Be grateful that you live in Dubai

I attended a real estate seminar yesterday. It was a typical seminar with food, fancy hotel and nothing-to-say conversations ("How are you? Good! How's business? Great!" etc). Seminar had a panel of hotshots and the topic was "Opportunities and Challenges in the Property Market".

What struck me was a comment made by a lady in the panel. She was asked about different problems people are facing with their newly bought properties (shortage of running water, leaking roofs etc) and her reply was just amazing. She said we shouldn't talk about problems, we should be grateful that we get to live in such an amazing city. No other city in the world has seen such growth in the last 4 years and its a miracle. So just be thankful that you get to be here.

I'm speechless. My roof is leaking, but thats all right 'cause I get to live in Dubai. The rent is sky high, but its okay because I am grateful. There is racism everywhere, but we shouldn't talk about it since the city is just so great.

What the lady said reflects the point of view of many people in Dubai. Just in today's 7Days (local newspaper) I read a letter from a reader which states that high rents is a good way of keeping out riff raff. "Dubai is for the classy people".

Let's all be grateful now.

6 comments:

faiq said...

haha ...well said wat a point to live in a country where i spent all my salary on rent...i choose a wrong country to earn now wat one can do as expat like me ...simply explore other place or back home ...anyways nice blog keep writing abt dubai great life :)

Anonymous said...

Shit Man i was just passing by some blogs and came across urs,,i happen to live in Dubai myself and i hate to say this but if this place is for classy people then what sortta class are they talkin about is it the one who stays in dubai mints cash and makes mansions else where or is it the ones who have nuthing but show that they have everything. England Rome france bla bla bla i can think of many cities and countries for classy people but Dubai for me is for classy ,greedy, stupid people. And Mr Peep you should go and write to 7days abt your view too
Chris Tailor

Anonymous said...

Hey peep. I just surved your blog. And although i saw Dubai only for 2 Days i can't believe, people really think that way. Maybe they never saw really cool Cities. However right now i'm staying in Sydney and it's amazing. Also Bangkok was very exciting. You might look around, visit other countries and find yourself a city, which is really worth living. For me there a many of those, but Dubai is none of them.
Hope u feeling fine in Dubai anyway.
Greetings, Sabine

Martin-Éric said...

They tell the same to foreigners who have been living in EU forever (in my case, 8 years in Finland): "Just be thankful that you were allowed to stay."

When paying taxes without enjoying much of the benefits that citizens do and tolerating racism has become a "priviledge", you know that something is VERY wrong. Hopefully Estonia will treat me better that Finland on this one... Assuming that they grant me the right to live there in the first place.

Anonymous said...

i am living in gulf for last 16 years. Dubai has changed a lot since 1990's & still they are making lot of changes to infrastructure. omanisation started in early 90's what Gulf countries did was to hire people/labors from outside & once the country is developed & ready kick them out. thats what Dubai (UAE)is doing. I predict that in 10 years time lower class & middle class will not be able to stay here & eventually this "great" destination will be left only for rich tourists & locals. handful of expats to take care of this city like in Oman you can see now. UAE/Dubai people think it is tax free!!!! well you have road toll coming next year, you pay 2 to 5 % "housing tax" to each emirates as a fee!, expats have to pay in undisclosed times of water & elc charges compare to "locals" (indirectly expats pay for the elec/water for the locals) local products are taxed at airport customs while importing, it is not "free port" as it used to be! rent increases from 10% to 150% !! a year & there is no way "case" can be won against a "local" as it is "their" country..... well for me bottom line is "ENJOY TILL IT LASTS"

Anonymous said...

I've lived here on and off, but mostly on, since 1993 - and Dubai isn't what it used to be at all.

I personally live in Abu Dhabi, and up until about 4/5 years ago all the expats here wished they lived in Dubai. But not any longer, and we thank our lucky stars we live here now.

The rents aren't much better, but it is just for just about anything else.