it has 3 years (7th to 9th but we don't call them that). Then there's High School and it has 3 years (10th to 13th but once again that's not what they're called in Egypt).

We have similar subjects to America but for my Private school, we had a religion class (Either Christian or Muslim). We also learned Arabic and English. We had to start learning French from 3rd grade (forgot it D=). When it cames to changing subjects, we didn't move from class to class; instead we stayed in one class and waited for the teacher to come to us ;D!

Etokapa said: "@dimo: Ah, I guess you're right.

Do you live in both the U.S. and Egypt? Like family over there?

And, (not sure of your grade) would you prefer U.S. schools over Egypt schools?"

I used to live in Egypt and visit America every summer until 5th grade, where I came to America and took 5th grade here (I'm in 9th grade now). Of course I was a FOB and it was very horrible for me for quite a long time. My dad's side of the family lives here and my mom's side of the family lives there. I would much prefer schools in Egypt if I wanted to work my butt off and expect to be very smart but I prefer schools in America since I hardly have to work my butt off and expect the same results.

Sinowrogue said: " Jul 02, 12:09am

Since I've been perma banned from Basil I can't ask this there, so I thought I'd come here.
You can post this on basil or whatever, but yeah.
Are most Egyptians Muslim? And is Ancient Egyptian religion(Isis, Anubis, all that) immediately dismissed or do some people still believe that, or to some extent at al?"

Most of the Egyptian population is in fact Muslim. Also Ancient Egyptian religion (polytheism) is ancient as far as I know. It is now part of history and I've never seen anybody who still believes in it. It's just like with all other ancient civilizations.

Etokapa said: "What's the cost of living in Egypt?

Like, would you say your U.S. residence is nicer than your Egyptian one, or worse?
And are things easy to get in Egypt (I'm sure there's stores or bazaars to go to, right) as they are in the U.S. (aka grocery stores, convenient stores)?"

My U.S. residence is much nicer than my Egyptian one. In Egypt there was never any organization (it was always messy and untidy) and religion always got in the way of everything. So most neighbors wouldn't get along with some of us since we were Christian and they were Muslims.
You are correct about the bazaars (I didn't even know they had a word for that in English!) which are like open markets. We also had small stands. There are super markets but they're not that easy to get to since they were in the richer and more crowded areas and they were away from bazaars since they usually put the bazaars out of business which made the bazaars rebel and "take action".
Also hitman785 is correct about the teachers hitting students if they did something wrong. It depended on how nice the teacher was though

Etokapa said: "Thanks for all the info! Last question:

Have you ever been to the Pyramids[ of Giza]?"

Yep I have but at the time I was like 5 so I have a dim memory of it.

ChaosticMess said: "Hey all, I am Egyptian and live there too

1st, yeah, we do have Arabic Dubbed yugioh
and for blackhat, can u define "take action"?"

I'm not sure of an Arabic Dubbed yugioh... I don't think there is. Also for the "take action" part, they might either try to complain to the super market or if they're nasty people, they might break into a market or even sabotage them. It depends on where the super market is placed.

You are welcome to ask anymore questions if you want to know more about Egyptians.