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June 19, 2005
travel report, a touch belated
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picture a mid-sized to large swath of low, unassuming, matter-of-fact concrete buildings1 worn out by sand and heat to a jaded desert camo, standing en guard between the supersalinized, desaturated-turquoise gulf water and sand2 blanketing by most modern estimates five and a half thousand googolplex bananamillion barrels of crude. to this vista beam from high orbit a collection of gleaming modernist structures in a kind of "playing simcity while high" style zoning plan, as well as a striking seaside installation of three trinkety orbs unevenly skewered two and a half decades ago on as many overlarge sis. add the amir’s disappointingly unadorned, if mind-bogglingly expansive, palatial situation, guard posts at every gate actually armed with unambiguously no-bullshit tripod-mounted machine guns, emphatically not inviting one to—to pick an example at random—walk up and point out "if photography is illegal, how do you justify all those security cameras?" and random maniacally western stuff like doghouse-sized subway sandwich kiosks, marble-glass-and-steel built speckless halogenic post-malls & cet ad n.
welcome to kuwait. please observe, as we trust you have, there is no photography allowed, nor gambling, alcohol or performances of non-arabic music, but also no:
- way you’ll stay alive outside in the sun for two hours. in fact we would like to dare you. sir;
- sense of social solidarity between classes or indeed any ideal of equality3;
- chance you can get anything like a decent connection on your mobile4.
on the way outstanding side of the scale, kuwaitis5 can put together a mean hotel (..if ours was at all representative), people we worked with at our client company tended to range from cool in my book to nothing short of absolutely wonderful (shouts to gwen, rimi and ravi for pretty much everything, extracurricular assistance in cultural affairs and mind-bending hospitality6, respectively), and food (especially indian and lebanese) is on the whole copious, outstanding and often dirt cheap.
i totally want to go back.
1 about every three blocks one of the lower buildings would be a beautifully ornate (if externally indistinct color-wise) mosque, bafflingly to a western its minaret often pimped out on bright green neon lights. you sense these towers, usually the equivalent height of a small number of imaginary stories were probably the conspicuous skyline landmarks of a time before the teleportation in of the much larger, moneyed, dwarfing hulks of now. also, the muezzins' prayers freak the unaccustomed foreigner straight out by just being so damn stirring and for the record, some of us more soulless europeans don't like performances in public space that straight up grab you by the heart and go "listen up man, this is serious", thank you very much.
2 re sand think frank herbert, except the country is like what, 0.1% the size of russia.
3 for a european brought up in state-sponsored warm fuzz, specifically one from a country of little if any serious old money, absolutely no unstoppable influx of fractional-native-wage immigrant labor or other class distinction contrast boosters, all the hardcore segregation shit is startlingly apparent and imbues one with a subtle insecurity as to what, historically, kuwait is smoking.
4 –an extra noodle-boggle in context of how big kuwaitis seem to be on their mobiles
5 "kuwaitis" here means, retardedly, "people of questionable nationality and intent, obviously physically stationed at the time in kuwait" but regarding a country where the groups "people" and "citizens" are something like polar opposites, i would like to assume requisite leeway, plead "foreign tool" and get on with it.
6 right, hospitality deserves a special mention. it's cool enough to be invited by a resident to go fishing in the weekend, but when it's "bonsai sea-murderer on line one, please hold" and you were by the way swimming there five minutes ago, it's like getting a full set of the fantods for christmas.
Posted by matti at June 19, 2005 10:39 PM
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Comments
dude, who the FUCK is reading infinite jest?
and but so great post.
Posted by: jotku at June 23, 2005 08:27 PM