Out on the town

"You want to buy Office, Windows, games?" a dark man from India or Sri Lanka offered in broken English.

It was our 3rd time in Khobar and these guys never let up. They appear like cockroaches from the wood work dashing out of seedy electronics shops scattered through the district; piracy law enforcement hasn't really made it as far as the Middle East. In fact, it's its own worst problem; buying genuine goods can be somewhat tricky as almost everything has a counterfeit equivalent. That might not in itself be a problem if you have questionable morals, but with counterfeit goods also comes questionable quality; basically you get what you pay for.

We walked by ignoring them; a seasoned technique acquired in London to all the fly-sheet workers that accost you. The pavements in Khobar however are somewhat trickier to negotiate, all are owned by the appropriate shop therefore depending on the merchant's prosperity the quality of the pavement varies; within feet you can cross concrete, rubble and fine marble. We darted down a pedestrian section and entered the jewelry district; within Khobar shops are organized into types. A few pavement hops later and we entered one particular shop.

Now, in some respects this is the most mystifying thing I find about shopping in Saudi Arabia. This jeweler (to me, the untrained eye), looked no different than any other jewelry shop in the district. Most were unkempt, dusty buildings with little renovation; their attention utterly dependent on their trade. This jeweler however was apparently the place to buy and everyone knew it; within 2 minutes of entering the place it had gone from empty to heaving.

An old ragged unshaven man with missing teeth greeted us, bottled glasses amplifying his tired yellow eyes to frightening proportions. He leant forward as my mother-in-law introduced us; recognizing a regular client he beamed knowing there was a sale to be had. I shook the man's hand and then noticed how all the women I was traveling with merely got a nod; the cultural etiquette had kicked in, women were not to be noticed unless a direct interaction was required and even then no physical contact was permitted. Khobar might have been liberal in Saudi standards due to the size of the ex-pat community, but it still had its limits.

In fact, culturally, this was hard for me; being told what not to do can make things so much harder to avoid. For days I'd be practicing to avoid eye contact and ignore females, but when a black clothed woman with a piercing set of eyes passed it was hard to avoid. I'm not sure if it was because the eyes were the only place to look or the spectacle was so alien to me; either way it wasn't due to desire (the cultural motivation to cover in the first place) but it was equally unfair as my female companions could pretty much look at whatever the heck they wanted ... such was there insignificance on this particular stage. I however sense that the core values might actually centre things a little differently, for all I knew the women of the region had utter control of their puppet men and this was just for show.

Our jeweler friend started pulling out his new stock; trays and trays of dusty trinkets appeared as if shipped from an impoverished labor force in Indian or Pakistan. With every new item on offer he pulled out a rag and began buffing, ensuring everything was "best quality", "best price for my best customer", there isn't a shop you can enter where you're not offered such things; bartering starts with a serious amount of salesman BS.

He rattled around the store as requests and variations on existing offerings were produced; anything for the sale. He produced a necklace that my wife particularly liked and placed it on the counter for her to wear; my wife however was having trouble with the clasp. In one movement he deftly grabbed the necklace and smacked it on the glass counter, a slightly surprising action. He repeated the movement 3 more times, smack, smack, smack; on the final one a minute ball-bearing rolled out from the catch as for some reason there was a transportation ball holding it place. An unusual solution to a problem but it seemed to work well for this professional.

In the end my we selected some nice pieces and they were dutifully weighed as, despite their workmanship, everything sold on weight. My mother-in-law stepped in:

"So that's your best price?"

"Yes yes very good price."

"Your best price for your best customer?"

"Okay okay, very best price."

The price dropped a few levels; we paid and left to continue our exploration, no complaints, no shock reactions, this was merely business as usual.
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Our next stop involved a shopping mall; something I hadn't quite expected. I suppose if there's money these things will appear anywhere, but when you consider that most cars in the city were held together with rust and most buildings were held together by ... well ... barely anything, a shopping mall was the last thing I expected to see.

We entered somewhat surreally into British Home Stores, a shop from home (literally). In fact, it was no different from home; I mean by this that it was completely identical. BHS has been shipped lock, stock and two smoking barrels to Saudi Arabia. All the clothes looked the same, the signs, the decor, everything.

My brain melted. I was surrounded by a female population that wore black abayas* in daily life who were shopping for British style clothing no-one would see; I fail to rationalize this even now.
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We entered the main mall. The shops from middle-America and the UK were everywhere, name a brand and it was here. I'd entered an Arabian Stepford; Abaya clad women pushed wriggling babies through the corridors. There were however differences, for one, the mall was utterly silent; no one spoke unless in hushed tones. Men also walked ahead of the women and of course no clothes shop contained a changing room; it was all strictly a buy and return philosophy.

We continued to amble around until 11.45am at which point things got a little hurried. The mall was closing for prayer time and I was being inducted at the very coal face of the religion.

My first introduction to prayer time actually came back at the camp. I was being introduced to a friend of the family in a travel centre. She pulled out a calendar for 2005 and carefully identified the prayer times on it; to be fair I'd just thought she was really religious. In reality the whole way of life in Saudi revolves around those times; five periods of the day are reserved for various length prayers, each week these times move on ever so slightly. Without the calendar you can't shop.

When prayer time starts, everything closes. That being said, shop workers aren't actually Muslim (on the whole), so prayer time is merely an opportunity to create a good'ol downtown traffic jam. We ambled home with the rest of the city.
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*Abaya: (Arabic) a loose black robe from head to toe; traditionally worn by Muslim women.