JEDDAH, 10 July 2005 — “They really looked out of place,” Lina Adnan recalled with a smile on her face. “I was in one of the city’s famous coffee shops with some friends when three Western men walked in with a woman in an abaya. They sat down and shared a table and then my friends and I realized that they were not exchanging so much as a single word with the woman sitting with them. Instead they started hitting on the girls around them! Not only that, they began sending Bluetooth messages to everyone. A good look at the woman with them and we realized that the poor thing was probably a housemaid and they had just used her to get in. They acted like typical Saudi men, though in fact they were Westerners.”
Coffee shops have become “the” place to be for an increasing number of Jeddawis. The shops are spreading and expanding in the upmarket parts of the city. The same thing happens all over the world — coffee lovers gather in certain places fragrant with the aroma of coffee in order to enjoy their favorite drink with friends and family.
That is not, however, the case with Jeddah’s famous coffee shops. Most coffee shops do not specialize only in serving coffee, sweets and other snacks; they also serve all kinds of meals along with the most popular specialty: The hubbly-bubbly or sheesha. Families and friends are not the only customers; a number of meetings between young people of both sexes take place there.
Despite the fact that all public places in the Kingdom have to have family sections separate from single ones, most coffee shops confine their services to families. Frustrated by such rules, singles usually seek ways to sneak into family sections in malls and funfairs, often accompanied by kids and housemaids.
Ironically, they don’t need to sneak in anymore!
“There is nothing wrong with having a cup of coffee with a guy out in public,” said Hala, a coffee shop regular. “Some of the guys I sit with are male relatives and others are co-workers,” she added.
Such meetings are what differentiate coffee shops from restaurants and malls. “I thought it was quite funny,” said Joshua, an American resident. “I went with a couple of my friends with their female friends into one of those coffee shops and although none of us were related, we had to go into the family section.”
The atmosphere in such places is tempting too. “The low lighting and the partitions that some coffee shops afford customers make them a perfect place to meet a female friend, away from society’s iron fist,” Ali Al-Harbi confessed.
Once you enter one of these coffee shops, you will notice immediately that the majority of customers are females. A closer look will make it clear that not all are from the same age group. Teenagers, middle-aged women and even older ones spend part of their weekends in coffee shops.
Behind their liking for such places are a number of reasons which the women cited. Many complain of the lack of entertainment facilities in Jeddah.
“The choices of places to hang around in Jeddah are limited,” said Nahla Ali. Her friend, Sarah Al-Gonami, added: “It’s malls, restaurants and malls again; there is no cinema or even a park. Everyone who is hip and cool has to go to these places and show off in front of others.” When asked why, she answered: “What else can we do in Jeddah? It’s not Paris, you know.”
“Every coffee shop has to come up with fresh new ideas all the time in order to maintain its reputation among customers,” said one of the coffee shop owners. Karaoke competitions, huge TV screens featuring the famous American series, “Friends,” live DJs playing music from the 1970s and 1980s and even live cooking shows: These are just a few of the activities in Jeddah’s coffee shops. But to enjoy it all, there’s not much point in going early.
“The real fun starts at midnight and usually in summer, my friends and I stay out until 3 a.m.,” explained Eman Al-Otaibi.
Going to coffee shops is not complete unless it is accompanied by special rituals. Hubbly-bubbly or, as the locals call it, mia’asel is what attracts many people to coffee shops. “The quality of mia’asel determines my choice of a coffee shop,” said Salah Al-Qahtani.
A quick glance into most coffee shops will show clearly that hubbly-bubbly fans are from a wide range of women of all ages and all backgrounds.
“It’s very relieving,” Nora Gassan admitted.
“I have become very addicted to the smell of the flavored smoke, blowing it out in circles; it feels so liberating and relaxing at the same time,” a nearby girl added.
Another current practice in coffee shops is for customers to exchange Bluetooth messages. Just by sitting there turning on the Bluetooth device in your mobile, you come across various weird and even funny IDs e.g. “the millionaire,” “miss-fussy,” “lonely bird,” “rebel without a cause” and the list goes on.
As I sat down in one of the trendiest coffee shops looking closely at all the people, I received a Bluetooth message, “I’m so bored; please say anything!”
Although the coffee shop was crowded, people laughing out loud, pop music playing and everybody seeming to have it all, it still did not conceal the loneliness and emptiness coffee shop customers are often hiding behind their masks.
