Saudi Arabia’s capital city of Riyadh has grown to be one of the largest and most populated cities over the past decade. With an estimated population of more than 5 million, it covers an area about two times that of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Considered as the fastest growing city in the world, Riyadh has a population growth reaching 10 percent annually. It has one of the most complex and extensive infrastructures, several state-of-the-art government and private buildings, universities, a huge airport and a complex road network. Riyadh is also known for its shopping malls and restaurants. It has some finest restaurants and has more shopping malls than meets the eye. In fact I haven’t seen any city with so many restaurants and malls.
It is my favorite city where I have lived the first four years of my life. Whenever I go there, I would go by the old city and try to recollect things of my early childhood. I would love to be here every summer to be with my cousins from my mother’s side. It was such a treat to board the train from Al-Hasa, also know as Al-Hofuf, with a relative or a friend, and head to Riyadh. At that time it was a small city and one of the best treats in Riyadh was when we had dinner at my uncle’s house or the fresh juice street (Shaare Al-Asarat). Then we would go to see a movie at Al-Nasser football club. Yes, you heard me right, we as kids would go to any football club and see an Egyptian movie. We either go to Al-Nasser, Al-Hilal or Al-Shabab.
It is true they were not like the modern day movie theaters where films were shown in the open air on a big screen. But, at the end of the day, it was a movie being shown to the public for SR2 for each individual. In late 1974, I was selected to attend a school in the US on a full scholarship program. When I got back to Riyadh two years later, the movie theaters simply disappeared.
In a previous article that Arab News published on Sept. 1, 2012, titled, “My childhood memories and Saudi movie theaters,” I have spoken about the American movies that I watched in Aramco movie theaters in the Eastern Province. That was one of my favorite childhood fun times. Now, Riyadh is a city with most of its population young with energy. And these young children and their families have one option in Riyadh for entertainment: Shopping malls and the fancy restaurants.
Most young children would simply drive around till the early hours in the morning then go home and sleep till noon. And many of them would just hang out near the coffee shops or in their neighborhood simply wasting time following Twitter on their latest mobile phones. As for the elders, many have a get-together (Diwanyah), in which they spend time during the night playing cards and watching the latest movies on hundreds of available satellite channels.
It is important for a city as big as Riyadh therefore to have many forms of entertainments such as movie theaters. It was there in the past; so, why can’t Riyadh have it again?
In the past, there was a weekly performance in the Saudi TV station with a concert-like performance called TV Stage or “Masrah Altalafyzion.”
Riyadh is big and beautiful with millions of residents. They don’t need to go to Bahrain or Dubai to watch a movie or a play. This is what I did in Riyadh when I was a small child — had dinner and watched a movie. True, I did not have popcorn. But, now, my favorite city has the popcorn, but, it does not have a movie theater. The question is why?
Is this because of our culture or the religion? I think it is culture. As for the movie theaters, it is good part-time employment mechanism for many of the young and very lucrative investments.
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