Dearest Diary,
I am the daughter of a seamstress. The daughter of an Asian seamstress, in fact. Naturally, like any good Asian mum, she got me to help her out at the store as much as possible without jeopardizing my studies as I was growing up. I learnt how to measure rolls of fabric at lighting speeds and how to make a perfect cut with just a nip from a pair of good scissors. I also learnt the name of a lot of different types of fabric. That why I know that when people are describing things as silky, they aren't actually talking about the silk fibers spun from silk worm cocoons. They're talking about satin. Some satin is made of silk, but it's more often the case where silk is just a light delicate transparent cottoney thing. Like chiffon. That's the stuff we use to make heaps of Hijab's out of.
Speaking of Hijab's (awesome segue), a friend from Uni and I had a really cool talk the other day about them. Now, I know that there are a lot of variations of the hijab or garments which serve the same purpose, but they have differing names depending on where the customer is from or slight variations in their practice of the religion (or maybe it's a whole other religion all together, I'm no expert). But commonly, when customers came to my store and asked for 'hijab' they wanted the fabric a certain shape to make this one familiar wrap around their heads.
My friend is Pakistani and she wear a hijab, but it's not the one I would've commonly associated with the name. It's a different material and her wrapping isn't as tight. In the bus line, one of my other friends asked her what it was called, cos she wasn't sure if it was just a fashion statement or if it was for religious purposes. She told her that it was a hijab and I intervened, asking ignorantly if it was the 'traditional kind'.
She said that there was no such thing as a traditional hijab. Hijab means 'modesty' and its something you practice. Like, a person can be hijab. I thought that was really cool. That her religion doesn't just label certain garments like we do in western society like shoe or bra. It's sort of like you're wearing a way of life, like serenity and kindness like the stuff they talk about in Buddhism. I'm not too sure if that makes sense, haha.
It's sort of like Jesus and Catholicism. I was born Catholic, baptized, reconciled, confirmed and all. I mean now I'm not so sure. But I grew up that way and we were taught certain things like always be kind, grateful and basically don't be dicks to one another because we should love each other. I know there's been so much shit throughout the ages about Catholicism and the Church being a cult or weird nuns and mormen who don't have sex, but at the root of it, it's not bad. Like, ignoring things said in the Bible about beggars and the homosexual and just focusing on Jesus and trying to be a little selfless like he was, it's not a bad idea. And neither is Islam. If you forget about all the stuff you see in the media about some of their people who've kind of got it wrong, like the Church has gotten it wrong, it's kind of beautiful.
Practice modesty.
I like it.
Yours always,
Jess.