Light Shopping
Mon Dec 15th 2008 1:23pm Abu Dhabi
Still in Abu Dhabi, having made the grand tour of the new Sheik Zayed Mosque and the homes of various Sudanese friends and family last night. This morning my aunt mentioned that she needed to pick up a few things for her own trip back home. We got to a store with the ambitious name of "The Ambassador" and started browsing.
In the Ross-like aisles Bollywood hits played in the background as I browsed through racks of ugly turtlenecks and sweaters that would make Bill Cosby blush. Beside them were Confederate flag buckled belts (and yes, that is a mudflap girl silhouette on the buckle for good measure).
I'm always interested in media around the world, and particularly in advertising and the like. How is "cool" conveyed in different places? What are the particulars of how you get someone to buy your particular brand of hair cream? So when I am wandering around in shopping centers, stores, etc my eyes are constantly seeking out the outsized smiles of models, and the phrases emblazoned on the fronts of T-shirts and the like.
Along with whatever language is spoken in the country you happen to be in, invariably there is a lot of English (or "English") spattered across product packaging and in-store advertising. What confuses is how little effort (or worse how much effort) was put into these blurbs, and how little I feel one gets out of them. You're pretty much limited to the feeling of "hey, that's English! Awesome!". A particularly enjoyable example is the advertising for the "couture house" Louis Phillipe, whose motto, "The Upper Crest", is coupled to winsome looking white boys pouting at the camera or exclaiming with well-paid joy. Those of us who are part of the "upper crest" of society appreciate this little nod and of course would buy no other lime green striped shirt. For the kids we see a lot of T-shirts emblazoned with phrases like "I do it coz [sic] I like it!" and "We are the Team [sic]!" But these are all frivlous ad copy, right? It doesn't extend to care tags does it? Which you'd think until you were picking up the 100% silk "machine-washable" ties labeled "Lavorazione a mano" (I'm no linguist but I think that means "wash by hand" in Italian).
But I digress. The main point here is the separation of advertising from the run of real life in the country (even more so than it usually is), especially in the surreal world of the Gulf nations.