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- Jun 4, 2015
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Chrs Itachi
@ssj2 I'm in the UK now lol. Wow I'm answering this late....might as well call me you.
Came back on the 24th, which is 11 days earlier than initially planned. So I was there about 18 days only....which is actually the shortest time I've gone there for, apart from when I was a baby maybe; don't remember that. I enjoy that it's more chilled socially than the UK for me since young guys aren't running around pissed off or fronting. For petty stuff it's pretty safe (don't get rude youths or much threatening behaviour say). One of the biggest things I like is that guys wear more interesting stuff rather than a t-shirt, jeans, black jacket or tracksuit like everyone in the UK seems to wear....guess how you could explain quixkly is that a lot of guys who are popular from there would probs be assumed to be gay in the UK or US lol. But yeh that pretty much makes it easier to try new stuff clothing/hair-wise than here....also helps that lots of different clothes are easy find cuz they don't really do big chains as much (they do but they make up a much smaller part of the clothing market), there's demand for it and if you earn your money in the UK (or Canada as well) non-imported things are really cheap, like a suit can cost £20 (although a good quality one might be more like £35), tailored jeans about £6 or so etc. Even branded clothes from US or UK brands are cheaper and I mean from official stores not fake stuff (although realistically fake stuff is gonna be as reliable as genuine stuff a lot of the time when it comes to clothes). In the shop my cousins buy most of their clothes in (which is only probs about 7-8 metres by 3 metres, which is bigger than shops in proper markets. This shop is in a sort of small "mall"....there are proper malls too which are much bigger than in the UK (2-3x as big and not filled with empty units and "closing down sale" signs)) you can ask em for red jeans in a certain size (I'm a 32 or ideally a 33 for jeans. Most young guys there are probs a 30-32 but I know some wider guys who go there) and they'd give you at least 3 or so choices, same for black or purple or w'ever...fk they had red and black cords....velvet suits, different types of jackets etc....so that gives you an idea pf how muc choice there is considering that's just one shop....pretty much everything has mad choice....fk even shit like phones. So yeh I like that there's individuality more, although 1 thing that goes against that is that you just see the same cars over and over -.pretty much just 100cc Honda bikes, Suzuki Mehran (cheapest car there. no power steering. pretty tiny), Suzuki Cultuses, Honda City and then some Civics, Surfs, Prados, Hiluxes, Vitz/Yaris, Corolla nd maybe some others but rarely....saw an evo once and a porsche once - although ppl try nd make their cars look different by putting name stickers on the back windscreen or writing random messages with stickers like "love for all, hate for none" and "don't worry, your daddy is here"....legit saw those lol. Oh yeh shops are also open dead late there (like 12am and much later), probs because ppl can avoid the heat in the day....mind you the winter was as cold as fk where I was (Pindi) cuz it's just by some mountains and really the whole country d....put that here because it'd take ages to add it in at a more appropriate place on this phone.
One thing I used to love was seeing my cousins (didn't live near extended family most of the time as a kid) but nowadays it's a drag with most of them because of the language barrier which literally makes it like you're just sitting on your own for 5-6 hours on end daily which is super boring and not really healthy and pretty depressing to be frank. Also because of the language I won't get told about stuff until the last minute (like "hurry up we're going" so I literally just have to rush and put my shoes on and then we end up being outside for hours with me not having my wallet or some shizzle or worse no shower so I'll just be tired....swear my dad's dad got me up at 8:40am once and said there was no time for a shower cuz everyone was waiying....everyone else wasn't ready til about 12 lol, proper annoying) and then one of my cousins who was 18 (now another os 18 just on the 25th) is pretty much a pathological fkin liar so even the stuff in English you can't trust....did eventually try to wup him in a KFC (don't even like KFC lol) for lying about whether I could unlock my phone (telling me no and my dad yes...dafuk) and just all his general rude and lying BS like that from before that (phone was just the short term reason) but his mum's brothers held me (one being my dad and the other being my uncle who is like 300lb lol....fat 300 not muscular) and he had a table for balance....srsly if I could teleport back just to get him while hes alone I would....fkin brat....dude is goin to the army and is proper obsessed with guns nd a bit racist against pathans so yeh....I'm sure having someone like that in the army won't help Taliban recruitment at all (sarcasm btw). I enjoyed not working for a bit and letting my body recover by getting a decent amount of sleep etc. One thing I didn't like was cold showers (in the winter temperatures), although then they started heating uolp hot water for me on the cooker/stove/hob so I could mix it to have a bath and after a bit they got an electric water heater for 1 bathroom (they live in a big aparrment in an army compound....has 4 bathrooms or "washrooms" as they call them) although a small attachment of it broke after like a day but then it got replaced....funny tho....my then 17yr old cousin went to take his first hot shower for a few days and then the lights went out so the water was cold lol, had some stove water though so that's ok. Didn't like the food at my dad's sister's mostly due to the flavours, a lot of it is too oil heavy and I'm not used to rice having so many inedible spices left in it so it's too fiddly. Eating out can be nice cuz it's so cheap apart from fast food (can get a big plate for about £2.50....and I eat stupid amounts so when I day big it is actually decently big....a literally full plate of typical size) but we didn't really do that. Ice cream from parlours is nice there but cakes are usually bland, although they look nice....not that I even like cake much anyway. It's cool to have different sweets (Pakistani style ones and Western style ones), drinks, biscuits, fruit and snacks that you wouldn't find or easily find in the UK.
h
Pros and cons of each I've touched on but some cons there would be that there are less opportunites the higher up you go, although that improves with time always as the economy grows again (sorta takes a while to make up for 100 years+ of most of the profit produced in the region being spent on building cities like the one I'm sitting in now in the UK). Other cons would be that if you're disabled there's a high chance you're fucked, that terrorism is a small issue still (was a big deal for a few years but it's uncommon again now, was nonexistent when I was a kid) as well as a big drain on the economy (but that's not really a con for someone's everyday life or someone visiting), if you make your money there obv then things aren't super cheap for you any more, cars are expensive for Pakistani salaries (due to being an international product), if you get a nicer car it won't be long before it gets scratched due to crazy traffic, of course load shedding is a big problem since it's pretty inconvenient for the electricity to go out everyday for 1-2 hours or longer if you live in a very rural village like my mum's side do (summer time 20+ hours without electricity due to rivers evaporating, reducing hydroelectric power output) and another thing is that a lot of recreational stuff peope do in the UK isn't that available over there or is just seen as weird... like going to the gym is harder because there are less of them and they're probs not that big looking from the outside but not sure on that and being healthy is seen as weird because basically either you're a quite poor or at least not much well off person working hard physically and are somewhat skinny or you have money and are fat... ppl also think fat=strong which is as stupid as 6 pack=strong....guessin they think like that because traditional wrestlers are fat, but obv wrestlers are muscular underneath. fk thought I'd lost half my post then... wow. Yeh some other cons are that it can be too hot in the winter, although I don't mind it and there are a lot of bugs both big and small like ants, beetles, moths and lizards are annoying too....dunno about snakes nd stuff....I'm sure they are around but depends where you are really....obv if you live up in the mountains anywhere then there won't be many bugs even in the summer. Having to respect old ppl is an issue if they're rude and just like being anywhere else if you don't know some cultural rules it could turn into a problem. If you get qualified there your qualifications migt not be regarded highly abroad which is an extra hassle if you wanna move to somewhere else from there because you end up doing extra tests. Other cons would be specific to specific parts of the country like in parts of KPK the Taliban presence, in Karachi gangs and their robberies and killings (basically goes back to the 70s when Zia ul Haq had people housed in areas based on ethnicity rather than promoting a cosmopolitan city like some other cities in Pakistan or in the world and the policy lead to gangs eventually which some political parties nowadays pay to do stuff for them....not beeen there since 2005 and tbh would feel worried there....dad has some fam who live there and 1 of his uncles got gunpoint robbed twice and my mum's sister's husband's family lives there and she was in the car when they got robbed at gunpoint as well, although the robber said he didn't rob women and let my aunt's husband keep his sim card when he stole the phone lol....guess if you have a gun you can take your time) and Balochistan province gets jack all funding/investment from what I've heard and read, although that new Chinese road going through Pakistan might change that, although some politicians tried to change its course so it wouldn't go there....basically another big con is that the amount of BS politicians do (pretty worldwide thing but the consequences are worse in a poor country where improvements are needed)....things are a lot better now because of one party which has basically challenged the idea that things can't change easily so better just go along with the status quo (an idea you seem to find in politics everywhere) and have proven it in the province yhey governed by reducing a lot of problems like corruption and power shortages so now all the other politicians are having to step up a bit and be a bit more decent to placate the electorate, that and young ppl there (30 and under) have a lot of hope and are very politically engaged and have high standards for debating all that kinda stuff, rather than the usual superficial crappy debate usually found on political shows. Mentioned about stuff that isnt popular there that ppl from here would be used to....other stuff like that would be video gaming since it's not popular over there with most people, although some people do play consoles and some ppl play counterstrike in cafes apparently (heard that from the youtuber from someordinarygamers who went there for some reason) and stuff like bowling say. Over there for fun the stuff I know people do would be driving, going to shops, going to eat, talking with friends, playing cards and then maybe the cinema but I think it's quite expensive....oh yeh and playing sports obv like cricket, soccer, field hockey and in the army class maybe polo or squash (used to be the best at squash....had 7 of the world's top 10 in the 80s, but completely fell the fuck off for some reason after the mid-90s). Other cons would be that there are a lot of languages which can be a problem if you wanna travel to different parts but Urdu is becoming more widely spoken nationally (although the loss of regional/ancestral language proficiency amongst the urban youth is a negative itself I'd say) and in terms of women working its a few decades or so behindthe UK since it's normal for women to not work even if they are educated (tbh not sure how it is with ppl 30 and under so I'm talking about older ppl....dunno if the younger women I know are gonna work or no cuz they're all pretty young/barely graduated or not yet graduated) unless you're talking about farming families where they'll do farm stuff or if they're really poor families in cities they might be a maid.
Pros I guess would be that it's nice and lively and there's a lot of different stuff available and around due to having their own traditional things - which themselves can be varied due to having different ethicities from within the land plus refugees (mostly Afghans due to the Soviets in 1979 and then due to the ongoing war. Other refugee groups are Muslims from India and Rohingya from Myanmar who are both mostly in Karachi and Parsis /Zoroastrians from Iran. Refugees from Afghanistan are a big drain on the economy because there are too many (over 1% of Pakistan's total population....1.5 or maybe more than 2 mllion)) - and then foreign influences, mostly from the US and UK but some some Indian influences (as in from Republic of India, not the historical stuff which is gonna be largely the same between northern India and the eastern half of Pakistan) and some Arab stuff and probs Chinese influences will grow in the coming decades. Since it's a growing country that can bring opportunites and it's just exciting as long as you're not super poor (as in not begging for a living) or even better if you're solid middle class and definitely for business there are always opportunities to make good money having a shop (like I said there are lots of shops compared to the US or UK.....no comparison). Another pro is that since they don't do big supermarkets or massive chains as much the money can go around more instead of being concentrated. Personally I prefer that TV shows aren't full of sex....actually there are a ridiculous number of news channels which is good(some focus a lot on protests n stuff which normally news channels don't give a lot of air time to), although there are a few that are the strongest like Geo and ARY. Also a pro that drugs and alcohol aren't significant problems there (alcohol is illegal btw, although you could buy some legally....I couldn't because only non-Muslims can buy alcohol legally), although apparently Karachi has a lot of that shit going on (as well as nightclubs, which aren't around much elsewhere) and I'm pretty sure if you did have drug or especially alcohol issues it'd be hard to get help due to the stigma. Guess the no nightclub thing is a con for me....as well as the fact that it's pretty frowned upon for boys and girls to mix unless they're really young or are siblings....kinda depends on the family really....like my cousins aren't really allowed to mix like that but one did know his wife from uni and his parents know that he socialised with a lot of girls. Personally I like music there more, probs cuz not everything is about being catchy (although mostky it is nowadays) and if the lyrics are shit I can't tell anyway usually lol....mostly they listen to Bollywood or Qawwali (type of classical religious music sung mostly in Urdu but maybe Punjabi or Farsi which is a bit secular lyrically so does go across religions a bit), Pakistani Pop and Pakistani Rock is kinda weak nowadays it seems although the rock singer Atif Aslam is massive in Pakistan and India and the UAE (with diaspora ppl) and ppl will know some American stuff like Bieber lol and maybe some other more obscure American stuff too but never heard anyone listen to English-language stuff over there, although I know a station that plays a lot of diferent English stuff (even rock n roll from the 50s....) and then depending on their ethnic background or where they live they might listen to their own traditional regional stuff, especially if they're from villages or for weddings they seem to go back to regional language music too, so for the weddings I was at we danced to a loy of bhangra music lol. Because of security issues in recent years live music has suffered a lot as has live sports (you might know that Pakistan's cricket team didn't play a home game in Pakistan for quite a few years since a group attacked the Sri Lankan team during a series so everyone is shit scared to visit....Zimbabwe came several months back but even with them the Zimbabwean government tried to stop them but their cricket board was like "fk you we're going" and Ireland nearly came too but it didn't happen....basically Zimbabwe and Ireland are 2nd tier cricketing countries so still no major team is close to coming for now, not sure what the situation is for other sports like hockey. Fk theres even a new Pakistan Super League for cricket is meant to be massive and has a bunch of top international players from Australia, West Indies, Bangladesh etc but it's gonna take place in either the UAE or Qatar even though the teams are named after Pakistani cities lol).
Other cons I thought of are that a plane ticket is really expensive on a Pakistani salary as is a top phone (which is why there are a lot more smartphone models over there because the market needs cheaper alternatives....mostly ppl have Haier, Huawei, Samsung, Q Mobile (Pakistani brand) , iPhone or very occasionally Windows or HTC and some just have an old school Nokia). Waiters are fkin shit over there and haggling can be dumb. Oh ye a big con is that a lot of hospitals are crap and if you arent rich, well-linked, a diplomat or in the armed forces you probs wont have great healthcare....made worse by the hot weather which can literally kill people and makes bodies decompose faster (for example when my dad's brother died they didn't find the cause of death cuz it takes too long and they couldnt really let the body go bad by waiting for ages, although that was in 1996 I believe) and the electricity shortages (links back to the heat thing). Some other gd things would be the natural beauty and animals (varied landscapes for a country of its size),historical sites (not well looked after though) and the sun.Another con is ppl think the US or even UK is all like what they see in Hollywood and Bollywood movies so basically they think ppl are just parrting, shopping, driving nice cars, fucking like mad (lol), drinking, doing drugs, eatings pizzas and burgers all day and wearing should skirts.That and everyone talks about marriage and thinks you should get married and wants to tell you crap like that when they barely know you....irks me when anyone thinks they know more than they do so yeh.
Pretty much summing it up you can live a good life there on not much money (internationally speaking) and defo my cousins have a higher quality of life than I or most ppl I know had/have financially or even better socially/emotionally than quite a few I know in the UK but mostly it'd be a struggle....would be a nice place to move to if I had good amounts of savings.
@ssj2 I'm in the UK now lol. Wow I'm answering this late....might as well call me you.
Came back on the 24th, which is 11 days earlier than initially planned. So I was there about 18 days only....which is actually the shortest time I've gone there for, apart from when I was a baby maybe; don't remember that. I enjoy that it's more chilled socially than the UK for me since young guys aren't running around pissed off or fronting. For petty stuff it's pretty safe (don't get rude youths or much threatening behaviour say). One of the biggest things I like is that guys wear more interesting stuff rather than a t-shirt, jeans, black jacket or tracksuit like everyone in the UK seems to wear....guess how you could explain quixkly is that a lot of guys who are popular from there would probs be assumed to be gay in the UK or US lol. But yeh that pretty much makes it easier to try new stuff clothing/hair-wise than here....also helps that lots of different clothes are easy find cuz they don't really do big chains as much (they do but they make up a much smaller part of the clothing market), there's demand for it and if you earn your money in the UK (or Canada as well) non-imported things are really cheap, like a suit can cost £20 (although a good quality one might be more like £35), tailored jeans about £6 or so etc. Even branded clothes from US or UK brands are cheaper and I mean from official stores not fake stuff (although realistically fake stuff is gonna be as reliable as genuine stuff a lot of the time when it comes to clothes). In the shop my cousins buy most of their clothes in (which is only probs about 7-8 metres by 3 metres, which is bigger than shops in proper markets. This shop is in a sort of small "mall"....there are proper malls too which are much bigger than in the UK (2-3x as big and not filled with empty units and "closing down sale" signs)) you can ask em for red jeans in a certain size (I'm a 32 or ideally a 33 for jeans. Most young guys there are probs a 30-32 but I know some wider guys who go there) and they'd give you at least 3 or so choices, same for black or purple or w'ever...fk they had red and black cords....velvet suits, different types of jackets etc....so that gives you an idea pf how muc choice there is considering that's just one shop....pretty much everything has mad choice....fk even shit like phones. So yeh I like that there's individuality more, although 1 thing that goes against that is that you just see the same cars over and over -.pretty much just 100cc Honda bikes, Suzuki Mehran (cheapest car there. no power steering. pretty tiny), Suzuki Cultuses, Honda City and then some Civics, Surfs, Prados, Hiluxes, Vitz/Yaris, Corolla nd maybe some others but rarely....saw an evo once and a porsche once - although ppl try nd make their cars look different by putting name stickers on the back windscreen or writing random messages with stickers like "love for all, hate for none" and "don't worry, your daddy is here"....legit saw those lol. Oh yeh shops are also open dead late there (like 12am and much later), probs because ppl can avoid the heat in the day....mind you the winter was as cold as fk where I was (Pindi) cuz it's just by some mountains and really the whole country d....put that here because it'd take ages to add it in at a more appropriate place on this phone.
One thing I used to love was seeing my cousins (didn't live near extended family most of the time as a kid) but nowadays it's a drag with most of them because of the language barrier which literally makes it like you're just sitting on your own for 5-6 hours on end daily which is super boring and not really healthy and pretty depressing to be frank. Also because of the language I won't get told about stuff until the last minute (like "hurry up we're going" so I literally just have to rush and put my shoes on and then we end up being outside for hours with me not having my wallet or some shizzle or worse no shower so I'll just be tired....swear my dad's dad got me up at 8:40am once and said there was no time for a shower cuz everyone was waiying....everyone else wasn't ready til about 12 lol, proper annoying) and then one of my cousins who was 18 (now another os 18 just on the 25th) is pretty much a pathological fkin liar so even the stuff in English you can't trust....did eventually try to wup him in a KFC (don't even like KFC lol) for lying about whether I could unlock my phone (telling me no and my dad yes...dafuk) and just all his general rude and lying BS like that from before that (phone was just the short term reason) but his mum's brothers held me (one being my dad and the other being my uncle who is like 300lb lol....fat 300 not muscular) and he had a table for balance....srsly if I could teleport back just to get him while hes alone I would....fkin brat....dude is goin to the army and is proper obsessed with guns nd a bit racist against pathans so yeh....I'm sure having someone like that in the army won't help Taliban recruitment at all (sarcasm btw). I enjoyed not working for a bit and letting my body recover by getting a decent amount of sleep etc. One thing I didn't like was cold showers (in the winter temperatures), although then they started heating uolp hot water for me on the cooker/stove/hob so I could mix it to have a bath and after a bit they got an electric water heater for 1 bathroom (they live in a big aparrment in an army compound....has 4 bathrooms or "washrooms" as they call them) although a small attachment of it broke after like a day but then it got replaced....funny tho....my then 17yr old cousin went to take his first hot shower for a few days and then the lights went out so the water was cold lol, had some stove water though so that's ok. Didn't like the food at my dad's sister's mostly due to the flavours, a lot of it is too oil heavy and I'm not used to rice having so many inedible spices left in it so it's too fiddly. Eating out can be nice cuz it's so cheap apart from fast food (can get a big plate for about £2.50....and I eat stupid amounts so when I day big it is actually decently big....a literally full plate of typical size) but we didn't really do that. Ice cream from parlours is nice there but cakes are usually bland, although they look nice....not that I even like cake much anyway. It's cool to have different sweets (Pakistani style ones and Western style ones), drinks, biscuits, fruit and snacks that you wouldn't find or easily find in the UK.
h
Pros and cons of each I've touched on but some cons there would be that there are less opportunites the higher up you go, although that improves with time always as the economy grows again (sorta takes a while to make up for 100 years+ of most of the profit produced in the region being spent on building cities like the one I'm sitting in now in the UK). Other cons would be that if you're disabled there's a high chance you're fucked, that terrorism is a small issue still (was a big deal for a few years but it's uncommon again now, was nonexistent when I was a kid) as well as a big drain on the economy (but that's not really a con for someone's everyday life or someone visiting), if you make your money there obv then things aren't super cheap for you any more, cars are expensive for Pakistani salaries (due to being an international product), if you get a nicer car it won't be long before it gets scratched due to crazy traffic, of course load shedding is a big problem since it's pretty inconvenient for the electricity to go out everyday for 1-2 hours or longer if you live in a very rural village like my mum's side do (summer time 20+ hours without electricity due to rivers evaporating, reducing hydroelectric power output) and another thing is that a lot of recreational stuff peope do in the UK isn't that available over there or is just seen as weird... like going to the gym is harder because there are less of them and they're probs not that big looking from the outside but not sure on that and being healthy is seen as weird because basically either you're a quite poor or at least not much well off person working hard physically and are somewhat skinny or you have money and are fat... ppl also think fat=strong which is as stupid as 6 pack=strong....guessin they think like that because traditional wrestlers are fat, but obv wrestlers are muscular underneath. fk thought I'd lost half my post then... wow. Yeh some other cons are that it can be too hot in the winter, although I don't mind it and there are a lot of bugs both big and small like ants, beetles, moths and lizards are annoying too....dunno about snakes nd stuff....I'm sure they are around but depends where you are really....obv if you live up in the mountains anywhere then there won't be many bugs even in the summer. Having to respect old ppl is an issue if they're rude and just like being anywhere else if you don't know some cultural rules it could turn into a problem. If you get qualified there your qualifications migt not be regarded highly abroad which is an extra hassle if you wanna move to somewhere else from there because you end up doing extra tests. Other cons would be specific to specific parts of the country like in parts of KPK the Taliban presence, in Karachi gangs and their robberies and killings (basically goes back to the 70s when Zia ul Haq had people housed in areas based on ethnicity rather than promoting a cosmopolitan city like some other cities in Pakistan or in the world and the policy lead to gangs eventually which some political parties nowadays pay to do stuff for them....not beeen there since 2005 and tbh would feel worried there....dad has some fam who live there and 1 of his uncles got gunpoint robbed twice and my mum's sister's husband's family lives there and she was in the car when they got robbed at gunpoint as well, although the robber said he didn't rob women and let my aunt's husband keep his sim card when he stole the phone lol....guess if you have a gun you can take your time) and Balochistan province gets jack all funding/investment from what I've heard and read, although that new Chinese road going through Pakistan might change that, although some politicians tried to change its course so it wouldn't go there....basically another big con is that the amount of BS politicians do (pretty worldwide thing but the consequences are worse in a poor country where improvements are needed)....things are a lot better now because of one party which has basically challenged the idea that things can't change easily so better just go along with the status quo (an idea you seem to find in politics everywhere) and have proven it in the province yhey governed by reducing a lot of problems like corruption and power shortages so now all the other politicians are having to step up a bit and be a bit more decent to placate the electorate, that and young ppl there (30 and under) have a lot of hope and are very politically engaged and have high standards for debating all that kinda stuff, rather than the usual superficial crappy debate usually found on political shows. Mentioned about stuff that isnt popular there that ppl from here would be used to....other stuff like that would be video gaming since it's not popular over there with most people, although some people do play consoles and some ppl play counterstrike in cafes apparently (heard that from the youtuber from someordinarygamers who went there for some reason) and stuff like bowling say. Over there for fun the stuff I know people do would be driving, going to shops, going to eat, talking with friends, playing cards and then maybe the cinema but I think it's quite expensive....oh yeh and playing sports obv like cricket, soccer, field hockey and in the army class maybe polo or squash (used to be the best at squash....had 7 of the world's top 10 in the 80s, but completely fell the fuck off for some reason after the mid-90s). Other cons would be that there are a lot of languages which can be a problem if you wanna travel to different parts but Urdu is becoming more widely spoken nationally (although the loss of regional/ancestral language proficiency amongst the urban youth is a negative itself I'd say) and in terms of women working its a few decades or so behindthe UK since it's normal for women to not work even if they are educated (tbh not sure how it is with ppl 30 and under so I'm talking about older ppl....dunno if the younger women I know are gonna work or no cuz they're all pretty young/barely graduated or not yet graduated) unless you're talking about farming families where they'll do farm stuff or if they're really poor families in cities they might be a maid.
Pros I guess would be that it's nice and lively and there's a lot of different stuff available and around due to having their own traditional things - which themselves can be varied due to having different ethicities from within the land plus refugees (mostly Afghans due to the Soviets in 1979 and then due to the ongoing war. Other refugee groups are Muslims from India and Rohingya from Myanmar who are both mostly in Karachi and Parsis /Zoroastrians from Iran. Refugees from Afghanistan are a big drain on the economy because there are too many (over 1% of Pakistan's total population....1.5 or maybe more than 2 mllion)) - and then foreign influences, mostly from the US and UK but some some Indian influences (as in from Republic of India, not the historical stuff which is gonna be largely the same between northern India and the eastern half of Pakistan) and some Arab stuff and probs Chinese influences will grow in the coming decades. Since it's a growing country that can bring opportunites and it's just exciting as long as you're not super poor (as in not begging for a living) or even better if you're solid middle class and definitely for business there are always opportunities to make good money having a shop (like I said there are lots of shops compared to the US or UK.....no comparison). Another pro is that since they don't do big supermarkets or massive chains as much the money can go around more instead of being concentrated. Personally I prefer that TV shows aren't full of sex....actually there are a ridiculous number of news channels which is good(some focus a lot on protests n stuff which normally news channels don't give a lot of air time to), although there are a few that are the strongest like Geo and ARY. Also a pro that drugs and alcohol aren't significant problems there (alcohol is illegal btw, although you could buy some legally....I couldn't because only non-Muslims can buy alcohol legally), although apparently Karachi has a lot of that shit going on (as well as nightclubs, which aren't around much elsewhere) and I'm pretty sure if you did have drug or especially alcohol issues it'd be hard to get help due to the stigma. Guess the no nightclub thing is a con for me....as well as the fact that it's pretty frowned upon for boys and girls to mix unless they're really young or are siblings....kinda depends on the family really....like my cousins aren't really allowed to mix like that but one did know his wife from uni and his parents know that he socialised with a lot of girls. Personally I like music there more, probs cuz not everything is about being catchy (although mostky it is nowadays) and if the lyrics are shit I can't tell anyway usually lol....mostly they listen to Bollywood or Qawwali (type of classical religious music sung mostly in Urdu but maybe Punjabi or Farsi which is a bit secular lyrically so does go across religions a bit), Pakistani Pop and Pakistani Rock is kinda weak nowadays it seems although the rock singer Atif Aslam is massive in Pakistan and India and the UAE (with diaspora ppl) and ppl will know some American stuff like Bieber lol and maybe some other more obscure American stuff too but never heard anyone listen to English-language stuff over there, although I know a station that plays a lot of diferent English stuff (even rock n roll from the 50s....) and then depending on their ethnic background or where they live they might listen to their own traditional regional stuff, especially if they're from villages or for weddings they seem to go back to regional language music too, so for the weddings I was at we danced to a loy of bhangra music lol. Because of security issues in recent years live music has suffered a lot as has live sports (you might know that Pakistan's cricket team didn't play a home game in Pakistan for quite a few years since a group attacked the Sri Lankan team during a series so everyone is shit scared to visit....Zimbabwe came several months back but even with them the Zimbabwean government tried to stop them but their cricket board was like "fk you we're going" and Ireland nearly came too but it didn't happen....basically Zimbabwe and Ireland are 2nd tier cricketing countries so still no major team is close to coming for now, not sure what the situation is for other sports like hockey. Fk theres even a new Pakistan Super League for cricket is meant to be massive and has a bunch of top international players from Australia, West Indies, Bangladesh etc but it's gonna take place in either the UAE or Qatar even though the teams are named after Pakistani cities lol).
Other cons I thought of are that a plane ticket is really expensive on a Pakistani salary as is a top phone (which is why there are a lot more smartphone models over there because the market needs cheaper alternatives....mostly ppl have Haier, Huawei, Samsung, Q Mobile (Pakistani brand) , iPhone or very occasionally Windows or HTC and some just have an old school Nokia). Waiters are fkin shit over there and haggling can be dumb. Oh ye a big con is that a lot of hospitals are crap and if you arent rich, well-linked, a diplomat or in the armed forces you probs wont have great healthcare....made worse by the hot weather which can literally kill people and makes bodies decompose faster (for example when my dad's brother died they didn't find the cause of death cuz it takes too long and they couldnt really let the body go bad by waiting for ages, although that was in 1996 I believe) and the electricity shortages (links back to the heat thing). Some other gd things would be the natural beauty and animals (varied landscapes for a country of its size),historical sites (not well looked after though) and the sun.Another con is ppl think the US or even UK is all like what they see in Hollywood and Bollywood movies so basically they think ppl are just parrting, shopping, driving nice cars, fucking like mad (lol), drinking, doing drugs, eatings pizzas and burgers all day and wearing should skirts.That and everyone talks about marriage and thinks you should get married and wants to tell you crap like that when they barely know you....irks me when anyone thinks they know more than they do so yeh.
Pretty much summing it up you can live a good life there on not much money (internationally speaking) and defo my cousins have a higher quality of life than I or most ppl I know had/have financially or even better socially/emotionally than quite a few I know in the UK but mostly it'd be a struggle....would be a nice place to move to if I had good amounts of savings.
