United Arab Emirates

Part of my job -- at least at some subtle level -- deals with international perceptions, or misconceptions, and that is a part I like very much. It is certainly human nature to see one thing on the news, other side of the world, and then to assume everything happens this way. It is human nature to apply one standard to many different places because it is just easier to understand. So I have found it the case with the United States and the Middle East, as strong and fierce as any two places in the world. People who know too little think they know too much, and have very loud voices.

I was in 7th grade on 11 September, 2001. I still remember walking into science class with the television on, a static connection blurring the screen. I arrived home later that day and watched hand-held videos of airplanes surreally crashing into towers and then those towers crashing down. A number of days later, coverage switched to al-Qaeda, and images of robed terrorist leaders in rugged mountains began spreading through the media. I see now this cues a generation brought up on said perceptions of the world, now already more than a decade in the past, and never having been intended as a true representation of a people.

But people infer a lot, and I have thought back on those days often since arriving in the Middle East. Sometimes I link it to crude jokes told by young high school seniors, and other times those shamefully much too old and powerful to make such statements. I thought about this assortment of memories in the United Arab Emirates, cruising through 21st century cities that put many in the US to shame. I think about it when remembering all the delightful well-educated Arabs I've met along the way. 

It is funny how the world is getting smaller and flatter but we continue to fall into the same traps travelers fell into passing along the Silk Road, or during the New World Expeditions, or the countless other times in history one type of a person met another type of person and did not really know how to handle themselves. Some things never really change, which must mean it is something about being human. 

I have been fortunate in that I have been able to see a lot of places, which creates less of those "shocking revelations." The more places you go the less radical everything becomes. You realize things are always changing, and you become okay with the fact that everything is bound to be something new and different and weird.

So I arrived in the United Arab Emirates on another such journey, for the sake of changing a visa, but as a great excuse to be in some place new. There I saw a country that is Qatar in ten years and the rest of the world perhaps never. Sheikh Zayed Mosque is said to rival the Taj Majal. The spectacular Emirates Palace looks out on downtown Abu Dhabi. The skyscrapers go up into the clouds. The Corniche is bordered by mangrove trees. And on and on and on. With all the talk of depressed economies and youth unemployment and the pessimistic view of government, it is refreshing to be in a part of the world that is booming and organized and thinking hard about the future and creating things like "agricultural cities" and "science and technology parks," when they could just line their pockets and export more oil.

I am one that yearns for road trips, because I think moving along an open road is just plain good for the soul. I still think back on Texas to Yellowstone National Park last October, and remember how different I felt about my life those days than I do these days. That was an uncertain stage, and all that mattered was when the next geyser would go off and how prehistoric those blue heated pools looked and how cold it got that night sleeping in the back of my car maybe 100 meters from Old Faithful. I suppose that was all fit for a different time, but it is never a bad time to get out of town awhile. With my spare afternoon, I took the hour drive alone from Abu Dhabi to Dubai across the desert and along the coast until the sand dunes turned into skyscrapers.

It is almost certain the world will be talking about what is going on here now in one hundred or two hundred years the same way we talk about turn of the century New York. Looking up at the Burj Khalifa tower -- the tallest in the world -- you get the sense this is how Romans felt seeing the Colosseum for the first time. Looking at the state of the art metro system and the reshaping of coast line into odd little islands, I could not help but drift back to notions of American exceptionalism and wonder what that even means anymore. I think every American -- all those friends that existed in past lives and foreign places -- needs a trip to Dubai to put a few things in perspective. This is the Middle East of today.

And before I knew it, two flights took me back to Qatar. Both lasted under an hour and both went opposite directions in one of those peculiar airline irregularities that seemingly would not make sense to either customer or service provider. By the time I drifted off to sleep, I was awoken by the jolt of the airplane touching down in Bahrain. Later, out my small window, I saw natural gas refineries lighting up the horizon at night guiding the plane back home in Doha.

Things I've Been Loving Recently: Part I

This Television Station

A live broadcast, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, profiling hoards of people ominously encircling the Kaaba (the cube) in Mecca. This is the most sacred site in all of Islam -- a place all Muslims are required to pilgrimage and the direction all Muslims must face during their prayers. 

Gabriel Gárcia Márquez

What my reading list has lacked in terms of quantity for the first half of 2013, it has certainly made up for in quality. Includes two masterpieces of literature by this Colombian author: 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. While both very different, they portray some of the most isolated, sad, and haunting characters I can remember reading. Beautiful books that have been a joy to make my way through.

Mosques

After a long time in Europe, sampling every kind of gaudy Christian architecture across the centuries, there is something beautifully simplistic about Islamic style. Since the Prophet cannot be portrayed, and since I am not allowed to enter the mosques, perhaps it is the general mystic aura of forbiddances. But the crescent moon atop a dome around every corner and the occasional bursts of prayer from loudspeakers serve as a reminder of where in the world I am. It really never feels intimidating.

Hummus

This Middle Eastern dish goes back centuries and is connected to famous historical figures such as Saladin. Made by a simple blend of chickpeas, sesame, lemon, garlic. I have been eating it every day and cannot get enough. 

This View

I have had many mesmerizing views in my life. This general theme continues each morning out my 14th story window, the Persian Gulf glittering below. If I wake up early enough -- which in this part of the world means around 4:15am -- I can lay in bed and catch the sun peaking just above the clouds.

This Map

Socialized by American education and local news, you are taught that this general area is a scary, savage, and lawless place. It has its challenges -- some parts more than others -- but people are inherently good and I have met many of them from all across the region. I will always be glad to have been here and put a face to a name.

This Look

The Gulf Region is absolutely stunning, but never have cultural differences been so apparent. Muslim women can only marry a Muslim man (though Muslim men can marry whomever they want). The Hijab that covers a woman's face is meant to protect her from the view, touch, and violation of other men, leaving what is underneath only for a husband. An interesting metaphor illustrated this to me recently. "Would you prefer to eat a caramel out of someone's hand, or one that is in a wrapper," a very modernized woman from Saudi Arabia asked me. It seems fairly ridiculous -- and oddly sexual -- to compare a human being to the eating of a caramel, but it is where this stems from.