http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/ en Copyright 2008 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:43:55 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss more. -- Kai Ryssdal ]]> http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/an_unclear_view.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/an_unclear_view.html Kai Ryssdal Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:43:55 -0800 I will have to learn how to ski one day. Just to know if I could have lied when the woman at the ski Dubai counter asked me if I knew how to ski. I said, "no, can I take a class and learn?"... "you have to take four classes"... "I don't have time for four classes"... "then you can just go into the snow park". That didn't sound like a lot of fun. But I did it anyway... I have a tendency to only work when I travel for work. So sometimes I just have to force myself to do something else. The snow park is basically a crazy place. But it doesn't feel that crazy when you are there. I have not been in a theme park but I suppose the feeling is fairly similar. The guy in charge of the toboggan didn't object to me riding it 5 times so I could get different video shots. After one hour, it became boring. Probably like any other theme park. I visited the bathroom and noticed that this very serious Asian young waiter was washing his hands. He was the waiter that helped us a couple of days ago when we had dinner at the mall. Back then, he was extremely smiley, extremely nice, in a way that made me feel it could not be fake. He was too nice to be faking it. But now at the bathroom he looks like a different person. It is not that he is not smiling (who smiles in the bathroom?) it is that he looks like he is thinking, like he is worried, like he is in the middle of a process... he looks like a musician before entering the stage, or an athlete before starting a competition. Focused, that's what it is. http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/the_cultures_of_the_future.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/the_cultures_of_the_future.html Miguel Macias Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:51:41 -0800 We took a few hours off to go to the beach today. Jumeirah Beach Park costs just 5 dirhams to get in (less than $1.50), and it's beautiful. The water is swimming pool blue, and so salty you can just sit back and float with no effort. The scene is pure Dubai. European women in thong bikinis seemed right at home alongside fully-covered Arab women. Yet I saw a lifeguard tell an African man he couldn't go around in his briefs. It's easy to be lulled into thinking Dubai is just like America. Until your web search gets censored. Or...as it turns out...you try to get on the bus. http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/unlucky_thirteen.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/unlucky_thirteen.html Amy Scott Nancy Farghalli Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:10:37 -0800 One of the ironies of Dubai is that all the cab drivers live in Deira, and yet it's impossible to find a cab there. At least for a white guy who wants to go to Knowledge Village. I broke my feet walking around in circles trying to find a place where cabs might congregate. I tried the main thoroughfares first but all the traffic was whipping by too fast. I tried flagging down something that at least looked like a taxi as it waited at a stop light. I waved and waved but the driver ignored me. Finally I walked right up to his window and said, sort of desperately, "Can I get in your cab?" http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/all_hail_taxi.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/all_hail_taxi.html Sean Cole Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:36:47 -0800 Price: 150 dirhams (about $40) for two hours Vertical Drop: 203 feet Snow base: 6,000 tons Temperature: 28° F Time to ski from top to bottom: 25 seconds Carbon footprint: Scary http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/some_fun_facts_about_ski.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/some_fun_facts_about_ski.html Amy Scott Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:04:53 -0800 This room has fluorescent lights, white and blue tiles on the walls. This room doesn't have a whole lot of light. If I had to guess I'd say I am in a hospital waiting room somewhere in Queens, New York. I can't find the glamour. There is something odd about this room. When we finally board in our Boeing 777 I am still trying to figure out what's odd about that situation. I go to the bathroom and only then I realize that there is a PA system playing music across the plane. Some innocuous music coming out of a movie about the future. I can't recall ever hearing any music when boarding a plane. But maybe I was just not paying attention. And why am I paying attention now? The flight from Cairo to Dubai is about three hours. Emirates is supposed to become the biggest airline in the world at some point in the near future. This plane is quite fancy. The food is quite fancy... we even get to see the plane take off on the screens across the plane. They placed a camera in the front of the plane. So you see those lights on the runway passing faster, faster, faster and finally... the stars. No one in this plane seems very surprised by this. I am so surprised, I take out the video camera and I start shooting the TV monitor. The flight attendants, who had been wearing some sort of traditional hats while we were boarding the place, now don't have any hats. And they don't look very Middle Eastern to me. They look more like... Scandinavian models. The luxury of this plane, the food, the staff... none of that fits with us, the people on the plane... regular people... Workers, visitors with not too much money, a pair of surprised public radio producers. No one seems very excited in this plane. Is this what the future will look like? A calm, somehow melancholic, un-surprised, luxurious, apathetic, melting pot? Either I am missing something big here, or the future has no soul. -- Miguel Macias http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/the_soul_of_the_future.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/the_soul_of_the_future.html Miguel Macias Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:15:53 -0800 To go from Cairo to Dubai is to go from the horizontal to the vertical. The Arab sky replaces the Arab street. Skyscrapers go up like flags on a flag pole. Construction cranes are everywhere. So is the noise from jackhammers. This is a city that has never said no. It is like being invited into a brainstorming session. You are told, "Don't think about the cost or the time or the staffing needs. Just imagine what you want to do. How you would plan this project?" But, at the end of the brainstorm, practicality sets in. You take your ideas and prioritize. What can we accomplish given our limits? Dubai doesn't operate that way. They are the brainstorm. And then they execute their ideas. New coastline -- check. Seventy five skyscrapers in a four-block radius -- check. Ski slope -- check. The more impractical, the more probable it is. It feels like the grand experiment in the Middle East, the globalized city state. A professional gold rush, a place where ambition and adversity live in the same frame. Migrant workers are building the monuments that soon will become Dubai's legacy. You'll notice one big difference between Dubai and Egypt: How they talk about their history, their legacy. Unlike Egyptians, Emiratis prefer the background. You will meet lots of ex-pats who will tell you they love Dubai. They have lived there for years and yet they have never been inside an Emirati home. Egyptians will talk about the past, the pyramids. They'll point to ancient buildings as proof that the present day matters. This is what we gave to the world. In Dubai, they are inventing their history now. History is being written by those who can build, build, build. They don't have Egypt's wealth of ancient artifacts, but they do have something they consider more valuable -- family. And in a country where citizens get free housing, free college education, and free health care, you can understand why the family concept still matters. They have the time and the income to preserve their bonds. -- Nancy Farghalli http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/from_cairo_to_dubai.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/from_cairo_to_dubai.html Nancy Farghalli Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:03:43 -0800 Dubai is one of the most successful cities on the planet: brave, ambitious experimental, safe, tolerant, peace-loving and prosperous. I hated it. Or to be more precise I loved the idea of this city but hated the reality of it.... http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/a_nice_place_to_visit_but.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/a_nice_place_to_visit_but.html Stephen Beard Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:49:56 -0800 Up at 6:40 or so, couldn't bare the cheese/processed meat/grapefruit breakfast again so I had yogurt with frosted flakes in it. (They didn't have any granola.) Helmut Mackleburg didn't have any breakfast, just coffee. He's the General Manager of the Taj Palace Hotel in Deira -- the first and longest standing sharia-compliant hotel in Dubai. He's a large man presiding over a large place - massive ceilings (the hotel I mean), four restaurants, beauty salon, pharmacy, etc. And like the other sharia-compliant hotels I visited it had those same framed drawings of the president, the former president and the vice president of the UAE. behind the concierge desk. Most of the female guests in the lobby wore abayas. Some had their faces fully covered, tucking fork-fulls of eggs under their veils at the balcony cafe. . . . http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/a_glimpse.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/a_glimpse.html Sean Cole Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:41:51 -0800 Strangely, a Dubai DJ will play Sean Paul and The Proclaimers right next to each other. I don't know where in the city we were but the club was called "Rock Bottom." And it was. White people paid 40 Dh for a blue drink called a "Bull-frog." Main ingredient: Red Bull. And by "white people" I mean me. Barely an Arab there tonight except one man who told me his cousin lives in Minnesota. One of the new American friends I was with hails from Minneapolis. Small, small world tinted with blue food-coloring. http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/the_new_saturday.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/the_new_saturday.html Sean Cole Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:34:00 -0800 After a few days I finally made it down to Dubai Creek. Most of the Dubai I'd seen thus far was still under construction and almost wholly unwalkable. But Deira, sometimes called "the heart of the city," is a much more lived-in area by the water - boats packed with tourists slipping past the skyscrapers. A boat pilot came up to me and tried to hand me a brochure. He was speaking English but I couldn't make out any of the words except "boat," "go" and "okay." He wanted to take me on the water but I had to interview Tamsin Sherifa Madgwick at the Sheik Mohammed Center for Cultural Understanding. . . . http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/old_and_new_dubai.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/old_and_new_dubai.html Sean Cole Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:24:33 -0800 I landed in Dubai on a Saturday, which is the new Sunday. That is, the work week here begins on Sunday, which makes it the new Monday. Thursday is the new Friday. It's hard to get used to. The problem with foreign reporting trips is that you only have a limited window of time to get everything you need. So if something unforeseen happens that limits your time even more, you start to panic a little. (Of course, I tend to panic a lot over everything. Enough said.) ... http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/first_days.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/first_days.html Sean Cole Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:11:48 -0800 First of all, greetings from Dubai. If you've never been here, if you have, or even if you don't think you'll ever come, this is a place you ought to know about. More about this when the show hits the air later today. Second, yes, we're staying in a Holiday Inn. This is public radio, you know. (Technically, it's 'Express, by Holiday Inn' which makes me think it's a franchised-out sub-brand or something.) Still, it's clean and has a free continental breakfast, so it works fine for us. Finally, and the real reason I'm writing, Knowledge Village. http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/its_the_holiday_inn_express_ne.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/its_the_holiday_inn_express_ne.html Kai Ryssdal Mon, 10 Mar 2008 06:23:43 -0800 If you don't have a car in Dubai, you can spend half your life in a cab. So I've gotten to know a few drivers since I arrived last week. Most come from India or Pakistan. One of them, John, is an electrician by training. He's from Kerala, in southwestern India. When he arrived here 8 years ago, he says his rent was 70 dirhams a month. That's about 19 US dollars. Sounds cheap, but consider he was sharing that one room apartment with three other people. Today? That same room costs him 650 dirhams ($177). http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/cab_driver_econ.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/cab_driver_econ.html Amy Scott Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:40:17 -0800 As I finish washing my face, I see out of the corner of my eye someone standing right by me. About one foot away from me. Or at least that's what it feels like. As I turn around, a paper towel is right in front of my hands. I see the paper towel dispenser on the wall, and I learned to take care of myself pretty early in my life so I'd sort of rather pick up the paper towel myself. But this nice man is standing between me and the paper towel dispenser. And he's got a paper towel right in front of my hands. There is no way to say no without feeling terribly rude, or mean, or a combination of rude, mean and un-understanding. There is something to understand in this situation. ... http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/as_i_finish_washing_my.html http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/middleeast/2008/03/as_i_finish_washing_my.html Miguel Macias Sun, 09 Mar 2008 09:31:10 -0800