Seif Al-Mutairi had been in London for barely two days when he decided to visit the local newsagent. Not speaking any English, he walked in and went to the snacks section where Pringles were on the shelves. “I found some Pringles they don’t sell in Saudi so I bought them,” he told me when he asked why I was laughing so hard.
“Seif, the reason you never found this particular kind of Pringles in Saudi is because they are bacon flavored. You might want to return them. But don’t think that everything they sell in Saudi is the same as in London. The Budweiser you buy here is actually alcoholic — not like the non-alcoholic version that is sold at the Jeddah Danube,” I explained.
This was Seif’s first trip outside Saudi Arabia where he has lived his entire life. A 23-year-old statistics student at King Abdul Aziz University, he had come to London to learn some English and experience what life away from home was like. Seif’s family is quite conservative and prefers the familiarity of life in Saudi Arabia. His mother’s advice to him was: “Keep away from things that are haram. You are not in your own country. Foreigners may not understand or even like Arabs or Muslims there. And please, please, please be careful of diseases. There are a lot of venereal ones outside Saudi Arabia, so behave yourself.” This had made quite an impression on Seif and he seemed uneasy about venturing very far from his rented studio. “Is it true that if anyone realizes I am an Arab or Muslim, I may be attacked?” he asked me.
The London Tube and bus bombings had happened less than six months earlier, and Seif was concerned that there might still be anti-Arab or anti-Muslim feeling lingering in the minds of all Brits.
“Seif, there are a lot of Arabs and Muslims from all around the world living here in London. In fact, I think you should see for yourself that they live in complete safety and are equally protected under the law,” I told him as we made our way to Edgware Road, where a large concentration of Arabs and Arab-owned businesses are based. Walking down Edgware Road, a shivering Seif found himself in more familiar surroundings as two women wearing abayas with only their eyes exposed walked past pushing baby strollers.
“Isn’t it illegal for people to wear the hijab or abaya in Europe?” he asked. “I think it’s France that you are thinking about,” I answered.
Walking along Edgware Road, Seif began to point out some businesses that he had seen in Jeddah, including a Subway Sandwiches that advertised halal meat. We were both caught unawares by the fact that Arabian Oud had a London store, and even more surprised by the fact that it was advertising a Christmas sale.
As we waited at a crosswalk to cross Edgware Road, a small car pulled up and executed a perfect parallel parking maneuver close by us. Seif was impressed by the driver’s skill, and told me to look when he realized that it was a young lady. As scantily clad as she was, I expected Seif to make a comment, but he was mesmerized by the fact that she was driving. I suppose he hadn’t really noticed it before. He said: “Her family is giving her a lot of freedom, but mash’Allah, she can park better than most of the shabab in Jeddah.”
Seif was beginning to feel more comfortable and began wanting to explore London further. “I want to do the kinds of things that can’t be done in Saudi,” he surprised me by saying the following day. Taken aback as my mind began to wonder at what he could possibly have in mind, I felt the urge to remind him of his mother’s advice, but asked instead, “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Well, I have never been to a movie theater. Let’s do that,” he replied. So off it was to Leicester Square where “King Kong”, was playing. It was a rather long movie and Seif made a couple of trips to the snack bar. He tried Caramel Popcorn and Nachos for the first time, but decided to pass on hot dogs when he heard one of the two words that he had been taught after the Pringles incident — ‘pork’ and ‘bacon.’
When the movie was over and he walked out, he described the experience as loud and added, “You could see everything.” He soon became hooked and visited the cinema at least twice a week for the remaining few weeks of his stay in London. By the time New Year’s arrived, Seif had been in London only a couple of days and had not had time to make any friends. Together we decided to do the tourist thing and watch the fireworks at the London Eye. As we stood on the other side of the Thames River from Big Ben, a young lady in her twenties and an older man accompanying her approached, having heard us speaking in Arabic.
“Where are you from?” the young woman asked. “Saudi Arabia,” was the reply of course. “Wow! That is very interesting. We have never met anyone from Saudi Arabia before,” they both said. She quickly introduced herself as Elise from France and also introduced her uncle, Julien, who was in his fifties. Apparently they had been living in London for a couple of years and had suddenly became interested in learning about Saudi Arabia, Muslims and Arabs. After ringing in the New Year at Big Ben, Seif and I had no real plans to do anything and were thinking about heading home, but when Elise and Julien insisted that we join them, we had to give in.
Seif and I had no idea that it would be another eight hours before we made it back home. They took us on a whirlwind tour of several local clubs including an after-hours one that catered to a ‘mixed’ crowd. When Seif noticed that some of the men were holding hands, he pointed it out to me. I explained that they were holding hands for different reasons from those the Bedouins have when they hold hands back in Saudi.
At the end of it all, when it was time to bid Elise and Julien a good day. Elise, unaware of Saudi customs, enthusiastically pushed aside Seif’s extended arm, gave him a hearty hug and then proceeded to plant a kiss on each of his cheeks. Seif’s color immediately began to change and his face was soon beet-red. “Strange,” was how he later described the experience of being kissed by a woman unrelated to him.
Seif’s London stay became filled with numerous “firsts”, and by the time he had returned to Jeddah, he had dozens of stories to tell his family. He described his time away as “the trip of a lifetime.”
Having been back under two weeks, we met up in Jeddah where I asked him what stood out most in his mind about life in London. “The weather in London was interesting and I enjoyed watching the weather reports. I was impressed by the fact that they always got it right. Here, the weather doesn’t really change that often,” he told me. “London is clean. There are no flies or cats in the streets. What I thought were rats, I found out were squirrels. The streets are organized and are well paved. Everything is properly marked and has its place. At the crosswalks, it is painted on the ground which direction to look in before crossing. I remember I was so very impressed by the fact that whenever I walked up to one, drivers approaching in both directions would stop and remain stopped until I had crossed. It actually made me self-conscious and I felt that I was delaying these nice people. In Jeddah we tend to drive around pedestrians without much thought of braking. The British in general I found to be very considerate. On the escalators, those that want to go to the top stand on the right, making way for those in a hurry to walk past on the left. I also liked the fact that people seem to form a queue as if it were natural. Everyone waits their turn and no one tries to queue-jump. It spells respect for others, and that is what it all comes down to. Everyone is respectful of everyone else,” Seif said.