It's Wednesday night, I feel guilty that I haven't posted a word for two weeks, I've been drinking some nice red whine (whew, that stuff is potent so I have to cut it with Perrier), animals are fed, dogs have been thoroughly walked. And this is my THIRD post in one night.
I've posted before about how I may think for several days about what I want to write, turning topics and phrases and metaphors around in my head to determine if they are "blog worthy." Well, being on that field trip for a week with limited internet access gave me plenty of time to ponder these big questions.
This post is about the day that MO and I spent at the Kingdom Mall in Riyadh.
The three women on the field trip (the word women is rarely used by Saudis; they prefer "ladies") had to fly to Riyadh 24 hours ahead of the men, who drove from Dhahran. This was ostensibly to avoid any unpleasantness at government checkpoints. ("Mixing of the sexes" is probably the most horrific thing the mutawas can envision and it is actively discouraged in this culture; having women traveling with unrelated men in cars could possibly have sent the entire Saudi system into a fatal tailspin were it to be discovered by the wrong person....) So we were flown out to Riyadh. That's all I'm going to say about that.
The Saudi woman on the trip has family in Riyadh: daughter, son-in-law, 4-month-old granddaughter. She spent most of her free time with them.
But MO and I had an entire day to kill...what to do? Well, for women in this culture, there is really nothing else you are permitted to do but shop. So we took a taxi from the hotel to one of the largest, swankiest malls in Riyadh, the Kingdom Mall.
We discovered that the upper floor of this mall was called the "Ladies' Kingdom"...and no men were allowed up there. All of the shops were staffed by women, even the coffee shops. I shouldn't even use the word "shops" as all of them represented the top European designers and fashion houses.
Sounds weird, right? But MO and I ended up spending most of the day in the Ladies' Kingdom...and enjoying it!
It was remarkably refreshing since I find the general atmosphere of this culture to be so oppressive. We saw Saudi women ripping off their head scarves as soon as they passed the entrance barriers (there were male guards at all of the entrances). I think that maybe some of those women find it a bit oppressive on the other side of those barriers too.
MO and I are by our own admission not shoppers even in the real world. But we spent hours fingering couture gowns (mostly hideous), gawking at shoes and accessories that were never going to be seen by any but other women, and generally enjoying the experience. It was all so alien: designer fashion everywhere one gazed (MO and I think Lands End is acceptable office wear) and only young, pretty, fashionable women to be seen (no children; they left the squalling brats at home with the Indonesian nanny).
And while I think that it is a great idea here in this backwards country, I would have been very happy to trade our day in the Ladies' Kingdom for a day in any US mall, no matter how low brow.
I've posted before about how I may think for several days about what I want to write, turning topics and phrases and metaphors around in my head to determine if they are "blog worthy." Well, being on that field trip for a week with limited internet access gave me plenty of time to ponder these big questions.
This post is about the day that MO and I spent at the Kingdom Mall in Riyadh.
The three women on the field trip (the word women is rarely used by Saudis; they prefer "ladies") had to fly to Riyadh 24 hours ahead of the men, who drove from Dhahran. This was ostensibly to avoid any unpleasantness at government checkpoints. ("Mixing of the sexes" is probably the most horrific thing the mutawas can envision and it is actively discouraged in this culture; having women traveling with unrelated men in cars could possibly have sent the entire Saudi system into a fatal tailspin were it to be discovered by the wrong person....) So we were flown out to Riyadh. That's all I'm going to say about that.
The Saudi woman on the trip has family in Riyadh: daughter, son-in-law, 4-month-old granddaughter. She spent most of her free time with them.
But MO and I had an entire day to kill...what to do? Well, for women in this culture, there is really nothing else you are permitted to do but shop. So we took a taxi from the hotel to one of the largest, swankiest malls in Riyadh, the Kingdom Mall.
We discovered that the upper floor of this mall was called the "Ladies' Kingdom"...and no men were allowed up there. All of the shops were staffed by women, even the coffee shops. I shouldn't even use the word "shops" as all of them represented the top European designers and fashion houses.
Sounds weird, right? But MO and I ended up spending most of the day in the Ladies' Kingdom...and enjoying it!
It was remarkably refreshing since I find the general atmosphere of this culture to be so oppressive. We saw Saudi women ripping off their head scarves as soon as they passed the entrance barriers (there were male guards at all of the entrances). I think that maybe some of those women find it a bit oppressive on the other side of those barriers too.
MO and I are by our own admission not shoppers even in the real world. But we spent hours fingering couture gowns (mostly hideous), gawking at shoes and accessories that were never going to be seen by any but other women, and generally enjoying the experience. It was all so alien: designer fashion everywhere one gazed (MO and I think Lands End is acceptable office wear) and only young, pretty, fashionable women to be seen (no children; they left the squalling brats at home with the Indonesian nanny).
And while I think that it is a great idea here in this backwards country, I would have been very happy to trade our day in the Ladies' Kingdom for a day in any US mall, no matter how low brow.
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