SSoP Podcast Episode 65 — Saudi Arabia: Old Ways and New Directions (?)

This is a transcription of Saudi Arabia: Old Ways and New Directions (?)

David: Hello. Welcome to Strong Sense of Place.

Melissa: In each episode, we focus on one destination and discuss what makes it different than any other place on Earth.

David: Then we recommend five books we love that took us there on the page.

Melissa: I’m Melissa Joulwan.

David: I’m David Humphreys.

David: We’re going around the world one great read at a time. Thanks for joining us.

[cheerful music]

David: Welcome to Strong Sense of Place. Today we get curious about Saudi Arabia. Today on Two Truths and a Lie, we’re going to talk about a city that may or may not exist. It’s like a story from Scheherazade. Then we’ll talk about five books we love.

Melissa: I’m recommending a surprisingly Gothic novel from a favorite author.

David: I’ve got a non-fiction book that combines ailing kings, scheming princes, international spies, assassinations, grand visions of the future, and it’s all happening right now. It’s way less sexy when interesting times are happening to you.

David: But first, Mel’s going to bring us up to speed with the Saudi Arabia 101.

Melissa: Let’s get oriented! The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest country on the Arabian Peninsula. It’s tucked between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Quick note: In the West, we call it the Persian Gulf. In the Arab world, it’s known as the Arabian Gulf or just the Gulf. I’ll be using Gulf throughout our show.

Melissa: Fun fact: Oil was first struck in Saudi Arabia in 1938. Today, they hold about 17% of the world’s petroleum reserves. To give you an idea of how much that is… the Ghawar Oilfield is the largest oil reserve in the world. If you put all the oil in Olympic-sized swimming pools, there would be 4.7 million of them.

Melissa: Fun fact, the second: Saudi Arabia doesn’t have any rivers and about 95% of the country is desert — including an area called the Empty Quarter — the Rub’ al-Khali. It’s a sand sea. The world’s largest uninterrupted desert. It’s almost the size of France, and there are parts of it that have probably never been seen by humans.

Melissa: The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic, and the official religion is Islam.

Melissa: The capital is Riyadh. Riyadh is a jumble of ultra-modern skyscrapers and ancient markets called souks. The glass towers are filled with high-end office spaces, luxury condos, and opulent hotels. The souks are a throwback to Saudi Arabia’s past as an economy of traders. The shops are a jumble where you can haggle over the prices of incense and spices, the best dates in the world, silk and wool rugs, scarves, rosewater, gold jewelry, soap and chocolates made from camel milk, and oud perfume made from the resin of the aquilaria tree. According to the internet, oud smells warm and woody, and it fills your nose the moment you step off the plane at King Khalid International Airport.

Melissa: Two other extremely important Saudi Cities are Mecca and Medina. Mecca is the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad and home to the world’s largest and holiest mosque. Medina is where he was laid to rest in the Prophet’s Mosque. Every Muslim is required to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime, so each year about 2 million Muslims from around the world travel make their hajj in Mecca.

Melissa: At the opposite end of the spectrum is the coastal city of Jeddah. It’s the cosmopolitan, second city of Saudi Arabia. It has luxurious resorts on the Red Sea, a UNESCO-heritage old town, posh shopping malls, and a vibrant youth culture that’s more comfortable with mixed male-female groups.

Melissa: Which brings us to… the role of women in Saudi Arabia. It’s pretty much impossible to talk about Saudi Arabia without addressing the gender divide.

Melissa: In the 1980s, after the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Middle East was struck by a wave of conservatism. And that gender segregation landed hard in Saudi Arabia.

Melissa: Saudi women are still legally classified as minors for their entire lives with many significant decisions made for them by their husbands or a male relative, including permission to get married, starting certain kinds of businesses, and leaving prison even after they’ve completed their sentences.

Melissa: But there is some progress in women’s rights. In 2017, the king of Saudi Arabia issued a decree that allowed women to drive. Prior to that, Saudi Arabia was the only country that banned women drivers. Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, women can also get their own passports, travel abroad, and live independently without the permission of a male guardian. The laws about women’s dress have also been relaxed. Traditionally, women were required to wear an abaya and niqab — that’s a long, flowing robe and headscarf, but women are no longer legally required to wear the abaya in public.

Melissa: That’s all better, but then in 2022, a new law was passed that states married women are required to obey their husbands in a ‘reasonable manner,’ and a husband’s financial support is contingent on his wife’s obedience.

Melissa: Generally, women are not allowed to spend time outside the home with men to whom they’re not related. That’s meant that workplaces, restaurants, beaches, and public transport have been segregated or were not open to women. As of 2019, restaurants are no longer required to have separate entrances for men and women.

Melissa: These changes are part of Vision 2030. It’s the plan devised by MBS to modernize the country and create, quote, ‘a vibrant society, a thriving economy, and an ambitious nation.’ He’s said he wants to, quote, ‘eradicate the remnants of extremism’ and embrace a more moderate version of Islam.

Melissa: As you might expect, it’s gotten a mixed reaction. The NYTimes called it a ‘tall order for a government that has killed a newspaper columnist, kidnapped and tortured dissidents, precipitated a humanitarian crisis in Yemen and imprisoned people for supporting gay rights, among a number of other recent abuses.’

Melissa: In March 2024, the Saudi ambassador to the UN was elected as chair of the Commission on the Status of Women. A rep from Amnesty International said, ‘Saudi Arabia’s own record on women’s rights is abysmal, and a far cry from the mandate of the commission.’

Melissa: This research was tough because it’s impossible from here to know what it’s like on the ground in Saudi Arabia. I’ve photos of women completely veiled on the beach while kids and men wear bathing suits in the sea. I saw another photo of a young woman riding a skateboard, alone at night, in an abaya and Converse Chuck Taylors, with her head uncovered. I read news stories about women-only workplaces where the women are thriving. No abayas required.

Melissa: At the Luna food factory in Jeddah, a woman named Fatima Albasisi is the supervisor a. She oversees 90 female workers. She said, ‘All the women you see here do everything themselves. If there’s a problem with the machines, they can fix it. If I could, I’d have a factory entirely run by women, no men at all. In my experience, women show up to work on time and make fewer mistakes.’

Melissa: So, given all of that, what are the reasons to visit Saudi Arabia?

Melissa: Full disclosure: Until I started doing the research, I didn’t even know we COULD visit Saudi Arabia.

Melissa: In 2019, Saudi Arabia made tourist visas available to the citizens of 66 countries. The Kingdom’s goal is to have 150 million tourists visit by 2030, and they’re making travel there easier. Road signs, menus, and maps are usually in English, alongside the Arabic — and Western credit cards are widely accepted. They have Uber and high-speed rail. Men and women can rent a car with an international driver’s license.

Melissa: And it turns out, there’s a lot to see and do. I can only touch on a few highlights here, so don’t skip the links I’m putting in show notes.

Melissa: If you’re interested in history and rugged desert beauty, you could explore AlUla. It’s a living museum with historic buildings and preserved tombs, all surrounded by dramatic sandstone formations. Looking at the photos, I could easily imagine an Indiana Jones adventure set there.

Melissa: Near UlAla is Jabal Ikmah, a rock formation also known as the ‘Open Library.’ Thousands of ancient inscriptions are carved into the red stone cliffs dating from the 600s BCE. The inscriptions are in 10 different languages, all pre-dating Arabic. There are people’s names, bits about local laws, religious rituals, and sales records. It’s sort of an ancient version of the graffiti on a bathroom wall: Melissa + David 4 Ever. There are also drawings of tools, human figures, and animals, including camels, goats, and what’s described as a ‘conspicuously muscular bull.’

Melissa: Saudi Arabia is the second-largest grower of dates in the world. In the West, we usually eat medjool dates. They’re mahogany-colored and about the size of your thumb. But there are hundreds of varieties of dates. Some are small, black, and glossy. Others are caramel-colored, or bright yellow and red. Saudi Arabia produces about a dozen types. The Al-Ahsa Oasis in eastern Saudi Arabia is home to 2 1/2 million date palm trees. The photos are amazing — it’s a sea of lush green palm fronds in the middle of the desert. You can tour the oasis, have a picnic, take a 4X4 jeep safari to Al-Asfar Lake, and explore nearby caves.

Melissa: If you’re more drawn to splashing in the Red Sea, you can swim and snorkel in Umluj, which is often called the Maldives of Saudi Arabia. The water is an otherwordly shade of turquoise, and it’s home to 1200 fish species and 300 types of coral. There are also dolphins!

Melissa: If you think Saudi Arabia might be the right place for your next adventure, I found an article from Conde Nast Traveler with helpful tips for travelers to the Kingdom. It ends with a quote I’m going to borrow to wrap this up: ‘You need to be flexible, willing to ask people for advice, and a little bit lucky. If you are looking for an easy trip, this isn’t it — but if you’re ready for an adventure, to experience new things, there is so much to see in Saudi Arabia, and the people are wonderful and excited to share their culture.’

Melissa: That’s the Saudi Arabia 101.

[music: now two truths and a lie]

David: I’m about to say three statements. Two of them are true. Mel doesn’t know which is the lie. First statement: In Saudi Arabia, there’s an anti-witchcraft crime unit. Second statement: Saudi Arabia imports sand. Third statement: The 2029 Asian Winter Games are scheduled to occur in a city in Saudi Arabia that does not exist.

David: Okay, so first, we’re going to talk about crime in Saudi Arabia. It’s going to get dark for a bit. If you don’t want to hear about it, you might want to skip the next four minutes or so. But. I thought this was fascinating. You might too.

David: The statement is: In Saudi Arabia, there’s an anti-witchcraft crime unit. I think it’s a lie, but I’m not entirely sure. There certainly was one. And recently too.

David: This starts with the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The locals know it as just “the committee.” They are the moral police. In 2013, they appointed a new head to that department. He outlined the duties of the Committee this way. He said, ‘There are five areas the religious police should focus on: preserving Islam, preventing blackmail, combating sorcery, fighting human trafficking, and ensuring that no one disobeys the country’s rulers.’ That sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

David: So, among other things, the Committee would make sure that nobody was trading in drugs or alcohol, they would check to make sure women were wearing the abaya, they would make sure that men and women who are seen together in public are related, and they would prevent the population from engaging in frivolous behavior like sending Valentine’s Day gifts and playing with Pokemon cards. That last part sounds like I made that up, but that’s true. Until 2016, the Committee could make arrests, conduct interrogations, and carry out searches without a warrant. If they think you’re carrying a Pikachu card, it’s up against the wall, right now.

David: In 2009 — fifteen years ago — this group established an Anti-Witchcraft Unit. Of course they did. The unit was charged with apprehending sorcerers and reversing the detrimental effects of their spells. At the time, some Western media outlets reported on it with stories with the tone, ‘Isn’t that quaint? I bet they’re using that to convince people to be less superstitious.’

David: They were not. The Anti-Witchcraft Unit hunted for magic users. They had a hotline so people could report their suspicious neighbors. In 2009, 118 people were charged with witchcraft. As recently as 2012, a man accused of sorcery was beheaded. With a sword. In a public square.

David: It is hard for me to reconcile that while Obama was in office, when ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ was in theaters, while Carly Rae Jepsen was getting famous with ‘Call Me Maybe,’ a man was beheaded for being a witch. I don’t understand Bluetooth, but I don’t go around executing people for it. It’s worth noting that Saudi Arabia does not have a formal legal definition of witchcraft. It is up to the judges’ discretion.

David: There are only two countries in the world where witchcraft is currently legislated; the other is Cameroon.

David: The reason that I don’t know whether it still exists is because the prime minister, in 2016, took steps to de-fang the Committee. They were no longer allowed to arrest or detain people. They had to report crimes to the police like everybody else.

David: I would like to believe that was the end of the Anti-Witchcraft Unit. It was certainly the end of reporting about the Anti-Witchcraft Unit. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. And move on.

David: Saudi Arabia imports sand. That’s true! — Sand, gravel, and cement are used to make concrete. Desert sand is too fine to use in concrete. It’s tiny and round and doesn’t pack together as well. What you want there is river sand. It’s more angular; the edges are sharper. One is eroded by wind, the other by water. If you had a handful of both, you could feel the difference.

David: So, while Saudi Arabia is home to the Arabian Desert, the fifth largest desert in the world. They import river sand from as far away as Australia and Canada. It’s hard to think about freighters moving sand that far, but that’s where we’re at.

David: The sand industry is in a crisis. For starters, we don’t know how much we use — but it’s a whole lot. The UN estimated in 2019 that the planet uses about 40 billion tons a year. That’s enough sand to build an 89-foot wall that wraps around the earth. Every year. And that makes sand the second most-consumed raw material in the world — right after water. Experts are worried that we’re running out.

David: CNBC did a video explainer about it. So did PBS. They’re both on YouTube. I found them fascinating. We’ll point to those in our show notes.

David: The 2029 Asian Winter Games are scheduled to occur in a city in Saudi Arabia that doesn’t exist. That is true. We need to talk about Neom.

David: In 2017, the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia unveiled a new project of unprecedented scale. It’s called Neom. People have called it a planned city, but it’s much larger than that. Much, much larger.

David: For starters, the Neom project extends over an area the size of Massachusetts.

David: I’m going to tell you about three pieces of Neom. These are subprojects. These are line items on the ‘to do’ list of Neom. This is a partial list.

David: First, there’s a building called The Line. It is a single building. It was initially intended to be 170 kilometers long, about 110 miles and 200 meters, or about 660 feet wide. If you can imagine a line of Empire State buildings 110 miles long, you’ll be on the right path. Inside The Line is a car-free city large enough to house nine million residents. That’s the population of New York City and then some.

David: The second item on our Neom to-do list is called Sindalah. Forbes described Sindalah as ‘A seven-star private island resort with 3 ultra-lux hotels and 38 high-end restaurants and multiple super yacht marinas.’ First, today, I learned that the star scale goes up to seven. I thought it was capped at five. Maybe I need to get out more. Plans for the island resort are rolling along. Marriott has said they’ll have three properties open there this year. Four Seasons is also building there. Soon, we can take the yacht down to Sindalah.

David: And then — our third item — let me tell you about Trojena. Trojena is “a space-age ski resort.” The mountains in northwest Saudi Arabia get some snow, so they’re going to build a family of resorts there. Trojena will have over 20 miles of ski slopes or over 35 kilometers. There will also be 3600 hotel rooms, a 3,000-seat amphitheater, luxurious homes and condos for sale, and a huge manmade lake. And, in 2029, Trojena will host the Asian Winter Olympics.

David: Will they make it?

David: Probably? … Maybe? … The Line has already been scaled down, according to Bloomberg. In April, there was an announcement that the Line would only be 2.4 kilometers, or about a mile and a half. And they’re planning on having 300,000 people living there by 2030. Still an outrageously large building, but not what it was.

David: From what I read, the Sindalah island resort is on track for guests this year. This seems amazing to me, given that the project was only announced in 2022.

David: Trojena, the ski resort, is scheduled to open in 2026. They currently have 140,000 construction workers on site throughout the Neom project. There’s a city of people working on Trojena right now.

David: There are videos for all of these projects. The videos themselves are a piece of work. They exude a science-fiction aesthetic. Which is the intent, of course. The design of these projects is not: let’s slap a hotel here. The design of these projects is intended to be awe-inspiring and unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

David: Neom’s overall intention is to help steer Saudi Arabia from dependence on oil. They want to be a global tourism juggernaut. You can’t do that by showing people something they can get at home.

David: Neom has been called ‘the most ambitious project of all time.’ So far, an estimated $500 billion dollars has been spent building cities in the desert. And they’re not done yet.

Melissa: My first recommendation is City of Veils by Zoë Ferraris. This is a police procedural — a murder mystery — set in modern Jeddah. It features an unlikely investigative duo: a Bedouin desert guide named Nayir, and Katya, a young woman who works in the lab of the coroner’s office.

Melissa: So right away, this should sort of prick up your ears. Nayir is a man. He is, in fact, a very devout Islamic man. His mother died when he was young, so he has very little experience with women.

Melissa: Through a series of circumstances, he’s teamed up with Katya. They are not related. But their friends! Sort of. And colleagues. Kind of. And she works outside the house! In the coroner’s office! This is all… complicated and unusual.

Melissa: This relationship between the two of them — sometimes prickly, sometimes romantic — is a good peek inside the contradictions of living in Saudi Arabia. The two have a genuine respect for each other. But they’re both troubled by the compromises they have to make in their value systems to be… whatever it is they are to each other.

Melissa: The author Zoë Ferraris is American — she was born in Oklahoma. But in 1991, she married a man from Saudi Arabia and lived for nine months in Jeddah with her in-laws in a conservative Muslim community. She’s seen the male-female dynamic in the Kingdom from the inside, and she does a good job presenting both perspectives without judgment.

Melissa: Nayir and Katya are the primary relationship in the novel. Their personal drama plays out in the periphery of crime story — which also explores the role of women in Saudi society.

Melissa: When the book opens, we’re thrust into two mysteries.

Melissa: First, an American women is reluctantly returning to her husband in Saudi Arabia after a trip to the USA. Their relationship feels strained, very tense. We don’t know why, and then a thing happens and the mystery deepens.

Melissa: Meanwhile, a woman’s body washes up on the beach. She’s been brutally beaten — but there’s not a lot of momentum behind identifying her and finding her killer. The attitude is: Women disappear or are victims of violence all the time. She’s probably just an immigrant housemade killer by her employer.

Melissa: But Katya, in her role at the coroner’s office, doesn’t want to let it go. She finds support in surprising places in the police department — and she recruits her pal Nayir to help with some off-the-books poking around. They learn the victim was a film maker who made controversial documentaries about prostitution and violence against women. She has a reputation as a bit of an agitator.

Melissa: Eventually, the threads of the two mysteries — the dead girl and the troubled American couple — weave together in a very satisfying way.

Melissa: The aspect of this story that grabbed me by the throat is the contradictions. The government has opened up jobs to women — they want women to work outside the home — but to do that, Katya has to pretend she’s married.

Melissa: The investigation leads the detectives to a lingerie shop that has sexy window displays filled with racy, lacy undergarments. But the women in the owner’s family are required to be completely veiled.

Melissa: Nayir admires Katya and enjoys her company. He’s physically attracted to her. But all of that is torment for him, too, because he worries that his thoughts make him unclean. And they’re just out there doing normal stuff, like, eating lunch or having a conversation. At one point, they go to Starbucks for a coffee, and later Nayir thinks this:

Melissa: One of the things about seeing Katya — and he couldn’t simply blame Starbucks for this — was that afterward, he felt plagued by indecision. Should he go to the mosque or pray at home? Was it all right to watch an hour of satellite TV? He couldn’t even figure out what he wanted for dinner. With Katya, he was confronted with an obvious, nagging inconsistency: it was immodest and wrong to be in the company of an unmarried woman. But if it could put them on the path to a legitimate union, was it really wrong? How had this confusion been brought about? … It seemed that his looseness with Katya had primed him for doubt. If he had to break the rules in order to get married, then why couldn’t he break the rules about less important things? How important were his little decisions anyway?

Melissa: This book has a very strong sense of place. It’s hot. So brutally hot. And from the very beginning, there’s an taut atmosphere of dread, a heaviness in all the interactions people have with each other. Partly from the heat, partly from the emotional overhead of the rules that govern everything they do.

Melissa: I found it dark and rewarding, although I’m not sure it made the experience of being in Saudi Arabia any clearer for me. The characters in the book also seem confounded by everyday life there. There’s plenty to chew on while the characters resolved a knotty mystery. It’s City of Veils by Zoë Ferraris.

David: My first book is ‘MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed Bin Salman’ by Ben Hubbard. This is non-fiction about the life of the heir apparent to the Kingdom, as they call it. It’s really well written, but, boy, this is a lot.

David: Mohammed Bin Salman is one of the most powerful men on earth. He’s currently the Saudi Prime Minister. His dad is the king, and his dad’s health is poor. Several years ago, the king passed most of his duties to MBS, as he is frequently called. As a result, MBS has been the effective Saudi leader since about 2017.

David: MBS did not get to where he is because he was born first in line. He was his father’s seventh son, the first child of his third wife. When he was born, his father was not the king. His father was, in fact, the 25th son of his father. But through ambition, and tenacity, and the disappearance of more than a few rivals in the middle of the night, MBS has arrived.

David: Maybe the first third to half of this book is about his childhood and ascension. And you might think it’d be confusing with all the players and whatnot. It is not. It is well told.

David: And then we get to the question: well, what’s he going to do, now that he’s rich and powerful? And we get a very complete answer to that. Some of it is ‘rich people being rich people.’ What’s the use of being vastly wealthy if you can’t have fun occasionally?

David: One afternoon in 2015, he impulse-purchased a yacht. It’s one of the largest in the world. He bought it from a Russian vodka oligarch. Saw it, had to have it. The deal was reportedly for about half a billion dollars. It has two helipads and an underwater viewing room. There’s a snow room. That was a new one for me. It’s a room that simulates falling snow. When the yacht is running, it needs a crew of about 50 for 24 guests.

David: Later, MBS was said to have bought a painting by Leonardo da Vinci for about half a billion dollars, which he then installed on his yacht. Doubling the value of his yacht. He has denied this, but others have reported seeing it.

David: With his wealth and power, MBS has done some good things.

David: In Two Truths and a Lie, I told you about the prime minister who reduced the power of the religious police. He was that prime minister.

David: He’s broadened the rights of women. Made it more socially acceptable for them to drive, for instance. A law was enacted that allowed women over 21 to get a passport without the permission of their male guardians. Mothers can get immediate custody of their children after divorce, instead of filing an additional lawsuit.

David: He’s the guiding force behind Neom, that enormous futuristic project I mentioned. He seems very intent on increasing tourism in the Kingdom, and he understands that it requires some acceptance of ‘the other’ that might have been missing.

David: So, he’s a reformer. But he’s also an autocrat.

David: In 2017, he rounded up 200 Saudi princes and businessmen and put them under house arrest at The Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh. According to the Guardian, they were tortured and blackmailed. Some of them went to prison after. 17 had to be hospitalized. It was all whitewashed as an ‘anti-corruption’ campaign, but I’m not sure anyone believes that.

David: Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi-born columnist for The Washington Post. He was critical of MBS. In October 2018, he walked into a Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get some documents. He was getting married. He was apprehended and murdered. The CIA, the New York Times, and the Turkish government all independently came to the conclusion that MBS was behind it.

David: It does not seem to have gotten better recently. Even in the last year, MBS’s government executed a 54-year-old retired teacher because they didn’t like his tweets. He had 10 followers. You can imagine how chilling that might be on the criticism of his leadership.

David: About a third of the way through the book, Jarad Kushner enters. And I was like, ‘Right. That guy. Together with this guy. Haven’t really enjoyed their work separately. Not looking forward to seeing what they do together.’ I was reminded that Kushner had taken two billion dollars from the Saudi family six months after his father-in-law left office. What was that for? It turns out the MBS’s financial advisors were against that investment. But it was a request from the king apparent, so they let it go.

David: I tell you all of this to say: there’s a lot in this book. The author, Ben Hubbard, is the Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times. He knows what he’s talking about, and he knows how to write about it for a general audience. I should mention that Mohammed Bin Salman is just 39. We will be hearing the rest of his story for decades.

David: I found this book to be an informative dark ride. If you’re interested in the subject, absolutely pick it up. It’s ‘MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed Bin Salman’ by Ben Hubbard.

Melissa: My second recommendation is a cookbook — ‘Cardamom and Lime: Recipes from the Arabian Gulf’ by Sarah al-Hamad.

Melissa: As you know if you listened to our previous episode about Lebanon, I’m 31% Lebanese, and I love Middle Eastern food. Hummus, stuffed grape leaves, kibbeh, tabbouleh. Recipes made with tahini and yogurt, eggplant, cumin, pistachios, apricots. That’s my stuff.

Melissa: So I didn’t plan to read a cookbook for this episode. Then I learned that the cuisine of the Gulf is quite different from the Middle Eastern food I ate growing up.

Melissa: This book explores the cuisine of six countries that surround the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia.

Melissa: Before oil was discovered in the region, most people made a living through trading — and their diet was mostly dates and dairy. Arabia was in a sweet spot for trade between India and Africa. Traditional Arab boats called dhows brought long-grain rice and spices like cardamom, cloves, saffron, and curry powder from India.

Melissa: Pearling was also a major industry. In the late 19th century, most of the population of the Arabian Gulf was involved in pearling. The pearl diver would jump off the edge of a dhow into the cold, dark water with a woven bag around his neck, a clip made from wood or sheep’s bone on his nose, and a rope tied around his leg to connect him to a partner on the deck. Every captain hired musicians to play fijiri music to hype up the divers. I’ll put a video in show notes so you can hear it. It’s very rhythmic and sinuous.

Melissa: By the 1920s and ’30s, pearling died out in the Gulf, but there’s still a strong connection to the sea. And that shows in fish dishes that are very common. One of the recipes in this book is called Ultimate Fish on Rice. (It’s a whole fish served on a bed of rice cooked with cinnamon and cardamom, then the whole thing is sprinkled with a topping made from dried lime powder, onions, and cilantro.)

Melissa: Because alcohol is forbidden in Arab countries, food is a big deal. It’s a way to celebrate family, offer hospitality, and even compete. This quote from the book made me laugh and then furrow my eyebrows: Food is ‘a form of one-upmanship… a boredom buster, and an arena for female competitiveness. Recipes are coveted and secretly exchanged; specialities are shown off at gatherings.’

Melissa: Three ingredients are essential to Gulf cuisine: rice, dates, and dried lime.

Melissa: In the Gulf, rice is called ‘aish, which means living. According to the author, it’s ‘inconceivable’ for lunch to be served without rice. One of the most ubiquitous rice dishes is machbous. Lamb, chicken, or fish is braised with onions and spices, then the leftover spicy water is used to cook the rice. It’s sort of like the Gulf version of rice pilaf or an Indian biryani.

Melissa: Combining sweet and savory is typical of Gulf cuisine, so rice dishes might be cooked with raisins and then have crispy onions sprinkled on top. There’s always a bowl of dates on the table during a meal, and it’s common to eat them between courses, or even between bites of savory foods.

Melissa: There are two date recipes in this book that caught my eye. The first one is rice cooked with date syrup, cinnamon, and rosewater. The author says it’s ‘seriously sweet’ and is eaten to contrast with lamb or fish dishes.

Melissa: There’s also a dessert recipe for dates in butter sauce. You stuff walnut halves inside dates, then cook them in melted butter mixed with a little flour, so the dates are enveloped in a buttery shell.

Melissa: The final essential ingredient is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the dates: dried limes, also called black limes because they turn black after drying in the sun. They can be used sliced, chopped, or ground into a powder. The flavor of dried lime is described as citrusy, but also earthy and smoky from the drying process. Dried lime is a key ingredients in meat and veggie stews. I’m very interested in a recipe called Divine Lentil Soup — it has garlic, ginger, curry, and vermicelli noodles mixed into the lentils. I’m just waiting on my delivery of dried limes to try it.

Melissa: This cookbook is not like some of the others I’ve recommended. It’s not a travelogue, and it doesn’t have a lot of text, but I found the details it does include really interesting — and the photos are strikin, too. I liked seeing the different street markets and food shops — but was also noticed the lack of women in any of the photos. The kitchen is the domain of women, but the shops are not. That’s Cardamom and Lime: Recipes from the Arabian Gulf by Sarah al-Hamad

David: My second book is ‘The Green Bicycle’ by Haifa Al Mansour. This is a story about a girl from Riyadh. She’s about 10. She’s living a life — family, school, other kids. And one day, she sees a green bicycle that she really, really wants.

David: I think in many places, that’s not much of a setup to a story. The girl, her name is Wadjda, would get a job, save her money, maybe ask her parents for a little, perhaps even just wait for a holiday, and, pretty soon, she’d proudly be riding up and down the streets of her hometown.

David: This book does an excellent job of explaining why it’s not that easy in Saudi Arabia.

David: For starters, she and her mother are alone most of the time. And they are struggling financially. Her dad works on an oil rig. And, it turns out, he’s romancing a second wife. Because his first can’t provide him with a son.

David: That little bit sets up one of the magics of fiction for me. Because I knew that polygamy exists; it’s not even that rare. I looked it up, and, out of the 200 or so sovereign states, 58 of them allow polygamy.

David: But in fiction, we get to slow down and think about specific moments. Unpack it a little bit; feel it a little bit. Like what’s the wife thinking when dad comes home and says I’m marrying someone else because you can’t give me a son. Or, what if he doesn’t tell her? He just marries someone else? And she finds out from a friend or a relative or an announcement at her place of worship? And what’s the impact on the children of that first wife? What if you love your dad and think he’s a great guy, but then he marries another woman? Doesn’t leave your mom, just adds another family to the mix. Where are you supposed to go with those feelings?

David: And we’re just getting started with this book.

David: This is a great book because it reads like YA but if you stop and hear what she’s saying, it punches like an adult book. It reminded me a little bit of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ It’s a story from a child’s perspective, and you can read it that way, but we’re really talking about a society.

David: So, we walk through the beats you might expect in this story: Wadjda sets up a business, asks her family to help, and goes back and admires the bicycle. But those all have distinctly Saudi flavor to them. And we’re given a few things that you might not expect: like how Saudi society frowns on girls riding bicycles, and how that plays out, specifically. Teachers have conversations. The kids taunt. Her own mother says, ‘You won’t be able to have children if you ride a bicycle.’

David: This book is an adaptation of a movie. The movie is called, ‘Wadjda.’ Both the screenplay and the book were written by the movie’s director. Her name is Haifaa Al Mansour. When Mansour was asked about her story, she said: ‘I couldn’t make a film where women are all innocent and they’re all striving to be free and all that; it’s not real,” she says. “I think a lot of women are the gatekeepers, a lot of women reinforce the values … For me, it was not making women all the victims, and men are the oppressors.’

David: As you might expect, the book is very faithful to the movie. But, also, the movie is a good movie and the book is a good book. The book brings more depth, more of the culture. I got a better sense of what’s happening in the character’s heads. I got more of the family dynamics. But: the movie is also very solid. We watched the movie first, and it made following the book very easy, and it gave me a sense of what these characters and locations might look like. For instance, I now know what a toy store in Riyadh might look like. I have a better idea of what a modern Saudi mom might be wearing in her home. That kind of thing.

David: ‘Wadjda’ the movie was the first full-length feature ever shot in Saudi Arabia. The movie came out in 2012. The book came out a few years later. In interviews, Mansour has talked about her experience directing the film. Because unrelated men and women can’t be on the street together, she had to direct some scenes from a van. She’d sit in the truck with a screen and a walkie-talkie and tell people what to do.

David: When she made it, the film couldn’t be shown in Saudi Arabia. There was a blackout on motion pictures for 35 years from 1983 until 2018. That didn’t stop good trade in satellite TV and DVDs, but no theaters.

David: Mansour has gone on to great success. She directed a movie in 2017 about Mary Shelley. Elle Fanning was the lead in that. She directed a spot for Nike, and a bunch of TV episodes: ‘Tales of the Walking Dead’ and ‘Bosch: Legacy,’ and a bunch of others. Right now, she’s back in Saudi Arabia, shooting a crime picture called ‘Unidentified.’ She also co-wrote the screenplay for that. I’d love to hear her talk about the differences she’s seen in the last twelve years, but I expect that will have to wait until she’s done with this new one.

David: In any case, this book is ‘The Green Bicycle.’ If you’re curious about the story and Saudi culture, I’d start with the movie it’s based on. That’s called ‘Wadjda.’ If you want more, read ‘The Green Bicycle.’ Both the book and the movie are from Haiffa Al Mansour.

Melissa: My final recommendation is Eight Months on Gazzah Street by Hilary Mantel.

Melissa: Hilary Mantel is the author of 12 novels, two story collections, a memoir and dozens of essays. But if you recognize her name, it’s probably because of her blockbuster trilogy: ‘Wolf Hall,’ ‘Bring Up the Bodies,’ and ‘The Mirror and the Light.’

Melissa: The tone and style of this book is completely different, and the story itself is pretty straight-forward: It’s an account of eight months in the life of a British couple, Andrew and Frances, living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Melissa: The book opens with Frances on a plane to Jeddah. She’s on her way to be reunited with her husband. He’s an architect who’s already been working and living in Saudi Arabia for a few months. From the first page, there’s a strong sense of foreboding, and the contradictions are already beginning. People on the plane are drinking alcohol like it’s their job. Men across the aisle are a bit nosy and flirty — in an unsettling way. It’s loud and boisterous. As they approach the airport, the steward says to Frances, ‘Listen, if anything goes wrong, if by some mischance hubby’s not there, don’t hang about, don’t speak to anybody, get straight in our airline bus and come downtown with us to the Hyatt Regency.’ When Frances says that’s not necessary, she can just take a taxi, the steward replies, ‘You’re a woman, aren’t you? You’re not a person any more.’

Melissa: Frances isn’t reassured when she’s safely inside the apartment rented for them by Andrew’s employer. One of the doors to the hallway is bricked up, the other windows face walls — all the better to keep the woman inside from being seen by people outside.

Melissa: Her first full day on her own is a Gothic-tinged waking nightmare. When her husband leaves for work, he locks her in the apartment. It’s an oversight, he didn’t intentionally make her a prisoner, but she feels like one. When she makes the foolish decision to take a walk in the neighborhood, she’s almost done in by the oppressive heat. She’s shouted at by men in cars. Back in the apartment, she finds they share their living space with enormous cockroaches. And although the apartment overhead is empty, she hears mysterious footsteps walking its floors.

Melissa: As time passes, Frances gets to know her neighbors and the other expat husbands and wives — while the mystery about what’s happening in the apartment above deepens.

Melissa: This novel feels like Dame Hilary read books by Patricia Highsmith and Daphne du Maurier, and thought, ‘Oooh, I like that. But what if I did it like this?!’ then made it all a little more literary. Her approach to this story simultaneously suspenseful and languid — it mirrors what I suspect being an outsider in Saudi Arabia would be like. Crushingly boring, way too hot, somewhat dangerous, and impenetrable.

Melissa: In her previous life, our heroine Frances was a successful cartographer. Now she’s got nothing to do all day except visit with her neighbors and peek over the wall of the rooftop to watch life below.

Melissa: Her friendships with the other women in the building are stilted, although they do try. The contrast between her neighbors’ public, veiled selves and the women they are when it’s just women is nearly impossible to navigate.

Melissa: It’s no better with the expat wives. The other British women live like repressed 1950s housewives. They have nothing to do all day because they can’t go out unchaperoned. They have two primary activities: grocery shopping — which they can only do with their husbands when they get home from work — and hosting dinner parties with other expats. Those dinners are miserable, debauched evenings. They drink too much of the homemade wine they ferment in plastic jugs, argue about politics, brag, and fret about money.

Melissa: The details of the story are based in reality. In the early 1980s, Dame Hilary’s husband accepted a job in Saudi Arabia. They lived in Jeddah for four years — and she’s very frank in essays about how much she hated it. She famously said that leaving Jeddah was the happiest moment of her life.

Melissa: I went deep down a rabbit hole with the book and devoured all of Dame Hilary’s nonfiction essays about her time in Saudi Arabia, too. In 1987, her essay ‘Last Morning in Al Hamra’ won a travel writing prize. The judges said they ‘particularly admired her ability to convey not only the discovery of a culture new to her but also the distaste which the discovery aroused.’ I’ll put the links in show notes, in case you want to read them, too.

Melissa: I love Gothic novels, and this book ticks many of the boxes that make a dark read rewarding. But it’s sobering to remember that this isn’t set in a far-away fantasy land with an over-the-top villain. It’s grounded in reality. And although it’s almost historical fiction now that it’s 40-ish years old, it’s unclear how much has really changed. It’s ‘Eight Months on Gazzah Street’ by Hilary Mantel.

David: Those are five books we love, set in Saudi Arabia. We’ll show you the videos of Neom and include a trailer for ‘Wadjda.’

David: Mel, where are we going for our next episode?

Melissa: We’re gonna dance the samba in Brazil.

David: We’ll talk to you then.

[cheerful music]

Top image courtesy of NEOM/Unsplash.