Diamond in the Desert

So my posts have been kinda on the dark and gloomy side lately, or maybe more serious than usual.  It reflects my mood at the moment, but that will change soon.

This is just gonna be a short one — I’m in Dubai Airport right now on the way to Dhaka, so I have some time to kill.  I’m drinking a beer at 930 am local time.  I can’t believe how many immigrants live in this city/country.  I would say 25% of the population is East Asian, mostly Chinese and Indonesian.  About 40-50% is South Asian, most of them Bangladeshi.  And then you have the locals, who perhaps make up about 20%, with white people maybe making up 5-10% (although I can’t really tell that from the airport, but its an educated guess from the number of MBAs I know working here, multiplied by the number of hot stewardesses I see).

I stopped at one of the duty free stores and rocked out some Guitar Hero — I turned around after “No sleep till Brooklyn” and found I’d drawn a crowd — I guess I’m a rock star wherever I go — is there any way I can leverage that?!?!

Before I left I was dreading this trip, but my experience in the airport so far just reaffirms that I need to come back to Asia at some point.  It IS the future.  Infrastructure is so super-developed here — it really does make the US look like a third-world country.  I know this isn’t true everywhere, or even in the majority of places, but its true enough at the major hub cities around Asia.

Of course at the same time, society is more close-minded and conservative, but really, in Dubai at least, I don’t feel that its much more conservative than like Arkansas or something!   Diversity breeds openness.  Some people may dress more conservatively, but like I said, when its only 20% of the population you barely notice.  And multiply that by .4 for the number of women actually wearing that long black thing, and its really not a big number.

I think I could really clean up here, in terms of the ladies.  Ha ha!  Is that a joke?  I’m not really sure.  But I hear there’s a dearth of places where you can go out and meet people/women, which could be  a bit of a damper on the picking-up-chicks scenario.

A friend of mine also mentioned that reports of Dubai’s dying economy are greatly exaggerated — its no worse off than anywhere else right now.

That’s all for now, I guess — sitting at an airport bar is only so interesting.  More tomorrow or the day after… when I finally reach my destination — the hot, sweaty, dirty city that is my semi-home…. Dhaka.

Filed under: traveling, asia, diversity, dubai, infrastructure, UAE