Doing Doha

Visiting shopping malls in foreign countries is always a great way to gain insight into the life of the local middle class. With one full day in Qatar, I spent, perhaps pathetically, several hours of it in the Villaggio Shopping mall in Doha. Villaggio is designed to be like a compilation of Italian cities, complete with a Venetian-style canal and gondolas. Unfortunately, this Vegas-like imitation didn’t even manage to reach second-rate theme park style. The canal is a short straight waterway through the middle of the mall, and the gondolas are staffed by young Asian guys that press start on the electric motor. Walking through the mall, there was a significant amount of activity around the giant Carrefore hypermarket and the surrounding everyday shops like H&M.

At the end of the canal, just before the food court (which was complete with Coldstone Creamery and Krispy Kreme Donuts), a small stand selling children’s books and music on Islam was blaring Koranic Suras read by a deep creepy-voiced man albeit with great annunciation. Past the loud lessons of Islam, one reaches the Via Rosso, the brightest, cleanest and flashiest portion of the mall. This almost completely deserted wing was replete with designer shops from Bulgari to Zegna. Inside every other shop, one could see women in the most elegant of Abayas, covered from head to toe in gracefully flowing black silk trimmed with jewels, their eyes peeking through a Niqab. The women were almost always reluctantly accompanied by middle-aged Arab men in gym clothes - mostly Adidas shorts and muscle shirts.

There are two common types of dress in Doha, traditional Arab costumes and Western clothing. Women of all ages seem to pull off both styles well. There is something mystical, almost magical about a gaggle of black clad women with their faces hidden floating by. Their age can be approximated by the evenness of their stride and the size of their backsides. At least in this portion of the world, butts seem to gradually enlarge with age. Older women are more likely to have a limp or unbalanced walk, whether this is caused by muscle pain, bone weakness or uneven ballast from their buttocks is anyone’s guess. The girls with slim figures and graceful footwork proceed into the second round of the game. Younger girls are more likely to have a glittery colored trim to their Abaya, but you must also decide whether it was their father or their husband that gave them the extra cash for such a flashy getup. With their faces covered, you are left to judge their beauty by their hands and their eyes. The beauty of a woman’s hand can be significant; fine, soft, delicate, well-manicured, the shape becomes as exciting as the curves of a model when the mind is left to wander. But the eyes… the eyes are the window to the soul. One can see a lot about a person’s life, attitude and beauty from their eyes.

Arab men are much better off sticking to the traditional thobe and gutra outfit of the gulf. The simple, lightweight outfit can be as casual or dressy as one wants. It is all about how a man carries himself in the outfit and small details like cuff links and the quality of the fabrics. Young Arab men that choose to dress in Western clothing seem to have the unfortunate habit of making themselves into uber-trendy, arrogant, Eurotrash peacocks, showing off their feathers by wearing sunglasses indoors or sporting the occasional black leather fedora.

The people watching at the mall only got better when they started setting up for a children’s performance in front of the Virgin Mega Store. The show appeared to be state sponsored with the goal of teaching people not to talk on the phone while driving. Seems to be an interesting tactic to raise the next generation of Qatari drivers with a general understanding of traffic regulations, but one has to wonder if that generation will survive through the present set of drivers. During the show, one performer was glued to his phone at all times. He announces that he is going for a drive, which is immediately followed by the gathering of kids from the audience for a song and dance on stage that tells parents not to talk and drive. With an annoying children’s song like that, maybe they’ll get the adults to stop talking on their phones while driving afterall. “Please don’t talk and drive, oh Papa, you’re gonna die.” (I’m taking some poetic liberties with the translation of the lyrics). Following the dance number, there is the sound of a car crash and some very foreboding music. The mobile-phone-loving actor soon appears with his face wrapped in red bandages… very creepy, but it was soon followed by another annoying song with all the kids dancing on stage. In the end, the gentleman didn’t learn his lesson, and I think he died. Time to sing another song kids!

As interesting as it was, I didn’t spend my entire visit to Doha in the mall. My entire mission for the visit was to visit the new Museum of Islamic Art, and that’s exactly what I did as soon as they opened on Thursday. The I.M. Pei designed building is beautiful, both inside and out. The building almost makes the beautiful pieces of art inside it pale by comparison. I think they did a fantastic job collecting and displaying pieces of Islamic art from different periods. The carved wooden doors from Syria and Egypt were my favorites, but there were also some amazing examples of metalwork, ceramics, paintings and carpets. I am curious how an illustrated page from an old Ramayana is classified as Islamic art, but it was a beautiful piece. All in all, I spent about three hours perusing the museum. They also had an impressive temporary exhibit about the “Book of Secrets,“ and Islamic text written in Moorish Spain and currently housed in an Italian library. The book is full of mechanical inventions, and the texts and illustrations were painstakingly restored by the MIA team. The exhibit used large flawlessly functioning touch screen computers to allow visitors to read the book page by page and see 3D models of the inventions and how they function. Unfortunately, the museum shop would not ship any purchases, and I didn’t feel like taking the time to make a run to the post office, so I missed out on some great books, DVDs and porcelain pieces.

Doha was a pleasant enough city to visit, and I’m very glad I made it to the museum. I got lucky because there was talk of a sandstorm while I was in town, and it was speculated to be the largest in many years, but it never materialized (although looking outside here in Dubai, visibility just dropped drastically). I’m also pleased with my visit to Qatar because it was my first time couchsurfing, and it was a great experience. I stayed with a young couple, Melissa and Dan, working in Doha. It was a perfect first, and I look forward to more couchsurfing to come!