Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

I probably don’t need to include this day in the trip report, but I’m going to use it to reflect a little bit, so I’ll include it.

As noted in my last post, my flight from Dubai left at 1:30 am on the 14th, arriving in Frankfurt around 5:30am.  I had a 7 hour layover in Frankfurt and had originally planned to leave the airport like I had done in Zurich.  But I stupidly put my jacket in my suitcase on the way to the airport because it was too hot to use it in Dubai and only realized I didn’t take it back out after I had checked my suitcase and made my way through security!  Argh!  Given the temperature in Frankfurt, walking around without a coat wasn’t going to be pleasant.  In addition to not having a coat there was also the issue of the 10 days of email and work I had neglected, so I decided to just camp out in the Frankfurt airport.  I did luck into an extra shirt on the way off the flight when a flight attendant noticed all I had on was a t-shirt and asked if I had a jacket. I told her what had happened and she grabbed some pajamas they keep in stock in first class and gave them too me.  They included a nice long sleeve shirt, which really helped!

The only other interesting thing that happened on the way home was an engaging conversation on the flight from Frankfurt to DC.  I sat next to a German man who was very nice.  We chatted during the last two hours about all sorts of topics, from German politics and the Euro crisis to patent law (he was a patent attorney for Ford in Europe) to religion (once he found out what I do).  It was a very pleasant conversation.

As far as reflection goes, there is one point I really want to consider that was also my primary motivation for going on this trip.  I have published one article on secularization and have another one forthcoming.  Secularization is the primary macro-theoretical approach I employ in my research.  But the leading theorist of secularization today, Steve Bruce, has, probably in order to avoid being criticized, explicitly stated that secularization is, at present, a theory relevant only to the West.  Knowing that the UAE and Dubai in particular had developed rapidly and become quite modern, I wanted to see if that modernization had influenced the religiosity of Emiratis.  While I have very limited data to go on, even after spending almost 10 days in the UAE, I think I have seen sufficient signs of secularization to begin to tentatively think that secularization holds for the Middle East as well.

A couple of things I observed gave me this impression.  For instance, the fact that there are public calls to prayer (adhan) five times a day in many parts of the UAE would seem to suggest that modernization has not reduced the religiosity of Emiratis.  To the contrary, the calls to prayer themselves have become a reflection of secularization.  The minarets that traditionally were used by muezzin for the call to prayer have changed.  Muezzin used to use the minarets to rise above the surrounding buildings so their voice could be heard over great distances.  Today, the minarets in the UAE don’t even have room for muezzin.  They are adorned with speakers.  And, while I could be mistaken, I got the impression that many of the calls to prayer were actually recordings, not actual muezzin, or were just one muezzin being broadcast into multiple mosques.  While this is a minor issue, I still see it as a reflection of secularization.  By taking advantage of the modern convenience of microphones and speakers, muezzin need not be as dedicated to their religious faith.  And the fact that one muezzin may service multiple mosques or the adhan may be recorded and then played back also suggests to me devotion has declined.

Another indicator of declining religiosity was the response to the adhan.  During the entire time I was there I saw Emiratis respond to the adhan a grand total of ONE time, and that was when we were visiting with the half a dozen old men in Al Khan, all of whom were at least in their 60s, if not their 70s or 80s.  Well, there was one younger man with them who was probably in his 30s, but the rest were quite elderly.  The rest of the time, when I heard the adhan, which wasn’t all the time, it didn’t seem to trigger anything.  Vendors in the soukhs didn’t stop harassing customers to engage in their ritual prayers.  I heard stories of taxi drivers pulling over to pray, but I didn’t see it.  And in the most modern venues we were in – Mall of the Emirates, Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifah, American University of Sharjah, I didn’t even hear the call to prayer.  Maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.  Or maybe everyone prayers discreetly.  Or maybe there is another way of issuing the adhan and I simply missed it.  But for some reason I doubt that.  My sense was that modern life just isn’t all that amenable to pausing and praying.

That leads to another observation – the pursuit of money appears to over-ride religiosity.  As I observed a couple of times in these trip reports, various locales had set up Christmas Trees, including Jumeirah Madinat Mosque and the desert safari camp.  And just before we arrived the city of Dubai had urged those there to go on a shopping holiday right around December 25th.  In a country that is officially Muslim, includes Shariah Law in its constitution, and is historically Muslim, I just wouldn’t expect to find Christmas Trees or the celebration of Christmas.  Admittedly the display of the symbols was not laced with explicit Christian paraphernalia and it was largely divorced from any religious meaning.  But it was there.  That says to me that religion is becoming less important.

Other indicators of declining religiosity… No one attributed the conservative restrictions of Sharjah to Islam.  It was attributed to the Sheikh or the culture of Sharjah, but not Islam.  This is probably out of a realization that if Sharjah says it is more closely observing Islam by banning alcohol and requiring women to be more modest, then what is it suggesting about it’s neighbor, Dubai, where alcohol is legal and people are not required to dress as modestly?  The implicit suggestion would be that Emiratis in Dubai aren’t as good of Muslims.  Thus, the restrictions are not attributed to Islam.  The end result is that Islam is being watered down.  Islam is decreasingly responsible for how people live their lives.  Islam is becoming a set of nonfalsifiable beliefs, not unlike those of liberal Christians in the West.  While Islamists are fighting that trend, many people in the Middle East oppose the Islamists and are happy to see the rigidness of Islam decline.

I’m sure not everyone would agree with my thoughts above on my observations.  But to me, these observations support the idea that secularization is not limited to the West.

One final item.  While putting together these daily logs I created a Google Map with markers for most of the places I visited.  Here it is in case you’d like to familiarize yourself a bit more with the UAE:

View Dubai Trip in a larger map

We had just one CIEE related activity this day – a farewell brunch at 2:00 pm.  With the entire morning to kill, K. and I decided to go for a walk.  We first headed southwest to Safa Park, which is one of the bigger parks in Dubai.  It’s quite beautiful, but it’s not free.  It costs about a dollar to get in.  However, around the park is a nice running trail, which was very busy while we were there.  We circled the park, then headed up the coast, eventually finding Jumeirah Road on our way to Jumeirah Mosque.  On the way we found a nice spot for a panorama centered around the Burj Khalifah:

Burj Khalifah in the middle (click for higher resolution)

We knew it was going to be a long walk, but I think we really underestimated how long.  It took us a couple of hours to get to Jumeira Mosque, which we had heard was the only mosque in Dubai that allows non-Muslims to enter.  That’s true, but only on certain days, and Friday is not one of those days.  So, we got to see the mosque from the outside, but we didn’t get to go in.  Even so, having been to the Sheikh Zayyad Mosque in Abu Dhabi, I’m sure Jumeira Mosque would have been a let down. Nevertheless, I did snap two photos I think are interesting and quite telling of Dubai.  The first is a photo of the Jumeira Mosque, but with TGI Fridays in the foreground.

Jumeira Mosque with TGI Fridays sign in the foreground

After our hike to Jumeira Mosque (almost 5 miles in the increasingly hot UAE sun), we stopped by Starbucks to take a break and get a refreshing beverage.  While there I snapped a photo of my Starbucks cup with the Jumeira Mosque in the background:

Jumeirah Mosque from Starbucks

I think these photos are a very good illustration of Dubai and the UAE.  It is a country that has pretty much all of the amenities and stores of the West, but is trying to reconcile those amenities with its cultural heritage.  You can go the mosque and then stop by Starbucks or TGI Fridays afterward.  Globalization has been realized in Dubai! Tired from our hike to the mosque, we thought we’d catch a bus back to our hotel, but it turns out you can’t pay when you get on the bus, you have to have a prepaid bus card, and we couldn’t find where to get one.  We did, however, see the air conditioned bus stops:

air conditioned bus stop on Jumeirah Road; you can see the A/C unit on the top of the bus stop

Rather than trek all the way back to the hotel, we decided we’d try to work our way over to the Metro, forgetting that it is closed Friday mornings and only opens at 1:30, which might not get us back to the hotel in time for our 2:00 pm brunch.  We headed back southeast, cutting across streets and through neighborhoods toward the Metro line and eventually ended up walking through a section of town that was filled with labor camps.  Basically it was old homes that had been repurposed for dorms for dozens of men.  And since Friday is the one day off many of them have, they were out and about.  We didn’t stop to take pictures as it kind of felt like we were not supposed to be there, but we didn’t feel threatened at all.  Once we reached the edge of the camps we turned around and snapped some photos, but I wanted to be discrete, so I didn’t pull out my good camera.  I just used my phone.  I did get a picture of some of the laborers playing cricket in a parking lot:

laborers playing cricket in parking lot

From there we worked our way back to Sheikh Zayyad Road and a Metro station only to realize the Metro was closed (it was about 12:30 at this point).  So, we decided we’d get a taxi.  We found one quickly and it took us back to our hotel for a very reasonable rate.  But… K. left his wallet in the cab!  Nine days in the UAE without incident, and on our last day, K left his wallet in the cab!  Luckily, he kept his passport separate from his wallet and he had kept a backup debit card in his room so he would be able to get money, but it was a downer and major inconvenience.  The hotel staff worked with him to try to get it back, but to no avail.  I still feel bad about it, but he was cool about it and, thanks to his planning, was fine. Our brunch was at a beautiful restaurant in Old Dubai called Bastakiya Nights.   We had a prix fixe menu and it was absolutely delicious, probably the best meal we had there.  That was also the last time we were all together (though two members of our group missed the brunch, including K. who was still trying to find his wallet).  We said our goodbyes then some of us headed back to the hotel. I had arranged with L. and K. to go to the Dubai Mall that evening and from there go up the Burj Khalifa to the look out platform.  K. isn’t a fan of heights; not afraid, just not a fan.  We left our hotel around 6:00 and headed to the Dubai Mall.  The area around the mall is lit up quite beautifully at night:

sidewalk near Dubai Mall; Dubai Mall is to the right

It took us forever to find our way into the Mall, but then we walked around for a bit.  At the base of the Burj Khalifah they have a massive pond, like the Bellagio in Las Vegas.  And like the Bellagio, every half hour there is a fountain show set to music.  We watched one, then grabbed some dinner before heading To the Top.  It cost about $30 to go up to the lookout platform, but it was a decent view.  Here’s a night shot of the Burj Khalifah:

night shot of the Burj Khalifah

The viewing platform has an open roof, but very high glass walls.  I snapped enough shots to piece together an okay panorama:

panorama from viewing platform (click for higher resolution)

K. snapped a photo of me on the platform as well:

on the Burj Khalifah

It is pretty amazing to think that you are hundreds of feet above what would be considered very tall skyscrapers if not for the existence of the Burj Khalifah.  Oh, and the elevators are remarkably fast and smooth.  My ears popped going up and down, but it’s a smooth ride. From the Burj Khalifah we headed back to our hotel, packed up, and took a cab to the airport.  We all had flights that left early the next morning – 1:30 am!

We were back at AUS this day for another lecture.  This time it was Dr. O. Ishaq Tijani on gender and culture in the gulf from a literary perspective.  Also present was Basima Muhammad Yunus, an Emirati writer.  They talked about female oppression and how women authors in the Gulf use their stories to challenge that oppression.  However, the culture is still so oppressive toward women that if they speak out too strongly, they can get in serious trouble.  They also noted that Emiratis are not big readers, like people in the West, and suggested this is likely an educational development issue as more developed Middle Eastern countries and cities (e.g., Lebanon, Egypt) have more pronounced literary cultures.  I asked Basima Yunus if she could survive off her writing and she laughed.  The only publishers in the UAE are the governments of the Emirates.  If they approve what you’ve written, they will publish it and maybe give you a small advance, but that’s it.  Living as a writer is impossible.  Novels can be banned and have been.  And there are topics that are off-limits, like rape.  Basima Yunus also said that she didn’t consider herself a feminist, which I thought was interesting.  (On a side note, Dr. Tijani spoke about female empowerment but it was later noted by someone at AUS that his wife wears the niqab and has 9 kids.  I know someone women don’t consider the hijab or niqab oppressive, but I thought that was an interesting sidebar.)

After the lecture we had lunch on campus and then were done with CIEE stuff for the day.  K. has a tradition of buying hats for his nephews and culturally representative dolls for his nieces when he visits new countries.  He had been having trouble finding dolls that were dressed in culturally appropriate attire – most were dolls imported from China.  But he found out about one doll that is considered to be modestly figured (smaller breasts than Barbie) and modestly dressed and therefore suitable for the Muslim world – Fulla.  He heard the French Wal-Mart equivalent, Carrefour, carried them, and there was a Carrefour at the Mall of the Emirates, so we made a quick trip there to look for the dolls.  We found them and hurried back to our hotel so we could be picked up for our evening adventure.

Apparently it’s a fairly popular thing to do in Dubai to go out in the desert, go “dune bashing,” and have dinner and a show.  I didn’t know about it until I got there and the other members of my group mentioned it.  It sounded really cheesy and touristy, but I was willing to give it a whirl.  A guy showed up in an SUV at our hotel at 4:00 and loaded a few of us into his vehicle then called another SUV to come get the rest of our group.  I ended up sitting next to a young woman from Italy who, luckily, spoke English.  She was returning from a trip to Australia with her parents and they decided to stay for a few days in Dubai just because they could.  She and her parents were headed out to the desert with the rest of us tourists.  We chatted at length, mostly about Italy.  I got her views on Italian health care (free, but slow; she was quite positive about it probably because she is studying to become a medical doctor).  I also asked her about Berlusconi.  She said she didn’t like him as a person; he’s a scumbag.  But she admitted that he had reduced property taxes and done some things to help Italians.  She was very nice and I was very grateful that she knew English because I don’t know Italian!

We drove out toward the desert, stopping at a gas station to wait for the other SUV on the way.  We eventually stopped at a transition spot where we got out of the SUVs that picked us up and got into different SUVs that were going to talk us dune bashing.  The sun set as we transitioned from one vehicle to the other and I snapped a quick photo of the sunset in the UAE desert:

UAE sunset in the desert

Dune bashing basically consists of driving around the sand dunes, climbing up and over dunes and dropping off others.  It was very reminiscent of riding ATVs and motorcycles in the sand dunes in Utah, but in an SUV.  It was actually a lot of fun, but would have been even more fun had I been the driver.  Here’s a video illustrating what it’s like from youtube (not mine).  I was amazed at the stability and traction of the vehicles and the fact that they didn’t get stuck in that sand.  I’m not sure what they do to the vehicles so they manuever so well in the sand, but I was impressed.  I did snap a picture of my view in the SUV:

packed into the SUV like sardines to go dune bashing

The dune bashing ended at a large camp in the desert.  Here’s a photo of the entrance:

desert camp entrance

That sounds more exotic than it really was.  If you climbed up the tallest dune near the camp (just to the right of the picture above), you could see two other camps less than a mile away.  Oh, and the freeway was about half a mile behind our camp.  The camp was strategically placed so it was surrounded by sand dunes, blocking out the noise from the freeway and other camps, which made it seem like you were alone in the desert, but you really were not.

At the camp there were a variety of things you could do.  They had ATVs that you could ride, but it cost a lot to ride them and, having ridden plenty of ATVs in my lifetime, I didn’t think it was worth it (though I may have to go get an ATV fix out in Utah this summer now).  They had free camel rides, which I wanted to do but missed because the line was too long.  They also had dune surfing – well, kind of.  They had a couple of thoroughly trashed snowboards that you could kind of strap onto your feet and then try to get to go down the sand dunes.  As a snowboarder I figured I’d give it a try.  It didn’t work very well.  First, the dunes were too small.  And second, the board sucked.  But K. got a picture of me trying it anyway:

me at the top of the dune just before I tried sandboarding

Inside the camp they had additional activities.  They had souvenir shops, a place to put on traditional UAE clothes and get pictures, a place to get Henna tattoos, and a place to smoke hookah.  Those activities were in the little tents surrounding a center stage and tables, which you can see in this photo:

view of the camp from the nearby sand dune

Oh, and one more photo from the inside. This was the first thing you saw when you walked in:

Christmas Tree in desert camp in Dubai

Yep, that’s a Christmas Tree… In a desert safari camp… In Dubai.  Go figure.

Anyway, dinner and non-alcoholic drinks were included in the package (which was about $40.00).  Also included was a show.  They had a male dervish dancer who was pretty good.  They had a female fire dancer who was also pretty good and did double duty as the bartender.  Not surprisingly, she wasn’t Emirati – she was Russian.  So, too, was the main show of the evening, a rather pathetic belly dancer.  She danced for a while, but wasn’t very good and was, um, a bit portly.  We ate during the shows, but as soon as the belly dancer wrapped up, we were quickly ushered out the camp and the whole thing closed down around 8:30.  We later heard that there is a law that the camps have to close down by 9:00, which is why they rushed out of there so quickly.  We got back into the dune bashing SUV and it transported us to the freeway, where we got back in the other SUV and headed back to our hotel.  And that was our trip into the desert!

We had a full day guided tour by Dr. Samia Rab to Ras Al Khaima, one of the less affluent Emirates, and to Sharjah.  I shot another photo as we headed to AUS to pick up Dr. Rab that does a pretty good job of illustrating what it feels like to drive through Dubai:

surrounded by skyscrapers in Dubai

The raised concrete platform to the right is the Metro.  The road we were on is Sheikh Zayyad Road, which runs the length of the UAE.  It’s kind of a surreal feeling driving along a strip like this with miles of skyscrapers on either side.

Anyway, after picking up our guide and Dr. Rab, we drove to Ras Al Khaima, which was about an hour and a half away.  I snapped a few more photos along the way.  First, here is a picture on the way into AUS of several pictures of the Sheikh of Sharjah:

pictures of the Sheikh lining the road

I wouldn’t say these are everywhere, but pictures of the Sheikh are quite common.  It’s clear that there are concerted efforts to build “cults of personality” to increase favorability ratings of the dictators of the various emirates.  This reminds me of something Mishaal Al Gergawi – the op-ed columnist for Gulf News mentioned: repeated personality cults are unsustainable.  Sometimes Sheikhs aren’t charismatic, and putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it something other than a pretty pig.  In other words, the repeated personality cults that allow the sheikhs to remain dictators will eventually end.

I also snapped this picture of a menial laborer in his standard jumpsuit attire:

menial laborer in green jumpsuit

There are two things I want to point out in this picture (and the one above it).  First, there were lots of menial laborers like this guy wearing either green or orange jumpsuits.  I’m not sure why they are required to wear these uniforms, but they all did.  Second, notice the grass and foliage in this photo.  And notice in the photo above the sprinklers.  Keep in mind that the UAE is a desert.  It may rain once a year, or even less.  We were told that Dubai has just a week of water reserves at any given point in time.  And here they are watering grass.  I live in Florida, where we get tons of rain and I don’t water my grass.  It’s too expensive and makes little sense.  But they water grass in the middle of the desert!

On the way to Ras Al Khaima we saw camels wandering around the desert.  I snapped a few good shots.  Here’s probably the best one:

camels in the UAE desert

Our only stop in Ras Al Khaima was at the National Museum of Ras Al Khaima.  It is a reconstructed home, but has the only intact and functioning wind tower in the UAE according to Dr. Rab.  Here are some photos:

the only functioning wind tower in the UAE

the view from the bottom of the wind tower

We stood below the wind tower and, even though there was just a slight breeze, it was quite evident that the tower did a good job of cooling the air.

While we were at the National Museum I had to use the restroom and was reminded of a unique cultural feature in the UAE.  I’m familiar with bidets.  They have been popular in several countries I’ve visited, including Costa Rica (in the wealthy neighborhoods), Japan, and France.  In the UAE they have a different method for cleaning up after defecating: a hose with a spray nozzle on it:

spray nozzle near the toilet for cleaning up after defecating

You know, I wouldn’t really have an issue with the hose by the toilet… Except, every bathroom also has a free-standing drain in it.  You can see the edge of the drain at the bottom middle of the photo.  There is a similar drain in all the bathrooms.  Now let me connect the dots for you.  The bidets I have seen (and, of course, used) in other countries have a sprayer in the toilet itself or a separate bidet with a sprayer built in.  The mechanics of such a system mean that the feces removed from spraying the anus end up in the toilet or the bidet.  Those bathrooms didn’t include free-standing drains in them.  Now think through the mechanics of having a hose with a nozzle.  You don’t have to be sitting down to use that hose, nor do you have to be near the toilet.  You getting the picture yet?  The feces that is removed through spraying the anus doesn’t have to end up in the toilet or bidet, does it?  ;)   Thus the free-standing drain!  In other words, every time I walked into a bathroom in the UAE, I was basically walking on the mostly cleaned up remnants of other peoples’ feces.  Um, yeah.  Most of the time I didn’t think about this because the bathrooms were relatively clean.  But the place where it was most apparent that I was, in fact, walking on other peoples’ feces was actually in the men’s room at the American University of Sharjah.  The stalls in the bathroom by our lecture hall were very small with wooden partitions and wooden doors.  Wood is porous.  Now add humidity (the UAE is very humid) and more humidity from the hose and sprayer and mix in feces falling on the floor.  What do you get?  Wood that smells like feces, damp, humid, feces.  And I knew it was on the floor because where else would it go when someone pulled out that hose and started spraying?  I used the bathroom in my hotel most of the time I was in the UAE; it was pretty clean, but still had the hose and the free-standing drain.  Just thought you might like this fun cultural tidbit.

We spent about 30 minutes at the museum then Dr. Rab walked us through the neighborhood behind the museum and to the ocean.  The neighborhood was actually one of the most interesting parts of the tour – it was a slum.  And it contained labor camp housing.  I don’t think our guide realized that Dr. Rab was going to walk us through that neighborhood, but Dr. Rab was able to justify it because the homes are very old (they have been repurposed as labor camps) and employ the traditional architectural style of using coral cemented together.  The construction of the homes was interesting, but of greater interest to me was the labor camps and the deprecated nature of the area.  Here are some photos:

I liked this photo because the car is a Mercedes and it is parked in a pile of trash

You can tell that buildings are labor camps because they have signs on them with the name of the company that owns them, as did the two buildings in the next two photos:

one of the labor camp buildings; sign is in the middle to the left of the door

the other labor camp building we saw in this rundown neighborhood; sign is just above the couch

While it was particularly apparent in this rundown neighborhood, something else I noticed in the UAE is that people are fine littering and leaving trashing everywhere.   There is no sense of civic duty to clean up after yourself.  Jumping ahead a little, I noticed this along the streets as we walked, but also at the beach (see later in this post) as there was trash left all over and in the desert (see next post).  This led me to ponder something (which some may want to respond to in the comments): Are countries like the UAE developing too rapidly?  What I mean is, in countries that have developed fairly rapidly but through the development of most of their own technology (e.g., Western Europe, the US), it seems as though the culture has shifted along with the technological developments.  As a result, there is a sense of civic pride in not littering (in some areas; not everywhere).  And that seems to have developed along with the preponderance of packaging that is part of modern life.  In a country like the UAE where modernity is very new, corresponding values do not seem to have developed.  I don’t mean that to be judgmental; I’m just wondering if that is an accurate observation.

The next photo shows some of the traditional construction.  The brown spots in the wall where the top coating has peeled away is coral.  Because there are very few rocks in the country, homes were originally built out of coral.  The sign on the wall says this is protected for historical purposes:

traditional home construction

At the far end of the neighborhood was the ocean.  I stuck my fingers in so I could say I have been in the Persian Gulf.  This shot shows how far we had traveled along the UAE peninsula as we were near enough to the mountains of Oman for them to appear through the smog:

coastline with mountains of Oman in the background

We walked back through the slum to the museum and got back in the van, then headed to Al Jazirah Al Hamra, which is an abandoned fishing village.  Apparently two feuding families had lived here, but their feud had grown so violent that the families eventually picked up and moved to different parts of the country, leaving the village abandoned.  Dr. Rab took us there so we could get a better picture of the traditional technique for home construction.  Here are two photos showing the materials used:

the "rocks" in this wall are actually pieces of coral pulled up from the ocean

later construction used sediment from the seabed that included seashells, mixed with broken up bricks from Iran

The village here is a ruin – all of the homes and buildings are falling apart.  There used to be a fort here as well but that, too, has begun to collapse.  However, a burj (i.e., tower) from the fort was still standing:

burj at Al Jazirah Al Hamra

We saw similar burjes throughout the country.  They were typically facing the desert as enemies (i.e., raiding bedouins) came from the desert while friends came from the sea (most of the time; not the case with Europeans!).   Some of these are still intact.  Oh, and the nose-shaped protrusion near the top was used for pouring oil on enemies.

From Al Jazirah Al Hamra we traveled into Sharjah along the coast and stopped for lunch in a nice little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the old souk area.  I had my first dates there and they were delicious!  From the souk we walked to the Heritage Museum.  We took a tour of a home that is being reconstructed and learned more about the construction process.  One interesting factoid I picked up had to do with the width of rooms.  Since the UAE has no timber to speak of, all the wood used for construction was imported, typically from India.  But the boats that brought the wood were only about 8 feet wide, which meant the timber they brought could only be about 8 feet wide.  As a result, rooms in the UAE were only about 8 feet wide as the wood was used in the ceiling and roof construction, as shown in this photo:

the width of the imported timber determined the width of rooms

After seeing the houses we had a lecture by three young Emirati ladies who talked to us about Emirati culture.  They noted that there are a couple of dishes that are somewhat unique to the UAE, but not many.  They also talked about the clothing they wear and customs involving who women can be around.  I also asked them about race issues.  The book we read before the trip said that there was no discrimination in the UAE based on race, even though blacks used to be owned as slaves.  The Emirati women said that wasn’t entirely true.  There is a great deal of tolerance, but many Emirati families would not let their children marry an Emirati who is black (I never saw one).  In other words, there is racial discrimination in the country.  Their presentation was informative and would have been even more helpful the first or second day we were in the country.  Here’s a picture of the three of them (they said we could take their picture):

three Emirati ladies who presented about Emirati culture (it was a short presentation)

After the presentation by the three Emirati women Dr. Rab gave a presentation on architecture in the Gulf that was informative.  She noted that the recent construction boom had changed zoning regulations.  Homes now have to be offset from the road by a certain distance.  As a result, homes in the UAE, unless they are particularly large, cannot have a courtyard.  In traditional homes, there were no windows facing outside the home; all the windows faced the courtyard.  This was because of customs involving women and who can see them without the hijab or abaya.  When in their own homes they can walk around without the hijab or abaya, but not in public.  With the new zoning regulations, the windows in homes all face away from the home rather than toward the courtyard.  But that introduces privacy issues as the women can’t be seen by strangers.  To address this, all the windows have the shades constantly drawn.  And, in consequence, women in the UAE are suffering from a serious Vitamin D deficiency due to limited exposure to the sun.  They used to get sunlight in their courtyards, but they don’t have those now.  And when they are out and about, they are almost fully covered, so they get limited sun exposure on their skin, reducing their ability to produce Vitamin D.  Weird out things tie together.  She also noted that there were sitting rooms for men and sitting rooms for women, which meant homes had to be larger to accommodate cultural norms.

round wind tower in foreground with high rise using wind tower motif in the background

Also near the Sharjah heritage area is the old fort, which is actually a complete reconstruction as the old one was torn down.  The current Sheikh of Sharjah wanted it rebuilt, so they rebuilt it, but had to move it because the buildings that surround it were built too close to its old foundation:

Sharjah Fort (middle) lined by the buildings of Bank Street

From the Heritage Area we drove to the Sharjah aquarium, which is right next to another site of ruins called Al Khan.  Al Khan was where the wealthy people in Sharjah used to go during the sweltering heat of the summer as it was less populated and had more of a breeze from the ocean.  Today it is a ruin, but is under restoration.  The aquarium has a balcony that offers excellent views of the Sharjah skyline.  Here’s a panorama I shot of it:

Sharjah skyline from aquarium (cick for bigger resolution)

It was almost sunset when we arrived at the aquarium, so we headed out to the beach to watch the sun set and snapped a few pictures.

airplane flying over the setting sun from Al Khan in Sharjah; airplane is the black sliver above and to the left of the sun

birds crossing in front of the setting sun from Al Khan in Sharjah

On our way back to the aquarium where we had reservations for dinner we passed a small club house with an open courtyard.  Lounging around in the club house and courtyard were half a dozen elderly Emiratis.  They waved us over and insisted that we sit and have a drink of Arabic coffee with them.  They were very gracious and inviting.  We sat and chatted for a minute, but were a little worried as our dinner reservation was for 6:00 and it was almost 6:00.  However, just after we sat down the evening call for prayers was issued by the muezzin and they all left to go pray.  Awkwardly, we slipped out of the courtyard and headed to the aquarium for dinner.

The aquarium has a beautiful deck right on the water where we had dinner.  Here’s the group enjoying dinner:

my tour group enjoying dinner at the aquarium in Sharjah, from left to right: M., J., C (in green), K. (facing away), R., J., L., and D.

And here’s a panorama of the view from the deck:

Sharjah skyline from the aquarium (click for larger resolution)

Dinner was delicious and the view was superb.

This day started with another trip out to the American University of Sharjah.  While I typically sat in the back of the van, I requested to sit in the front this day so I could get a clearer picture of the traffic (bad drivers, but not as bad as I thought) and so I could photograph buildings in Dubai.  It’s amazing what people will build when they have more money than they really need.  Dubai has its own pyramid-shaped building, like Vegas’s Luxor, because you’re not a real city unless you have a pyramid (I guess):

pyramid shaped building

Oh, and how do you top the iconic nature of the Chrysler Building in New York City?  Why, build two of them, of course:

Dubai doesn't have one Chrysler Building copy; it has two

And why shouldn’t the building where pilots train look like an airplaine?  Emirates airlines thinks it should:

Shouldn't all buildings be in the shape of something relevant to the purpose of the building?

I haven’t mentioned labor camps until now, so I should describe them before I show pictures of them.  Many of the lowest paid ex-patriot workers in the country are housed in what are called “labor camps.” They are basically shoddy dormitories or old homes that are literally filled with people, stuffing far more into a room than should be in a room.  The older labor camps were out in the desert so no one could see them, but newer ones are a little nicer and are actually in Dubai.  We asked our guide about visiting the labor camps and she said we couldn’t, which was disappointing (but some of us went anyway; more on this later).  However, while driving around this day we saw some from the road and I shot a couple of okay pictures of them:

labor camp dormitories; some have the name of the company on them, like this on

here's another dormitory showing how small and cramped they are

I also had to post this picture.  It’s not very good, but it’s a gas station – just a random gas station in Dubai.  Attached to it isn’t just one American fast food restaurant – Dunkin Donuts, but a second one, Pizza Hut.  Most of the gas stations had attached fast food stations, like Burger King and Subway:

Pizza Hut is all the way to the right; Dunkin Donuts is in the middle

We had a little time before our first lecture/panel presentation this morning, so K. and I went for a walk around the campus.  We found the faculty housing, which seemed nice enough:

faculty housing at the American University of Sharjah

We also saw the gym and other sports complexes.  Unlike in the U.S., since men and women can’t exercise together, the gym is carefully scheduled, splitting the time pretty evenly between men and women.  And this tennis complex had separate entrances for men and women and a wall between the men’s courts and the women’s courts:

the photo isn't the best, but men's is on the left, women's is on the right

After our little tour of campus, we returned to the lecture hall for our first presentation – a panel on media in the gulf.  Panelists included Abeer Al-Najjar, an Assistant Professor of Communication at AUS (who also spoke the day before), Francis Matthew, the Editor at Large of Gulf News, which is one of the largest daily newspapers in the region, and Nabil Al Khatib, who is the Executive Editor of Al Arabiya news, one of the largest TV stations in the gulf and the Arab world.  These were some pretty heavy hitters.  This panel discussion was very interesting because they talked about the state of news in the Gulf region and how news works, generally, but it also focused on the Arab Spring and it’s implications, as well as the role of the media in it.  Francis Matthew noted that 65% of the populations in the Gulf area are under 25, meaning young people really do matter and that governments had to pay attention to them, or else.  Young people led the Arab Spring.  Birth rates are declining, but the populations in the area remain quite young.  He also said that demand for democracy is limited in the Middle East; the people in some countries don’t want it or, maybe better stated, aren’t ready for it yet.  When I asked him about this, he suggested that it was an issue of education and modernization.  As countries develop, they necessarily have to increase the education of the population.  For instance, 250,000 young Saudis are going to school outside Saudi Arabia every year.  But that is a double-edged sword.  You need educated people to build the infrastructure of a country and to participate in the global market, but that also means exposure to political ideas that the leadership of the country may not like, including democracy.  Mr. Matthews then suggested that the countries where the Arab Spring had or was taking place were countries that had developed earlier and/or countries where the regular citizens were not being sedated by cash transfers.  However, he did think that increasing modernization would eventually lead to similar revolutions around the Middle East and that the days of autocratic rule were limited.  Both panelists commented on the importance of new media (e.g., Facebook, blogs, Twitter, etc.), but said that traditional media in the Middle East had not been as damaged by new media as had traditional media in the West.  Gulf News, for instance, still makes most of its money off its print edition.  It is ready to try to transition to an online model, but it hasn’t seen a need for that yet.

I mentioned in my last post that the op-ed columnist, Mishaal Gergawi, had said that the media is not independent from the government in the Middle East.  Both of this day’s panelists said they were largely independent.  Gulf News seemed to have a more credible case in that it was owned by three businessmen, but they have ties to the royal family.  Al Arabiya is owned by a Saudi who also has ties to the royal family.  So, while they are technically independent, they aren’t practically independent.  Additionally, just like media in the West, both of these media outlets are heavily dependent upon advertisers, and that is largely how their content is controlled.  They both admitted that they were status quo media sources and that the new media is what pushed the envelope, because they are advertising dependent.  If they start to do or say something as media outlets that the dictators in the various Gulf countries dislike, those dictators can pressure the owners of businesses to withdraw their advertising from the media outlet, which results in censorship indirectly by undercutting the funding for the media outlet.

As a numbers guy, I asked about statistics and viewership for the TV station.  Mr. Khatib noted that they don’t have anything like Nielsen Media or any other particularly good measures of viewership for TV stations, but they do have three survey research firms that provide some statistics.  They derive their statistics by calling viewers and asking them what stations they watched over the course of the day in 15 minute segments, which he admitted isn’t a great methodology for studying this.  He said they are largely funded by the advertisers who want to know where to put their ads to maximize their impact.  However, the TV stations get the data as well, so they know how they are doing compared to other stations.  He also noted that the TV stations that are funded by groups outside the Middle East, like Alhurra, which is a US funded Arabic language satellite TV channel, have very low ratings – everyone knows they are propaganda.  The UK and Russia have similar channels which are also seldom watched.  Al Arabiya was the #2 network behind Al Jazeera.  He also noted that many of the stations in the Middle East imported media from the West, but they tended to only allow shows that emphasized consumerism, which is how many of the dictatorial regimes distract their citizens – they have tried to get them to focus on materialism rather than freedom.  He also noted that the average household watches 5 to 7 hours of TV a day in the region, but admitted that most of that is from people over 40; young people are increasingly turning to the internet for their media.  This led me to ask about people aging into traditional media consumption; in other words, as people grow older are they likely to begin reading the paper and watching the news?  They didn’t know.

We did eventually turn the discussion back to politics.  Mr. Matthews argued that there were really only three socio-political views in the Gulf: conservatives, liberals (as in libertarians), and Islamists.  There are no progressives in the Gulf.  He argued that his paper was libertarian, not oppositional.  It advocates for the free flow of information and reduced restrictions on people, but is not pushing for more progressive positions.  Finally, Mr. Khatib made a very good point about the Arab Spring and the very problematic perspective on the revolutions both in the West but also in the countries where these revolutions took place.  These countries have been governed by autocratic rulers for so long that the people in those countries don’t actually know how to live in countries that have greater freedoms. For instance, in Egypt, after Mubarak was overthrown, no one knew how to report the news.  They had been censored by the Mubarak regime for so long that actually reporting the news without censors was novel to them.  They didn’t know how to do it.  He also emphasized that people have unrealistic expectations for how quickly the revolutions will result in positive outcomes for people in these countries.  Democratizing a country years and maybe decades.  It can’t be done overnight.  Many aspects of the country have to change and people have to develop new ways of thinking.  Thinking these revolutions will result in positive changes overnight is naive.  I think this is a great point, especially in light of the recent Parliamentary elections in Egypt in which the Islamists won the greatest number of votes, despite young progressives being those who led the revolution.  They have democracy, but the Islamists are taking advantage of it.  In short, don’t expect flowering democracies to result from the Arab Spring in 2012; expect struggles, unemployment, frustration, and potentially even civil wars to result.  If they can overcome these initial tensions, they may become stable democracies in 5 to 10 years.

We ate lunch on campus (as we did most days).  AUS has a Starbucks, a Dunkin Donuts, and a Subway on campus.

After lunch we went to Media City in Dubai, which is basically just several buildings where international media companies have their headquarters.  Lots of big media outlets are there – Forbes, CNN, Reuters, etc.  We visited the headquarters of CNN Arabic.  The Chief Operations Officer, Caroline Faraj, and a journalist, Samya Ayish, met with us.  Ms. Faraj spoke at length about what CNN Arabic does and how it is run.  Basically, it is an independent division of CNN that is self-funded.  It only has a web presence, not a TV station or print media.  Even so, it has over 6 million monthly views and over 1 million monthly unique visitors.  I was expecting a massive media room with all sorts of telecommunications equipment, but it is actually run by just 7 full time employees in a mid-sized room in an office building.  They do have cool carpet though – it has CNN on it!

CNN sign on the wall in the CNN offices; CNN carpet on the floor

They are financially independent from their parent company.  Also, many of their news stories come from what they call “stringers” or independent journalists in the Arabic speaking world, since, with just 7 full-time staff, they don’t have time to do much reporting of their own, though they do some.  I asked about competition and Ms. Faraj said they didn’t have any because they were the only media outlet in the Middle East that was completely independent from the government (mentioned that Al Arabiya was tied to the government, which somewhat contradicted what Mr. Khatib had said earlier in the day; this seems to be a big issue there).  Many of their stories derive from what is trending on Facebook and Twitter in the Arabic world.  They also noted that it is hard to get interviews with the leaders of the countries and that is why they often turn to social media for information and stories.  Finally, they noted that they were in Dubai because of the favorable tax policies.  Because they were located in Media City they didn’t have to pay taxes. Also, they didn’t have to be sponsored by an Emirati to be in the country but rather were sponsored by the government of Dubai as journalists and media experts.  Oh, and they also gave us cool mugs that said CNN Arabic on them in Arabic.

From CNN Arabic we traveled back to Old Dubai and the textile souk.  We did some shopping (I picked up some stuff for Debi and Toren).  Here’s a photo of the textile souk:

the textile souk in Old Dubai

We took a water taxi (abra) to the other side of Dubai Creek to the spice souk as well, but we were less interested in their wares over there.  Even so, it smelled great.  Here’s a photo of one of the spice vendors:

spice display at the spice souk

We had planned to go on a dinner cruise on the river, but they started at 8:30 and didn’t end until 11:00, which was just too late for us given the itinerary of the tour.  So we opted for dinner along the waterfront.  It was quite nice.  Here was our view:

view along the Dubai Creek at dinner

Oh, and we did find a rather interesting dish on the menu at that restaurant:

"homos with fried meat"

I was awfully tempted to try the “homos with fried meat” but decided I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of an adventure that night.