With the ongoing semi-recovery continuing to drag many Americans into the land of the underemployed, the economic picture in other nations has been rosier for some time. Specifically in China, whose economy muscled out America’s for the title of largest this week according to a study by the International Monetary Fund and in Saudi Arabia-land of plentiful petro-dollars. While the denizens of both of these countries have been buying up property for quite some time in places like Hawaii, where Chinese investors fly in on a weekend and buy up to five properties at a time, now they have moved their sights to the mainland and the land of movie stars and studios-Los Angeles.

More specifically, both groups have taken over the very symbol of capitalism in Los Angeles-Beverly Hills. Now, I have known for years that Saudi’s have an insatiable appetite for the finer things in life. When I travelled in Southeast Asia in the 1990’s I saw many a chador clad woman sporting the latest Versace shoes when the breeze lifted those long skirts. When I attended school in Los Angeles the Saudi men in our class would show up in their Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s clad in their Versace jeans and Armani shirts. As of 2011 the haute couture shows in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) boasted the highest order rates of all the fashion weeks across the globe. A Reuters report in late 2011 explained the phenomenon of Saudi women, who the world sees “under wraps” purchasing all that couture:

“But their social calendar, which usually consists of 15-20 weddings a year and private parties every month, creates much bigger demand for couture than the occasional charity ball and high society party in Europe and in North America. And wearing the same dress twice is not an option.

Traditional buyers of exclusive designer clothes tend to include members of rich industrial or royal families and expatriates.

The biggest buyers of haute couture today center around the Gulf — Saudis, Kuwaitis, Qataris and nationals of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who do not hesitate to spend 50,000 euros on a low-cleavage lame for an event where no men will be present.”

What makes this different, and stunning, though is that Beverly Hills has rolled out the red carpet in ways that they never would for the Japanese or Korean customers. Sure they have employees in Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys and Fred Hayman’s that speak Mandarin and Cantonese but the hotels now offer prayer rugs and native language menus in the rooms. As illustrated by a blog posting on the Hollywood Reporter website today:

“Hotels make special concessions for out-of-town guests. Peninsula Beverly Hills managing director Offer Nissenbaum says the hotel offers prayer rugs, traditional cuisine (with native-language menus) and Arabic- and Mandarin-speaking staff. “We’ve geared the hotel towards their needs,” Nissenbaum says, adding that a chic Peninsula touch — monogrammed pillowcases for all guests — has been updated to include Arabic- and Mandarin-language pillows. “It’s a win-win for everyone. These individuals are contributing to the overall economy of Beverly Hills.” Speaking of the city, says Nissenbaum: “Beverly Hills has done a great job of creating a safe environment — safety is at the forefront of your mind if you’re a sheikh from Saudi or a tycoon from China.” Retailer Cameron Silver notes the resulting influx and laughs: “My Saudi friends complain that there were too many other Saudis in town.”

Now, I am as much of a capitalist as the next girl but my concern is more about what else these folks are importing into the 90210. As we all know, and many close to Muslim couples have seen, there is a darker side to the glitter and gleam. Earlier this year, a few Hollywood notables actually took to the streets in front of the famed Beverly Hills Hotel to protest the hotels purchase by the Sultan of Brunei. The Motion Picture and Television Fund and other entertainment organizations boycotted the hotel over the use of Sharia law in the tiny country. Sharia (or Shariah) law, as many of our frequent readers know, is the Islamic law that condemns women to live-and die-as second class citizens as a matter of course. Women who live under Sharia are prohibited from travelling without a male relative to escort them, many of them are subjected to horrific practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and are forced to marry men they do not know, or who are generations older than them.

So while I am thrilled to have some of those petrodollars returned to the U.S. economy in the form of real estate purchases and crazed shopping trips, I do worry about the toxic effects on the surrounding communities when the inevitable happens and some poor girl decides to listen to her friends at an overpriced private school and do something that will cause her family to drown her in their compound’s pool. Perhaps that is something that those profiting off of this recent business trend should remember.