Date/Time: Wednesday, June 14th, 2017, at 3:15PM
Location: Starbucks
Topic discussed: Juice, Fencing, Sword Dancing, and Soldiers
Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned:
Saeed and I had a very interesting conversation that started off with juice and ended in a philosophical conversation about what bravery would look like in a world without guns. Obviously struggling with Ramadan and craving fresh juice (apparently there is a lack in Tallahassee), Saeed opened with a question about where to find some. Some creative googling revealed there's not a huge amount of places to find it here. From there, we somehow got onto the topic of how I hurt my shoulder (historical fencing) and the differences in fencing styles. He was fascinated by the idea of historical fencing and I showed him the difference between a rapier and a foil/epee/saber. Saeed said he'd never fenced, but he had done sword dancing, which certainly got my attention. He showed me a video of traditional sword dancing in Saudi Arabia to explain. I mused that the world might be a better place if we used swords again. Saeed said it certainly would be a less brave one. When I asked what he meant, he explained that people are only brave when they have a gun in their hands. They would not be brave if they actually had to fight a person. I agreed with him. I mentioned to him that my sister used to want to be a soldier and he told me he served in the military for a few years. He was very happy to be out.
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