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.

Day 6 was a day of panels and lectures.  We started out with a panel presentation on the UAE as the new Arab media hub.  Panelists included Abeer Al-Najjar, an Assistant Professor of Communication at AUS, Mohammad Ayesh, a professor of media and communications at the University of Sharjah, and Mishaal Gergawi, an op-ed columnist for the Gulf News.  The two professors were interesting and gave academic perspectives on the news media and the state of the news media in the Gulf region, but the op-ed columnist was fascinating.  He’s young, provocative, and was willing to really call things as he saw them.  Once he started speaking, the panel turned down a different path.  Here are some of the things I picked up during the panel:

There is no “freedom of the press” in the UAE; the government can shut you down and even imprison you if they don’t like what you have to say.  That has happened and Mishaal Gergawi mentioned about a dozen public intellectuals who have been banned from writing publicly because they have pushed for democracy in the UAE or said something else the government didn’t want to hear.  Mishaal Gergawi also claimed that media companies are not independent from the government (though we learned the next day that some are pretty close), and that means they are often tools of propaganda for the government.  Young people in the UAE are just as into social networks – including Twitter – as are young people in the West.  Mishaal Gergawi also noted that there are strange double-standards in the Arab world.  Because he writes for Gulf News, which is an English language daily, he can swear in English in his columns and no one cares.  But if he swore in Arabic, it would cause problems.  He also noted that he had run into the boundaries of what was acceptable to say, though he hasn’t been arrested or cut off.  He also suggested that what needs to happen in the UAE is similar to what happened in the UK – royals (members of the royal family) need to be phased out of government positions.  The reason he gave is that royals are basically off-limits – you can’t criticize them.  Criticizing them can get you in serious trouble.  But in a modern country, governments need to be criticized in order to address issues and concerns.  This is a serious problem, then, in the UAE – you can’t criticize the government, and that results in the government being incompetent and unable to receive feedback on how it could improve.  By phasing royals out of government positions, they could be replaced with civilians and bureaucrats, whom it is safe to criticize.  The end result would be that the royals get to save face by not being criticized but also that Emiratis have a voice in their governance.

The afternoon lecture was on Islamic Law or Sharia by Gavin Picken, an Assistant Professor of Arabic at AUS.  The lecture explained the different schools of jurispridence and the basis for Sharia in each of the schools.  He also showed a map outlining which schools were popular where.  Of particular interest was his explanation for the connection between Sharia Law and UAE law – basically, the UAE has a constitution and civil code (he didn’t explain how it was created, and neither does this Wikipedia article).  The courts in the UAE rule based on the civil code and the constitution, but if there is something not outlined in one of those, then they use Sharia Law to arrive at judgments. The way he described Shariah law seemed to make sense (only in the “I get it now” sense, not in the “I want Sharia Law in Tampa” sense).  Basically, Shariah Law is a way of reasoning about what people should do that draws upon various components of Islamic teaching.  He also gave a hierarchy of over-riding responsibilities and objectives in Sharia Law and said they are in the order of greatest importance: protection of life, protection of religion, protection of wealth, protection of intelligence, and protection of honour. He failed to answer one of my questions when I asked about the Quran saying that you can kill unbelievers (Sura 4:89 and 91), which would seem to put “protection of religion” above “protection of life.”  He really just didn’t answer the question, which was disappointing, but I think it’s because the answer doesn’t work with what he was saying.  I also asked him about the punitive punishments that are occasionally mentioned in the Western media, like flogging, stoning, etc.  He said that the punitive punishments you see in various parts of the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia, are not “cultural” but are actually based in Islam. It was good to hear someone finally admit that as every time I ask a Muslim in the US about these punitive punishments, they say it is cultural and try to absolve Islam from any responsibility.  However, Dr. Picken went on to claim that those punitive punishments are typically poor executions of Islamic law and that Islamic law doesn’t need to be punitive or mean and can be quite progressive. Basically he said that the judges issuing those punishments could choose to be less punitive and offer alternative punishments.  But, in the end, the punitive punishments are derived from Sharia Law.  I also asked about fatwas and he said that in Sunni Islam Muslims need not follow a fatwa; it isn’t binding.  However, in Shia Islam, depending on your relation to the “mufti” who issued the fatwa you may have to follow it. He argued that the average Muslim doesn’t know Islamic Law like the muftis and experts in Islamic jurisprudence, so they turn to a mufti or expert. Whomever they turn to for guidance and advice is whose fatwas they should respect. Thus, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie really only applied to Shia Muslims from Iran and any others who followed that mufti.  Overall, his description of Sharia Law seemed to be compelling, but he also admitted that it really only works when you have someone who is smart and progressive interpreting it. In other words, Islamic Law can be used by intolerant and cruel individuals as a way of justifying pretty terrible actions in the name of Islam.  And if that is the case, I have to wonder how useful Sharia Law is at all, since it doesn’t prohibit horrible actions.

We didn’t have any other plans this day with CIEE, but K. knew someone at the American University of Dubai (AUD) who formerly worked at his university and he had arranged dinner with her.  He kindly invited me to tag along.  We took the Metro to the AUD stop and met up with his former colleague, S.  She had been in Dubai for just six months, but had a lot of interesting insights.  First, while AUS is pretty respectable, AUD is a bit less so.  It’s seen as a party school and the school for rich kids in Dubai, including the children of Sheikh Mohammad and other royals. Rules aren’t as strict as at AUS for students – they can hold hands and need not worry so much about appropriate dress.  There are no “fashion and/or passion” police on campus.  Also, AUD is a for-profit school owned and operated by a Lebanese business mogul.  As a result, faculty are driven pretty hard.  She also noted that, while you can buy alcohol at the hotels in Dubai, you can’t buy alcohol to take to your home unless you have a license to buy alcohol.  She had just finished going through the process to apply for one.  There are only a couple of stores in all of Dubai that legally sell alcohol to ex-patriots with licenses.  She also noted that she paid extra for her maid to not live with her.  Her apartment, which was provided by the university, included rooms for the maid, but she didn’t like the idea of a maid living with her.  However, it actually costs more to not have a maid live with you because you then have to pay the maid’s living expenses.  Oh, and maids can make as little as $125 per month in the UAE.  That is the situation for Sudanese women, who are at the bottom of the hierarchy.  The Philippines government, in an effort to protect it’s citizens, put a minimum salary that its citizens can be paid – 1,400 dirham, or about $385 per month.

We went to a rooftop night club with live music and alcohol at the Radisson. It had a nice view of the city but, unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture.  Anyway, during our enjoyable conversation something interesting happened.  It was dark and we needed light to look at the menus to order dinner. S. asked the waitress for a light. As the waitress went to find one, I pulled out my phone and used my flashlight app for us. When the waitress came back, she had the exact same thing – her phone with a flashlight app. When she arrived, I put mine down thinking it would just take a minute for us to order.  But after a couple of minutes, I insisted that we use my phone rather than hers so she could leave and go get our drinks. The waitress resisted, but when I pulled mine out, she relented. As soon as she left, S. pointed out that I had, in fact, just violated the social order in the UAE.  If you remember the deference issues I mentioned in my earlier posts, I had just breached the deference system by not letting the waitress stand there with her phone light on waiting for us to read the menus. S. pointed out that, in just six months she had grown so accustomed to the deferential relationships of poorer ex-patriots that she was fine letting our waitress stand and wait for us.  By not letting her wait on us, I was the one disrupting the status hierarchy. Awkward.

I do have one picture to post with this entry.  On the way to the hotel/night club where we had dinner, we had to cross a rather busy street.  S., the professor at AUD, pointed out the marvelous urban planning in Dubai when we tried to cross the street – the crosswalk we were going to use didn’t take us to another sidewalk.  It ended in a wall:

the world's most dangerous cross walk - it ends in a wall

I actually took this picture a couple days later, but it is better than the ones I took that night.  If you look closely you’ll see that the white stripes lead directly into a wall.  There is no sidewalk on the other side of this crosswalk.  S., who kindly pointed this out before K. and I walked into the wall, said that she hadn’t noticed the first time she tried to cross the street and had ended up walking into the wall.  This is actually at the base of the Radisson where we had dinner.  Welcome to Dubai!

This was our first day of lectures. CIEE has a center at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) and they drew upon the expertise of the professors there to give us additional information about the UAE. Like many institutions in the UAE, the AUS is new, having been founded in 1997. It was built over the next 10 years or so using money from the Sheikh of Sharjah, Sultan bin Mohamed Al-Qasimi. He is now weaning the university off his money, forcing them to charge tuition. The campus is beautiful, but there are some “differences” having to do with restrictions on students, which I’ll get to shortly.  Here’s the view of campus when you first drive up:

administration building and fountains at AUS; tower to the left is the mosque on campus

Our first lecture was an introduction to the UAE by Dr. Pia-Kristina Anderson, an anthropologist and archaeologist, who also works in administration. She gave us an overview of the UAE and the AUS, mentioning some of the information I provided in my earlier posts about the UAE.

I asked our guide, Miranda, if we were going to get a chance to chat with students during our visit and she said that it was not on the schedule. However, I really wanted to chat with students, and our first lecturer, Dr. Anderson, knew lots of students because of her responsibilities on campus. When she ran into the current student council president, Luis A. Garcia, who is very charismatic, she asked him if he would be willing to chat with us and he was. They ushered us into the student council room after lunch and let us pester them with questions. Some of the other council members came in and out of the room while we were there, but Luis and an Emirati women (they prefer “lady”) stayed and answered our questions (I believe it was Azza Sayed Sayed). I asked about elections, which is of interest considering the UAE is a dictatorship that holds only perfunctory elections to appease the West for positions with little to no importance. The student council does hold elections.  However, Luis noted that the organizations on campus were odd in this regard. The leaders of the respective cultural clubs (e.g., Saudi culture club, Egyptian culture club, etc.) were chosen in ways that reflected the political structure in their respective countries. For instance, in the Saudi culture club the next leader was appointed by the current leader and everyone voted for the appointee. In the Palestinian culture club the campaigns were contentious and vocal, riled with debates, fights, and yelling (Luis suggested that is how things are done in Palestine). Luis also talked about his interactions with the administration. He is very vocal and has pushed to get things done and increase transparency. However, the President of the University is the Sheik of Sharjah and he has ultimate veto power. The day-to-day operations of the university are run by a chancellor who has to answer to the Sheikh, which means he’s pretty conservative as well. Luis’s efforts have alienated him from the Chancellor at times.  The students have to ask permission to protest and, if not given, they cannot. I asked the students about dating. Unlike Dubai, where rules for Westerners have grown more lax (you’re not supposed to hold hands or hug in public, but some do and they won’t necessarily get in trouble for it), in Sharjah, they are very strict. It is a dry emirate – no alcohol is allowed. And no public affection is allowed. That holds on campus as well. Boys and girls can only spend time together if they are in public and not touching. The professors said that a “date” consists of a boy and a girl sitting on a bench together talking.  Once they said that, I couldn’t help but try to find a couple on a date and take a picture:

dating at AUS

Women are not required to wear the hijab or niqab, but many do. There are also rules about modest clothing. No tanktops or shorts above the knees. There are actually “fashion/passion” police who roam the campus looking for violators. Those caught violating the rules of dress and interaction can be fined and if students are fined too frequently they can be kicked out of the university.  Emirati ladies often don’t feel comfortable being alone with a male whom they could marry (that’s typically the rule for whether or not the modest dress should be worn; if they are around only males they cannot marry – e.g., brother, father – they do not need to be veiled).  Emirati women will often want or require chaperons, even when doing things as innocuous as meeting with a professor.  Also, Dr. Anderson noted that Emirati women do dress very nicely, it’s just not observable in public.  She attended a wedding where the nicer and less modest clothing was visible.  At the wedding, the men and women were in separate rooms.  When there were no men around, the women could remove their abayas and hijabs and the women were, according to Dr. Anderson, dressed to the nines in short, very fancy, glitzy designer dresses.  Without men around, the women were open and even danced with other women.  But occasionally a male would enter the room and the abayat would immediately be donned again and the mood would become more modest and demure.  As soon as the men left, it was party time again.

I also asked about religion.  The students said they respect and tolerate each others’ religions but they don’t discuss religion.  They gave the impression that religion is too sensitive to discuss openly.  I also asked about being nonreligious and if that was accepted on campus.  Luis interpreted my question as being about Muslims not being observant of their faith.  He recounted a story to illustrate.  After completing the Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, he was invited by some friends to a zone in Saudi Arabia where, apparently, the police aren’t allowed.  As he approached one of the homes in that area he heard loud music.  When they opened the door, there were “Muslims” drinking, partying, having sex with prostitutes, etc.  His take on this was that there are Muslims who do not observe there religion.  But he didn’t really address my question as to whether or not there are atheists on campus and how they would be treated.

The students were lots of fun to talk to and provided a lot of insights that I don’t think we would have gleaned otherwise.  I’m glad we got a chance to chat with them.

After leaving the students we had another lecture.  This one was by Linzi Kemp and was about women in business in the UAE.  She had several of her students come in and present about female role models in business, but noted that there aren’t many female role models and women are very under-represented in the business world.  Women who are working in business tend to be in “soft” businesses – charities or businesses to help women succeed in business.  She couldn’t really point to many highly successful Emirati women.  After her lecture I had a chance to speak with her about Emiratis and I mentioned that their behavior seemed odd.  I wasn’t sure if Emiratis were elitist or what was going on, but they didn’t seem to even recognize my existence when I passed them on the street.  She suggested that, while there is some elitism in that behavior, that it is also a reflection of their culture – Emiratis are very much a relationship based culture.  It takes a long time to build a relationship with someone because relationships are the key for negotiating the society.  So, when Emiratis avoided looking at me and seemed oblivious to me, she argued that they were been “aloof” but not necessarily snobbish are elitist.  They were simply avoiding trying to develop a relationship and recognizing the non-existence of any relationship.  That perspective helped me see the Emiratis in a different light. I brought it up to contrast it with the deference and openness I was observing in the menial laborer ex-patriots who, when I passed them on the street, would make I contact but then immediately drop their gaze to reflect inferiority and always called me “Sir.” It was very odd.

After our lecture we went back to the hotel then several of us went to the Mall of the Emirates for dinner at a Persian (Iranian) restaurant.  The food was fine, but of more interest was the indoor ski slope, which is attached to the Mall of the Emirates.  It’s obviously not huge, but it is a legitimate ski slope – in a building – in a mall!  I snapped a few pictures, but will just post one (that required I walk into a restaurant and promptly be kicked out after I snapped the photo):

Ski Dubai at Mall of the Emirates

That pretty much wraps up Day 5.

Our first full day was a day of site visits. The first stop was Masdar City in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Masdar City is being billed as the first city being purposely built to be environmentally friendly to the tune of zero-carbon emissions and zero-waste. The roofs of the buildings are covered with solar panels. The buildings are close together to maximize shade while walking. Electric transport vehicles move people without a driver. A novel variation on the wind tower is being employed, using automation and new technology to cool wind and blow it into the courtyard, helping to cool the city paths. And the city is zoned for mixed interests – housing is next to commercial and educational buildings to make it an integrated city. At present, only about one city block is complete, but more is under construction.  Here are some of the photos I took while there:

driverless electric pods

narrow streets for shade

innovative wind tower

fake rocks; the UAE doesn't have many rocks

It seemed like a neat idea to us, but it is obviously early in the construction phase of the development and has a long way to go. It is also quite far from the center of Abu Dhabi and it seemed unlikely that people would be excited to move out there. We later heard during a panel discussion that the project is really a mess. The cost savings that were supposed to come with the environmental friendliness are not materializing, there are delays, and people are losing interest. Even so, it seems like an interesting idea and it was nice to tour around inside.

From Masdar City we drove into Abu Dhabi for lunch at a Lebanese restaurant called Lebanese Flower. We had some difficulty finding the restaurant, but eventually found it. It was actually very good, but the size of the meal was enormous. No one was able to finish what they ordered – mixed grill kabobs.

mixed grill kabobs at Lebanese Flower in Abu Dhabi; mint lemonade in the background

Abu Dhabi was different in character from Dubai. It seemed to be less grandiose; less over-the-top. There were lots of 10 to 15 story buildings with shops on the first floor and residences above them, but not nearly as many skyscrapers as Dubai. Our guide and some of the AUS faculty said that Abu Dhabi takes a different approach to development. While Dubai goes all out, tries new things, and even makes major mistakes, Abu Dhabi, which is basically the big brother, watches and waits to see what works in Dubai. What works, it does; what doesn’t it avoids. The lack of skycrapers and artificiality of the city gave Abu Dhabi more of an authentic feel than Dubai. Dubai is a very large city that caters to wealthy tourists; Abu Dhabi felt more local.

After lunch we visited the Sheikh Zayed Mosque. I’ve been to some nice churches over the years, but this mosque was so over the top it is really hard to describe how beautiful it is. It was made out of white marble, with inlaid tiles for decoration in some of the columns and walls. Some of the marble was also carved with vines to make patterns as well. And that was just on the outside. Inside the main area of the mosque was a plush carpet, beautifully decorated walls, and some of the most gorgeous chandeliers I’ve ever seen. They were different and exotic, but absolutely spellbinding. It’s open to the public; you don’t need to be Muslim to enter it, but women need to wear the abaya and cover their hair. We wandered around the mosque for about an hour just in awe.  Here are some photos:

view of the mosque from a distance

close up of the exterior

interior chandelier - one of many

another, even more opulent chandelier

chandelier in perspective; huge domes

interior columns with inlaid designs

exterior columns with inlaid designs

carved marble in the shape of vines

In an interesting illustration of the social class structure, I snapped a photo at the entrance of the mosque of two workers.  Both were ex-patriots and their job, the entire time we were there, was just to sweep the entry way.  I also liked how their job was stamped on their backs: “cleaner.”

workers whose job was just to sweep the entrance

After the mosque we drove back to the hotel. With such a big lunch, very few people wanted to dinner. K and I walked down the street to Baskin Robbins and got ice cream; yep, Baskin Robbins, in Dubai. We also stopped at a bigger grocery store to pick up some supplies. While there I saw Old El Paso taco fixings and had to get a picture:

Old El Paso in Dubai supermarket

You can’t really see it in this picture, but the sign in the background is in English and Arabic and the labels on the shelf are in both Engish and Arabic.  It’s pretty remarkable to think about how globalized our society is. I can fly half way around the world and literally buy the exact same product I buy in my local grocery store.  It is a small, small world.

That did it for day 4.

My first full day in the UAE was a Friday. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the weekend in the UAE is Friday and Saturday, not Saturday and Sunday. The CIEE seminar didn’t begin until 2:00 pm. Having sat around on planes for the last day and a half, I wanted to get out. So, I went for a walk. Not realizing that Friday is the weekend, I assumed stores and banks would be open. No such luck. Everything was closed, including the Metro (their subway) until later in the day. In Islam, Friday is traditionally the day you visit the mosque. And since the UAE is, as I would learn repeatedly throughout my stay, a driving city and not a walking city, that meant that they closed the Metro. I could see the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, from my hotel, which was at the end of the financial center strip. With several hours to kill, I started walking toward the Burj Khalifa just to see what I could see. Along the way I noticed that all the stores were closed and there was no one out and about.  I also tried to get money out of an ATM, but it was an Indian bank and they didn’t recognize my debit card. The city seemed very empty.

The layout of the city is also very different. Basically there is one major freeway that runs the length of the coast in the UAE, Sheik Zayed Road, connecting the emirates. My hotel was just off a frontage road that runs parallel to the major freeway. I was worried based on a book I read prior to leaving for Dubai, City of Gold by Jim Krane, that walking around would be very dangerous and there would be no sidewalks. While the sidewalks are a bit spotty and walking around can be dangerous, it really wasn’t that bad. I walked along Sheik Zayed Road for about 2 miles until I was basically perpendicular to the Burj Khalifa. I then used the Metro station to cross over the main road and found an ATM in the Metro that recognized my debit card.  Here’s a photo from the Metro station of Sheik Zayed Road:

Sheikh Zayed Road; it has as many as 9 and 10 lanes in some places

I asked a security guard in the Metro station when the Metro opened and he said at 1:00 pm.  Since I was already there, I figured I’d keep walking, so I continued heading toward the Burj Khalifa (FYI – “burj” means tower and “Khalifa” is the name of the President of the UAE who bailed Dubai out when the economic recession hit). I only took my phone with me, so photos from that first walk weren’t very good, but I snapped a few. Here’s one of me in front of the Burj Khalifa:

photo from my phone in front of the Burj Khalifa

I walked around the tower and ran into security on one side which informed me that there were private residences there, so I couldn’t enter. I walked around a bit more, then tried to walk back to my hotel on the other side of the main road as I had seen a grocery store that was open and I thought it would be a good idea to have some snacks with me. Dubai really is not all that walker friendly. Construction on that side of the main road had torn up any semblance of a place to walk. So, I ended up walking through construction sites until I found the grocery store. I also hadn’t caught what the exchange rate was yet, so when I saw the prices in the store I couldn’t believe them – 14 dirham for a bag of granola. Turns out the exchange rate was 3.6 dirham to the dollar, which meant the granola was still pricey at close to $4.00, but not as bad as I thought. Also, the grocery store basically carried Western products and goods, along with some local stuff, but Westerners would be able to find pretty much whatever they would need to cook and eat in the supermarkets here. I bought some granola and fruit then climbed over more construction until I got to another Metro station and could use that to cross the main road. I then headed back to my hotel. Not knowing where we were going to go for dinner, I ate lunch in the hotel restaurant, then took a nap and got ready for the seminar to begin.

I finally met the rest of the group at 2:00 pm. There were 10 of us: “C” from Rhode Island, “L” from Connecticut, “R” from Georgia, “JS” from Nebraska, “K” from North Carolina, “M” from Massachusetts, “JL” from Indiana, “D” from Kansas, and “G” from Tennessee (I’m not using their names to protect their identities; they may not want me to share some information about them on here). We informally did very quick introductions then jumped into our tour van. Everyone seemed nice, but I naturally gravitated toward the next youngest person there – K. While almost 20 years older than I am, he was the closest to me in age and it turned out we had a lot of similar interests.

From the hotel we drove to Old Dubai, specifically an area called Heritage Shindagha Village. Recently the governments of two of the wealthier  emirates – Dubai and Sharjah – have realized that their demolition of the historic homes in the area have largely destroyed the heritage of the native Emiratis. One of the drawbacks of this is that it makes it even harder to know what the identity of Emiratis is – they are struggling to figure this out. Without historical homes and much of a connection to history, that connection to a possible historic identity has been lost. However, the governments in these two emirates have begun to reconstruct some of the older homes. Shindagha Village and another location nearby, Bastakiya, are restoration projects in Dubai aiming to accomplish this. The government of Dubai has funded excavations and reconstructions of what the homes may have looked like before modern development. We walked around some of the reconstructions and were guided by Samia Rab, an architecture professor at American University of Sharjah (AUS).

One of the most notable aspects of the architecture that, while not unique to the UAE (it’s Iranian, if I remember correctly), is their design for wind towers. There is only one traditional wind tower functioning in the UAE today according to Dr. Rab, though some variations on these towers do exist (I’ll describe one later). Here’s a picture of the recreated wind towers in Shindagha Village:

wind tower in Shindagha Heritage Village

How they work is interesting. They are up above the house and were only used in homes that didn’t have large courtyards as courtyards have a similar cooling effect. At the bottom of the wind tower is a low hanging boundary that drops from the ceiling. The bottom of the wind tower opens into a sitting room with windows leading to the courtyard. As the wind blows, it hits the wind tower and travels down the tower. As the air is pushed out of the windows in the sitting room and then out of the courtyard, the air coming in from the wind tower cools pretty dramatically. Dr. Rab noted that tests had found the temperature of the air can drop by as much as 18 degrees, which would make a big difference in the horrific heat of the gulf during the summer (120 to 130 degrees F). The low hanging barrier pushes the air very low, allowing it to rise slightly after falling and accentuates the cooling. I have to admit to not understanding the physics and engineering involved, but we did visit the working wind tower (I’ll posts pictures later) and it does work. It’s pretty amazing, actually. The buildings are largely constructed of a stucco-like mud filled in with coral from the sea bed.  I’ll post pictures of this later as we visited some ruins that clearly exposed the coral.

We walked through the reconstructed homes and ended up at a small cafe/art store in that area. That is where we first had mint lemonade. The version they served in that cafe was really strong – probably too strong – but still good. Here’s a picture:

mint lemonade in Bastakiya

After our drink we walked along the Creek (or river) that serves as a prominent characteristic of old Dubai. Right next to the Creek is a “souk” or market. There are actually three, one on the Bastikiya side and two on the other. The one we walked through on the Bastikya side was the textile souk, which I later visited again to shop for some souvenirs for Debi and Toren. It was a nice little market with small stores and hawkers out front trying to get you to buy their wares, the most prominent item being pashmina scarves. Here’s a photo of the souk:

textile souk in Old Dubai

On the Creek were the abras or water taxis, which are motor powered wooden boats that ferry people across the Creek for 1 dirham (about $0.30). Here’s a photo of one:

"abra" or water taxi on the Dubai Creek

On the far side are spice and gold souks. The Sheikh of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad, also has his Ruler’s Court along the Creek, which apparently involved the destruction of lots of homes to build. We also walked up to the old fort in Dubai, as well as to a mosque. I really liked the Old Dubai area. It isn’t the glitz and glamour of the modern high rises; it seemed more authentic.  And even though the souks are touristy, it seemed like locals gravitated to this area as well.  We walked through an open area that was filled with Emiratis and ex-patriots just hanging out. There were also restaurants on the side of the Creek, which made for relaxing eating (we went later).

From Bastakiya, we got in the van and headed toward the famous Palm Jumeira – the human-made island in the shape of a date palm tree (with a breakwater). We stopped on the way at Jumeira Beach to catch a view of the world’s only 7-star hotel – Burj Al Arab.  The air quality in Dubai isn’t great and the smog made getting good pictures difficult, but here’s one of the photos I took from the beach:

Burj Al Arab from Jumeira Beach

We also stopped at Souk Madinat, which offered nice views of Burj Al Arab, but also contained a much higher scale souk (no bargaining there, unlike in the textile and spice souks). The part that struck me the most were the Christmas decorations. Islam is the official religion of the UAE. While there are, no doubt, some Christian ex-patriots, I found it highly unlikely that the lights, wreaths, Christmas decorations, and even Christmas tree were put up just to make ex-patriots or even tourists comfortable (which is what one of our guides suggested). This was in fact just the type of thing I was looking for as a sociologist studying secularization. What it suggests to me is two things: First, Christmas has outgrown Christianity; it is now a secular holiday that involves specific decorations, shopping, and other activities that are likely culture specific – family gatherings, going to the movies, etc. Christmas doesn’t have to be about Christ; it exists independent of him. (I am, of course, ignoring here the fact that Christmas is the result of syncretism from other religions that predate Christianity.) The second thing I thought was interesting was that the owners of this shopping area are pretty likely to be Muslims. While Christians in the US are fine letting, say, Jews, celebrate their own holidays, they do not typically decorate specifically for those holidays in order to attract them to their stores. Maybe there are the occasional menorahs in stores around Hannukah, but that seems pretty rare. I can’t even imagine Christians trying to decorate for a Muslim holy day in order to attract them to shop on those days. But what I saw in the UAE was Muslims decorating their shops in ways that have, for the last century or two, been associated with Christianity in order to attract shoppers. Admittedly, the holiday and decorations have been divorced from Christianity, as noted above. But this also says to me that, at least for some Muslims in the UAE, profit comes before religion, as they are willing to superficially celebrate the holy days of other religions in order to increase business. Religious fundamentalists – Muslim or Christian – would never do that; that would be seen as tolerating the religion of the infidel. If my assumption is correct that the owners of that Marina are Muslims, then they are secularizing. This may not be the best motivation for doing so, but it is evidence that it is occurring.  Anyway, we didn’t stay long at the souk, but I snapped a photo of the Christmas tree because I had to.

Christmas Tree in Souk Madinat

From there we drove out to the Palm Jumeira and then to the breakwater where the Atlantis Resort is located. Our guide had arranged dinner for us in a buffet in Atlantis, Saffron. On the way out to Atlantis and on the way back to our hotel we all noticed that most of the condos on Palm Jumeira were dark (it was night, so lights should have been on). Maybe this was because people were out – Emiratis do go out at night, late into the night. But given that more than 3/4ths of the condos were dark, that seemed like a lot. It may also be the case that some of the condos are only used part of the year. But the most likely explanation is that the condos are actually empty – there is no one in the condos. When the Palm Jumeira was originally announced, it sold out very quickly and property values went up rapidly. Many of those buying property bought it as an investment just to flip it. With the economic recession and the bubble in home prices popping – in the UAE too – the values of the homes and condos on the island have fallen by as much as 2/3rds, if not more. The result is more condos and homes than there are people for them – at least more exclusive homes for wealthy individuals.

This wasn’t the first indication that Dubai is over-built. As I walked around town earlier in the day I saw in huge letters on lots of high rises “To LET” followed by a phone number. If property were in such demand, why are there so many units that are available? Despite this, new buildings are going up. I’ll talk about the primary reason for this later.

Anyway, the buffett at Atlantis was nice but, as is always the case with me and buffets, I ate too much. The faculty participants also discussed the fact that this restaurant didn’t really seem to reflect Emirati culture. However, upon reflection we began to realize that it does, in fact, reflect a new part of Dubai’s culture – glitz, glamour, and gluttony. In fact, it’s not a stretch at all to say that Dubai is and wants to be the “Las Vegas + Disney” of the Middle East.

When this occurred to me, I ran it past Dr. Rab. She agreed and offered an explanation. She suggested that the reason why Dubai has grown so rapidly in the last 10 years or so is because of September 11^th, 2001. When that happened, restrictions on Arabs and Middle Easterners traveling to the west to shop or recreate increased, as did suspicions. There was also a crackdown on finances of Middle Easterners with Western governments scrutinizing their activities. Rather than put up with the suspicion and restrictions and risk losing money, Middle Easterners pulled their money out of Western markets and investments – to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars – as they saw an opportunity with Dubai. Dubai wanted to become the “Las Vegas + Disney” of the Middle East, and that required money. With billions to invest, Middle Easterners pumped the money into Dubai, resulting in a mega-boom. The richest people in the Middle East, including many sheikhs rich off their oil wealth, poured billions into Dubai. They basically built themselves the playground they used to visit in the West, but right in their backyard. Want to go to the beach? Dubai has great beaches! Want to go skiing? Dubai has an indoor ski resort! Want to go to a water park? I saw three of them while I was there! Want high end shopping and retail? Dubai has one of the world’s largest malls, Dubai Mall, with over 1000 stores; it has an ice skating rink, an aquarium, and every restaurant from the west you can imagine – TGI Fridays, Macaroni Grill, McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc. If you’re a wealthy Egyptian, Jordanian, or Indian, why fly all the way to the US or Europe when you can find all of the same luxuries in Dubai? Middle Easterners no longer have to go to the west to play. They can go to Dubai. And despite being an Islamic country (it’s part of their constitution, which I’ll discuss later), Dubai has legalized alcohol, ignores prostitution, and doesn’t force a dress code on the beach. If you want to get intimate in Dubai, just don’t do it in public. Aside from that one restriction (well, there are more, which I’ll get to later), you may as well be in Orlando.

That discussion led to another one, which I thought was very interesting. Dr. Rab noted that the gulf where the UAE is located has, as long as there have been historical records, been called the “Persian Gulf.” However, in recent years some Arabian countries  have taken to calling it the “Arab Gulf.” This is largely a reflection of antipathy toward Persia – a.k.a. Iran. While I think Dr. Rab’s explanation is probably over-simplifying things a bit, she offered an interesting and somewhat compelling explanation for why there is such animosity between the West and Iran. Obviously there is the issue of nuclear weapons that is so prevalent in Western media today, but Dr. Rab suggested that the real reason lays in oil. Saudi Arabia and the UAE all gave exclusive license to British Petroleum to explore for oil and BP got the rights to extract it. In short, BP has made billions, if not trillions of dollars because it got exclusive license to oil in the gulf region. In 1951 the Iranian parliament nationalized Iranian oil, removing it from its previous owner, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which was owned by – the British government.  Because Iran has refused to allow the West to profit off its natural resources, the countries has been isolated from the world community. I’m guessing things are more complicated than that, but I think this is a legitimate and reasonable point. Governments in the West are often engaged in facilitating business for the corporations located in their respective countries. By allowing Western corporations control over oil and the ability to profit handsomely from it, the UAE and other gulf countries that signed away those rights are being exploited.

One other thing I noticed while touring around was that all the signs in the UAE are in Arabic and English. English is the de facto language of the country; pretty much everyone speaks it because there are so many people from so many different countries they need a common language. English has filled that role.

We wrapped up dinner and headed back to our hotel.

My first flight took me to Newark. There I boarded a flight for Zurich, Switzerland. In examining my itinerary I realized I had a four hour layover. Ever up for adventure, I figured I could slip out of the airport real quick to see Zurich, especially since the downtown is only 15 minutes away by train. I also happen to have a friend who lives in Zurich. I contacted her and she was free that morning, so she agreed to meet me at the airport and take me on a tour. I landed at around 8:40 Zurich time and quickly made my way through customs (my bag was checked all the way through to Dubai, so I just had my backpack). She was standing right outside security and finding her worked out seamlessly. She guided me right to the correct train, helped me get a ticket, and we cruised to downtown Zurich. Given that it was the middle of the winter, it was cold and there was a slight drizzle falling, but she walked me around the downtown, visiting Bahnhofstrasse – the prime shopping area – and the Limmat River. She pointed out the university where her husband works (ETH Zurich), which is one of the best universities in Europe. After our quick tour, we got back on the train and headed to the airport where we chatted over a cup of coffee for about 45 minutes. I said goodbye and checked back in without any problems. Given how quick our tour was, I didn’t even take a picture in downtown Zurich. I took a couple at the airport, but they weren’t very good. So, no pictures for this post.

My flight to Dubai left around 1:00 pm and I arrived in Dubai around 10:00 pm. The airport is huge and very busy. Luckily, it also has free wi-fi. Since I hadn’t checked my email for about a day, I took advantage of the wi-fi while I waited to get my visa to enter the country, which took about 30 minutes because of the lines. I also noticed, while I stood in line, a man dressed in the Emirati style who, while talking on a cellphone, simply cut through the lines of people. Apparently he was looking for a friend.  Once he found him, they walked up to the front of the line and went right through security. I’ll come back to the issue of Emirati behavior later.

The CIEE guide arranged for all of us to be picked up at the airport, so I just had to find where she had told us meet our drivers. No problems there. While I waited for my driver to arrange everything, I sat and watched the people in the Dubai airport. It became apparent very quickly that I was very much the minority in the UAE. As an Arab country, there were lots of men in variously styled “thawbs“ (also called “dishdasha” or “kandura”; this is the long tunic that looks like a robe) and “keffiyeh” (the headscarf) and other Middle Eastern and South Asian clothing. Lots of women were also wearing variously styled “abayat“, some with matching “niqabs“. And then, of course, there were many dressed in the western style, which was standard for the many ex-patriots working in the UAE.

For clarification, the UAE or United Arab Emirates refers to seven distinct Sheikdoms (kind of like kingdoms) that have joined into a single political entity.  The UAE was formed in 1972 when the seven emirates decided to join together to pool their resources, primarily for things like foreign relations and the military.  The emirates are like US states, but are similar in that they have a federal-like government that unites them.  However, much like the states in the US, the emirates retain a great deal of autonomy – more so than do states in the US. Each emirate controls citizenship in that emirate. Each emirate controls work visas. And each emirate controls its own resources. That is why some dole out higher welfare payments to their citizens then others – not all of the UAE emirates have oil. In fact, Abu Dhabi, which is the largest and wealthiest, has lots of oil. Dubai, which is second largest, had the second largest oil reserve, but it is almost gone. The other emirates have little to no oil, though Sharjah has natural gas reserves. The other four emirates are much poorer and much less developed.

While I didn’t learn these statistics until later in my trip, it is worth describing the make up of the UAE population to help explain my comment about feeling like a minority. Recent data, which the leadership of the country claims is a census, suggest that there are 8.26 million people in the country, roughly 948,000 of which are citizens (the estimates make it clear this is not a census; in all likelihood the data come from the extension of visas, which is where most ex-patriots are tracked). Citizens are called “Emiratis.” That means just about 10% of the people living in the UAE are citizens. The rest of the people living there do not have UAE citizenship and they are, in all likelihood, never going to get it, regardless of how long they live there. The reason why they are unlikely to get UAE citizenship is because citizenship comes with substantial benefits. Emiratis, depending on the emirate in which they live, receive annual stipends from the government (basically a form of welfare). While the estimates I heard varied, I found one source online saying the average male Emirati receives about $55,000 US per year (women may or may not receive welfare stipends). There are other benefits as well. Emiratis can attend school and college for free, receive a marriage dowry, but only if they marry another Emirati, and get free healthcare, utilities, and land as well as other benefits. Occasionally their respective sheikh will simply give them money or buy or build them a new house.

In contrast, ex-patriots, who make up close to 90% of the population, get very little. They cannot become citizens. They have to be sponsored to be in the country, either by an Emirati (who can sponsor as many people as he or she wants and can withdraw that sponsorship whenever he/she wants) or by the governments of the various emirates. The only way to be sponsored is to be working or studying. And as children get older, their ex-patriot parents can only serve as their sponsors until the children are adults. If they stay to go to college, their sponsorship is extended. But if they fail to get a job in the country after college, even if their parents live in the country, they have to leave. There are some perks – ex-patriots don’t pay taxes to the UAE government. And at least for college faculty their housing is free. But for many of the ex-patriots, particularly those doing the most menial jobs, their lives are very difficult. I’ll talk more about these laborers later.

Anyway, all of that was basically to explain why it was that I felt like a minority immediately upon arriving. I was told there are only about 20,000 American ex-patriots in the UAE; just a drop in the bucket. There are more Indians and Iranians in the country than there are Emiratis. Most of the ex-patriots are from the surrounding region: India, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other gulf countries. There are also many from southeast Asia (e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines). As far as Westerners go, I was told the British are the largest group.  Just because I am a numbers person, and because there are no photos in this post, I figured I’d put together some charts.  The UAE has a National Bureau of Statistics; it’s not very good, but I found some interesting information there.  For instance, here is a chart showing the nationality (grouped, unfortunately) of UAE workers in 2008:

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As the figure shows, Emiratis make up just under 4% of the workforce in their own country.  The biggest group is Indians, Pakistanis, and Iranians at 82.7%.  Amazing!

I also found data on the UAE National Bureau of Statistics website supporting the remarkable sex imbalance – 68% of the population of the UAE in 2005 (latest data available) was male; 32% was female. Data on that site also indicates that the average family size is 5.3, which suggests the average number of children is 3.3, though possibly higher given the increasing divorce rate.  I may also discuss it later, but one of the major concerns of Emiratis is that they will grow increasingly marginalized in their own country.  Data from the National Bureau of Statistics lends gravity to that concern.  In 2009 there were 15,000 more births to non-citizens (45,415) than to citizens (30,951).

Here’s another interesting figure – crimes by nationality in 2007:

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This is fascinating because it suggests that Emiratis are disproportionately responsible for crimes committed in the country.  This is supportive of lots of research suggesting that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are citizens, precisely because they want to avoid problems with the law that might get them deported.  Anyway, hopefully that helps give some background on the UAE and the rather strange nature of the population.  On with my trip…

My driver was Pakistani. He was very nice. But much of that was probably the deference that results from a very distinct and clearly divided hierarchy in the UAE. At the top of the hierarchy are the royals – the families of the various sheiks. Not only are these individuals incredibly wealthy but they also have what is called “wasta” in the country. It basically means clout. Because of it, royals can basically do whatever they want, regardless of what it is they want. They are at the top of the hierarchy. Next are the non-royal Emiratis, who, because they have citizenship, also have wasta. They do display some entitlement, as did the young male Emirati who cut in front of the lines where the rest of us were waiting for our visas. But in later discussions I concluded that Emiratis aren’t necessarily elitist, though certainly there is some of that. I’ll return to this point later in my trip report. Next in the hierarchy are the educated and skilled ex-patriots – the engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc. – who make up a large section of the work force and are basically the middle class. Many of these individuals are from the West, but some are from the region as well. At the bottom of the hierarchy are the menial laborer ex-patriots who receive virtually no respect, are largely ignored, and who are very deferential to those above them. My driver was at the upper end of the bottom of the hierarchy – he spoke English and had a license to drive, so he likely made more than the lowest paid workers. Even so, the deference he showed to me – insisting on taking my bags, opening my door, calling me sir, looking down instead of looking at me, apologizing for everything – it was really awkward. There are, of course, social classes in the US, and some individuals feel like they are at the top and they treat those lower than them poorly, demanding deference. But perhaps because I grew up middle class where the assumption was that we are all equal – hell, it’s in our Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…) – the hierarchy and its accompanying entitlement and deference was really awkward for me.

Anyway, rather than sit in the back seat, I sat up front with the driver and chatted with him (he initially tried to put me in the back but I insisted). He was single and had been in the UAE for 9 years. His family is all still in Pakistan. He said he would prefer to be in Pakistan but the money in the UAE was too good to pass up. He got several weeks of vacation a year and used it to go home and visit his family. When I told him what I do – a college professor – he became even more deferential. His perception of the prestige associated with that job was really interesting. He said he thought it was a really good job and assumed that I must therefore know lots of important people – like politicians, judges, police officers, business people, lawyers, and doctors. Admittedly, I do know some, but I’m guessing those types of connections are more common in less developed countries where the prestige of a college professor is higher. I asked him about the problems in Pakistan with violence and particularly about the recent conflicts with the US. His response was that the media can’t be trusted. He said that he thought most of what was in the news was driven by the interests of the wealthy and whoever was able to spend the most on the news coverage. He also said the media isn’t always accurate. He gave an example of a news report of a bomb going off in Pakistan near his home town. He called a friend whose business was just a street away from the alleged location and his friend said nothing had happened. Granted these are the thoughts of a random young man working for National Car Rental in Dubai, but I thought it was interesting to get his perspective.

I got to the hotel around 11:30, checked in, and wanted to go to sleep, but my internal clock was screwed up, so I stayed up for another hour unpacking and getting settled before I was able to go to sleep.