Mumtaz Ashraf
Mumtaz talks about generations and cultures


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It's quite a big population and most of the male members have come in the 50s and 60s and they are established here and then they have brought their families later on and so most of them have come in to their own culture as it were and they have settled down and not made an effort to change because they think it's too late or they can't do it. I don't think there is a culture shock for them. It is culture shock seeing the surroundings but, you know, they are not bothered about that, I think. They've got their own world. That's what I think - their food, their clothes, their religion, everything they have come from, they are retaining that, which is not a bad thing. I mean, they are free to do what they feel like and nobody would want them to change their clothes or their food or their religious belief.
But the children and the language, the children are changing. They wear western clothes. They eat western foods, MacDonald's... They speak English, they have the education and they are keeping to their tradition also, to some extent, which is very good. Their marriage system is still that they have arranged marriages in the sense that the parents suggest and they marry in the family and all that. They keep to their religion - It's just a good thing.
Mumtaz Ashraf
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