#dubaization

Last March I received an email from a production company inviting me to participate in a show called “Huang’s World.” Premised on the notion that I would accompany the host Eddie Huang, unknown to me at the time, on a boat ride from “old to new Dubai” while talking about the city’s history and its rapid rise. At the time I was preparing for my permanent departure from the UAE, and this seemed a good opportunity to offer some parting shots while leaving a city that was my second home outside of Al Ain. I met with the company production representative at Special Ustadi Restaurant, a Bur Dubai institution, and one of my favorite spots in the city. From there we walked to the Abra station and took a boat for a dry run in preparation for the actual filming which would take place a couple of weeks later.

I hadn’t really heard of “Huang’s World” but did some research prior to the filming and found that the show was well known in the US and that it had quite a following. The host, Eddie Huang, is an interesting character – a law school graduate, restaurateur and chef – so it seemed like it would be quite a departure from the usual interviews and talks that I have done in the past which tended to veer to the academic. I was ready for Eddie.

On the day of filming the segment, I arrived at the parking garage in Deira, disposed my car inside its entrails, and proceeded to the Abra station in front of the spice Souq. The production team welcomed me, forms were signed, I was properly “miked” and then we waited for the host who was resting in a car. They had just arrived the day before from Los Angeles and he was suffering from jet lag made worse since they had been filming all morning in the Suq. While standing in front of the abra, or boat, that we would eventually use, a tattooed man, Eddie, appeared and came down to greet me. We proceeded to the boat, with a 3-man camera crew in tow, and sat down. And thus began a fascinating conversation lasting about an hour. As the abra chugged along the creek we passed next to some of the city’s iconic landmarks – Bastakiyya (about to be overtaken by the Marsa Al Seef development), the Sheraton hotel (one of the oldest five star hotels), Maktoum bridge, City Center, till we reached the floating bridge. There, we had to disembark, walk along a non-descript place surrounded by depressing government buildings, swallowed by immense and empty parking spaces. While walking our conversation continued. There was no human in sight, in stark contrast to the lively scene by the souk. But here was another side of the city, away from the tourist oriented, and heavily redesigned, spectacle, a place that evokes a sense of despair and anonymity. Seemingly out of nowhere we saw a small pigeon who somehow seems to have lost his way, walking aimlessly across a stretch of pavement. This aroused the curiosity of Eddie and the film crew – they filmed him while the hapless fellow feeling slightly alarmed moved a bit faster till he escaped the intruders on his personal space. At a safe distance he returned to his deep thought posture, perhaps wondering how he ended up here. It literally was the only living being around us. I kept thinking about that pigeon. How did it get here? What is it doing on the sidewalk? How about its residency status? Why is it alone? A lot of questions and no answers. We turned our back to the pigeon and moved on. I was tempted to look back but did not.

 Image 01: [L] While waiting for Eddie; [R] Dhows along the Creek

Once we crossed the bridge to the other side we found a taxi boat waiting for us. Inside an air conditioned space I sat next to the captain, who turned out to be a fellow Egyptian and my conversation with the host continued. The questions were all thoughtful and showed that Eddie had indeed quite a deep understanding about the city. What surprised me the most though was the positive and respectful attitude that he showed. Typically westerners and media people come with certain preconceived notions about artificiality, marginalization and exclusion. Yet he displayed none of that. I pointed this out in our talk, which was affirmed by the boat captain nodding excitedly. Eddie, somewhat taken aback, asked me “why’? And as I gave my stock answer we slid into the newly dredged creek extension towards a wondrous apparition emerging through the sun’s haze -- Business Bay. While dutifully enumerating all the good things about the city, its rapid rise and multiculturalism, I saw in front of me what looked like empty shells. Not in a physical sense but that is the feeling they convey. Our talk stopped and Eddie thanked me for my time. I continued my observation of the highrises around us. This was a new perspective of the city, created through the canal leading to the Gulf. It was eerily quiet, kind of like a ghost town. Again hardly any people were in sight – just peculiar building after peculiar building. The very antithesis of urbanity and cityness. All this will change soon – people will move in. The Design District or D3 will become a hub of creativity and excitement populated by the strange, the peculiar, pretentious and beautiful. All will be well and good, so we are told.

 Image 02: Business Bay emerging through a thick haze

Video: The abandoned and yet to be populated waterfront of Business Bay

A camera man was leaning against the boat’s rail and looking at all of this in bewilderment. Eddie came out and examined the scene unfolding in front of our eyes as the boat slowly made its way to the waterfall falling from the sides of the elevated Sheikh Zayed Road. Coming closer sensors detect our arrival and miraculously the waterfall stops. In Moses like fashion, the water parts and we are assured safe passage. We kept going while watching some villas coming precariously close to the canal. Lucky survivors as they have escaped the wrath of expropriation. I see a large part of Safa Park which was disemboweled, creating an expanse of sand that will soon house mixed use developments, upscale shopping and chic restaurants. At the moment none of that is happening though – in fact all that you see are workers walking across the cornice walkway. We ended in some sort of no man’s land, or terrain vague, a taxi station that seems to exist for no one. Located in Jumeirah, at a distance from its main thoroughfare, it overlooks the waters of the Gulf

 Image 03: [L] abandoned space near Safa park, soon to be populated with upscale shopping; [R] villas located precariously alongside the canal

Image 04: Eddie and film crew alongside Business Bay Canal

We left the boat and waited for cars to take us back to where we came from. Stretching across us was a vast expanse of sand. The city skyline appeared in the distance. I sat on a bench. A crewmember had a portable speaker and started playing some music. And then he began to dance and so did the rest of the team. I watched them from the comfort of my bench. It seemed like such a capricious act of silliness but it was also very moving. Here, literally in the middle of nowhere, a sense of place was created. For a brief moment this desolate stretch turned into something and yet as soon as it started it also ended.

And as I sat I began to reflect on my own status and the realization that soon I will have to leave all of this behind. Having observed and documented the city’s growth over the last two decades this brief jaunt over its creek highlighted the extent of change that occurred but also that this is still very much work in progress. The potential that this may eventually turn into a vibrant urban setting that sustains and nurtures a sense of identity and belonging is there. But yet there is a feeling of unsettledness, what I have described before as unhomeliness. It is after all a transient place, not built for permanence. A city that rejects any sort of rootedness and sense of belonging. A place constructed for nomadic citizens, for whom no place is home and who are under a constant awareness of their precarious status. Like the crew dancing, so are the city’s residents, engaged in an act of building and contributing to ‘this’ city’s growth and achievements, but also knowing that they are there for a fleeting moment of time. Fleeting can stretch for decades. But it is still fleeting. 

Image 05: A crew member dances in a Dubai terrain vague

The producers dropped me off on Jumeirah road in front of a strip mall type of building. I hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take me back to Deira. We passed through old Dubai, entered the darkness of the Shindagha tunnel, drove into the cornice and stopped in front of the parking garage. I navigated its grimy corridors, paid the parking fee at a barely functioning machine, waited for the elevator with a slightly disheveled looking South Asian man, who looked at me with curiosity, entered the lift then exited at my floor. My car was waiting, inside I pressed the ignition button. As I was disgorged from the building through its ramp I entered the cornice and looked across the creek. I stepped on the gas pedal and sped towards the highway. My eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead.

 I thought of the pigeon and where it went. Did it fly away? Where did it go? Will it ever come back? 

  The following are scenes of my interlude with Eddie Huang for the Dubai episode of “Huang’s World.” Also a clip of the conversation can be found here.

A 1958 depiction of Dubai evokes this quality, which persists till this day: 

“… toward the desert sheikdom of Dubai. The sun had just risen when we moored in the lee of the harbor curve of Dubai. The fretwork of the town, its minarets and mud walls and watchtower, rose like a mirage from the scimitarlike sweep of the littoral, with the pale sand of the desert stretching away on either side in sun-bleached levels to the horizon.” 

[by Lela Headley, a New York based public relations specialist, in her book Give Me the World, an account of her travels in the 1950s, originally published in 1958]

Images: Yasser Elsheshtawy