keeping up with the jones' ... oman-style.

Being a society heavily based on wasta, Omanis take great pride in their appearances (as evidenced by the 4 inch stillettos that women wear and their perfect makeup) and any other physical thing that may enhance (or detract) from having a good or even better reputation. License plates and cell phone numbers are two of those seemingly insignificant things that indicate the prominence of this person in society or simply for them to show off how much money they have.

With license plate numbers, the less numbers and letters you have on your plate, the better. Regular old license plates have 4 numbers and one or two letters. I've seen Facebook ads on the Oman network with people selling "good" license plate numbers -- one or 2 numbers and only one letter -- for thousands of riyals! My friend in the UAE told me about this phenomenon in the UAE and asked if it happened here in Oman, and I suppose it does. So every time I'm stuck in traffic, I muse at other people's license plate numbers and wonder what types of connections (and money) he/she/that family has ...

Phone numbers are 8 numbers, with the first two indicating what type of phone it is. If it starts with a 24, it's a landline in Muscat; if it starts with 99, you're using OmanMobile and if it's 95 or 96, you're using the Nawras network. Phone numbers are usually issued randomly and most people have no rhyme or reason to their mobile numbers, making it difficult to memorise. However, if you have a mobile number with repetitive numbers that's easy to memorise, that's a good number. You have connections. For example, when I was giving my GSM number to a store for a furniture delivery, the man taking it said with a knowing tone, "Oh, good number!" I suppose so?

I usually don't think about these things in the states -- the idea of appearances and maintaining a good reputation. It's because there's just sooooo many people in the US, and it's easy to maintain an identity of anonymity. Here, your network is your life, and if you're connected with the right people (ultimately the Sultan? that would be awesome) your life is much easier and you can get things done quicker (or so they say ... my residence visa is yet to be present ... that's another story). It's like the game of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon ... although here, I suppose everyone may be connected to His Majesty by 6 degrees ...

Cool.