"Water"
"I think the water in Abbottad is more clean than the other cities because it's a mountainous area but I don't think it's hygiene to drink it from the tap. Surprisingly, Pakistanis in Khyaber Pakhtunkhwa drink it from the tab. And yes! don't ask me to drink it from the tap too. So, I cooked my water or bought mineral water instead."
-- ACHNI, married to Pakistani for 3 years.
"I always bring my water bottle everywhere I go in Pakistan. Once, my husband and I visited our family's friend, they made us drinks using tab water. I think in the USA, it's fine to drink the water from the tap, but I know the quality of water in Punjab is not same as in the USA."
-- LIZZY, married to Pakistani for 8 years.
"During the summer, the temperature was killing me and we ran out of water. I couldn't take a shower and I had to let my self with full of sweat."
-- TATY, married to Pakistani for 11 years.
"FOOD"
"The frequency at which I had to have diarrhea, I think I had a severe one once every two months or so. Sometimes it was because I ate something I had kept from the previous meal and it had spoiled already. This can happen even if you keep the food in the fridge, as the electricity was cut off quite a bit. It also happens due to the malpractice of hygiene at the restaurant where you eat. I once had sushi in a hotel restaurant and got a diarrhea. I don't know if it was because the fish had spoiled already, or the cook(s) hadn't sanitized his hands/tools properly."
-- MASAKI, Japanese teacher Lived in Pakistan for 3 years.
"The best part for me are the food and fruits. The same things just don't taste the same in North America. Second best part was the high ceilings and big yards of the houses."
-- QASIM, Pakistani -- American lives in Lahore.
"My most favorite Desi cuisine so far is Mango lassi drink. I love eating vegetables a lot but the vegetables dishes in Pakistan are not my favorite at all because they always make it as curry or fry it until it dry. I prefer the fresh one, and the tofu, gosh! I think Pakistani people don't like neither tofu nor soy milk. I barely can find good tofu in Pakistan. I found many Pakistanis also love to eat watermelon, yogurt, lassi and cucumber in summer."
-- ACHNI, married to Pakistani for 3 years.
"The thing that made me desperate in Pakistan was I couldn't find South East Asian vegetables like water spinach, bean sprouts, and winged bean."
-- TATY, married to Pakistani for 11 years.
"Pakistanis love to eat meat, but low income families in Pakistan can't afford to eat meat, and therefore lentils and vegetables are part of their daily diet. Fish is not common in Pakistan except along the coastal areas near the Arabian Sea."
-- NAEEM, author of Understanding Pakistani Culture.
"What I like from Pakistan and Punjab, is when you order food in restaurant you can ask extra food for free, but not for the second time."
-- AGUSTINUS, Indonesian traveler and author of "Selimut Debu" ( The Dust Blanket -- story from Afghanistan )
"SUMMER"
"It was summer time in Lahore when I was came by to visit my husband's family in Pakistan. I got a heatstroke, and my skin was burning due to skin irritation."
-- TATY, married to Pakistani for 11 years.
"All of my Pakistani family members always use AC almost 24 hours in summer. I'm a nature enthusiast, so I prefer using fan. When it was too hot, I put my clothes in freezer, and used that clothes on after it was cold enough to decrease my body's temperature."
-- LIZZY, married to Pakistani for 8 years.
"Shalwar kameez is the best clothes to wear in Pakistan! I used to wear western clothes but when my first summer living in Pakistan I was burned to death and I found out that Pakistani clothes made me more comfortable during the summer than western clothes. Since then, Shalwar Kameez has been my favorite to wear in Pakistan."
-- MILEY, married to Pakistani for 6 years.
"ELECTRICITY"
"This is especially hard in summer, when the outside temperature can reach 50 degrees Celsius. In the beginning of my stay in Pakistan, I used to use a desktop computer. It often got shot off forcefully due to sudden loss of electricity, which shortened its life quite a bit, I think. (Offices and some houses use a UPS to avoid this problem)."
-- MASAKI, Japanese teacher Lived in Pakistan for 3 years.
"I may be a bit biased here as I live in Lahore. Unlike Karachi, we have almost no street gangs, no water crisis and very few law and order issues. The provincial government is much much better than the federal government. Although we have some issues, like extra traffic and pollution but a lot of projects are going on (including Lahore transit system) that will help people travel faster. The biggest issue here is power crisis that obviously have become worse in Lahore."
-- QASIM, Pakistani -- American lives in Lahore.
"CLOTHES"
"Unlike most middle eastern countries, you can wear what you want. If it is too 'immodest' (e.g. short shorts, whether you are a man or a woman) people are going to stare at you. However if you are a foreigner (visibly), no one would say anything. The only difference would be, no one enters mosques without properly covering themselves (goes for both men and women)."
-- MARIA, American lives in Lahore.
"My husband never mind if I wear jeans, but the locals from small city always stare at me and my jeans."
-- RACHEL, married to Pakistani for 7 years.
"Most Pakistani women don't like wearing jeans, and we (Pakistani women) don't like seeing Pakistani men wear jeans because they don't look cool."
-- SASSY, Pakistani lives in Lahore.
"Actually, I didn't want to wear niqab but whenever I went to the local market many people stared at me because I'm a foreigner. Since then, I put my niqab on whenever I want to go to the market to avoid people staring at me."
-- WANDA, married to Pakistani and lives in Abbottabad.
"Women in Pakistan take so long to dress up, they can spend hours only to choose which clothes and jewelry that they want to wear only to go out with their family like for watching movie in cinema."
-- LIM, Malaysian traveler
"HEALTH"
"Hospital in Karachi is exactly like a slum area, I could smell human pee and sweat. If you go to the expensive private hospital the condition will be much better."
-- AYESHA, lived in Pakistan for 2 years.
"Pakistanis don't really care about their hygiene, mostly they don't brush their teeth before going to bed."
-- LIZZY, married to Pakistani for 8 years.
"They (my in laws) didn't wash their hand after eating, they just wiped their dirty hand to their clothes or feet."
-- WATI, married to Pakistani for 7 years.
"In Pakistan we don't eat rice much but when we sick normally our doctor will ask us to eat rice."
-- AMIR, Pakistani lives Lahore.
"When people in Pakistan have diarrhea they drink Lipton black tea and banana. Mental health issues in Pakistan are not discussed and are keep secret."
-- NAEEM, author of Understanding Pakistani Culture.
"RURAL AREA"
"Many girls in my village don't go to school, the people don't think formal education is important for women. If I have conservative parents, I would have two kids at 16."
-- MALALA, a village girl from Mingora.
"Don't believe Pakistani man so easily when he says to you that he is single but his age is around 30's and is from small city or rural area of Pakistan because most of them will get married under 30 for man and for women under 25."
-- ACHNI, married to Pakistani for 3 years.
"Many villagers work as farmer, most farming are done by man unless the family doesn't have male members. A Pakistani village family generally consists of seven to nine members who live in a one or two room house. Usually the toilet needs are handled in the fields."
-- NAEEM, author of Understanding Pakistani Culture.
"Many houses in village or small city don't have living room or guest room, they will let their guest to sit on the bed if they don't have chairs for guest. Some village areas in Pakistan also don't have gas supply. Numerous villager families have outdoor kitchen and they built their bathroom and toilet separately from the main house."
-- FEBBY, married to Pakistani and lives in village of Pakistan.
"Many Pakistanis from rural area are uneducated and they have bad behavior especially towards women."
-- NELU, Pakistani master student and lives in Islamabad.
"The village girls in rural area are busy with housework duties instead of going to school. Some parents send their daughters to work as maid to the upper middle class family."
-- KHALIDA, social worker in Pakistan.
"Panchayats -- The people's court is still exist in districts, the system is often dominated by male members without adequate representation of women."
-- RIZWAN, Journalist.
"When I became a guest in a village where many Pashtuns live there, I was served with food and drink, and I didn't know form where the meals came. Foods came like a miracle from somewhere behind. I couldn't see the women who prepared the meals, they are invisible and are not allowed be seen by man."
-- AGUSTINUS, Indonesian traveler and author of "Selimut Debu" ( The Dust Blanket -- story from Afghanistan ).
"CITY"
"You will witness traffic jams due to these rickshaws and motorcycles, air pollution, noise pollution and law breaking are common in the streets of Lahore and Karachi."
-- SAAD, Pakistani.
"Karachi looks like a trash bin, people littering on the street and no one cares."
-- MILEY, married to Pakistani for 6 years.
"I never want to use public toilet in Pakistan, better do it at home. Their public toilets are 'more than' worse and Karachi is a never sleep city. They even hold wedding ceremony until 4 am in the morning."
-- AYESHA, lived in Pakistan for 2 years.
"I rode taxi in Pakistan and I was shocked to know the taxi didn't have air conditioner. It was summer time and I was burned like in the oven"
-- WINDY, married to Pakistani for 1 year.
"I don't want to drive in Pakistan and 'bang' my car. They (Pakistanis) are crazy drivers."
-- LIZZY, married to Pakistani for 8 years.
"During my trip in Pakistan, I went to northern Pakistan and it was so mesmerizing. North Pakistan has beautiful landscape."
-- MIKE, traveled to Pakistan in 2009.
"When I was taking a bus to Islamabad, they separated seat for woman and man. They would not let the women sit next to non relative men, so the man had to move to another empty seat if there were women next him. Many buses in Islamabad concerned too much about getting profit, they could double the price as they like. Meanwhile, when I took a bus in Rawalpindi, it never reached my destination, they stopped somewhere and asked me to go down and find another transportation."
-- Agustinus W, Indonesian traveler and author of "Selimut Debu" ( The Dust Blanket -- story from Afghanistan )
"FATA"
(Federally administered tribal areas)
"FATA area in Pakistan is 'safe' for runaway criminals, foreign thieves from Afghanistan, local petty car thieves and wanted terrorists to hide, thrive and multiply in."
-- AEMEN, Pakistani lawyer.
"I have visited FATA area, Bajour. They don't have much facilities in FATA, the women have to walk through the mountain to get water. Compared to Pakistani people who live in the cities, FATA people are more generous and hospitable. Maybe some of them are terrorist but not all of them.
-- TAIMOOR, Pakistani lives in Karachi.
"Darra Adam Khel is the perfect place to get guns, hashish ( marijuana ), and opium. No immigration process, you can come and go easily to Afghanistan. You can hear gun shoot for all day long, and see children play with bullets. They will make a perfect gun for you and you will get what you pay. Pakistan police doesn't have power here, they replaced them with Khasadar ( tribal police officer )."
-- AGUSTINUS, Indonesian traveler and author of "Selimut Debu" ( The Dust Blanket -- story from Afghanistan ).
"THE PEOPLE"
"Indeed, it wasn’t long before Pakistanis became one of the most hospitable communities I’d encountered. From the moment the locals have taught me a lot about Pakistan, Islamic culture and the power of media."
-- SOPHEE, British traveler and have been to Pakistan.
"Pakistanis feel honored to serve their guests, to protect them, and to give anything their guests need. Even if you meet Pakistanis when you are enjoying street food in busy city like Lahore, these strangers may turn to be your best friends."
-- AGUSTINUS, Indonesian traveler and author of "Selimut Debu" ( The Dust Blanket -- story from Afghanistan ).
"I visited Pakistan with my Pakistani friends, the locals treated me very well and they were happy having Chinese tourist in their country."
-- CHANG, traveled to Pakistan in 2014.
"My husband told me : "If you are a woman in Pakistan don’t go out alone especially in dangerous city like Karachi because you will be the easiest target for crime and sexual harassment." Don’t trust strangers easily too, although they look nice and friendly. When you ride public transportation, try to sit on 'women seat' and stay away from the men because sometimes they want to touch your boobs and butt."
-- EZA, married to Pakistani for 5 years.
"A group of young adult men stopped me and asked my permission to take my picture. I gave them permission but it turned out to be a wrong decision. They didn't let me go and blocked my way. After I screamed and called my husband, they let me through."
-- ERIKA, lives in Pakistan for 3 years.
"Desi (Indian, Pakistan, Bangladeshi) people never trust each other, that what my husband said to me."
-- HANNA, married to Pakistani for 2 years.
"When the first time I visited Pakistan, it was a perfect country with honest people everywhere ( despite the sexual harassment ) but after I'm able to speak Urdu and get involved more with the locals, I found more and more contradiction and hypocrisy among them."
-- ANONYMOUS, Swiss expatriate and lives in Pakistan.
"They are very nationalist, sometimes in irrational way."
-- ANNA, married to Pakistani for 3 years.
"When Pakistani women attend the wedding, normally they will talk about the quality of the bride's wedding dress, the skin of the bride (is it white or dusky), the face of the bride (is she beautiful or not), and the foods. Sometimes if you wear fake jewelry, somehow they can recognize it too."
-- DITA, married to Pakistani for 8 years.
"Pakistani men's friendship is very strong. If Pakistani man wants to borrow the money, his friend will give it to him. If this man asks his friend to lie for him, then he gonna do it straight away. They always hang out together, and call each other regularly just to talk on the phone. Even if Pakistani man goes overseas and leaves his town, dunno why he will find a group of Pakistani men in the new place and start hanging out with them. No matter how long they have been living overseas, they will go for Pakistani food. If they can't find any, they will cook it!"
-- ACHNI, married to Pakistani for 3 years.
"Elders are respected by all family members who are younger and Pakistani normally don't make their own decision because it's made by male elders or the leader in the family. Every decision has an influence on a family, so every decision comes from the family, not from an individual."
-- NAEEM, an author of Understanding Pakistani Culture.
"If you come to Pakistan as a female traveler, you will have free access to talk to men and also women. They will not get bothered if foreign woman talk to other men, and as a female guest, we can have access to hang out with their women too. But these people will not let their own women to get free access like me."
-- LIM, Malaysian traveler.
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