First Impressions of Jeddah

I was awoken by sounds of muslim prayer chants. It struck me that the average faithful and pious muslim lives a life of ascetism and prayer probably more rigorous than our Carmelite monks.  I am not sure how many times our Carmelite brothers pray as a community in a day but here, the muslims pray 6 x daily beginning at 4:50am. During the day, They utter ‘Hamdullilah’ after every sentence they make. It means ‘Allah be praised’. I suppose if every christian would imitate: ‘Praise be to God/ Jesus Christ’, he would also be on his way to sainthood. Compare this to the average fil-chinese hokkien-speaking burgher like myself. I cant count the no. of times the typical suffix ‘sai nia’ ends in every sentence. Or the prefix ‘piao si’ before every sentence. ‘tsap tsing’, ‘kan nin nia’ ‘tsao tsi bai’ ( Singapore hokkien). We greet each other with “Sai nia, kumusta na pare?” or ‘pare, long time no see, din peh, di leh tsong sia loh ah tseh?” and we reply by the usual: “piao si eh, seng dih tsin paih ah”. Without these suffixes and prefixes, the sentence just sounds grammatically incorrect.

Life here is monastic even for the wealthy arabs. There is nothing to do here except pray and eat and sleep. Though it seemed to me that the people aren’t complaining. They don’t feel deprived as we would probably think. There is no shopping culture here and I wonder how the humble malls even survive. No movie theatres to go to. No fine dining restos, no pubs with billard tables much lest dancefloors. Only lots of ugly men with ugly beards and miles and miles of desert sand dunes, sandstorms, and no pigs. No fair & smooth-skinned babes on miniskirts. Many world cities seem to be evolving to share similar broad characters- skyscrapers skyline, retail and commercial shopping malls left and right, bustling streets with fashionable ladies and men in shiny big cars...adjust your lense’s focus to the background and you find the contrast against beggars by the wayside, worn-out faces of construction workers…fast-walking men in smart suits, politicians making speeches, rallies, labour strikes…Look around some more and you’ll see women in shorts walking their dogs in the park, men drinking beer and getting drunk, families and friends in alfresco restaurants, children playing balls on the streets, Christmas lights, santa claus, couples in fine dining, packed sports stadium, group of teenagers yakking and laughing, cyclers talking on their handphones, tourists posing and taking photos, lovers kissing, frantic cabbies, buses and jampacked trains, kayakers practicing by the river, women sipping coffee on one hand and a pocketbook on the other, bars, pubs and neon lights. Teeming with activities 24-hour non-stop and yet, sometimes, I wonder if all these activities even make us truly happier? Or is it just a mask? Here, you look around and will discover all of the above is non-existent, their only entertainment or sports it seems to me is football and kite-flying. People are generally stoic. They don’t laugh or smile much but they seem to be content. This place is truly unique. Compare Jeddah to other cities in the world, this place is, well….now I am unable to decide so quickly in all honesty which one is heaven and which one hell.