Pakistani undergrads in the US

funny stuff. not terribly insightful, though, and i guess you didn`t mean it to be. it`s just that the same (with some slight revisions, of course) can be said about most foreign undergrads, esp as regards to class background.

re: ylh

``So whats your decision on me ...Am I in a league of my own?????``

indeed.

the self-involved, self-deceiving, cheerfully unaware narcissistic brownie with delusions of grandeur and an uncanny ability to convince oneself of one`s own importance. makes laughable attempts to equate some state school (suny, rutgers, ohio state) to the ivies. in years past, confined to languish in the student union with various peers (all meticulously chosen for their ability to make subject feel good about him/herself), now, with the internet, able to infiltrate newsgroups and discussion forums with half-baked ideas gleaned from frosh poli-sci courses.

In Your Face... who the hell cares about your references .. `unfortunately` as far as I am concernd you can stick these reference In Your other face !

Re: SAC # 14

You misunderstood me! I am lamenting the fact that my brother turned into a born again mullah! He was much fun before! Personally, I am looking forward to hell, because thats where all my college buddies and x-girlfriends will be waiting for me with a keg of Black Hole; a dark bitter ale home brewed!

Why do Paki girls negate Paki boys...? Maybe, because all the Paki boys think about is getting laid and the girls can smell the desperation in them. American girls are like Paki girls...if you have the money, you will get laid everynight and if not, memberships to Monkey Spanking Clubs are open for all and are free!

Hence, the reason why the mutual Monkey Spanking Clubs are mushrooming on all the college campuses! Sex is about money and yes, money can buy love! I know a few college girls who have paid their tution by sleeping around and I know quite a few TAs who have given A grades in return for a quickie or a blow job and a professor, I know, used to pick his TA for being sleeping with him and for being blonde and long legged. The last I checked, he was up on sexual harassment charges and dealing with divorce procedings!

I will tell you all a little secret. I used to live in fraternity and got to know a lot about the mating game, but one thing that was always constant was that most Indian and Pakistani male students had a lot of angst about their social life styles. Most Indo-Pak males had mixed feelings about their American lifestyles and how their parents would react, if they ever found out! They would keeping searching for true love and a really good friend of mine, found true love, but she, an American, never returned the sentiment, so he he drifted towards alcohol and finally ended up fighting for the custody rights to his daughter, a product of one night stand!

The dating expectations and disappoinments of the desis is an interesting topic, if anyone has the time to write something on it for Chowk!

Ciao!

thanks to temporal,gymnosophist,rooster-blues,essensaur,scout,SameerJB,Ferozk,concerned,InYourFace,dL and fairdinkum for taking the time to read and commenting.

re temporal #1:

``Wished you were more serious at being light hearted.``

I didn`t have the undergraduate experience in the US and it is completely different from the graduate one. As an observer I tried to keep it light-hearted. In the words of Yogi Berra...``You can see a lot just by looking``. There are gross generalizations in there as fairdinkum commented but all of those generalizations have an actual basis.

``The ‘confused’ in abcd merits definition.``

Unless you are willing to play the devil`s advocate, I`d rather wait for the I love urdu poetry,wear shalwar-qameez,love spicy food crowd to show up.

re gymnnosophist #2:

``Chico State was recently rated as THE #1 PARTY SCHOOL in all of the USA.``

I was informed by an excitable intern the other day that the this dubious distinction now belongs to SUNY, Albany. Nice connection you made there though.

``Doesn`t that guy from Rutgers normally prescribe Wolpert to me on the Chowk?

Is that the only thing he does or.........:)

essensaur #4:

``And another one on those who frequent the Chowk boards??

hmm...now that`s an idea.

scout #5:

Good observations.Thanks for adding to my arsenal of abbreviations.....IBM....

SameerJB #6:

Lack of protein can explain a lot more than people imagine.Pakistani communities are unfortunate to be led by these idiot doctors.However divine retribution generally comes in the form of their progenies who hold the distinction of being some of the nastiest ABCDs around. Jazak-Allah-Khairun.

ferozk #7:

MaGill crowd is having too good a time to be bothered by elder brothers. I have two cousins there who are beyond redemption in every sense of the phrase.

fase #8:

Paki women undergraduates and why they ``negate`` us? That is an article in itself. Maybe some other time. But maybe you should look for more attainable targets. They are all the same in the dark anyway....OOPS!!

concerned #9:

``and which group do you belong to, sac?``

I am in there somewhere.

dL #11:

I`ll deal with you offline.

later

-sac

Absolutely wonderful - I usually try to avoid sterotypes but some are sketched so well that one is easily led into believing them.

I think about 90% of my friends will fit one of your classifications. They might deny it - but ohw ell........who cares what they think of themselves anyways.

-Bilal

So whats your decision on me ...Am I in a league of my own?????

My father is a businessman, my mother is a doctor and a bureaucrat (and an honest one), I am very patriotic and nationalistic when it comes to Pakistan .... do not drink but am not really religious though have a strong faith in God and my religion, I am a Kemalist in my political ideology and am very involved PSA....and my school is Rutgers New Brunswick, which was an Ivy league school right uptill 1953 when the state took it back ... it is still described as the ``state owned Ivy League`` considering its education standards which are pretty high .... and the fact that it is one of the oldest schools in USA ....I was accepted in NYU and University of Rochester but decided to take up Rutgers instead ... because Rutgers is a better buy ....

So please tell me what category I fall in??????

So whats your decision on me ...Am I in a league of my own?????

My father is a businessman, my mother is a doctor and a bureaucrat (and an honest one), I am very patriotic and nationalistic when it comes to Pakistan .... do not drink but am not really religious though have a strong faith in God and my religion, I am a Kemalist in my political ideology and am very involved PSA....and my school is Rutgers New Brunswick, which was an Ivy league school right uptill 1953 when the state took it back ... it is still described as the ``state owned Ivy League`` considering its education standards which are pretty high .... and the fact that it is one of the oldest schools in USA ....I was accepted in NYU and University of Rochester but decided to take up Rutgers instead ... because Rutgers is a better buy ....

So please tell me what category I fall in??????

Tsk, tsk, not fair, choose someone your own size :-). 17-year-olds anywhere, esp in S Asia, when embarking on `UGhood`, are essentially captives of their upbringing. Weren`t we all?

Very well-written, though and throughout whets curiosity wrt the author`s own bio :-).

BTW, I am honestly bewildered, (rich people in a poor country) if so many are doing well enough for themselves to pay for their childrens` UG study abroad, then whats all the fuss about then, back `there`?

Sadhana

Very entertaining!
This article sure brought back a lot of memories.
Sure got a good chuckle or two from the description of each group.
Here is another topic for YLH RSaxena etc: Who
does better with the ladies at US Colleges these
days, Indians or Pakistanis? Another article coming up perhaps?

Ras

A lot of generalization of course, but entertaining, and at times funny.

Large number of Undergraduates in US/Canada/UK from Asian countries, including Pakistan and India, fits a general trend of migration in alarmingly increasing numbers from South to North. Is anybody aware of any research work or any other meaningful work or a book written on this subject?

I think I concur with temporal`s prediction (of sorts) - you shall be an Equal Opp. Offender yet.

That was good fun.

cheers

dL

Rooster-Blues says # 3 : ``Cool ! . finally some thing funny and some one can relate too .. Well-done SAC... now lets see how this will turn into Pak-Indo discussion .. followed by long postings and references .. followed by some Indian Intellectual’s advice how to fix Pakistani problems ! .. blah blah blah``

Unfortunately for you, the first sentence of the article reads ``The inspiration for this article is an observation by someone on this website regarding the large number of undergraduates in the US from Pakistan.`` That was me, an Indian. (I have reference, if you need).

Before you guys start jumping up and down I want to make it clear that the observation was not made to denigrate OR advise pakistanis. Just for your information I know lot of Pakistani students and sadly not many of them fit catogory # 6 (Kids from middle class back grounds)... which I feel is really sad, may be because I was one such student.

interesting insights.

and which group do you belong to, sac?

hahaha!

sac, with sack full of sh * *!!

anyways, funny though..

what about karachi american, lahore american

students, u totally forgot about them.

they make an interesting combination too.

although i would say, there are a new

breed of pakistudents

who have lived in gulf, grew up in paki,

spent all summers in europe or US

and believe they just fit right in where ever they

want!

though i totally dont understand the paki women undergra, why negate us the great paki men?????

uncanny

Excellent article. I think I will e-mail this to my brother at MaGill, because he used to be a party animal till he re-discovered religion due to the kindness of some ``bhai or uncle``! He even had a Norwegian Jewish girl friend!

So true, so true...I have seen boys from Karachi dringing hard to get beer goggles so they could ask a girl for some mutual intoxication and intercourse.

Loved it!

Ciao!

Quite accurate analysis of Pakistani undergrads and excellent piece of writing. Here are some of my second hand observations since I came here as graduate student at a time when there were not many Pakistani undergrads.

I find most undergrads being influenced by their senior Pakistanis (both undergrads and grad student, usually from Karachi), who try to put the newcomers on the path of salvation and soon these seniors are called with the similar last name of ``Bhai``. After first semester, these kids know lot more about cricket, Masjid and the music group named Junoon( I throw away their CDs after listening to only one song, once).

Most of the students come from Karachi, Lahore or Islamabad and usually get along well. But the students from other areas are the one who mix up with non-Pakistanis more freely and love to have fun. They freely speak of their own vernacular. They drink, have girl friends, make as decent grades as Karachi/ Lahore/ Islamabad crowd, but lack the command of English language. Bhais dominated groups call them paindoos or desis. In the Bhais dominated groups, there are uncles above Bhais. These are usually Punjabi medical doctors from the nearby communities. They have bought their heirarchical position through donations to the local mosque. These are the people who think they are expert about everything, just like mullahs. They prove their deep commitment and loyalty to Pakistan by inviting Bhais and their group to dinner and talk for hours about the virtues of Islam, Kashmir, Chechniya, Khomeini, Saddam Hussain, Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, animal shortenings, effects of drinking on liver and on and on....being very careful not to criticize USA too much.

more later