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redeyes
Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 254
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trapezius
Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 1670
Location: Land of Culture of Death & Destruction
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 Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:53 am Post subject: |
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| 'A guest is a gift from God' goes the popular Arab saying. The hospitality of the Middle East is legendary, and Saudi Arabia had proved no exception. During our weeks on the road and over the course of the 11,250km we clocked up, our car had become so stuffed full with presents that I now called it 'Abdullah's mobile bazaar'. |
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| The hospitality was such that I found I had only to show the slightest interest in a subject, the least liking, and my 'wishes' were granted or dreams became true. |
How very nice for her.
Good thing she was born with the blessed skin hue. I wonder what sort of hospitality she would have received from Abdullah and the princes for who she became a parcel to be bandied about were she Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Indian, Nigerian, or Papua New Guinean.
Also, I wonder what sort of hospitality she would have received (with her own skin hue) had she knocked on the doors of >50% of the Saudi homes, which happen to be staunchly conservative, parochial, xenophobic, and anti-'infidel'. |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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| My, trapezius really does feel bad about this skin colour business. |
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trapezius
Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 1670
Location: Land of Culture of Death & Destruction
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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Just setting the record straight and toning down her wildly enthusiastic and falsely generalized comments about her experience.
Are you disagreeing with me? You have been here for eons... you know how it is here. |
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Cleopatra
Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Posts: 3657
Location: Tuamago Archipelago
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:47 pm Post subject: |
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Oh for god's sake, the woman is simply writing a travel blog describing her personal experiences during a trip to KSA! She's not doing a PHD thesis on the sociology and race relations of the Kingdom. There were no 'false generalisations', simply an account of her trip - the thing that upsets those of our posters with Mt. Everest sized shoulder chips is that it was broadly positive.
Do you expect everyone who writes brief accounts of brief foreign sojourns to 'balance' their comments by adding sociological 'insights' they do not have the experience to provide? |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Mr Trapezius refuses to come to terms with the idea that we live in an unjust world. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 3:40 pm Post subject: |
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Well, one hopes that she doesn't write her Lonely Planet guide suggesting that everyone who shows up in the Kingdom is going to be whisked off to meet ministers and princes. I would also hope that she would do a bit of research to paint a slightly more realistic portrait of KSA as a tourist attraction.
Most tourists will likely not be there long enough (assuming that they ever do actually start to give out the long reported tourist visas) to get a taste of the bad side.
VS |
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Cleopatra
Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Posts: 3657
Location: Tuamago Archipelago
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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Well, one hopes that she doesn't write her Lonely Planet guide suggesting that everyone who shows up in the Kingdom is going to be whisked off to meet ministers and princes.
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Where does she mention being whisked off to meet ministers and princes?
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I would also hope that she would do a bit of research to paint a slightly more realistic portrait of KSA as a tourist attraction.
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Well, if the previous LP guide to KSA is anything to go by, I'm sure she will. My point is that a short travel blog is basically an informal traveller's diary - one should not realistically expect it to go into detail regarding the treatment of 'brown' workers in the Kingdom. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Cleopatra wrote: |
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Well, one hopes that she doesn't write her Lonely Planet guide suggesting that everyone who shows up in the Kingdom is going to be whisked off to meet ministers and princes.
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Where does she mention being whisked off to meet ministers and princes
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I guess you didn't read the link above. She went to Riyadh, met with a minister... mentioned an interest in falconry and some prince flew her out in his plane to watch his birds hunt.
They had obviously pulled out all the stops to impress this woman... it is rather like reading fiction (not that I think that she made it up, but it ain't exactly what would happen to... say... me, if I showed up next week.
VS |
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trapezius
Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 1670
Location: Land of Culture of Death & Destruction
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Where does she mention being whisked off to meet ministers and princes? |
Maybe you should have read the link first?
I agree with VS that she DOES give off a highly distorted image of Saudi... sort of like Aladdin's lamp, where all you have to do is wish for something, and it will be give to you.
Oh, what is that she says...?
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| One day, Aladdin-like, I murmured imprudently about the ancient art of falconry. The very next day, I found myself being flown first-class to a nature reserve north of Najran to see a royal falconry display staged especially for me. On muttering about camels, I was whisked away to a camel beauty contest outside Riyadh and given a personal tour of the princes' favourites. |
Aladdin-like? Her words, not mine.
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| I found myself passed like a parcel between princes. The hospitality was such that I found I had only to show the slightest interest in a subject, the least liking, and my 'wishes' were granted or dreams became true. |
What are uninformed people in the world who don't know much about this country going to think after reading passages such as those? That anybody can go to Saudi and they will be treated like a king or a queen. They just have to wish for something, and it will come true after a free first-class flight. That real princes and princesses will host displays in your honour.
That's completely the impression she gives.
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| one should not realistically expect it to go into detail regarding the treatment of 'brown' workers in the Kingdom. |
I said nothing about brown workers. I was talking about brown tourists. Would brown tourists be given the treatment she received? Treatment of brown workers is a whole another issue, which I never talked of.
She flat out says that Saudi Arabia is legendary for its hospitality. Yes, that is all it is, a legend of the past. It was true in the past, but not any more (unless you are white). If a facet of a country is applicable only to about 10% of the world's population, then it is irresponsible to unwittingly pass it off as fact.
Her experience was an exception (which a maximum of 10% of the world's people could theoretically experience, and more like 1% -- all the pretty young white women), not the rule.
I am wasting my breath... this thread will be deleted soon anyway.
Last edited by trapezius on Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Cleopatra
Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Posts: 3657
Location: Tuamago Archipelago
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:45 pm Post subject: |
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OK, I overlooked the part about the princes, but my point still stands. This is a diary-type blog, not a socio-political analysis.
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| What are uninformed people in the world who don't know much about this country going to think after reading passages such as those? That anybody can go to Saudi and they will be treated like a king or a queen. |
I would say that anyone with any sense would say that this blog was written by a writer from the world's best-selling tourist guidebooks, so for that reason it's not altogether surprising that she was treated with such extra care.
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| Would brown tourists be given the treatment she received? |
Well, if they were writing for Lonely Planet, probably yes. Otherwise, probably not. But then again, neither would 99% of white tourists.
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| It was true in the past, but not any more (unless you are white). |
You really ought to unload that massive shoulder chip about 'white people'. It is deeply misinformed, and terribly tedious. Nobody denies that there is extreme racism in the Kingdom, but to imply that being white automatically entitles you to be treated with kid gloves is just nonsense. For what it's worth, I am white and find Saudi society to be extremely hard to penetrate. Yes, once you have acquired their trust, Saudis can be very hospitable and welcoming, but society as a whole is, to put it mildly, cold and aloof to outsiders, whatever their skin colour.
Do they have a female section for white teachers where you work? Because I would like to be flown around and invited to princes' palaces just for being white. Because that is how we white folks are treated, no? |
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trapezius
Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 1670
Location: Land of Culture of Death & Destruction
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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My final comments:
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| They had obviously pulled out all the stops to impress this woman |
That's exactly what happened. One day, when hundreds of tourists enter this country DAILY, would that be their experience? She was the first person (woman?) to get a tourist visa ever to Saudi Arabia, so of course the government wanted to impress her, and by proxy, the world. She was NOT a 'tourist'; she was a special guest of the government. And was treated as such, like any dignitary would have been.
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| world's best-selling tourist guidebooks |
And that's exactly the reason why her blog is 'dangerous', in the sense that millions would read it and get a completely false impression. When one knows that one's words (non-fiction) could be seen, heard, or read by scores of people, one should take "extra care" about what they write, especially about unwittingly generalizing one's extremely out of the ordinary experience, whether negative or positive.
I have nothing more to say in regard to this topic. |
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MyTrunkshow
Joined: 21 Apr 2007
Posts: 234
Location: One map inch from Iraq
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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Her blog is part of a series. In the series, there is detail about an accurate portrayal of Saudi. She talks about checkpoints , not being met by the airport and many other daily occurrences we experience here.
She captured the Saudi mentality through her dialogue with her guide, Abdullah. It's a good read.
I've only recently come to KSA. I read a lot, not just on the internet either. I've not read such a condensed accurate portrayal of reality and daily life here.
If just reading the linked page that red-eyes gave us, one is only getting one frame of an 8-part story.
She came here in 2007 under highly unusual circumstances-the first official independent traveler- and she explains that clearly on other linked pages. It was under somewhat diplomatic circumstances and circles that she came - but what she observed was everyday situations mixed with her personal experience as a welcomed writer.
It was a 'pg dn' turner!
mts. |
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Cleopatra
Joined: 28 Jun 2003
Posts: 3657
Location: Tuamago Archipelago
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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| And that's exactly the reason why her blog is 'dangerous', in the sense that millions would read it and get a completely false impression. |
In the first place, her impression is not 'false'. She is writing from the perspective of a privileged guest, and no doubt what she writes is an accurate record of her - very unusual - experiences. In that sense, her impression is no more or less 'false' than yours or mine - it is simply written from quite a rarified perspective. If we were to use this logic, then all travel writing would be useless. One would have to be very naive to assume that this one individual's experiences apply to all foreigners visiting or working in the Kingdom, and nowhere does the author make this generalisaiton.
Secondly, having read and used countless LP guides, including the previous one to the Arabian Peninsula, I am certain that the guide itself will present a far less rosy picture of the Kingdom than this blog did. LP guides are known for presenting a 'warts and all' picture of the destinations they cover, and the KSA guide is highly unlikely to be an exception. |
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MyTrunkshow
Joined: 21 Apr 2007
Posts: 234
Location: One map inch from Iraq
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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Are there other Saudi blogs worth reading? I enjoyed the blog awhile ago about the young Saudi fella who had a fresh perspective on his Kingdom.
mts. |
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