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After our trip to Abu Dhabi, we headed back to Dubai and checked into the incredible Madniat Jumeirah resort -- a sprawling, three-hotel seaside complex in the shadow of the famous Burj Al Arab. It's designed to look like a huge Arabic cidatel, a palace amidst a cluster of small Arab villas, with waterways connecting everything. You actually take small boats to get to your villa rooms -- it's like staying inside the Pirates of the Carribean ride.
On our fifth day, we took a trip to the Dubailand preview center, where a gigantic model is on display of the huge development that is going on there. It's not one theme park -- it's about twenty of them (proposed), crammed in together with resorts and hotels and roadways like some mutated offspring of Orlando and Las Vegas (but no gambling, of course). The model is completely bananas -- and mostly PR smoke. It was built before any actual designs had been commissioned, more as an international sales piece -- and current rumors have it that less than fifteen or twenty percent of what's shown will actually be developed. Which is good, because if they ever built all that stuff, it would be a cacophony of bad design.
But for every tacky Westernized "themed environment" beckoning tourists, you also have quite a number of beautiful areas -- like the Madinat Jumeirah -- that celebrate Arab culture in grandiose, themed ways. However, very little of it is "authentic", mostly new construction built within the last ten years or so. We had a visit with a Arabic cultural consultant, who spent about four hours giving us a power-point presentation about the region, spouting off facts and figures about economic development and proper cultural sensitivities. I asked about these "faux" Arabian cultural areas, and where are the "real" and "authentic" displays of Arabic culture.
He chuckled, noticing the disappointment in my voice, and said "that's because we don't have any culture to show". He went on to explain that, specifically in Dubai and the UAE's case, they barely even had cities, no less culture to support them, until very late in this century. This part of the Arabic world was all bedouin, and didn't keep anything of heritage because they were constantly moving around. Most of the UAE was nothing but desert, with most of its inhabitants as nomads until well into the 20th century. Dubai itself wasn't even an actual city until 1971, after they had started to reap the financial benefits of oil. He said that it's a culture that "went from camels to cars in a single generation".
On our fifth day, we took a trip to the Dubailand preview center, where a gigantic model is on display of the huge development that is going on there. It's not one theme park -- it's about twenty of them (proposed), crammed in together with resorts and hotels and roadways like some mutated offspring of Orlando and Las Vegas (but no gambling, of course). The model is completely bananas -- and mostly PR smoke. It was built before any actual designs had been commissioned, more as an international sales piece -- and current rumors have it that less than fifteen or twenty percent of what's shown will actually be developed. Which is good, because if they ever built all that stuff, it would be a cacophony of bad design.
But for every tacky Westernized "themed environment" beckoning tourists, you also have quite a number of beautiful areas -- like the Madinat Jumeirah -- that celebrate Arab culture in grandiose, themed ways. However, very little of it is "authentic", mostly new construction built within the last ten years or so. We had a visit with a Arabic cultural consultant, who spent about four hours giving us a power-point presentation about the region, spouting off facts and figures about economic development and proper cultural sensitivities. I asked about these "faux" Arabian cultural areas, and where are the "real" and "authentic" displays of Arabic culture.
He chuckled, noticing the disappointment in my voice, and said "that's because we don't have any culture to show". He went on to explain that, specifically in Dubai and the UAE's case, they barely even had cities, no less culture to support them, until very late in this century. This part of the Arabic world was all bedouin, and didn't keep anything of heritage because they were constantly moving around. Most of the UAE was nothing but desert, with most of its inhabitants as nomads until well into the 20th century. Dubai itself wasn't even an actual city until 1971, after they had started to reap the financial benefits of oil. He said that it's a culture that "went from camels to cars in a single generation".
