Story time: Al Ain edition
December 7, 2011 9:42 PM Subscribe
Tell me your stories about living and working in the UAE (even better if you've done these things in Al Ain).
So, I got a job in the United Arab Emirates, and have gone through the Kafkaesque process of obtaining a work visa. I leave fairly soon. I've got all of the big stuff worked out (housing, insurance, transportation, etc), but I'm curious to hear people's experiences with day-to-day life.
Here are a few specific questions:
- Is there anything that is difficult to get in the UAE that you really missed and kicked yourself for not bringing along?
- What are attitudes toward alcohol actually like? (I have heard wildly divergent accounts of this)
- What about socializing with members of the opposite sex? (again, wildly divergent accounts)
- What surprised you about living there? What lived up to your expectations?
- What did you really enjoy/ absolutely hate?
If you have any other advice for someone working abroad for the first time, I'd love to hear it.
So, I got a job in the United Arab Emirates, and have gone through the Kafkaesque process of obtaining a work visa. I leave fairly soon. I've got all of the big stuff worked out (housing, insurance, transportation, etc), but I'm curious to hear people's experiences with day-to-day life.
Here are a few specific questions:
- Is there anything that is difficult to get in the UAE that you really missed and kicked yourself for not bringing along?
- What are attitudes toward alcohol actually like? (I have heard wildly divergent accounts of this)
- What about socializing with members of the opposite sex? (again, wildly divergent accounts)
- What surprised you about living there? What lived up to your expectations?
- What did you really enjoy/ absolutely hate?
If you have any other advice for someone working abroad for the first time, I'd love to hear it.
Response by poster: (Just to be clear, I'm asking more about what the social and legal norms are regarding interaction between men and women)
posted by cirgue at 10:10 PM on December 7, 2011
posted by cirgue at 10:10 PM on December 7, 2011
Best answer: Al Ain is really one of the prettiest spots in the UAE.
Alcohol is served at bars and restaurants that have a liquor license. If you want to purchase it for home consumption, you need a license of some sort. Plenty of people purchase more than the limited licensed amount; I'm not quite sure how that works, but it's really very common in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. As far as public consumption goes, it depends on where you are and with whom. The reason you are hearing wildly divergent things is because the UAE is a land of wildly divergent realities.
If you are reasonably aware of how people are behaving around you, you should be ok.
Interaction with members of the opposite sex: Abu Dhabi and Dubai are more liberal than Al Ain. Public displays of affection are not very common even in Abu Dhabi or Dubai. Holding hands will probably cause no comment; anything more intimate will certainly gain you raised eyebrows. If a local is sufficiently offended, it could get you arrested, although this is unusual.
Social interaction with members of the opposite sex is perfectly common, although as atrazine says, you're less likely to find opportunities for it in Al Ain. I know a fair number of people who work in Al Ain, but live in Abu Dhabi or Dubai.
The hardest thing for me to swallow is how unabashedly racist and classist this society is. If you are white, you may not run up against it so much, but the pecking order is really pretty rigid.
Emirati
Gulf Arab
other Arab
white,
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
other American/European/Australian/etc.,
East Asian,
South Asian.
(I haven't figured out where Africans fall, but I suspect it varies depending on whether they are Arabic speaking or not.)
There's a lot of talk about the diversity of cultures in the UAE, but there is relatively little interaction across the classes I mentioned above.
posted by bardophile at 10:34 PM on December 7, 2011 [2 favorites]
Alcohol is served at bars and restaurants that have a liquor license. If you want to purchase it for home consumption, you need a license of some sort. Plenty of people purchase more than the limited licensed amount; I'm not quite sure how that works, but it's really very common in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. As far as public consumption goes, it depends on where you are and with whom. The reason you are hearing wildly divergent things is because the UAE is a land of wildly divergent realities.
If you are reasonably aware of how people are behaving around you, you should be ok.
Interaction with members of the opposite sex: Abu Dhabi and Dubai are more liberal than Al Ain. Public displays of affection are not very common even in Abu Dhabi or Dubai. Holding hands will probably cause no comment; anything more intimate will certainly gain you raised eyebrows. If a local is sufficiently offended, it could get you arrested, although this is unusual.
Social interaction with members of the opposite sex is perfectly common, although as atrazine says, you're less likely to find opportunities for it in Al Ain. I know a fair number of people who work in Al Ain, but live in Abu Dhabi or Dubai.
The hardest thing for me to swallow is how unabashedly racist and classist this society is. If you are white, you may not run up against it so much, but the pecking order is really pretty rigid.
Emirati
Gulf Arab
other Arab
white,
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
other American/European/Australian/etc.,
East Asian,
South Asian.
(I haven't figured out where Africans fall, but I suspect it varies depending on whether they are Arabic speaking or not.)
There's a lot of talk about the diversity of cultures in the UAE, but there is relatively little interaction across the classes I mentioned above.
posted by bardophile at 10:34 PM on December 7, 2011 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I'm newly here, in a part-time back-and-forth way for now because my girl is posted here for a couple years, and I am close enough to Al Ain that I should be available for drinking, conspiring and commiserating some of the time, if you're up for that. I'm not working in any official way anymore, so I'm busy sucking up stories to include in a new book that I'll probably never finish writing. Gin and tonic, please.
Abu Dhabi has a rep and a culture a little less plastic and shiny and ostentatious than Dubai, and better small shops and restaurants and such, if I'm gathering things correctly in my brief experience. Paris Hilton comes to Dubai. Grunge bands play in Abu Dhabi. Better street life. It's a little more 'real' if you know what I mean. (You will also spend time in Dubai, since it's so close, and will see that it is pretty surreal.)
You may think the work permit is the end of your hell, but legalistically you'll be in for more bureaucratic runarounds than you can imagine related to your home, your car, your internet, your job, and all the various licenses for things. They really like paperwork over here, and even with a wise and patient Arabic speaker in my hand, it's been shockingly complicated for me to do even the simplest things legally sometimes. Be patient, wait, fill out the forms again and remember that you're a visitor and the rules might change next week.
Always keep multiple copies of your work permit, passport and other ID. Losing your paperwork here is a huge problem, complete with court appearances, police inquiries and sworn affidavits.
Generally, drinking in public and public displays of affection are huge no-nos, but there's a pretty strong don't-ask-don't-tell culture in place, too. Just don't make it obvious. Hotel bars are hotel bars, the same as anywhere else in the world, and are pretty much free zones. (For a country with death penalty for drug possession, I've been surprised at how much is available, too.)
I can't give much advice on dating (my girl doesn't let out much, ha) but it's safe to say you'll probably be connecting more with other western expatriates, since the Emirati and even gulf Arab communities are quite closed loops, socially, full of their own customs. Your work may connect you a bit. Enjoy watching the business card dances in the shopping malls, but don't try to play along. You don't have enough spare Lamborghinis to keep up.
That said, there are hundreds of thousands of westerners here. Just wearing my Dodgers cap out in the mall found me new friends pretty quickly. Funny accident.
And in that vein, no, there really are no commercial products I can think of that I can't find here, including western food products at the ultramarts if necessary. This is a very very commercialized culture, after all, one that has modeled itself on the surface gleam of Americana even more than the Japanese have, so all the trappings you expect are here. There's no official Apple store, which has irked me a couple of times, though there are some decent independent dealers, but there's Ikea and Borders and even Tim Horton's, so what could I possibly miss?
Shake Shack. I miss Shake Shack.
posted by rokusan at 3:41 AM on December 8, 2011 [3 favorites]
Abu Dhabi has a rep and a culture a little less plastic and shiny and ostentatious than Dubai, and better small shops and restaurants and such, if I'm gathering things correctly in my brief experience. Paris Hilton comes to Dubai. Grunge bands play in Abu Dhabi. Better street life. It's a little more 'real' if you know what I mean. (You will also spend time in Dubai, since it's so close, and will see that it is pretty surreal.)
You may think the work permit is the end of your hell, but legalistically you'll be in for more bureaucratic runarounds than you can imagine related to your home, your car, your internet, your job, and all the various licenses for things. They really like paperwork over here, and even with a wise and patient Arabic speaker in my hand, it's been shockingly complicated for me to do even the simplest things legally sometimes. Be patient, wait, fill out the forms again and remember that you're a visitor and the rules might change next week.
Always keep multiple copies of your work permit, passport and other ID. Losing your paperwork here is a huge problem, complete with court appearances, police inquiries and sworn affidavits.
Generally, drinking in public and public displays of affection are huge no-nos, but there's a pretty strong don't-ask-don't-tell culture in place, too. Just don't make it obvious. Hotel bars are hotel bars, the same as anywhere else in the world, and are pretty much free zones. (For a country with death penalty for drug possession, I've been surprised at how much is available, too.)
I can't give much advice on dating (my girl doesn't let out much, ha) but it's safe to say you'll probably be connecting more with other western expatriates, since the Emirati and even gulf Arab communities are quite closed loops, socially, full of their own customs. Your work may connect you a bit. Enjoy watching the business card dances in the shopping malls, but don't try to play along. You don't have enough spare Lamborghinis to keep up.
That said, there are hundreds of thousands of westerners here. Just wearing my Dodgers cap out in the mall found me new friends pretty quickly. Funny accident.
And in that vein, no, there really are no commercial products I can think of that I can't find here, including western food products at the ultramarts if necessary. This is a very very commercialized culture, after all, one that has modeled itself on the surface gleam of Americana even more than the Japanese have, so all the trappings you expect are here. There's no official Apple store, which has irked me a couple of times, though there are some decent independent dealers, but there's Ikea and Borders and even Tim Horton's, so what could I possibly miss?
Shake Shack. I miss Shake Shack.
posted by rokusan at 3:41 AM on December 8, 2011 [3 favorites]
Oh sweet lord in heaven, thank you kimdog. I have been in that mall (who hasn't) and not noticed it.
crigue, please disregard lamentations of slider shortages.
posted by rokusan at 11:49 AM on December 8, 2011
crigue, please disregard lamentations of slider shortages.
posted by rokusan at 11:49 AM on December 8, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
I can't think of anything that's really difficult to get here, at least in Dubai.
I don't know about Abu Dhabi, but in Dubai you can get a license that lets you buy alcohol and have it at home. Al Ain is in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, so I don't know what the law is there, but there's definitely alcohol for sale in the city of Abu Dhabi so there must be some way to do it legally.
Socialising... Well, you're not in the best place for it to be honest. Al Ain is a bit boring and has a much smaller expatriate population than either Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Emiratis are a much higher percentage of the population in Al Ain and they are rather conservatives.
posted by atrazine at 10:03 PM on December 7, 2011