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An Egyptian mall: pizza, lattes and loose headscarves
Ancient Egypt had the pyramids.
21st Century Egypt has City Stars.
The mega-commercial development comprises three international hotels, high-rise apartment buildings, a medical center, office towers, a convention center, an indoor parking lot with 6,000 spaces, three glass pyramids and allegedly the largest mall in the Middle East with about 600 stores, including 90 women’s clothing and lingerie stores, and 21 movie screens.
I’m staying in one of the hotels in the complex, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about.
The mall is so vast — like a starship of glass elevators and escalators traced in neon, seven-story high glass atriums and fake palm trees and a maze of corridors lined with faux ancient Egyptian columns — that I was worried I would become lost and find myself at a faraway exit, forced to take a taxi home.
The food court included McDonalds, Burger King and Fuddruckers, among other familiar sights. I chose a Hawaiian pizza from Papa John’s. (Veal is a good stand in for pepperoni in the Middle East.) I enjoyed dipping my crust in the “special” garlic butter that you get on the side, just like in America.
Arab world malls, a fairly recent phenomenon, are a measure of the reach of globalization in many Muslim societies. The clerics might call it decadence.
Moms were freighted with shopping bags from Toys “R” Us, children in tow. The waiters in Johnny Rockets were dancing, singing and clapping to the Village People’s YMCA. The restaurant was full.
Young women were strolling unaccompanied by men and wearing designer jeans and brightly-colored headscarves. Sometimes, the scarves were loosely tied to reveal wisps of raven bangs.
At Starbucks — there are two in the mall and a third “coming soon” — the clientele ordered in English because they can. How else, I wondered, to ask for a Java Chip Frappuccino?
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