Happy New Year

New Year’s Eve is a concept without much currency in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia mostly follows the Islamic calendar, so their new year came about a month and a half ago. Everyone knows that the Gregorian calendar exists, and I’m sure that most people read in the newspaper that its 2011th year came to an end a few days ago. But if anyone was excited about it, they did a good job of keeping it to themselves.

Saturday and Sunday are also not considered particularly special here. The weekend is Thursday and Friday, so Saturday means only a sad return to the daily grind. Sunday is as meaningless as Tuesday is in the West. There are TGI Friday’s restaurants scattered around the city, and I sometimes wonder what Saudis think about the name. Friday is the Islamic sabbath, though, so I suppose that thanking God for it here is even more appropriate than it is in America.

This is all to say that my New Year’s Eve this past Saturday was not especially exciting. This was finals week at the University, so I had to spend the 31st and the 1st proctoring writing exams (proctoring being known here by its British name, “invigilation”). Some of my housemates went to a New Year’s party at the Marine House on the US Embassy grounds, but I wasn’t able to get a ticket. And to be honest, I wasn’t that sad about it. The thought of being able to drink actual Scotch and eat actual pork ribs was very appealing. But drinking until two in the morning, getting three hours of sleep, and then driving to work to stand and glower at undergraduates all day sounded just terrible.

My day was brightened considerably, though, by this drawing of Mickey Mouse that I found in my afternoon classroom. When I saw it, I was astounded that any of the students here would be able to make something like that. Creativity is for the most part frowned upon in Saudi Arabia. Some of latest generation are starting to break out and express their individuality through choices in clothing and music. For example, it is not uncommon to see a kid walking around in a thaub and sandals, but with a Pelle Pelle leather jacket on over it and a flat 59/50 baseball cap cocked to the left. But artistry is basically considered to be evil, so the counterculture comix Mickey was surprising.

Driving home, though, I learned that it was actually drawn by a teacher. One of my housemates worked with him that day and saw him draw it, in about three minutes. Apparently he used to be a serious artist/graphic designer, but got sick of being poor and decided to make some money teaching English in the Gulf. Artists pensions being what they are (nonexistent), that was probably a good idea.

For Sale in Saudi, Part 2

This box of rat poison is fascinating on many levels. First of all, it is a good example of a cartoon of an animal being used to sell the death of that animal. In this sense, it is in the same category as the barbecue joints in America that have signs featuring cartoon pigs wearing aprons, busily cooking other pigs for supper. In a weird twist, though, the mouse is laughing. At what, I don’t know. Not the inevitability of its own death, surely. That would be a little too Nietzschean. Other mice who have died as a result of this poison? Still too dark for a mainstream product like this.

On another level, this is a great example of the blatant copyright violations that occur in the third world. This mouse is obviously Jerry from the MGM cartoon, Tom and Jerry. If this product were sold in the West, the company would be sued by MGM for copyright infringement and forced to pay a lot of money. But Saudi is more like Africa, where companies can do pretty much whatever they want.

For me, though, the Arabic on the package is the most interesting thing. The name of the product (at the top, in gold) is Dusturaat. Normally, I would read this as the plural of the feminine word dustura. (In Arabic, feminine words ending in -a are made plural by adding an -aat, in the same way that the plural of the Hebrew yeshiva is yeshivot.) But my dictionary doesn’t have an entry for dustura. What it does have an entry for is the very common masculine noun dustur, which means “constitution” (and possibly “rule” or “permission”).* But first of all, the plural of dustur is dusaatir (masculine Arabic plurals are formed irregularly, like foot/feet), and second of all, what does any of that have to do with rat poison?

I asked my students, and they had no ideas (though that is par for the course). But I do know two things that might explain it. First of all, there is a tendency in popular Arabic to do away with the complicated masculine plurals. Adding -aat to the end of a masculine word is much easier than memorizing separate plurals for thousands of different nouns. This is like how Middle English speakers mostly did away with strong inflections of the foot/feet, ox/oxen type and decided to just add an -s or -es to the end of everything they wanted to make plural. So maybe this is a popular plural inflection of the masculine dustur.

But I am also left with the fact that this is rat poison and the Arabic word ends in “-rat.” This could be a coincidence, but it makes me think that this is meant as a winking bilingual pun. They created a portmanteau linking a word for what is done to the word that it is done to, like the American eyeglasses chain “Optimeyes.” This poison gives someone power over rats, the ability to rule rats, right? Maybe I’m stretching things. Maybe the poison’s manufacturer would not reasonably expect that level of bilingualism in their target audience. But it makes as much sense to me as any other explanation.

* Dustur itself is a strange word because of the number of consonants that it has. Arabic words, like Hebrew, Amharic, and other Semitic words, are mostly based on a sequence of three consonants. These root consonants give a basic sense of meaning, and then other letters are added here and there to produce different variations on the basic meaning. So the Arabic root K-T-B indicates a sense of writing, and from it are formed the words kitaab, “book,” kaatib, “writer,” maktab, “office” or “desk,” and so on. But dustur seems to have the root d-s-t-r, which is one too many letters.

After looking around a bit, I found that the Arabic dustur actually comes from the Persian dastwar, meaning “instruction,” “direction,” “grammar,” and so on. Dast is the Persian word for “hand” and is used in a number of different compounds. So the original word means, roughly, “that which is given by the hand” or somesuch. (Like the Latin mandamus.)

For Sale in Saudi, Part 1

I should admit at this point that it has been a month since my last post. My excuse is that I have been applying to graduate school and have therefore been devoting my free time to summarizing my life in 500 words or less. But I am determined that this will not be one of those blogs that people set up, make four posts on, and then abandon. So without further ado, I bring you For Sale in Saudi, Part 1:

During my second week here, I went to a Sears-style department store to buy a pair of shoes for work. While walking through the housewares section I came across this box. Having spent at that point almost two weeks without consuming a single alcoholic beverage, the display of this cocktail set struck me as cruel mockery. I have since come to understand that the Saudi people have a serious love of fruit juice and fruit juice mixtures (smoothies, shakes, etc.). In that context, this box makes more sense. But to me there remains palpable irony.

These next three items are clearly Chinese-made and therefore probably more appropriate to Chinglish-focused blogs. But they are so perfect that I just had to share them with someone. I imagine that “Imperiatorial Type” is a literal, software translation of a Chinese idiom meaning something like “fit for a king.” And I would like to point out that the three main characters are—in order—an airplane, a rabbit, and an octopus picture-fish.

This t-shirt was on sale at the Carrefour in my neighborhood. I have no idea where it is made, or what it is supposed to mean. I guess the general message is along the lines of “Save the Earth.” Straining further I imagine that “careeds” is meant to be a third-person singular verb linking the subject, “Earth,” with the object, “protection.” In retrospect, wish I had bought it.

I came across this package of cobra repellent in a dollar store in my neighborhood a couple of days after moving here. I will not lie to you: I was still a little freaked out about the fact that I was living in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia, and when I saw this I thought to myself, “Shit, do I have cobras in my apartment?” Because I have suffered through infestations of mice, ants, and cockroaches with what I considered to be aplomb, but cobras are another matter entirely.

In the months since this picture was taken, however, I have never heard of anyone ever seeing a snake within the city limits. I think that this repellent is probably something that a person buys before going on a camping excursion in the desert. You put one in each boot before going to sleep, or something like that. It probably wouldn’t hurt to pick up a box the next time I’m over there, though.