Life in Dubai – Part 1

Whenever one thinks of Dubai, the first thing that comes in mind is a picture of a city with high-rise buildings, shiny new cars, and lots of shopping. Well, that’s quite true. That’s what Dubai is all about. Dubai is making the tallest building in the world, you will find every latest model vehicle in Dubai, from Ferrari to Viper, and you will find some of the best shopping in Dubai. It’s all about how much money you can spend, which is related to how much money you make.

But Dubai was not always like that. It was nothing but a desert few years ago. Take a look at this, for example. All this rapid development has taken place within a couple of decades. And it’s still developing real fast. It is said about Dubai that the city changes so fast that if you come back to Dubai after six months you will not recognize it as the same city.

But all this development has a side effect. The city seems so artificial, so plastic, so unreal, that it gets depressing at times. See, thing is, all the other big cities in the world, such as New York City, Paris, London, Tokyo, evolved over hundreds and hundreds of years to reach where they are today. As a result, those cities have a culture, an identity, something that they can call their own, such as a native accent, or attire of a particular city. In case of Dubai, none of that exists. The city has developed so fast that it lacks a culture, an authenticity. You will hardly find anyone in Dubai who is from Dubai. Almost everyone has migrated from somewhere. So nothing is native here, from people to products. Maybe it will take another century or so for the city to develop a culture, when a few generations would have lived in the city. How important is the culture, you ask? Well, that really depends on the individual. For some, culture is so important that they live all their life in a city despite all its shortcomings. Others are so busy making money they don’t care (or realize) where they live. For example, why people of Karachi find Islamabad boring? Wouldn’t you want to be identified by the place where you live? In Dubai, people are identified by the place from where they (or their parents) migrated, even if they spent a major portion of their life in Dubai. Factors like these matter to some poeple. So it’s a relative thing.

In addition to that, Dubai is considered to be a very expensive city. Most people rent apartments and it is getting more and more expensive to rent these days. Traffic is a major problem (that’s true for every big city, though) and it takes too much time to get from one place to another, even if the distance is not that much. And if you want to go to Dubai for shopping, you better have the budget for it. Things are expensive in Dubai. You will find the variety but you will also have to pay a lot.