One thing I will not miss when I leave Pakistan is being surrounded by a crowd of off-putting males staring at you who misunderstand everything you say.
One of these young men came forth and asked me: "Why aren't you wearing shalvar kameez?". This was probably the first or second time in my three weeks in Lahore that I put on jeans to go with a traditional kameez top and a headscarf. I showed my long-sleeved top and said that at home in this heat I would just wear a T-shirt, so I was already trying to respect their culture, wasn't that maybe enough for today? And I was wearing this heavy shawl around my shoulders so the outline of my breasts could not be seen, because this was what Pakistani culture expected. "In my culture", I explained, "it is the guys who are staring at other peoples' body-parts who are seen as the weirdos, not the women who do not go to extremes to cover themselves".
This of course was too much, no Pakistani villager could ever grasp this concept. So the guy seemed to take the fact that I had talked about wearing a T-shirt and showing my breast as a clear indication that I was one of those total sluts fabled to exist in the West - I could see his smile grow lewder as I was talking about clothing. And then, when I gave him a floppy fish for a handshake, he squeezed it over-warmly as we bid good-bye.
A bit later the same evening (I was still wearing the same clothes, needless to say): Tariq was introduced to me by my great local friend Sadjad, so Tariq of course would not hit on me dumbly like many other Pakistanis, no. Instead he used the entire half-an-hour rickshaw taxi ride to bore my brains out trying to convince me how liberal a husband he would make : "My wife can work if she wants, or she cannot. She can be from another country or religion. We can live in Europe if she wants, or we can live here." etc. pp. Then the next thing he asked me was: "But why are you wearing jeans today? Wouldn't it be nicer if you wore shalvar?"
(Context: University campuses are fabled to exist in Pakistan that are just teeming with girls wearing jeans and shirts more outrageously tight than in Europe, but being anywhere else in the country this can be hard to imagine: Hanging out in the rich parts of Lahore, the country's so-called most progressive city, I have to admit I spotted girls in jeans and T-shirt the grand total amount of twice. Most male family members simply not allow their women to wear anything but traditional clothing.)
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No offense, but you can't really think that going to another country- especially one as backwards as Pakistan- that they will understand another country's fashion/freedom? In this day and age, 99% of the progressive world understands what these developing backwards countries are like. And going into their country- considering the environment, one should adhere to their conservative customs. If not, stay out of their country or expect to receive these types of ridiculous statements from these people.
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