After eighteen hours of travel, Jordan welcomed me with open arms. When I say welcomed, I mean it. Many countries only have a few English words floating around in their lexicon. In China it might be, “Dinner?” In India maybe it’s “Taxi!” Here in Jordan, it’s “Welcome”. You’ll walk by markets, thinking they want to sell you something, they’ll look at you, smile, and say welcome. A police car will stop you in the middle of your long drive, you’ll roll down your windows, only for them to say “Welcome to Jordan.”

Welcome. You are welcome.

I caught the travel bug

I left the USA for the first time in 2018, with Lights, Camera, Learn. That’s where I caught the travel bug. Dare I label it a life changing summer.

I have visited many countries since and walked around many markets, smiling at people, hoping they would smile back. They usually don’t. Here in Jordan, no matter who I smile at, they always smile back. A tough looking overweight man with a mean mustache? He's got some pearly whites too. Maybe he will give you a ride back because you can’t find a taxi (yes this happened). For a Chinese-American like me who doesn’t speak a lick of Arabic, I felt welcome throughout Jordan.

For our first program of the summer, we partnered with I Learn Jordan, a nonprofit investing in the lives of underserved kids through education. We also held our second ever Sawarly program (I was lucky enough to be a part of the first), bringing together local and international filmmakers to make a film in less than seventy-two hours. This program was full, rewarding, and enriching. In total we had two red carpet events, made eight short films, and celebrated 35 stars with Oscar trophies. A highlight of everyone’s day was our stars’ daily energy. We walked into the Palestinian refugee camp, not knowing what to expect. We were met with delicious mansef, Oscar worthy acting, and so many Zig Zag Boings the soles of our shoes were hot from running. One morning when we arrived, some of the kids chanted a powerful couplet of words of welcome. Some of the local interns sang us a song about welcoming guests and being hospitable. Everybody knew this song. Welcome is so ingrained in their culture that there’s a publicly known song about it. What other country has this? In the US, a common unspoken cultural principle is the reciprocity rule - if somebody does something nice to me, I must do something back to make it even. In Jordan, our friends told us people in Jordan do nice things simply to do nice things. They don’t expect and do not want to expect anything in return. Friendly is an understatement.

So why visit Jordan? There are no Sistine Chapels here or really sparkly waterfalls. But there is community, close knit families, a culture of warm hearts. They want to show you their country. They are proud. Though they won’t expect anything in return, for every person that we met in Jordan, if they ever come to our corners of the world, we will bust out our shiniest silverware, we will show them our favorite songs, and offer our beds while we take the couch. Not to make things even, no, no. We want to model our behavior to all the role models we met in Jordan.

From the little kids to the mustache men. Jordan, thank you.

June in Jordan