Photo: Greg Geipel for Vancouver Magazine
Vancouver has long been a popular destination for international students, in particular ESL students from Japan and Korea who come across the Pacific to study English. Recently, however, I began noticing a new constituency: Arabic speaking students from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. After asking some questions, I discovered that there are tens of thousands of Saudi students studying in Canada (even more in the U.S.) as part of an ambitious scholarship program intended to show young Saudis a glimpse of Western life. I spent a few days hanging out with a group of guys from Riyadh during Ramadan, and I wrote about the experience for Vancouver Magazine.
Western Promises
Young Saudis have an all expenses-paid ticket to study in Vancouver, and they’re getting more than just a university education.
By Remy Scalza published Nov 30, 2010
By Saudi Arabian standards, Trad Bahabri, a 21-year-old from the capital city of Riyadh, may be a good driver. By Vancouver standards, however, he is not. One afternoon during Eid, the holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Bahabri is driving north on Knight trying to get to Richmond. This is the wrong direction. He eyes oncoming traffic, slams on the brakes, and makes an abrupt U-turn in his Chrysler 300, a hulking new sedan with an imposing metal grille. “Saudis like American cars,” he explains. “We don’t have to worry about the gas.”
By the time we finally crest the Knight Street Bridge, other drivers have begun to stare. It’s not just his driving skills that are attracting attention. To mark the holiday, Bahabri is in traditional Saudi dress: a flowing white robe known as a thobe, which he stayed up late ironing, and a brilliant red and white-checked head scarf, or shemagh. The shemagh spills over the headrest and flaps around when the window is rolled down.
Bahabri stops in an industrial part of Richmond near Ikea and parks behind a drab cinderblock building with a sign strung above the doorway: Saudi Students Society of British Columbia. Later in the day there will be a feast to commemorate the end of Ramadan. A small crowd of men—some in thobes and shemaghs, and just as many in jeans and hoodies—is already gathering out front.
Click here to read the full article on the Vancouver Magazine website.
