Marching into Dubai

My first impressions in this new city--a new city both for me and for the world--actually took place several months ago, but at that time I had not thought that I would end up moving here to live. I had been eager to leave the Northern European capital city in which I had been living for nearly the last six years, and while I, indeed, wanted more sun, possibly a beach and something entirely different, I admittedly did not think think that this bustling hub on the thumb of the Arabian Peninsula would provide it for me.

Part of the reason I had thought so was that I had been living in a place that I fought so hard to make my own. In that sense, I think that part of me believed that no other city would be right for me. To succeed year after year getting visa after visa--sometimes by work, sometimes by school and sometimes by questionably valid domestic situations--and finally citizenship, even, to master (for the most part) a new language, to understand the history, the people and their customs had been a part of my life and existence for as long as I had been there. 

"There" was, furthermore,  place I moved just after college, so it was also very much what I considered a huge a part of my adult life. As much as I honestly felt like I was itching to move and see new places in a more permanent way, I was also afraid of giving all of that up, as if my leaving would strip my experiences there away. 

Of course it doesn't, and in fact I now believe that this little stint will reinforce and strengthen everything I have learned there. When I moved to Europe from my native New York after college, I learned so much more about the United States, as I saw everything from that point on as a comparison between the two places. I am confident that a similar kind of phenomenon will occur here. 

One thing that has already differentiated the experiences from the beginning is that within about a week of arriving in my new European city, in my closet of a six floor walk-up studio apartment, was that I wanted to stay there forever. I was younger and more poor, life was that much more precarious, yet for me I had a kind of love-at-first-sight kind of confidence that would forever bind me there: I could see myself finishing school, working there, and raising a family there. Life for me made sense there, the food made sense and so did the way the city functioned (or didn't, at times). 

Who knows what the future holds, but I don't see myself spending a good part of my life in Dubai. While that of course makes me run the risk of not completely giving it a chance, and throwing myself into the life and culture here, believing so will also, it seems, allow me to accept other aspects about this phenomenon of a place that I perhaps may not have gracefully accepted otherwise had I thought that living here was going to be my permanent home. And that being said, it is harder for me to define what exactly "the life and culture" of Dubai is. There are many. And they are also still developing themselves. Like the sky-scrapers and luxury hotels one sees popping up everywhere, this city's identity is still being created by a combination of the minority locals and majority ex-pat community that represents people from all around the world, first and third. 

Unlike Europe, whose culture both as a continent ant that of each of its individual states or cultural groups, has had centuries to let its identity and infrastructure marinate and develop in a more organic way, Dubai a few decades ago was simply a small pearling village with just a few roads connecting it to neighboring Emirates. I am not at all trying to say this doesn't mean that Dubai and the UAE did not have its own culture before now, nor that it is not as old as Europe. What I am trying to express is the culture and lifestyle that exists there now didn't. Dubai has integrally changed with the locally encouraged influx of foreigners to work and with them bring a more cosmopolitan culture. 

In some ways, strangely enough, there are many aspects of this city that remind me of New York: both have people from around the world, both are cities that never stop, both are very much focused on money and appearance, both have more of a see-and-be-seen kind of philosophy, for example, than I found in Europe. 

So what does one first notice when coming here?  What have I observed here that is not merely a comparison to places I've lived before. Sometimes there is so much to say and describe, it is impossible to find the right words.  I endeavor through this writing to make it clearer both for myself and for any reader to understand this city. 

To make it more simple for myself, I can start with the five senses as it has only been a few days for me so far. And as time goes on, and my understanding of this placed gets more nuanced, so can my writings. 

I see:

• New construction, everywhere.
• Signs written both in Arabic and in English, always.
• The Burj Khalifa, from pretty much anywhere.
• Sometimes, the Arabian Gulf.
• White cars (its better in the scorching summer heat), many of these are luxury brands that ones occasionally in very chic neighborhoods of Western cities. After just a few days, and a 10 day visit in October, I am no longer stunned to see Bentley's, Maserati's, Porsche's, Rolls Royce's, etc. I have also seen signs placed on said cars kindly asking passers-by to not touch the car. 
• At the beach, women in both bi- and bur- kinis.

I hear:

• The constant humming of cranes and construction, occasionally even at night.
• A stronger presences of the sound of songbirds.
• English, most of the time, sometimes Arabic. But the English here is neither simply just American or English, everyone (including myself, then) has an accent from somewhere else. 
• The call to prayer.

I feel:

• Surprisingly not disgustingly hot all the time. Maybe ask me again in June, let alone August. I was even cold the other night!
• When the wind blows, the light sprinkling of some combination of sand and construction dust slowing settling on my clothes and skin (not good when your primary sartorial color scheme is dominated by black--though I am sure that within a few months the rising temperatures will also make me change these habits). 
• Comfortable as a woman walking around (sometimes quite lost) or even running, alone. I have not yet had to cover myself up any more than I would in Europe or New York. In fact, women where I had been living in Europe dressed quite conservatively in general and in some respects, because of the heat here, I've found that I am less covered up here than I was there. 

I smell:

• The sweet smell of hookah drifting out of open cafés. 

I taste: 

A variety of cuisine from around the World. It really hit me when I first arrived as in my former city of residence, the food culture was so deeply engrained in the country's history and own general culture, that there were very few options for good food from around that world that was neither three-day-old take out quality (upon delivery) nor a three star Michelin restaurant. A big part of Dubai culture is the fact that so much is imported, as there are people "imported" from around the world, the same goes for the food culture. 

• And yes, alcohol. As long as one is in a hotel, laws that otherwise forbid the purchase and consumption of alcohol do not count. And these are not just small roadside motel six's, hotels here are tantamount to neighborhoods, complete with hundreds of rooms (sometimes as peoples permanent residences), several restaurants and a handful of bars. Many even include shops, spas, markets, etc. To purchase alcohol for private consumption, one must either stock up at duty free upon arrival, or go to a special liquor store with ones state-issued license to do so. For someone having lived in a city for the past several years where no open bottle laws apply and where one can buy shampoo and wine in the same market, this did at first surprise me but then I remembered I was also American, where quite a few states actually have a relatively similar system of dividing alimentation from alcohol. 

So that's what I can throw at you at the beginning of day four. Needless to say, as I spend more time here, much of what I just said may get entirely turned around or more nuanced as these are just first impressions, but this way I have a log of how and what I feel here day by day.