From Dunkin Donuts To Starbucks, The Surprising Saudi Obsession With America
During his nine years living in Tennessee, Fahd, a Saudi national, found comfort and consistency at Dunkin Donuts, where he placed the same order every day.
Now back in Riyadh, Fahd is doing something similar, highlighting the Saudi Arabian love affair with all things American that many find surprising.
"When I came here, thank God, the same cafe and same order were here too," said the 31-year-old mechanical engineer, who did not want to give his family name.
"I started living the same lifestyle here as I did in America."
Saudi Arabia, often known for its religious austerity, is home to Islam's holiest sites, and welcomes millions of Muslim pilgrims ever year.
It also has -- as just one example -- more than 600 branches of Dunkin Donuts, serving roughly 250,000 of its 35-million population each day, according to the franchise.
Despite its image as a cloistered and traditional society, life in Saudi is awash in Western corporate influence, especially from American companies.
Buffalo Wild Wings, Chuck-e-Cheese and Starbucks populate Riyadh's sprawl of office parks and shopping centres, while the capital's traffic-clogged streets heave with hulking American SUVs and pickup trucks.
'Every Neighbourhood'
The nations have shared a tight bond since King Abdulaziz bin Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, and US president Franklin Roosevelt shook hands on board a US cruiser in the Suez Canal during the final months of World War II.
In the ensuing decades, the United States has been at the forefront of providing military protection in return for privileged access to Saudi's colossal oil reserves.
The Saudi riyal is pegged to the greenback and US leaders have been regular guests, including Donald Trump who arrives in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday on the first major overseas trip of his second term.
The relationship has faced rough patches -- including the oil embargo in the 1970s, the September 11, 2001 attacks carried out by mostly Saudi hijackers and the gruesome murder of US-based dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul in 2018.
But for Saudis, the ties that bind, including a love of American food, cars and movies, remain strong -- even after a grassroots campaign to boycott US products that has swept the region during the Israel-Hamas war.
"The one thing we never disagree on is going to an American restaurant -- especially Buffalo Wild Wings," Dalal Abdulaziz, 28, told AFP, saying that chicken wings were one of her favourite foods.
"You'll find American restaurants in every neighbourhood here. We eat it weekly, almost like Saudi food."
Khaled Salman Al-Dosari agrees, saying it is hard to find a single street in Saudi Arabia without an American brand on offer.
"American companies' products have become an inseparable part of our day," added the 21-year-old student in Riyadh.
'Just Like Home'
While many American companies have been in Saudi Arabia for decades, its Vision 2030 agenda -- the oil-dependent country's giant economic diversification plan -- has opened it up and paved the way for further investment.
Live music and cinemas were all forbidden until recent years, but MMA fights and US professional wrestling are now among the entertainment offers available to Saudi consumers.
"I think many Americans would be surprised at the extent to which American brands are all over Saudi Arabia," said Andrew Leber from the department of political science at Tulane University.
Some see further correlations in terms of climate, architecture -- dry, dusty Riyadh, with its wide concrete boulevards, evokes an Arab Dallas -- and even mindset.
"Texas is close to Riyadh in terms of climate," said Fahd, the mechanical engineer.
"And its people are conservative like us."
Meanwhile, the Saudi taste for US products has benefits for the tens of thousands of Americans working in the kingdom, many of them in the oil industry.
"It always... reminds me of home and keeps that connection with the places that I've seen since I've been growing up," said Joshua Dunning, a 36-year-old American business developer working at a Saudi tech firm.
"It's always a nice reminder and seeing those places and products here in Saudi."
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