Musings on Madness

In one week Kate and I will have been in Dubai for 6 months, and at this stage I'm starting to feel like I understand the way things work and don't work in this part of the world.

We have brushed shoulders with lots of people who live and work in Dubai, from high flying white-collars, to extremely underpaid Indian migrants selling computer hardware at 25 cents above cost, and the sum of the experience so far has helped me form theories about some of the shenanigans we see going on over here.

Ill lead into my rant by talking about one of the strange things we have seen over here: the traffic.

The roads here are designed quite well; there are highways which have 5 and 6 lanes going in either direction, and almost no traffic lights thanks to intelligent on and off ramp construction, which takes a little getting used to, but makes enormous sense once you get your head around it all.

Despite the clever design and lack of potholes, there are still traffic jams everywhere, and accidents are an hourly occurence. People speed everywhere, dodging in and out of lanes every 2 seconds, doing their best to get ahead of the next car in their way, and possibly end their own life during the attempt. Put simply, the manner of driving here is childish and uneccessarily aggressive. tailgating, cutting people off, racing up to red lights just to be at the front, never letting another car merge in and never slowing down for pedestrian crossings are all standard behaviour for a lot of drivers in Dubai.

I have driven in other countries in Asia, with worse roads than the world class system in place here, and yet I have never come across such rude and again - childish drivers. Ever.

So here is my home brewed explanation for some of the madness: A lot of people here are spoiled rotten, which influences the way they drive. Basically that is it. It was only the other day when a couch surfer on her way to stay with us asked if we wanted her to pick up anything for us before she left France, and I couldn't think of a single thing; that's when it dawned on me that both Kate and I really have everything we need right here, and at a very affordable price. If we were in Korea when asked the same question, we would have sent through a huge list of things that were unobtainable to us there. But over here, everything is right at our fingertips and includes free delivery.

Despite me being unemployed at the moment, Kate and I are managing very easily on one income for the time being. If you are a westerner or a local Emerati living in Dubai, then you can have everything your little heart desires delivered to your doorstep very cheaply. In my opinion, taking the hard work out of things makes you appreciate those things less. Everyone has access to a pool and or a beach, but not many people use either of them. The shops here sell every food and condiment you could ever think of, which means that having a homemade curry or roast isnt the super special occasion that it was for us in Korea, for example. Don't worry, I'm not asking for pity because I am drowning in delicious decisions, I'm just pointing out that over-abundance of choice leads to people raising their standards AND taking things for granted.

but getting back to the traffic; this is the most affordable place on earth to own a sports car or some crazy huge yank tank of a vehicle, because the cars are cheap, and they are giving away the petrol for almost nothing. That's great and all, but it makes people crazy.

Think about driving the car you own; and if you own a nice car, think about driving our crappy purple station wagon for a minute instead. Now imagine driving some ultra expensive sports car, or whatever is the car of your dreams. Consider the average speed you would drive either vehicle, and I would suggest that most people would drive faster and more recklessly in cars which are more expensive and designed to go faster anyway. Maybe that becomes less true as people mature in their years, but when the average age of people in Dubai is 27, I think I might be onto something.

There are more high priced cars on the roads here than cheap cars, and it comes down to affordability influencing the standards of the people who work here. When luxury is cheap, people will live luxuriously. When it costs 2 bucks to have a 19 litre bottle of pure water delivered to your front door, even Ill turn my nose up at the tap water, which by the way is totally safe to drink. When I have access to every food and condiment under the hot desert sun, I baulk at the idea of eating the same thing twice in a week. I worry that over time Ill become so accustomed to this cheap high-life that it will be hard to go back to living in a 'normal' country where our budget doesn't go as far.

For now I'm enjoying living across the road from the beach and cooking with a new spice every few days. The craziness and danger of the roads may present a mortal risk, but the silver lining is that it is a constant reminder of how easily the lifestyle can go to your head. Not getting swept up in the 5-star snobbery of it all is probably going to end up being one of the bigger challenges of Dubai for both of us; though at the end of the day, if becoming 'too comfortable' is your biggest concern, then you are doing pretty well. 

//Brendan