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（原文发表于2026年10月17日）
  In Riyadh, Xiao He, a tour guide from Yunnan who had come to Saudi Arabia to pursue a PhD, led us to visit the Kingdom Centre. Seen from a distance, the tower's shape resembled a king's face wearing a headscarf—extremely distinctive. Xiao He repeatedly warned us, "You need to be careful about safety. In particular, do not casually talk to Saudi women—it could get you into trouble." He didn't go upstairs and waited outside for us. Lao Liu and I took the elevator to the top floor of the tower. Looking out, we took in the straight highways, the traffic flowing like water, rows of lush green palm trees, and the neatly uniform city buildings—all of Riyadh spread out before our eyes, a unique desert scene. At a counter, a Chinese man struck up a conversation with us on his own initiative. The young man was from Jiangsu and had been in Riyadh working on an engineering project for more than two years. I asked him, "Are you used to life here?" He said, "How should I put it? The pay and benefits are pretty good—the salary is high—but there's no entertainment, no karaoke, no cinemas, and they don't sell alcohol. There's nowhere to go drinking at night either. The weather is too hot. On weekends, all I do is wander around the big shopping malls. It's stifling." We thought about it and realized he was right. A grown man coming here, with no entertainment at all—it was really depressing. At that time, Crown Prince Salman had not yet come to power, which meant Saudi society had not yet opened up and reformed; the overall atmosphere was conservative. The interior of the Kingdom Centre was divided into two major areas: below the third floor was the women's shopping area, and all floors above belonged to men's consumption. I saw that around the large cylindrical pillar at the entrance to the third floor, there were quite a few leisure chairs, and many very sharp-looking young Saudi men were sitting around there. If they saw a girl come out of the elevator and pass in front of them, they would whistle and wink at her—that is, openly express romantic interest. Bold girls would also shake their heads in response. This reminded me of when we were half-grown lads—it was just the same. When we saw a girl pass by, we'd do the same things. To use an inappropriate term, it was a bit like "flirting." When Lao Liu and I took the elevator down, we discovered that the elevator inside the tower was especially large—at least three or four times the usual size. The light was dim, a lot of perfume had been sprayed, and there were many tiny neon lights on the ceiling—a so-called "starry sky." The whole space created an ambiguous atmosphere. When we entered the elevator, three or four Saudi girls, about eighteen or nineteen years old, entered at the same time. Each was in a black abaya, and their faces were completely covered, with only their eyes showing. What was different from other places was that the mesh covering over the face area could be moved and lifted up. When the girls saw the two of us, they suddenly lifted the face coverings upward, revealing their entire faces. They were all very beautiful—typically Arab, with high noses, big eyes, and long eyelashes that could be seen clearly. In the dim elevator light, each seemed like a graceful black fairy. Suddenly one girl took the initiative to greet me: "Hey, are you Chinese?" I said yes. She asked again, "Are you in Saudi Arabia for tourism?" I said for official business. I also asked, "Have any of you been to China?" The girls laughed and rushed to answer: "Lā, lā" (no). We said, "If you get the chance, go to China. It's very nice—very different from here." The girls kept nodding and giggling. Before we had chatted for more than a few sentences, the elevator reached the ground floor. I thought to myself, did the elevator deliberately speed up? At the instant before the elevator doors were about to open, the girls immediately lowered the cloth over their faces again. Except for two big eyes, you could see nothing else. One girl waved, and then all at once they became serious and walked away quickly. When we saw the guide Xiao He, I said we had just spoken with a few Saudi girls. Xiao He said, "Impossible, how could that be?" I said it was true, but he didn't believe it. Lao Liu quickly added, "I can testify that we really did talk just now. Our section chief even chatted with them quite a bit, and I chimed in with a few words too." Xiao He was a little stunned, then suddenly said, "That's because they saw you two are old men, so they spoke." When we heard that, our faces fell. What did that mean? At that time we were both still young. What did he mean, old men? In the depths of those Saudi girls' hearts, perhaps all of them had a need to communicate with the outside world. Under daily restraints and strict controls, anyone normal would get annoyed—the more they were controlled, the more they wanted to break through those restrictions! |
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