I mentioned in the 'Opinion of Saudi Arabia' thread that I was thinking about making a thread to clarify or fix some of the misconceptions about Saudi Arabia wouldn't be particularly harmful... especially in the regards of comments such as:
This is written from a western perspective in a urban area.
Therefore, a few things.
1. Westerners, the vast majority of them, choose to live in enclosed living areas - compounds for reasons of safety, comfort and for the traditional human pattern of similar ethnicities living together. No Saudi law forces westerners to live in compounds.
2. While compounds usually have a small supermarket and pre-school, it obviously isn't forbidden to go outside into so-called 'civilian areas'. Life for westerners in KSA isn't organized like tourism in the flipping Soviet Union.
3. Women aren't allowed to drive, obviously. But there are compound-organized buses to shopping places and food outlets of various sorts, and these 'outings' aren't organized by any Saudi authority.
4. Since May 2003, compounds are guarded by the Saudi National Guard. Which is more impressive in words than in practice, since most soldiers usually sleep on their machine gun.
5. There are no 'designated' areas for westerners within cities or outside. No rural area is out of bonds, except areas which are out of bonds in the US as well - such as military places. There is no equivalent of Intertour in Saudi Arabia.
6. Nothing stops westerners from relations with Saudis. Hell, my father worked for the Ministry of the Interior and was on excellent terms with Saudis, including high-ranking military personnel up to Colonel and even a General.
7. Consumption of alcohol is officially forbidden, but in practice it's very easy to obtain if you're close to wealthy Saudi families, diplomatic staff and wealthier Arab families in general. Consumption of alcohol by the Royal Family is much higher than normal western consumption. If a westerner is really thirsty (most of the westerners who are thirsty are British or German) usually drive to Bahrain for the weekend where alcohol is legal. There is also what is called 'NA Beer', which is non-alcoholized beer. Never tasted it. Some westerners make home-made wine which tastes worse than sh**t.
8. Pork is illegal, and that's enforced. Sausages, ham, and even bacon is made without pork.
9. Women of all nationality are by law needed to wear a black abaya, but a black headscarf is not required often these days. Saudi women in urban areas usually wear a light abaya and a light headscarf, those in more conservative areas are covered head to toe in a dark black abaya with only eyes visible and the ultra-conservatives have black gloves.
10. The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, aka muttawwas, are the religious police. Most of them are former criminals re-converted into annoying all people. Saudis hate them more than westerners, and they were often attacked physically until they started walking around with police officers. The worst they can to do westerners is tell a woman to cover her head. They often tell Saudi and Muslim men to go pray.
11. Most Saudis, outside of the stupid muttawwas (who are retards), are usually very nice in terms of personality. I won't judge them on their political views, since those are usually taboo topics. Though I will say that a large majority of Saudis I've met are quite anti-Al Qaeda and they don't deny the Holocaust or 9/11. For example, when we had a flat tire, a uniformed Saudi military officer, on his initiative, helped us fix the stupid tire.
12. Saudi TV, which consists of two state-owned channels, are boring and stupid. The first channel includes appealing programs such live transmission of prayers for Makkah, the Islamic views of a bearded cleric in Madinah, or information on the King's latest dump. The second channel includes some real stuff, but usually non-offensive like video gags and that stuff. A vast majority of Saudis listen to TV channels from Lebanon or Dubai. The most popular is probably MBC, which also includes MCB2, an English/Arabic movie channel (usually American films). During Ramadan though on Saudi state tv, there's a show which does talk about controversial social and political topics (within reason) and is extremely popular.
13. Saudi radio is sparse and only good when you want to have a good laugh. I recall news in French at noon on Radio Riyadh. lololol
14. There are no churches, unlike in Dubai, but religious services are available weekly at a number of western embassies. The entrance declaration card does ask for religion, but the customs barely look at that sh**t anyway.
15. There are no public cinemas.
16. Homosexuality is illegal and repressed, but actually quite rampant.
17. Visas are required for tourists, exit, exit and subsequent re-entry, first arrival and so forth.
That's all I can think of for now, but I may add stuff later and I'll answer questions.
