Good taste is as scarce as rainfall, and the atmosphere is like soup. Yet we Brits can't get enough of this deluxe sandpit, reports Lynn BarberThe Observer,
Sunday October 24 2004
Imagine an expanse of dusty desert beside a greasy sea, sweltering under a pitiless sun. Now cover it with six-lane highways, flyovers, spaghetti junctions and all the nastiest buildings you have ever seen. Think Birmingham without its beauty, Las Vegas without its culture. Dubai is unquestionably the ugliest city in the world - there should be a socking great sign at the airport saying 'Abandon all taste, ye who enter here.' And yet it is the third most popular long-haul destination (after Barbados and Mauritius) for British Airways Holidays. Why?
Well, first, if you forget good taste, there is astonishing luxury to be had. I stayed at the Al Qasr, a new five-star hotel on Jumeirah Beach, which is described as 'the Venice of Arabia' because it has a couple of canals running through the gardens. (You soon get used to this level of hyperbole in Dubai - almost every building claims to be the eighth wonder of the world.) The first thing you see as you turn into the drive is a life-size herd of shiny gold plastic horses gambolling on the lurid lawns. But you don't have to look at them for long because dozens of staff come rushing out of the hotel to greet you like a long-lost cousin and offer you sweets and Arabic coffee.
The welcome is so warm that you can forgive the gruesome chandeliers and eye-grazing carpets in the lobby, though going to your room provides another shock - someone has gone to an immense amount of trouble to make it look exactly like a Sixties' Indian restaurant. But it is a very large room, with a supremely comfortable bed and well-equipped bathroom. In the end I almost became fond of it, though I did wake up every morning thinking, why maroon and orange stripes? And why those giant tassles on the television cabinet? It is a pity the design is so hideous because in all other respects the Al Qasr is a superb hotel - the food is delicious, the staff friendly, the service impeccable and it has a state-of-the-art spa called the Six Senses, which you reach rather charmingly by abra (boat) along the canal. It also has a delicious chilled swimming pool, which you do need in the Dubai climate.
The climate is Dubai's elephant in the room - nobody mentions it. The brochures talk of guaranteed winter sun and no rain and that is certainly true - the last measurable rainfall was in 1997 when it rained for a whole night. There have been one or two showers since then but you can safely forget your umbrella when packing for Dubai. And it's true that the sun's reliable, too - boiling sun, implacable sun, sun that will fry you if you go on the beach at midday. Even the locals admit that Dubai is intolerable in July and August.
I thought it was pretty intolerable when I went in September - the temperature seldom fell below the high 30s, even at night, and walking outside was like wading through soup. Despite being a desert country, it somehow manages to be humid as well.
Apparently, British tourists like Dubai (and went on going there right through the 1991 Gulf war) because, as the PR memorably explains, 'People don't associate it with the Middle East.' It doesn't feel like a Muslim country. You can drink alcohol even during Ramadan. The Dubaians, of course, look Arabic, in their immaculate white dish-dashes, but they account for only 18 per cent of the population - the rest are expats from all over Europe, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, whose common language is English. It is also a very safe country, with no theft or mugging, and nobody ever hassles you in the street.
Dubai's main attraction is supposed to be its fabulous shopping, but I couldn't find anything I wanted to buy. There are loads of huge shopping malls with all the same shops as Brent Cross - Ikea, Next, Gap, Debenhams - with marginally cheaper prices. But you surely don't fly eight hours to get £3 off a skirt? The 'bargain' area, Karama, is more exciting if you crave fake watches and fake Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, and Burberry handbags at dirt cheap prices. But can't you get those in Essex?
So what do you do in Dubai apart from shopping? Well first you have to see Burj Al Arab, which is Dubai's own Leaning Tower of Pisa - its silhouette appears on all the car number plates. It is, one might have guessed, a hotel, where the smallest suites cost £1,000 a night and guests are transported by a fleet of white Rolls-Royces. Designed by British architect W. S. Atkins, it is shaped like a sail and has a helicopter pad on top, where Tiger Woods was filmed hitting golf balls into the sea. The outside is great but the inside is like a bad acid trip. The style can best be described as Puff Daddy crossed with Wurlitzer jukebox, plus copious fish and waterfalls. The Royal Suite features a revolving bed and wall-to-wall leopardskin - apparently, the rapper 50 Cent stayed there the other week and loved it.
'Historic' Dubai does not take long to see. The oldest building is a tiny fort like a child's sandcastle, which dates from the l8th century and houses the Dubai Museum. Then there is Sheikh Saeed's house, built in 1896, and a few Persian windtower houses built in the early 20th century. That's about it for historic buildings. Someone pointed out to me the Hard Rock Cafe, a squat unimpressive block overshadowed by skyscrapers, and said it used to be a great landmark - you could see it from miles away as you drove down from Abu Dhabi, and it marked the end of the desert and the beginning of town. But that was all of eight years ago, and the city has engulfed it since then.
What is truly sensational about Dubai is the speed at which it is growing. You could go away for a week and return to find a 20-storey skyscraper outside your window. Housing estates and shopping malls arrive like flying ants. Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince, has decreed that by the time the oil runs out Dubai will be the financial and commercial centre for the whole Middle East. Three years ago he changed the law to allow foreigners to buy property and establish residency - hence the rush for real estate. Everywhere you go you see architects' drawings and models of the next new thing - the world's biggest shopping mall, the world's tallest skyscraper, the world's biggest maze. One of the new housing estates, International City, promises 'a recreation of the Forbidden City that will transport the magic of Chinese culture to the desert' - with parking for 2,000 cars.
The Dubai coastline is already almost totally built up, so now they are building artificial islands out into the Gulf, which will add 120 kilometres to the Dubai shoreline. The first of these, the Palm, is already visible: a man-made structure in the shape of a palm tree, it will have apartment blocks and hotels along the stem and private beachfront villas on the fronds (one of which David Beckham has acquired). Like everything in Dubai, it has been built at incredible speed - land reclamation started in December 2001 and finished in November 2003; now they are building a 10-lane bridge to the trunk, and the first houses are already going up. All the apartment blocks sold out in the first three hours.
Work has already started on a second Palm, which will be 40 per cent larger than the first, and there's also the World, consisting of 300 islands in the shape of different countries, which will be completed by 2008. Seventy islands have already been sold - someone bought Australia on the very first day. Owners can build what they like on their islands, or not build at all. The promotional video bizarrely shows people trekking through a rainforest and emerging on to a broad savannah with a herd of wildebeest stampeding by. Would anyone be mad enough to create a rainforest on a man-made island in the Gulf with no rain at all? Well, maybe in Dubai.
Well, first, if you forget good taste, there is astonishing luxury to be had. I stayed at the Al Qasr, a new five-star hotel on Jumeirah Beach, which is described as 'the Venice of Arabia' because it has a couple of canals running through the gardens. (You soon get used to this level of hyperbole in Dubai - almost every building claims to be the eighth wonder of the world.) The first thing you see as you turn into the drive is a life-size herd of shiny gold plastic horses gambolling on the lurid lawns. But you don't have to look at them for long because dozens of staff come rushing out of the hotel to greet you like a long-lost cousin and offer you sweets and Arabic coffee.
The welcome is so warm that you can forgive the gruesome chandeliers and eye-grazing carpets in the lobby, though going to your room provides another shock - someone has gone to an immense amount of trouble to make it look exactly like a Sixties' Indian restaurant. But it is a very large room, with a supremely comfortable bed and well-equipped bathroom. In the end I almost became fond of it, though I did wake up every morning thinking, why maroon and orange stripes? And why those giant tassles on the television cabinet? It is a pity the design is so hideous because in all other respects the Al Qasr is a superb hotel - the food is delicious, the staff friendly, the service impeccable and it has a state-of-the-art spa called the Six Senses, which you reach rather charmingly by abra (boat) along the canal. It also has a delicious chilled swimming pool, which you do need in the Dubai climate.
The climate is Dubai's elephant in the room - nobody mentions it. The brochures talk of guaranteed winter sun and no rain and that is certainly true - the last measurable rainfall was in 1997 when it rained for a whole night. There have been one or two showers since then but you can safely forget your umbrella when packing for Dubai. And it's true that the sun's reliable, too - boiling sun, implacable sun, sun that will fry you if you go on the beach at midday. Even the locals admit that Dubai is intolerable in July and August.
I thought it was pretty intolerable when I went in September - the temperature seldom fell below the high 30s, even at night, and walking outside was like wading through soup. Despite being a desert country, it somehow manages to be humid as well.
Apparently, British tourists like Dubai (and went on going there right through the 1991 Gulf war) because, as the PR memorably explains, 'People don't associate it with the Middle East.' It doesn't feel like a Muslim country. You can drink alcohol even during Ramadan. The Dubaians, of course, look Arabic, in their immaculate white dish-dashes, but they account for only 18 per cent of the population - the rest are expats from all over Europe, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, whose common language is English. It is also a very safe country, with no theft or mugging, and nobody ever hassles you in the street.
Dubai's main attraction is supposed to be its fabulous shopping, but I couldn't find anything I wanted to buy. There are loads of huge shopping malls with all the same shops as Brent Cross - Ikea, Next, Gap, Debenhams - with marginally cheaper prices. But you surely don't fly eight hours to get £3 off a skirt? The 'bargain' area, Karama, is more exciting if you crave fake watches and fake Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, and Burberry handbags at dirt cheap prices. But can't you get those in Essex?
So what do you do in Dubai apart from shopping? Well first you have to see Burj Al Arab, which is Dubai's own Leaning Tower of Pisa - its silhouette appears on all the car number plates. It is, one might have guessed, a hotel, where the smallest suites cost £1,000 a night and guests are transported by a fleet of white Rolls-Royces. Designed by British architect W. S. Atkins, it is shaped like a sail and has a helicopter pad on top, where Tiger Woods was filmed hitting golf balls into the sea. The outside is great but the inside is like a bad acid trip. The style can best be described as Puff Daddy crossed with Wurlitzer jukebox, plus copious fish and waterfalls. The Royal Suite features a revolving bed and wall-to-wall leopardskin - apparently, the rapper 50 Cent stayed there the other week and loved it.
'Historic' Dubai does not take long to see. The oldest building is a tiny fort like a child's sandcastle, which dates from the l8th century and houses the Dubai Museum. Then there is Sheikh Saeed's house, built in 1896, and a few Persian windtower houses built in the early 20th century. That's about it for historic buildings. Someone pointed out to me the Hard Rock Cafe, a squat unimpressive block overshadowed by skyscrapers, and said it used to be a great landmark - you could see it from miles away as you drove down from Abu Dhabi, and it marked the end of the desert and the beginning of town. But that was all of eight years ago, and the city has engulfed it since then.
What is truly sensational about Dubai is the speed at which it is growing. You could go away for a week and return to find a 20-storey skyscraper outside your window. Housing estates and shopping malls arrive like flying ants. Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince, has decreed that by the time the oil runs out Dubai will be the financial and commercial centre for the whole Middle East. Three years ago he changed the law to allow foreigners to buy property and establish residency - hence the rush for real estate. Everywhere you go you see architects' drawings and models of the next new thing - the world's biggest shopping mall, the world's tallest skyscraper, the world's biggest maze. One of the new housing estates, International City, promises 'a recreation of the Forbidden City that will transport the magic of Chinese culture to the desert' - with parking for 2,000 cars.
The Dubai coastline is already almost totally built up, so now they are building artificial islands out into the Gulf, which will add 120 kilometres to the Dubai shoreline. The first of these, the Palm, is already visible: a man-made structure in the shape of a palm tree, it will have apartment blocks and hotels along the stem and private beachfront villas on the fronds (one of which David Beckham has acquired). Like everything in Dubai, it has been built at incredible speed - land reclamation started in December 2001 and finished in November 2003; now they are building a 10-lane bridge to the trunk, and the first houses are already going up. All the apartment blocks sold out in the first three hours.
Work has already started on a second Palm, which will be 40 per cent larger than the first, and there's also the World, consisting of 300 islands in the shape of different countries, which will be completed by 2008. Seventy islands have already been sold - someone bought Australia on the very first day. Owners can build what they like on their islands, or not build at all. The promotional video bizarrely shows people trekking through a rainforest and emerging on to a broad savannah with a herd of wildebeest stampeding by. Would anyone be mad enough to create a rainforest on a man-made island in the Gulf with no rain at all? Well, maybe in Dubai.
14 comments:
Dear Sixth Formers,
Please comment on the author's use of figurative language: metaphors and similes. Also discuss the author's use of exaggeration and humour. Your posts need not be like an essay and they need not be too long. But I'd like to see evidence that you've read the article. I'd also like to get some idea of your understanding and appreciation of the author's language.
-Mr. Roberts
In the topic ‘Desert Kingdom’ the writer has used a lot of metaphors and similes to create an effect on the reader to grasp their attention about what she feels about the place and somehow she manages to make something which may sound so amazing to see in the place into something so casual with just the use of her descriptive language of her metaphors, adjectives, sarcasm and humor.
She also talks how Dubai is more modernized and western compared to the other Arab countries in the Middle East. She has used neologism for the term ‘Dubaians’’ with the mix of cultures in the U.A.E.
The writer has brought up certain facts about the country but what I felt she has also brought out is the superficiality in Dubai . How everything now is mostly man made. Like how she mentions ’the worlds tallest sky scraper’, ‘the words tallest maze’, ‘the palm’’ etc. A place which was once just sand is now modernized with buildings and buildings. Basically what she‘s saying is that anything is possible in Dubai and anything can happen.
-sarah-
The writer has written a descriptive article about dubai with a few twists. The writer has used metaphors and similies to create a stunning & Beguiling image in the readers mind.The writer also uses a bit of humor,where she describes that the city looks very dull,just to lighten up the mood.The writer does exaggerate a bit about the climate in Dubai. At the end of the article gives readers the notion that nothing is impossible in dubai,that building a man-made island is just the tip of the iceberg on what Dubai has to offer.
-Tarun
I enjoyed the satire and sarcasm in this article. Her tone is tongue-in-cheek. Most of what she says about Dubai is true!
Lynn Barber starts her article with a lot of humor but all she has done is describe the reality of Dubai which is now growing at such a fast pace. She talks about everything from the buildings to the food and the culture and basically everything she wants to get across that she has experienced and observed. Her text is rich in the sense that she uses a lot of associative imagery to help us as readers connect with all the different situations she has been through while travelling. In places she also adds points beside her sarcastic comments about apparently why tourists like travelling to Dubai. The way she has put in adjectives, similes and metaphors in certain places, at the right moments, to create an impact, really draws us into the text; for example: when she describes her stay at the hotel. The use of her last rhetorical question “would anyone be mad…Gulf with no rain at all?” leaves the reader very curious as to whether such a bizarre thing would actually happen in a desert or not.
~Fatema
The first thing that I personally noticed was the great amount of facts stated in the text. Although she only was a tourist in Dubai she has a lot of factual based comments such as “one palm being 40% bigger then another” and the population ethnicity “only 18 per cent of the population - the rest are expats”. More over, the text took its first steps on a negative foot, stating it was the “ugliest city” and why she couldn’t understand the fact that it was the third most popular destination for British tourists. However, as I progressed through the article it started to shift towards a more positive note, as she described the beautiful 5 star hotels and rapid economic growth. The speed of economic growth was accompanied by the humorous remark “You could go away for a week and return to find a 20-storey skyscraper outside your window.” On the whole, with both the negative and positive aspects she maintained a humorous tone through-out the piece. Quotes such as making a rainforest on a man made island in a country where there is no rain at all was ironically amusing but she really put the cherry on the top when she stated “Well, maybe in Dubai”. Other sarcasm such as the Burj Al Arab being a result of “Puff Daddy crossed with Wurlitzer jukebox” kept me amused and interested throughout the whole piece of writing.
Like Tarun, Sarah and Fatema have already said, the writer uses a collection of metaphors and similies in order to describe how she feels about Dubai. Her use of ironic language sets her apart as she uses humor and sarcasim to convay to the reader(s) that Dubai really is a great place with much to be expected.
However she critsizes the climate by using an idiom and a metaphor to explain how humid Dubai really is.
Lynn also adds some facts to her text to inform the readers about the bigger palm and the population differance.
Sorry, the that wasn't Ksenya. It was Musaab.
I loved this article! I think that it was very captivating with all its irony and exaggeration which didn't fail to continue throughout the article. And despite this, it is all very true! I also noticed the use of varied vocabulary which was simple enough for us to easily grasp, but just complex enough to add a little spark to the article. I personally think that this is an amazing example of writing, because it seems as though it came really effortlessly to her! All the descriptive language, metaphors and hyperboles seem very natural.
And I’m also waiting to see Jonathan’s comment:)
That was Ksenya.
And Jono, love your comment.
The author has obviously done her homework on the subject of the matter,she starts off with an attempt to keep the reader interested in this article,and she continues to keep the sarcasm,facts,imagery and of course,humour in the article so that the reader does not tend to drift off,especially since this article is rather long,i know that was the only thing that kept me interested in this piece of text.
The writer is 'moody' with her review of Dubai,implying at the beginning that she thinks the taste of these "Dubaians" is tacky and immature,but later moves into a more positive judgement.
If you skim read this text you would notice straightaway that the write has made use of her good vocabulary and has played with her words to create the most descriptive,accurate and amusing image she can for the reader,to keep both interest and imagery rich as i mentioned before.
The writer does not go out of her character as a reviewer for Dubai and has changed into a more positive note later on in the text. Although traces of sarcasm still remain she does a good job in mixing fact with imaginative thinking,by putting in sentences such as: "Well first you have to see Burj Al Arab, which is Dubai's own Leaning Tower of Pisa " and "Would anyone be mad enough to create a rainforest on a man-made island in the Gulf with no rain at all? Well, maybe in Dubai."
As much as everyone else says that there is alot of metaphor and similes being used i really dont think they are very influential in the readers idea of Dubai,instead the write uses alot of Adjectives to keep the image of Dubai as crystal clear to the foreign reader as it is to us(Who live in dubai,ahem) .
Shanez
The author, at first, has this negative impression of Dubai, stating alot of factual information about the U.A.E as a whole.
The author uses a variety of similes, and metaphors, also factual information, to guide the reader into her point of view. The exaggeration estimates a persuasive approach, along with the humour, to initiate a better understanding of what the author is stating.
My favourite sentence: "You could go away for a week and return to find a 20-storey skyscraper outside your window." The humour expressed in the author's language has attracted my attention, in addition with exaggeration.
I think, by negotiating a negative, then positive, approach of Dubai, the author sends the reader these images of development and enhancement, in a very short amount of time. Thus, this comes to show that the author was either writing an argumentative piece, or a persuasive piece.
I mainly see it as an argumentative piece, by the author's structure of stating both sides, and closing her point of view over Dubai in her conclusion. Overall, I found it amusing and factual, at the same time.
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