Category Saudi Arabia

Old Pictures from Saudi Arabia

Around two years ago, Google announced that they teamed up with LIFE to put 10,000,000 historic images from the photo archive online. Last night I spent some time searching the archive for images from Saudi Arabia. Here’s some pics that I found:

This picture of Crown Prince — and later King — Faisal was taken in San Francesco, 1945. He was leading the Saudi delegate to the conference to adopt the Charter of the UN.

Taken in 1942, this is a view showing the country 20 miles east of Hofuf, my hometown and where I currently spend most of time.

Former Saudi minister of petroleum Abdullah al-Tariki is seen here at his office in Riyadh. The picture was taken in May 1961.

In the ‘60s, retired American industrialist Thomas W. Kendall and his family took a vacation around the world using their private plane. One of their stops was on the shores of Jeddah.

Earth Hour in KSA, Musk Lake renamed

  • Saudi Arabia will observe Earth Hour tomorrow for the first time, but Khalaf al-Harbi says he won’t be joining everybody else for this event. Why? Because the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) has already forced him to observe it more than three times this week in three different districts in Riyadh and at different times of the day and night. Can you blame him?
  • The government is apparently unhappy about the sarcastic name Jeddawis have given to the Musk Lake. The Ministry of Culture and Information (MOCI) has sent a directive to local newspapers and magazines asking them to stop using the infamous name and use the long and boring “Water Sanitation Lake in Jeddah” instead. I understand what the government is trying to do, but I don’t think they can force the people and the media to use the new name. Of course the government are free to, and should, use it in their communications, but for the rest of us I think the Musk Lake name is here to stay, at least for a few more years.
  • What the beautifying committee of Khafji needs is a better translator:

Yahoo! comes to KSA, Changing map of Mideast

  • After buying Maktoob last year, Yahoo! is getting ready to enter the Saudi market by establishing a sales and editorial presence in the kingdom’s growing media market. Ahmed Nassef, MD Yahoo! ME, said “Saudi Arabia’s just complicated. It’s the most complicated country in the region as far as trade licenses go. It just takes time.” I wonder what SAGIA has to say about this.
  • Check out the ever-changing map of the Middle East. As Hanan notes, before Islam nobody cared about the Arabian Peninsula, and even in later Islamic empires the attention was limited to the holy sites of Mecca and Medina:

Education reform, Hassawi bisht, women in pharmacies

  • When the Saudi cabinet was reshuffled on Valentine’s Day last year, I said let’s not be overoptimistic. I thought the new ministers will need time before we can evaluate how they performed. About one year later, the minister of education asked today for three more years in order to “turn our ideas and visions for education development into reality.” I would happily give him these three years and then some more if he can really fix the education system, because if he could that would be the best thing to happen to Saudi Arabia since sliced bread.
  • Asharq al-Awsat has a short piece about the bisht, the cloak men wear over the white thobe in Saudi Arabia. Particularly, the Hassawi bisht that is made here in my hometown of Ahsa. It used to take about ten day to sew one of these by hand, but new technology allows you know to make 10 of them in one day. However, some people still prefer the handmade ones. Oh yeah, and the prices can go from $260 to $7000.
  • The ministery of health is studying a proposal to allow women to work in community pharmacies and optics shops. Currently, female pharmacists and optics technicians are only allowed to practice their jobs inside hospitals. The proposal was made by Jeddach Chamber of Commerce, who said they will keep pushing this proposal over the next three years. Aysha Natto, member of the Chamber, denied that this proposal is challenging the social norms in any way. Natto says the men who deal with women inside hospitals are the same men who will deal with them in community pharmacies. “It doesn’t make sense to continue viewing men in our society as wolves that look for women in every place,” she added.

Jeddawi weddings

Qusay has an interesting blogpost about Jeddawi weddings. Few weeks ago I was contacted by a company who said they are working on documentaries about different wedding customs in the different regions in Saudi Arabia. I don’t know if it’s the same company that Qusay is talking about, but I agree with him that it’s a good idea to put the info out there.