UAE - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
168
UAE - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781787029514 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Kuperard |
| Publication date: | 06/21/2018 |
| Series: | Culture Smart! , #93 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 168 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
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CHAPTER 1
LAND & PEOPLE
GEOGRAPHY
The UAE is located on the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula, and lies along the salty waters of the Arabian Gulf. The land itself is mostly flat and almost entirely desert in the interior. To the east, the border with Oman is marked by the Al Hajar Mountains, which rise to a maximum of around 6,500 feet (1981 m), while to the South and West lies a 329-mile (529 km) border with Saudi Arabia. To the west are the small Gulf states of Qatar and Bahrain, while the UAE's adversary Iran lies just across the water. A number of small islands stand between them, and tensions sometimes flare up over the ownership of two in particular: Lesser and Greater Tunb.
There are no natural harbors along the UAE coastline and fourteen manmade ones, the biggest being Jebel Ali, which is the busiest port in the Middle East. The UAE's waters are quite rich in fish and marine life and it is possible to see turtles, dolphins, and whale sharks, in addition to edible local delicacies such as hammour and kingfish, although these species have been overfished in recent years. Historically fish represented the major form of protein for Emirati people, supplemented by the occasional mutton or goat.
There are some oases within the interior of the country, notably at Al Ain, which is known as "the garden city" for its greenery and natural hot springs. Here you can find an abundance of date palm trees, as well as mangoes and fig trees. Dates come into all Emirati meals in one form or another, and their stalks and leaves were once used in building local homes.
Much of the UAE's inland territory is still uninhabited. This doesn't mean that it is devoid of life, because the desert offers quite a variety of flora and fauna, but traveling in remote areas is not without risk. As well as the obvious dangers of desert scorpions, snakes, and spiders, sandstorms can make driving hazardous, and if it rains, flash floods can appear in mountain wadis (dry river beds). Do not attempt to travel alone into the desert or without informing people of where you are going.
Much of the UAE's biodiversity can also be found in its lush mangrove forests, which grow in abundance in Abu Dhabi, as well as dotted along the coastline between Dubai and the most-northern emirate Ras Al Khaimah.
Abu Dhabi is the largest Emirate geographically, and the majority of the oil and gas deposits that have so radically transformed Emirati society lie under its desert and coastal waters. While Dubai and Abu Dhabi have developed into sparkling metropolises, the oil wealth has trickled more slowly northwards through to the other Emirates. Umm al Quwain, Ras al Khaimah, and Ajman still had dirt roads and endured electricity outages until recently, and many people there still live in older style homes which seem a world away from the palatial Emirati villas of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
CLIMATE
The climate of the UAE is principally hot and dry, reaching up to 109°F (43°C) on the coast and 115°F (46°C) in the interior. The hottest temperature ever recorded in the UAE is 125.7°F (52.1°C) in July 2002, but while most summer days are significantly cooler than that, it's the lethal combination of heat with high humidity that makes the UAE's summers feel so scorchingly sticky. When air conditioning first came to the UAE it must have seemed like a miraculous blessing to its people, who in the past would often venture inland in the summer, for example from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain, to escape the coastal humidity. Desert nights can be cool, but only in the deeper interior does this really have any noticeable impact.
The best time to visit the UAE is in the winter, between November and March, when temperatures range from 50°F (10°C) and 82.4°F (28°C). In the more mountainous Emirates of Fujairah and Ras al Khaimah, temperatures plunge much lower — it even snowed in Ras al Khaimah in February 2017, much to the delight of local children.
A blanket of thick fog descends on some winter mornings, which tends to cause plenty of chaos on the UAE's roads. The UAE also experiences the force of the "Shamal" winds in the spring and summer, blowing sand and dust particles up with it. The winds originate in Pakistan and blow through Iraq and Iran. It is advisable to stay indoors with all windows firmly closed during a sandstorm, particularly if you suffer from asthma.
RAIN
Average annual rainfall in the UAE is approximately 3.9 to 5.9 inches (99–150 mm), and it falls more frequently in the cooler mountainous regions of Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah. Despite acute scarcity it has one of the highest per capita water usages globally. The UAE is keenly experimenting with cloud seeding technology, which appears to have significantly boosted its annual rainfall in recent years. This can be rather unsettling for the country's residents, who are never quite sure when it rains whether it is a natural occurrence, or a result of human intervention. Rain in the UAE tends to carry sand particles in it, which mean there are inevitably long queues at car washing stations when it stops.
The heavy rain that does fall naturally in the UAE, for about one week every year in December to February, is quite a cause for celebration, especially during years of widespread drought. However, most buildings appear to have been designed with the naïve presumption by the architect that it never rains heavily, which means that during storms, it rains inside, as well as outside. Schools and colleges will usually close, and because of an inadequate drainage on the roads, driving conditions can be hazardous.
Because the rainfall is subject to considerable variation, agricultural management can be difficult. Many traditional family farms are running out of groundwater, and are being abandoned. But some farmers are harnessing new technologies to solve the issue of water scarcity. At the Baniyas Center in Abu Dhabi, for example, traditional fish farming is undertaken through a system that uses the fish waste as a fertilizer for hydroponic vegetable tanks. There are even plans afoot to pull an iceberg all the way from Antarctica to Fujairah and convert it to fresh water, in order to ensure the UAE has enough water in the future.
THE ENVIRONMENT
The breakneck speed of the UAE's urban development would have been impossible without paying a hefty cost to the natural world. The last small stretch of sand dunes that still remains along the E11 road between Abu Dhabi and Dubai has already been earmarked for development, and desert campers have to travel ever further to get out of the UAE's sprawling megacities to find secluded spots. Oil slicks off the coast of Fujairah are becoming a common occurrence, and although the UAE's hotel beaches are kept looking pristine by their staff, on undeveloped beaches, immense amounts of plastic are washed up, and volunteers are regularly roped in by local conservation groups to try to clean up the mess.
As well as its deserts and beaches, much of the UAE's biodiversity can be found in its mangroves forests. In recent years, the Abu Dhabi government has taken the initiative of planting thousands of mangrove saplings, to compensate for those uprooted to build waterside developments. Kayaking in the city's lush mangroves has become a popular pastime for tourists, but recent luxury developments on Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat and Yas Islands threaten the city's fragile mangrove eco-system with increased levels of pollution and noise.
The UAE's abundant supply of oil enables its bright city lights to keep burning, and its enormous malls to be luxuriously appointed and air-conditioned. Emirati citizens still have their energy costs heavily subsidized, although energy bills are now starting to creep up, especially for expatriates.
Bold steps are being taken to embrace alternative energy, and some of the world's largest solar farms have opened in the desert. Given the low price of gasoline in the UAE, visitors may be surprised at the number of charging points (around 200 in Dubai) for electric cars that are rapidly increasing in popularity. The country's first nuclear plant was expected to be operational in 2017 but has been rescheduled for 2018, with three more nuclear reactors scheduled to open by 2020.
All these environmentally friendly initiatives are not without good reason, for the UAE stands to face a catastrophic future if global warming continues at the rate some experts are predicting. In 2015, a study in the journal Nature and Climate Change cautioned that by the end of 2090, temperatures in the UAE may become too hot for human survival.
THE PEOPLE
The increase in population in the last forty years has been so rapid that for those who have lived through those years, the UAE is now virtually unrecognizable. In 1975, the total population of the Abu Dhabi Emirate was 211,812 people — merely a fishing village — and in 2016, it was a global metropolis with 2,908,173 residents, approximately 90 percent of whom were foreign workers and their families.
Apart from the oasis city of Al Ain, the sleepy desert towns of Madinat Zayed and Liwa, and the accommodation settlements for oil industry workers Al Ruwais and Delma Island, most people live in the coastal cities, and those based in the country's interior are mostly Pakistani and Indian farm workers. While most Emirati families own farms, they tend to only visit them at weekends or in holidays, preferring to reside in their suburban villas.
Because approximately 90 percent of the UAE's population are non- Emirati citizens, visitors don't always get the opportunity to interact with the locals as almost all the country's hospitality staff and shop assistants are foreign. The majority of the UAE's residents are male who come from south Asian countries (58 percent). Workers tend to be recruited on an ethnic basis according to the type of work required, with large cohorts of low-medium level office workers coming from Kerala in India, and manual laborers coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Filipinos do most of the retail and domestic jobs, and generally work at a lower level than their qualifications justify. Those in mid- managerial and technical occupations are usually recruited from Western countries, South Asia, and Arab countries, particularly Egypt and Jordan. The UAE is also increasingly recruiting from Africa, with teachers coming from South Africa, and security guards and taxi drivers from central African countries.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TRIBE
The Emirati people themselves are first and foremost tribespeople, and many of these tribes originated in Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. However, it is seen as a mark of status to be from a "pure" indigenous Emirati family, so if you ask an Emirati from where their descendants originated, you may encounter reluctance to broach the subject. Most Gulf Arabs residing within the borders of the country when independence was declared in 1971, or who had a suitably strong familial connection to a recognized citizen, were accorded citizenship and, in return, were expected to renounce previous political affiliations.
However, Emiratis are increasingly marrying outside of their own tribe and even nationality. In most cases, Emirati men are choosing to take a foreign wife as a second wife, or as an only wife if their first marriage ends in divorce. Some of the most successful Emirati business people are from marriages in which the father is Emirati and the mother is foreign, and some of them have felt that being half-caste has meant they have had to work harder in order to prove themselves worthy in their society. In 2012, Emirati filmmaker Amal Al-Agroobi shed light on the stigma attached to being "half-Emirati" in her controversial documentary of the same name.
A BRIEF HISTORY
Primitive hand axes discovered by archaeologists in Sharjah in 2011, thought to be 100,000 to 125,000 years old, are the earliest evidence of modern humans found anywhere outside Africa, and reveal that early man left Africa much early than previously thought.
In the remote past, Arabia as a whole had a climate with greater rainfall than it does today and agriculture was much more viable. The world's oldest falaj irrigation system (using underground water channels to water crops), thought to be 3,000 years old is located in Al Ain. The dry climate of Arabia seems to have stabilized in its current nature around five thousand years ago.
Trade flowed through Arabia from important centers such as Mecca from early times, and settlements from the Roman period show evidence of exchange of goods. Frankincense, an important trade good, was carried to Gaza and on to Europe. Eastward, trade routes had been established for thousands of years. Spices from the remote Indonesian islands have been found in the Syrian Desert and date to 2000 BCE, and at least one route passed through the desert, possibly utilizing territory now in the UAE. The most important state in Arabia between 1200 BCE and 275 CE was Saba, known in the west as Sheba (from the legend of the Queen of Sheba), with its capital at Ma'rib (in present day Yemen.) However, it is clear that a number of other smaller states existed and, from time to time, a king with pretensions to become known as a "unifier" emerged. It was more common, though, for tribes to live together in a state of autonomy. These tribes did not necessarily have a common ethnicity but instead represented a group of communities living in close proximity to each other, peaceably, and open to the outside world. Inscriptions and archaeological data reveal that the region was in contact with the Mediterranean states, Egypt, India, and cultures further afield.
In the centuries before the conquest of eastern Arabia by the Sassanian dynasty of southwestern Iran, from 223 CE to 651 CE, the area of the UAE witnessed the growth of local communities, crafts, coinage, and the development of language. The horse was first used at some period during the three centuriesBCE, and the symbol of the Arabian horse has been held in great esteem in local culture ever since. During this time a variety of religious beliefs were held, including Christianity. Nestorian Christian monks built a monastery on Abu Dhabi's remote Sir Bani Yas Island in 600 CE. Thirty-two years later, envoys from the Prophet Mohammed brought Islam to the people of the Gulf Coast. The death of the Prophet led to a rebellion against his new religion, and one of the major battles was fought at Dibba in Fujairah. This was soon suppressed and Islam was exported overseas, using the base at Julfar (modern day Ras al Khaimah) to invade and convert Iran to the faith.
The export of Islam was extremely successful over the next centuries. Muslim courts of the period generally benefited from the wisdom of Islamic scholars and artists, and most rulers were patrons of art and culture. The standard of living in Islamic cities was among the highest in the world. However, different dynasties varied in their willingness to comply with this model and some rulers held more tyrannical ideas. The lives of the people of what is now the UAE continued to depend upon the commerce provided by the sea and its powerful neighboring rulers. The extent to which states could exert their influence over the nomadic Bedouin tribes of the interior was limited, because it was so difficult to travel there and to force people to abide by their laws.
In due course, European powers came to prominence in the Gulf as they sent out fleets to create colonies and improve trade with distant lands. The first to arrive in force were the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, driven by the desire to monopolize commerce in the Arabian Gulf. Dismayed by the stronghold on trade maintained by Muslims wherever they went, they blockaded the ports in the Arabian Gulf and elsewhere. This resulted in severe damage to many Muslim economies, including that of the UAE.
Piracy had been conspicuous in the Gulf for centuries, but the presence of enemies with a different religion multiplied the opportunities for attacks. The Emirati Al Qawasin pirate sheikhs created the Emirate of Ash-Shariqa, now known as Sharjah, as a base for pirate ships operating in the Gulf and beyond. Many modern Emiratis regard them as heroes who stood up to Western dominance.
In the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Turkish Empire succeeded the Egyptian Mamelukes as the preeminent Middle Eastern power, and Ottomanships became active in the Gulf. The Ottomans did not govern Arabia directly, and a number of autonomous and semiautonomous sheikhs retained control of their local power bases.
Since much of Arabia is desert, in the empty space between coastal cities and oases, nomadic Bedouin tribes were able to move about more or less freely. They came into contact with settled people when it came to trade, when they were wanted as mercenaries, or when their paths crossed with those making the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. A variety of religious schisms caused divisions through the centuries, the most important of which was the development of the Wahhabi tradition in central Arabia in the eighteenth century, which subsequently became extremely influential, particularly in Saudi Arabia. The majority of people on the Gulf Coast have continued to adhere to the "well-trodden path," and are described as Sunni Muslims. However, Wahhabi believers are more puritanical in their beliefs. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Wahhabi power had become so great that the Ottoman leaders decided to take decisive military action against them. This resulted in the Ottoman occupation of western Arabia, but acceptance of Wahhabi dominance was recognized on the Gulf Coast. As Wahhabi rulers coalesced to create the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Coast states retained political independence as Emirates to some extent because they were focused on the sea rather than the land.
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
Map of the UAE,
Introduction,
Key Facts,
Chapter 1: LAND AND PEOPLE,
Chapter 2: VALUES AND ATTITUDES,
Chapter 3: CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS,
Chapter 4: MAKING FRIENDS,
Chapter 5: THE EMIRATIS AT HOME,
Chapter 6: TIME OUT,
Chapter 7: TRAVEL, HEALTH, AND SAFETY,
Chapter 8: BUSINESS BRIEFING,
Chapter 9: COMMUNICATING,
Further Reading,