WOW. Where to start? I suppose I should start first with a disclaimer / preemptive apology. People nowadays love to be outraged over perceived slights, perceived racism, perceived xenophobia, whatever. I am the product of my country, my upbringing in the 1970s/1980s, my experiences in the greater metropolitan area of Detroit, Michigan, 9/11, etc., and this was my first time ever in the Middle East. I undoubtedly have some opinions or notions that might come across as ignorant or offensive. So excuse me. I'm not saying I'm right or superior or anything. I have an opinion, and I'm sure my opinions are informed by a bias. Right or wrong, these are my honest thoughts at this point in time.
When I took my current job, I knew the role would be focused immediately on Brazil, India and China, with the possibility of the Middle East developing at some point 3 to 5 years in the future. The company I work for has a joint venture in Saudi Arabia, but as a Western woman, working in the KSA was always something I rejected outright. Working with any other part of the Middle East seemed unlikely and intangible. Then, the company's Middle Eastern growth opportunities bloomed rapidly and unexpectedly. In a very short period of time, the Middle East changed from a distant, future possibility to an immediate imperative. My company had a distributor, customers, suppliers, and we were bidding on and winning jobs. The future became today in a matter of months.
Before this June, I didn't know much about the United Arab Emirates. It never got much news coverage in the USA, probably because bad stuff generally wasn't happening there, and the news is all about bad stuff, right? Honestly, I didn't know that the Emirate of Kuwait even existed until Saddam Hussein invaded it back in 1990. No one ever invaded the UAE, so I supposed I had no reason to learn about it. I have since learned that it was established in December 1971 as a federation of seven independent emirates which used to be British Protectorates. (People around the world love to blame the USA for the geopolitical state of the Middle East, but I tell you what, the British share a fair bit of the blame, too.) In the early 2000s, as much as I ever probably knew about the UAE was the Burj Al Arab hotel. But I distinctly remember seeing the 60 Minutes segment about Dubai and Sheikh Mohammed in 2007. Dubai at that time was hailed as being an open, tolerant, Westernized "Middle East Lite". Didn't that all Westernization go horribly wrong in Iran and Afghanistan? So far, at least, it seems to be working out okay in the UAE. Anyways, the 60 Minutes segments were fascinating and are still worth viewing today, when you have the time to spare:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-visit-to-dubai-inc/3/
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/part-2-dubai-inc/
My next data point was the Formula One Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi, starting in 2009. Same basic narrative in the American media that I saw -- the UAE is a modern Middle Eastern country that is booming, thanks to insane wealth from oil revenues and leaders looking to develop societies that can outlast the inevitable future depletion of their oil reserves. Environmental sustainability and human rights being, perhaps, collateral damage...
For eight years, people have been saying the UAE is a speculative bubble ready to burst. Certainly, the country took a major blow with the global economic crisis and downturn of 2008 to 2010. Dubai was one of the worst hit cities in the entire world. Everything came to a halt. Companies went out of business overnight. I heard from my Dubai colleagues that luxury cars were abandoned at the airport as investors and entrepreneurs fled the country and the prospect of being jailed for debts. While driving from Dubai to Abu Dhabi one day, we saw an entire field of brand new trucks and cars, imported in anticipation of being sold and now sitting parked for years in desert inventory. You read about this stuff, but it's just surreal actually to see it in person with your own two eyes. Then there is this building, just across the way from our office, on prime Free Zone real estate:
Now, just as parts of the world have started to recover, the countries dependent upon oil revenues have taken another economic hit with oil prices dropping from $100 down to $50 a barrel in 2014. At the beginning of this year, people were saying that the UAE would enter another recession.
However, I personally saw no evidence of an actual or incipient recession. The announcement in November 2013 that Dubai would host the World Expo 2020 seems to have filled everyone with renewed confidence and excitement. Construction cranes were operational. Lights were on in existing buildings, and new buildings were underway. The streets were filled with cars, the sidewalks were filled with people, and the beaches were filled with tourists. My company's representatives are getting more inquiries and requests for bids than they can handle. The building where they are located in one of the Free Zones has a waiting list to rent office space. (For those who don't know, the Dubai Free Zones are specially designated economic zones where business activities of expatriate investors are tax and duty free. My employer's representatives there are a Free Zone Enterprise (FZE).) I visited three suppliers (two in the UAE and one in Oman), and all three are in the process of completing major capital investments and facility expansions to increase their capacity. One of the suppliers had an analogy for what he saw in Dubai in particular and in the UAE in general today. He said --
It's like you're looking at a huge pile of money on the ground, and you have two minutes to grab as much as you can. As big as your hands are, and as much as you can handle, you have to go after that money right now, because after two minutes, the money will be gone.The clock has started ticking now, in 2015, and it will run until October 20, 2020, when the World Expo opens. After that, who knows?
So now that I've bored everyone with economics, what about my own experiences and impressions? Well, in preparation for the trip, I did some basic reading up on the area, on business norms, and I messaged a sorority sister currently living in Doha, Qatar for her thoughts. In general, I was told the society would be very open, modern and Westernized. Emiratis wear traditional clothing, and the Emirati women wear black headscarves (hijab) and long black robes (abaya); however, Western women are not expected to dress that way. It was suggested that I wear conservative clothing if out in public, but it would be equivalent to how you would be expected to be covered to go into a Catholic cathedral or the Vatican (no bare shoulders, no excessive cleavage showing and legs covered at least below the knees). The regular work week is Sunday to Thursday. Friday prayers mean that Friday and Saturday are the weekend, although many people and certainly laborers work on Saturdays. Business meetings would begin with a tea or coffee (rude to refuse one), and there should be some courteous conversation and general chatting before any real business began. Because Islam teaches that it is "Haram" for a man to touch a woman who is not related to him, I should wait for a Muslim man to extend his hand for a handshake first and not be offended if he does not offer his hand. Alcohol would be readily available in hotels and restaurants, but if I wanted a personal stash, it would be easier to buy it at Duty Free in the airport. Lastly, there is a zero-tolerance policy for all drugs, and I should be very careful to bring only essential medications and nothing narcotic under any circumstances. In the UK, paracetamol with codeine is legal without a prescription, but it would cause you a huge problem if you attempted to bring it with you into the UAE. International SOS rates the country as very safe, very stable and with a low risk of terrorism, so I had nothing to worry about in terms of security.
Emirates flies three non-stop flights each day between Manchester and Dubai, so getting there was easy enough. Although as a former Detroiter and Atlantan I try to fly Delta and SkyTeam Alliance whenever possible (to consolidate my frequent flier miles and earn towards Medallion/Elite status), there was no way I was willing to add on a layover to what would be a 7 hour flight to begin with. So I registered with Emirates Skywards and booked their non-stop Saturday night flight, departing Manchester at 21:10, arriving Dubai at 07:25 local time. I was very impressed with the Emirates experience. Flying business class, I was eligible for their complimentary Chauffeur-drive service, so I reserved a car for all of my airport transfers. I had access to the Emirates business lounge, which had free wireless and a wide array of hot and cold foods and beverages. Bottomless French champagne! The flight itself was on one of their massive double-decker A380 Airbus jetliners. This plane is so flipping enormous that you can really feel it lumbering on take-off, like Dumbo the Elephant getting ready to fly, and you feel inertia and gravity pulling at you during the ascent. Once up in the air, it was unquestionably the most posh in-flight experience I had ever had, from any airline, in my life. The Emirates website has a good description with a lot of photos. Their overnight amenities kit is made by Bvlgari. I mean, seriously? I can only imagine how glorious their First Class experience must be.
Landing in Dubai International Airport (DXB) -- the world's busiest airport by international passenger traffic -- was the start of some serious "Shock and Awe" (sorry; I couldn't resist the reference). Terminal 3 is the largest airport terminal in the world. The airport facilities are already overloaded and further expansion and building is underway. We exited the plane on the tarmac and boarded a bus, and it took the bus at least 15 minutes, maybe longer, to wind its way around the airport property to our entrance gate, so I got a good look at the size and scale of the place. I also got a good look at the ground workers and a busload of construction workers with the dark coloring and features of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, or various other Asians and not a single Arab-looking man. The population of the UAE is estimated to be 9.4 million souls, but almost 90% of them are expatriates and not citizens. Nearly 40% of the foreign workers are from India and Pakistan. Those countries are only a 3 hour flight away, which is nice for any expatriate worker that has the money and his passport to fly home for holidays.
My only complaint about the DXB airport is that it is too freaking BIG, and there are not enough moving walkways and apparently no "plane train" either (I never thought I would miss Atlanta's plane train, but there you go). So you walk, walk, walk, dodge shoppers in the duty free stores, dodge clueless people who don't know where they're going, walk some more, and then you walk again. After the DXB Death March, you finally reach passport control and your first glimpse of real, live Emiratis. I guess they save the Immigration and Customs jobs for citizens. As a US citizen, I was eligible a free 30-day visa upon arrival. First and Business class passengers on Emirates get a "fast lane" card so you get through the border without waiting in line. Two pleasant-looking Emirati men greeted me and took my passport. They were dressed in traditional bright-white, ankle-length robes (kandoora) with white headscarves (keffiyeh) secured with what looked like black hosepipe (aghals). The men all seemed to be wearing some kind of white mesh or crocheted cap like a giant doily underneath their keffiyehs, which I don't know if it was part of the scarf or a separate prayer cap that stayed on whenever the scarf came off. My best guess is that it was a prayer cap, because that scarf would have to get in the way of bending over and praying and need to be removed, and you would want the cap underneath to be as light and air-flow-friendly as possible.
I didn't take any pictures of people, but this image is a good representation of what I saw throughout the week as typical Emirati attire:
Anyways, the very nice Immigration men scanned my passport and stamped me in without so much as a question. I get more interrogation entering my own country!
Because DXB does a huge amount of international transfer traffic, inside the secure part of the airport still feels very international, like going through Schiphol or Paris CDG. Once outside, though, you very much realize you are now in the Middle East. The heat and sun hitting you like a blast furnace is one good indication. The much higher percentage of people wearing local attire is another. There is something incongruous about a man in traditional attire that probably hasn't changed very much in a few centuries talking on a mobile phone while climbing behind the wheel of a car. The other thing you notice right away is all of the sand and dust in the air and atmosphere. At first, I thought it was pollution and smog like Los Angeles, but it's not. When it's dry and windy, the atmosphere fills with sand and dust, and the horizon looks tan. I'm sure the Burj Khalifa (the world's tallest building) is a sight to behold, and the views from it must be amazing, but all I saw during the week was a fuzzy, sandy silhouette, and I figured there was no sense in going up to the "At The Top" observation deck on Levels 148 and 124 under those conditions.
Dubai is the first and only city I've been in where you feel like you are driving through time into the 23rd century when you arrive. The skyline is endless skyscrapers, but they aren't just glass boxes. The architecture is different, unique, bold and futuristic. I half-expected to see flying cars and The Jetsons. Welcome to Dubai!
No comments:
Post a Comment