The Fifth Conversation - Cars

Despite living in Michigan for essentially my entire life, I just don't do cars. I like them and all and I enjoy driving, it's just that everyone there knows far more about cars then I do. It's the auto state of the nation, the home of both Ford and GM and more of their employees than you can possibly imagine. A true Michigander can talk about cars for longer than most normal people can stay awake on an average day. My older brother prides himself on being able to identify the make and model of a car based on its headlights in the dark. There's no way I could do that. I can barely tell the difference between a Honda and a Chrysler.

So when Bandar started off our conversation today by talking about cars, I felt completely out of my element. He said he was looking at buying a car and wanted to know which one had the most easily replaceable parts. Not the most cost effective, not the one with the best gas mileage, not the safest, not the fastest, no. Why was this the most important attribute in Bandar's mind?

I asked and he said that at least in Saudi Arabia when a car part breaks it can take weeks or months to get it replaced, all depending on the type of car. Surely, I asked, that still wasn't as important as gas mileage. Replacing parts only matters when something breaks, but gas mileage matters every time you have to fill up your car with gas! But in Saudi Arabia, of course, gas isn't as expensive. It's an oil nation and the cost isn't nearly as inflated as it is here.

Gas prices in the United States are pretty high!

It made sense, but when I asked Bandar just how expensive gas was in Saudi Arabia I certainly wasn't ready for the numbers he tossed at me. While in American it might take 45 or 50 dollars to fill up a car's gas tank it would be a mere 7 dollars across the pond in Saudi Arabia. I sat there in stunned silence as Bandar thought for a moment and then amended his statement to the even lower $5.50 or $6. I could hardly believe it.

He went on to joke that if the rest of the world ever found a reasonable alternative energy supply, his country's economy would tank. At least, Bandar laughed when he said it, but I'm not so sure it was a joke. Without the country's oil exports there'd be no money for a lot of things, most notably the scholarships paid to students studying abroad. Students like Bandar. I was reminded of my own state, devastated when its powerful car manufacturers went under and had to lay off so many employees. To this day, the economy hasn't recovered.

Over our weeks of conversation, Bandar and I have talked about a lot of differences between our countries. We've considered the differences in laws, in city types, in jobs, in education, even the difference between our driver's licenses (in Saudi Arabia your license doesn't act as an I.D., you need a separate card), but nothing drove home the point quite like this discussion about oil. I don't know why knowing the gas price in Saudi Arabia had such an effect, but it did.

It almost seems like a fairy tale I'd sarcastically tell: "Once upon a time, in a land far away, you could fill up your car's gas tank for only seven dollars. And everyone was rich because they spent so little on gas. And they were happy. The End."

Our countries really are incredibly different places. We come from wholly different backgrounds, different cultures, different families, different climates, and even places with drastically different gas prices. And yet, when Bandar insisted on buying me coffee and we both walked out holding coffees in our left hand and talked about how little we were looking forward to the summer heat, I was reminded of just how similar we are too.