co durham boy

I usually spend around 4 to 5 days a month in Dubai on business as i work for a Dubai based company.

The last couple of times i've noticed a real change in the city itself , i got the feeling last week when speaking to friends that there's now a real acceptance of how many problems there are with the whole concept of ' Dubai 'and a lot of people are making their plans to move on within 6 months.

Is there any long term future for the British ex-pat in Dubai or is there life in the old girl yet ?

PunkStep

The money is good and there are a few places to spend it but I needed more. I always felt as if I were living on the dark side of the moon whilst I was living there full time.

Hello.Kitty

I'm getting fed up of the place. The nice things are no longer balancing out the rubbish ones and the veneer is looking decidedly dull and chipped... and then you get the seemingly increasingly frequent stories of arrests and pretty barbaric treatment at the hands of people who should know better. Ach, I just don't feel I can trust anyone here, and what a sad state of affairs that is.

Millhouse

Tricky one...

Dubai, and the UAE, account for exactly zero of my business (and probably always will) so it's hard for me to say based on my own business. However, people I speak to have mixed views... due to the recent regional unrest many people are starting to look to Dubai with open eyes again. That said, many of the same people doubt much will happen here. The banks and lawyers are busy again - but they are really working in Abu Dhabi, Doha, Kuwait etc.

As long as Dubai maintains its excellent infrastructure and emirates airways banks and lawyers will live here. It's the best place in the gulf to live and do this kind of work.

I've been here 3 and a bit years and in my circle of arrivals some are now thinking of heading home - I have a feeling that's the 2/3 year rule playing out more than anything else though.

If people are really questing the 'Dubai model' then they also need to look at the whole of the GCC. They are all the same... oil based consumption economies with economic spill over causing booms in construction, real estate, banking etc. When the oil wealth goes so will the whole region.

PunkStep

Scratch the surface of Dubai and you get sand. I prefer my cities with a little more beauty and history. Dubai is sandy, it's hot, it's expensive, and it would upset the sensibilities of even the mildest armchair feminist. Living there, especially for a woman must be a lot like a prison sentence, you'd like it to be as short as possible, and then forget about it..

lionheart

Unfortunately, you cannot change the desert, oppressive climate, lack of natural beauty and culture. Much better than most other Gulf countries, but still a Police state with little sense of justice. Attempts at making social progress are like making one step forward and two steps backward.

Hello.Kitty

I think it does things to people too - just this week I've had one [now ex-] friend corrupted by The Dream and another who had a horrendous time at the hands of the medical profession here, where they wouldn't listen to her when she said the anaesthetic wasn't working before her c-section. Turns out there's no government requirement for Continued Professional Development in the medical profession here, which would explain a lot of the backward practices that go on.

Anyhow, yes. I'm just fed up of having to interrogate, second-guess and disbelieve what people tell me here. I hate what's it's doing to me - making me into a huge cynic with very little faith in humanity. I want to be in a place where you can trust people to act with integrity.

Yes, I'm having a Dubai Hate Week. Sorry about that. Next Sanity Break in 7.5 weeks!

Alexa

Oh I so understand you. Looking desperately for a way out.

The Dean

The irony is that when Dubai was 'booming' (even though we now know it was nothing of the kind) it was a less attractive place. Now you can get a taxi when you want one, and you can drive to/from most places without much of a traffic jam at any time of day, it's become more bearable.

Having said that, Dubai probably doesn't deserve its expats, who are basically too good for the place. Whatever the wage levels, we all allow ourselves to be exploited by helping to build something where nothing deserves to exist.

But who is 'using' who? I need to earn money for a couple more years to see my little angels (now 17 and 21) through their education, which I have been able to pay for by earning tax-free salaries (in my case, not only in Dubai, but also Saudi and Bahrain) at a level which, if I were UK-based, would not be possible. This tax-free region, in other words, has given my children something I could not have otherwise afforded.

On the other hand, I have missed a lot of their growing-up years (although they don't seem to mind), and we haven't felt like a family 'unit' for quite some time.

I'm a wealthier person for having lived out here, without a doubt. But a 'better' person? Hardly, particularly as I've also become something of a racist..........

Millhouse

you're kidding me?

Hello.Kitty

Very interesting!

I'm also questioning whether it's actually worth it - yes, we're financially better off here, but is all the baggage actually worth it? How much do we need to be paid to forget our integrity, personal ethics and self-respect? What's being able to trust services like the judicial and medical system to actually do their jobs fairly and to the best of their ability worth? Or to have a school system that doesn't assume that they're doing you a favour by taking your child?

This week, I'm pretty much of the opinion that I'd rather be watching the pennies in the UK...

scrubbedexpat141

It's surely not that bad is it?

Yes this place is clearly built on nothing and is a shallow, chipped and flawed facade but it's not like being in Saudi or Libya or the arse end of China. It's a place that you can live comfortably and enjoy yourself.

No?

PunkStep

Ah, about 1,900,000 AED

The Dean

Not at all................ I know there are plenty of expats here that you wouldn't want your daughter to marry, but I'd stand alongside them rather than the locals ten times out of ten.

A "Boycott Dubai" campaign cannot be far away...........

Alexa

Yes, but beware of scratching the surface or actually needing something besides making money.