Hyperpandas

The term hypermarket is, I think, not used very much in the States. The type of store that it describes—a single big-box retailer combining the services of a supermarket and a department store—is of course very popular, and the term seems to be used by American academics and industry specialists. But for the most part the Wal-Marts, SuperTargets, and so on that fit this description use other terminology in their advertisements.

In Europe and the Middle East, however, hypermarket and the lone prefix hyper- are terms with great currency. In Saudi, a “market” (Arabic: suq) is a tiny grocer with a couple of aisles. As in New York, a “supermarket” is a tiny grocer with five or more aisles. (The Arabic word used for these places is usually aswaq, the plural of suq.) But when a place has a dozen or so aisles, high ceilings, bright halogen lighting, and a wide variety of foods and consumer goods, you have a “hypermarket.”

The most amusing consequence of all of this is that larger versions of the Saudi-based grocery chain “Panda” are called “HyperPanda.” The first time I heard this name, I was transported to a science-fiction world in which biological life has merged with technology to the point where species would be unrecognizable if compared with their present-day equivalents. All mammals have their own civilizations and live transdimensionally, moving between one universe and the next as easily as the Atreides traveled between their home world and the desert planet Dune. The transdimensional hyperpandas, though, have given in to sloth and spend the bulk of their resources constructing elaborate virtual worlds (“autoverses”) which consist of nothing but mile-high shafts of bamboo growing from a tiger-free earth. In their insatiable quest to find matter to grow these otherworldly Xanadus, they begin to consume planets and stars at such a rate that an alliance of other hyperspecies are compelled to intervene. The hyperpandas are forcibly devolved to the point where they can no longer move between dimensions, locking them forever in their thick, infinite jungles.

When I finally visited a HyperPanda, I was disappointed to find that it is actually just a big supermarket that sells lawn chairs and Lenovo laptops. Which I suppose is for the best.

Gum

I went downtown yesterday to run a couple of errands and two things happened. The most romantic and least interesting one was that while crossing Olaya Street to get to Jarir Bookstore, I stepped across a median that had been covered in sod. Since Riyadh is in the middle of one of the largest deserts on earth, it doesn’t have much natural vegetation. The Saudi government, though, puts a lot of effort into beautifying the city by planting palm trees, scrub bushes, and even grass on government-controlled land—including the many medians dividing the city’s streets and highways.

When I was walking to the median, the only thing going through my mind was the importance of avoiding the hundreds of drivers that were passing through the four lanes on either side. By now I have learned that Saudis (a) don’t care whether or not they hit you and (b) are such terrible drivers that they couldn’t avoid hitting you if they wanted to. So when I cross even a one-lane road I dart my head rapidly from side to side like a rabbit avoiding a predator.

But the grass that covered the median was the first grass I had walked on since I left America two months ago. Each step I took gave slightly as first the blades of grass bent, and then the black soil beneath compressed under my weight. I was struck by how strange it felt, and then by how strange it was that it felt so strange. I paused briefly before plunging across the other half of the street.

The more interesting thing that happened is that when I arrived later at a supermarket checkout lane, my bill came to 175.50 riyals. The riyal is the primary unit of currency in Saudi Arabia, and although it is technically divisible into 100 halala, in practice the lowest denomination that one ever really sees is a one-riyal note.* I have made hundreds of transactions since I arrived here in August, and only twice have I actually been given a 25 or 50 halala coin in change. Since a riyal is worth about twenty-five American cents, the vast majority of businesses do not even bother to put coins in the register. Instead, they simply price their goods to end in a whole number.

Grocers and supermarkets, though, don’t really have full control over their pricing. Agreements with individual brands and distributors, along with basic market economics, mean that some items are still priced at fractions of a riyal. They don’t want to put time and effort into distributing heavy coins to all of their cash registers, but they are also uncomfortable about what to do when a customer’s purchase comes exactly between one riyal and the next. If they always round up, the customer will get mad and complain. If they always round down, they will lose a lot of money over the course of the year. So they needed to find a way to make everyone happy and still avoid transporting thousands of pounds of coins across the Kingdom.

Enter chewing gum. In Saudi Arabia, small packets containing five strips of chewing gum universally cost 50 halala and are present in every checkout line. So if your grocery bill comes to exactly x riyals and 50 halala, the checkout guy gives you a stack of x paper riyals and a packet of chewing gum. Maybe you like to chew gum, and maybe you don’t. He doesn’t ask you. This is just how it works.

Note: The photo above shows the packet of chewing gum I was given in this transaction, along with the two 25 halala coins and one 50 halala coin I received in my previous fractional grocery transactions. All of these groupings are considered functionally equivalent by grocers, but only the gum tastes like cardamom.

* The Arabic word riyal is a cognate of the English word royal, and ultimately derives from a set of Spanish, French, Catalan, and Occitan names for currencies struck under the authority of a king (roy, roi, rex, etc.) in medieval Europe. The Arabic halala is a feminine form of the word halal, meaning either a crescent moon or any other crescent-shaped object.

Prayer Time

After one month in Riyadh, all of the non-Muslim teachers I worked with knew the timing of each of the five daily prayers, and many even knew the names. Most of these guys hadn’t set foot in an Arab country before coming here, hadn’t studied Islam in school, and weren’t particularly interested in religious issues. But in Saudi, businesses have to shut their doors during all prayer times, so Muslims and non-Muslims alike must take them into account as they plan their day.

The first prayer of the day is Fajr, which I had previously known only as “the prayer that woke me up in the middle of the night every night when I was in Turkey.” The Fajr call is made when the first light can be seen on the horizon—not dawn, just the moment when the sky begins to lighten the tiniest little bit. The actual prayer can legally be put off until just before sunrise, but the Muslims I know usually do it when it is called.

The next prayer, Dhuhr, doesn’t come until true, solar noon—when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. This is a long one, about thirty minutes, so it greatly complicates a non-Muslim’s lunch hour. Adding to the complexity is the fact that every business decides for itself when to close and open for the prayers. So in practice, Dhuhr closings are staggered enough that the entire period of 12 to 1 pm is an unreliable time to try and get anything done.

In Riyadh, the third prayer, `Asr, is called when an object’s shadow is as long as the object is tall—that is, when the sun is exactly halfway between noon and sunset. Currently, this is about 2:50. `Asr is theoretically a shorter prayer than Dhuhr, but the aforementioned staggering means that it is still difficult to go somewhere for a cup of tea until about 3:30.

After a week or two, I learned that some businesses are more flexible than others about the closing rules. A sizeable minority will lower their shades and lock the doors but allow those already inside to remain. Department stores, for example, all do this. And some places—like the Texas Chicken* just off the KSU campus—will lock the doors for Saudis but ignore the whole thing altogether if someone cool and obviously non-Muslim (like me) comes to the door.

The fourth prayer is Maghrib, and it is called at sunset. The fifth prayer, `Isha’a, is the inverse of Fajr, being called when the last light of the sun disappears from the sky. These two are close enough (especially considering the staggering rule) that if one is considering an evening excursion such as dinner or errands, it is usually better to just wait until 7:30 pm or so. At the Pakistani curry joint in my first neighborhood, if you tried to get takeout between the two evening prayers there was a good chance you would walk home with odds and ends of whatever the cook had too much of.

Since the prayers are all determined by the position of the sun, they change slightly every day. Before modern timekeeping technology became widespread, most people knew that it was time to pray because they heard someone singing from a minaret. Now there are free iPhone apps and specially designed satellite clocks that combine atomic clock data with preprogrammed astronomical tables. (The singing, however, goes on. And given that there is a mosque about every three blocks in Riyadh, there is literally nowhere one can be and not hear the call.)

I’ve downloaded a prayer time app, but for the most part I still generally only discover that that it is time to pray when I go to a store or restaurant and find it closed. And given that prayer time in Riyadh takes up at least three of the eight hours between noon and 8 pm, this happens with alarming frequency. It used to annoy me, but a couple of weeks ago I simply gave up and accepted that my life here would involve a certain amount of sitting around and waiting. So now I bring a book.

* Church’s Chicken has franchises all over the world. Outside of America, however, they are called “Texas Chicken.” I have never seen an explanation for this, but I assume that they realized early on that if they kept the original name, they would lose the business of people who would associate the name with the house of Christian worship rather than with George W. Church, who founded the company.