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Proud 2 be Kuwaiti 2014

The P2BK 2014 event launches this coming Thursday January 30th at the Kuwait International Fairgrounds [Map] and will last up untill February 25th. This year the set up is going to be similar to last years with an outdoor old souk that was built specifically to host this event. There will be a ton of Kuwaiti businesses participating including already established ones as well as new ones plus you have the Remal sand sculpting festival taking place alongside it as well. P2BK will be open daily from 10AM to 10PM and for more information you can check out their Instagram account [Here]

On a side note, companies seem to be neglecting their websites and are starting to rely solely on Instragram. I tried to google information on P2BK and all I ended up with was my blog since their website had no information on this years event. And, none of the information was made available in English. Events like this should be advertised to the expat community as well to make sure everyone else is included to share the experience.

47 replies on “Proud 2 be Kuwaiti 2014”

It is a SHAME that this event isn’t advertised to the expat community (but hey – people like you are doing a great job, Mark, so why should they bother?).

I think most English-speaking expats in Kuwait yearn for this type of get-to-know-your-community event.

Thanks for the info!

p2bk? proud of the randomness of being birthed into a specific culture and nationality? a well deserved pat on the back!

claim a national level identity campaign for someone who created a cup cake business? really? please get on google and search for proud to be american and see what appears.

You don’t instill national ideologies or identities in a culture with such a commercial and tacky way.

He / They could have labelled it with something more relevant, maybe made in kuwait, or whatever but pride in someones national identity is much deeper and meaningful than such a bazaar

I completely agree. The same could be said about nationalism in general though. Most people who are “Proud to be American/Kuwaiti/whatever” likely contributed nothing towards their country’s greatness, and are just celebrating the fact that they get to mooch off it. Give me a break.

Not “This” meaning the actual campaign, the entire concept of patriotism is literally “Well I guess I was born into this, yay?”

Although yeah I guess I see where you’re coming from, you can be proud about your identity without commercializing it but that’s what sells.

haha! When will we kuwaitis stop with this proud to be kuwaiti charade? what are we proud of exactly? All we will find is burger and pizza joints, manned by phillipinos. I guess we could be proud of how much we can eat?

If it weren’t for the silver spoons in our mouths, nobody would be “proud”.

So are you doing anything to change it, or are you one if those people who sits back and complains with no action taken?

Jealous much? Only in your naive mind someone would be proud because he is rich, we are proud because of who we are not our money

we are Unique,special,well mannered educated,peaceful,funny,good looking,fearless, Adventurous,fair,Independent,Persistent,Capable,charming,Confident,friendly,helpful,trusting and most of all we are Humble

We wont apologize because we have silver spoons in our mouth

I actually cannot tell if you’re being serious or funny. If you’re being sarcastic – well done. If you’re trying to be serious, you’ve summarized everything that is wrong with our society – delusions of being God’s chosen people.

We Kuwaiti people are the least conservative and most liberal native people in the Gulf. I’m not talking about government laws (ahem, alcohol ban), I’m talking about native Kuwaiti people’s culture.

In Qatari society, it’s not acceptable and common for native Qatari women to NOT wear the black abaya every time she goes out. 99.9% of Qatari women wear black abaya and black hijab even when they travel to Western countries. It’s very rare for Qatari women to wear jeans and other Western-style clothes in public. They all wear abayas.

In Emirati society, it’s not common for females to leave their houses without wearing the black abaya and black hijab every time she goes out. Even when visiting Western countries, most Emirati women are still covered in black from head to toe.

In Kuwaiti society, it’s very common to see native Kuwaiti women NOT wearing the black abaya, many Kuwaiti girls wear Western clothing in public like jeans, jackets, leggings, blouses, shirts and tshirts.

Despite Kuwait’s difficult location (sand-witched between very religious countries of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran), most Kuwaiti females aren’t covered in black from head-to-toe unlike the majority of Saudi and Iraqi women.

Despite the fact most Sunni Kuwaitis originate from Saudi Arabia and Iraq and most Shia Kuwaitis originate from Iran, Kuwaiti people and native society hasn’t been influenced by Wahhabism and Shia Islamism as much as Qatar (Wahhabism is the dominant branch of Islam among Qataris), Bahrain (Shia Islamism and Shia Islamic fundamentalism) and UAE (Wahhabism is the second dominant branch of Sunni Islam).

It’s a miracle that in Kuwaiti society, it’s socially acceptable and common for Kuwaiti women to wear Western clothing in public.

If you observe Saudi Arabian society and Iraqi society, you’ll notice that 95% of their women fully cover in black – even if there wasn’t a government dress code law in Saudi Arabia, most Saudi women would still be covered in black from head to toe due to their culture and society.

If you observe Qatari society, Emirati society and Omani society, you will notice that 98%-99% of Qatari, Emirati and Omani women wear the black abyaa and black hijab every time they go out, even at local malls, university campuses and foreign European countries.

Not only are Kuwaitis the most liberal native people in the Arabian Peninsula (far less conservative than the average Qatari, Emirati, Omani, Saudi and Yemeni), Kuwaitis are also the least sectarian people in the region especially in comparison to Saudis and Iraqis.

So yes, I am proud to be Kuwaiti. The state of my society is a miracle, especially considering all the outside geo-political turmoil.

its about attention to the organizer, the focus is becoming more on the event and not actually the intention behind it…..if they routed the time and money invested in such a social gimmick towards learning, skills development and support, they would create “maybe” and business culture lead by local youth….entrepreneurs / SME conferences and skills development are attracting thousands of people to conferences, incubators, exhibitions,fund raising in dubai and the region, in kuwait they substitute that with a social event.

too bad I cant be proud to be Kuwaiti because apparently having a Kuwaiti mother is no different from being an expat. When will Kuwaitis stop with that?

As a friend of mine put it: “If kuwaiti women could marry a foreigner and give their kids the nationality, why marry kuwaiti men?”

no hate man. i love my kuwaiti brothers and sisters although i’m not one of them. i just think the nationalism and delusion here is bullshit. I’m not particularly rolling in it but I’ve gotten to the point where i can say honestly – seriously? keep the cash – if this is what I’m trading in for it. I’d rather just have enough to put a simple roof over my head, food to eat and some good friends. seriously – fuck the fancy car, the apped out phone, the pointless shopping – fuck it all.

Have you hugged a low income expat today? no? go do it! they built this country when no one else was willing to work. I feel good that Kuwaitis are finally entering the workforce but let’s not forget that we ALL built this country together – and the ones that did the most work don’t see shit in their pockets at the end of the day!

I don’t want citizenship, I don’t want the money, nothing.Just some of my human rights, fair pay and friendship goddamit!

so many butt hurt expats here why can’t the rest of you be like desertgirl and mark and complain about things that aren’t ridiculous or just really looking for anything to complain about kuwaitis.

Agree it should be advertised in both languages

didn’t most of you complain about not enough entrepreneurship in this country on another post before yet you dismiss this event? What you you think is one of the main purposes of this event? Promote locally made businesses, doesn’t matter whether it’s cupcakes or whatever and at the same time celebrate the region’s culture.

But ohhh, when UK wants to promote locally made businesses through tv programmes it’s fine but it’s not ok if it’s Kuwait.

Like I said – its great that Kuwaitis are entering the workforce – eventually who knows, a majority Kuwaiti workforce may be better for most of us in the long run.

It’s the nationalism that’s bullshit. If you were born Irish you’d be proud to be irish, american? proud to be american. You think just cus ppl are born Iraqis and Afghanis that they are not proud to be what they are?

It’s random and it’s bullshit… pride comes from something accomplished not from the randomness of birth, nationality and culture you are born into.

ppl who start a succesful business have a right to be proud – cupcakes or whatever – but not BECAUSE they are Kuwaiti. thats just arse.

every country has a nationa day where they celebrate their country, so you want to scrape that away from all countries of the world then?

So what if Kuwaities want to celebrate their culture, there’s no problem with that at all stop being a moron. There is literally no problem with that at all. Almost every country in the world does it at some point

hmmm – name calling. nice. Must feel good to score 1 on the great anonymous board of cyberspace. Means about as much as patriotism does.

Let me spell it out for you.

I’m happy to be from nation x. Im also happy to include my friends from other backgrounds in my culture – share it with others, go out for the relevant food and celebrate the art etc etc.
That’s enjoying being x. I am not threatened when too many ppl enter nation x, and start to change it – I don’t feel the need to protect x because x is a culture in flux – always changing.

Proud to be x… well it has ppl calling other ppl morons and protecting culture x from perceived threats. Which is what you see a lot of here sadly

everyone has a right to either wanting to see it’s culture change or not, that’s why there is many countries using protectionist measures against some aspects of globalisation, china, korea, rural japan, some middle east countries, south america.

Not everyone has to accept YOUR views of what should happen to a country’s culture. Globalisation allows ease of transportation you can find somewhere else to complain about. P2BK didn’t say no foreigners allowed, it is sharing a country’s culture with people from other countries, where did they say no one except kuwaities are welcome to come and look around? It’s only people like you who want to stop this ‘sharing of culture’

I agree, there is no information in English, just like the Al Qurain festival, nothing in English at all and all of the Instagram accounts are in Arabic. I posted on the NCCAL Instagram account about having info in English with no response, maybe they don’t want expats going? I received a pamphlet about the AlQurain event while getting gas and I had to have my co-worker translate it for me, even the NCCAL website is all Arabic.

It’s funny how they talk about wanting to promote tourism yet the fail to advertise in English. I enjoy the P2BK event, it’s like one big fashion show and you can always get a laugh at what people call fashion. They are proud to be Kuwaiti once a year. I wish they would bring back concerts, it’s ok to hold hands and show public affection yet the thought of having a musical concert is haram?

Just one concert like the Kuwait Miami one back in 2003, that was awesome instead of bringing Russian bubble blowers and ice skating Macedonians. Just sayin’

where are un married people holding hands in public? i haven’t seen any, if you mention a place that is ‘hidden’ you can say from authorities and etc.

If you’re talking strictly islam then music IS haram. But listening to it doesn’t make you not a muslim, you will pay for it but you’re still a muslim. The first step is praying 5 times a day and not committing any of the ‘big’ sins that’s how you’re a muslim. the smaller sins are not OK but it doesn’t make you not a muslim you will suffer for them but you’re still a muslim as long as you don’t commit the ‘big’ sins and pray 5 times a day, that’s how it is.

i’m against the brotherhood but just to point it out, the freedom of expression in egypt has never been as open as it was under the muslim brotherhood. One positive in many negatives. Sissi up.

If you don’t know anything about a topic it’s best to stay quiet

Uh I see people holding hands all the time, walking in malls. There’s no way to know whether someone is married or not just by looking at them.

Music is only haram if you’re salafi

it’s well known it is… my parents know my friend knows everyone knows where have u been living? but as i aid it is a ‘minor’ sin to put it in a way. why do you think there is something called ‘aswat’ no instruments only making ‘music’ with their voices

You ever think that your parents and friends aren’t the entire world? This is like saying there’s no such thing as poor people because my parents and friends aren’t poor.

that’s what you took from what i said? facepalm.. stop straying away from the main point of conversation, you still haven’t said anything about music being haram. instead you focus on something stupid like that

There are music concerts in Kuwait recently. The Grammy winning R&B music artist Ne-yo performed several music converts in Kuwait for the Kuwaiti public at Avenues mall and Hardrock in 2010 or 2011. Most of Ne-Yo audience were Kuwaiti people, who were cheering and singing along to Ne-Yo songs at those live concerts.

This year, there were two rock music concerts by the American rock band, Filligar

at Al Qurain festival: https://news.kuwaittimes.net/american-band-filligar-taking-part-al-qurain-festival/

https://www.arabtimesonline.com/NewsDetails/tabid/96/smid/414/ArticleID/202917/reftab/96/t/Filligar-rocks-Kuwait-music-scene/Default.aspx

Kuwait is no Dubai. Dubai has tourists, its a major tourist destination well known throughout the world. Kuwait has no tourists apart from Qatari women and Saudis.

Why would a really famous USA music artist do a live concert in Kuwait? Kuwait is a small country and far less economically developed than Dubai.

Big artists like Justin Timberlake and Rihanana would never do concerts in Kuwait, because Kuwait isn’t an internationally well known tourist destination and international trade hub, the leading trade hub in the Middle East is Dubai. Dubai attracts many big-time artists because it’s a major tourist destination. Btw, most of the live audience at Rihanna’s recent concert in Abu Dhabi were Kuwaiti girls – not emiratis or expats.

But Kuwaiti people are far less culturally conservative than Emirati people, the reason there aren’t much big concerts has nothing to do with Islam and haram. Since there were music concerts recently in Kuwait.

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