No escape

I fled to the Middle East to escape him. But no matter where I go, he follows me:



The truck was parked right in front of al-Manama supermarket, home of the lambs' brains.

More interesting yet is the Chili's-mobile:



How I chased it! It was a freaking bus! A Chili's bus! But this is the only picture I could get. And of course, there's our van, the finest in the Middle East. Yeah, that's right, we ride around in this thing, OK? You got a problem?



Scott, this is what your name looks like in Arabic:

Spell it out

Can't let the day go by without a little wackiness. I was checking my email a few minutes ago, and the proprietor of the email cafe came over to say hello. I had mentioned my visit to the U.S., so he always asks me when I'm going. This time he sits down next to me and starts whispering.

He has a heavy accent, so I couldn't understand him. Something about his crazy friend wanting something from the U.S. He was asking me to get it for him. "What is it?" I asked. His voice drops to a whisper. He looks around furtively.

He leans over and opens Microsoft Word on my computer. Then, right there on my screen, he types out "v-i-b-r-a-t-o-r."

The wisdom of taxi drivers

Most taxi drivers here are quiet and efficient, though they tend to drive like maniacs. Once in a while they want to chat, and this is rarely a good thing.

A few weeks ago, I got into a raggedy-ass cab that had clearly driven down to Dubai from al-Sharjah, our northern neighbor whose role model (and sugar daddy) is Saudi Arabia. Sharjah is the Wahhabist emirate: no drinking, no loitering, and so help them God, absolutely no cavorting. And ladies, don’t get caught without a full-body abbaya! And don't ride in cars with men, obviously, unless you like jail.

Anyway, this cab was from there. Why did I get in it, you ask? It was hot and I couldn't find another cab. You're right, you're right, I shouldn't have.

So immediately, the cabbie – and I won't lie to you, he bore a remarkable resemblance to Osama bin Laden – immediately the cabbie starts to chat me up. It takes about twenty seconds for him to get to what he really wants to ask me: What religion are you?

This is not an issue I discuss around here. But I don't have to lie, either: I tell him that I'm religious but that it's a private matter. He persists. This is something I haven't encountered in Dubai, though it could be more common in al-Sharjah – evangelical Islam. It isn't pleasant. On and on he goes, Prophet Muhammed, the Qu'ran, and so forth.

Finally he gets to the part that really sticks in my memory. We're driving along, sailing around bends in the road at frightening speeds, nearing my office. His pushy religious lecture is making me more and more nervous. Then he quiets for a second, and says, "You, me, we die in one minute."

… … …

… oh, f-u-c-k.

So, that was not a pleasant moment for me. There were a few seconds of white knuckles and no breathing. But then he was chattering on in his broken English, and I realized what he meant. "Any of us, we could die at any moment," he was trying to say. "We must live life to the fullest… blah blah blah." That sort of thing. He was actually a very nice guy, the way even the most insufferable evangelical Christians usually are. But I was sweating when I got out of the cab.

The Wonderful Journalism Ethics of the Middle East, Part III

As you've no doubt heard, Britney Spears is with child. The news hit the Middle East like a tidal wa…
uh, like a… like a very big, important piece of news hitting a region.

It made every front page I saw: The good ones (Gulf News), the shitty ones (7Days), the unintelligible ones (six dozen Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Hindi papers). Britney Spears is clearly a cultural touchstone. The world cares, is what I'm saying, people.

Yet not all the coverage was sweetness and light. 7Days – the Harry Potter of newspapering, conjuring photos out of thin air – was actually quite vile towards Britney. "There is little evidence suggesting that Spears is anything other than trailer trash. In another life she would be on Jerry Springer," they wrote. And that's no opinion page – that was the news article. What we in the journalism business call "the separation of church and state" – that is, the total partition between news and opinion writing – is not functioning here, apparently. Much like the real separation between church and state, come to think of it.

This failure of journalism ethics is bad enough… but could it be even worse than we think? Could the sheikhs actually be trying to undermine American global power by chipping away at the very underpinnings of our society… the ideals we hold most dear… our precious celebrities? They couldn't be that nefarious… could they?

One more word about Britney

This fantastic news out of Louisiana – or wherever Britney and her baby daddy live – has had a profound effect on me. As many of you know, I have been in a deep funk ever since January, when Brad and Jen announced their split. The knowledge that Britney has created new life has finally lifted my spirits. Someday this youngster will entertain us! Either with her musical talents, or by spectacularly flaming out in the public eye, or even by getting dangled off a balcony! The possibilities are endless!

So our celebrities have delivered (as it were) again. Out of Brad and Jen's suffering has come joy. One tabloid chapter closes so another can begin. It's the great wheel of American celebrity, turning. It's the endless chain of being, et cetera, and so forth. Are you as moved as I am?

(Thank you to my celebrity correspondent, Liz J., for alerting me to this momentous story, far in advance of the Middle East news cycle.)

Shady Ramadan

That's the name of a student in one of our classes. Just say it to yourself a couple of times. Shady Ramadan. If I was an Arab rapper that would be my name.

Modernity unfinished

Here's one I wrote a few weeks after I arrived, but forgot to publish until now:

I love writing about the ways this Arabian city draws such heavy influence from the West and America. I haven’t stopped marveling over the hilariously American brands – Kenny Roger’s Roasters! – found everywhere and copied into Arabic script, or the bizarre westernizing impulse that inspired Emiratis to design one of their malls in the gilded style of fifteenth-century Florence. Such modernity wrong-footed me a little after I had psyched myself up for months to prepare for severe culture shock. The culture shock was flying so far, only to step off the plane and drive by the same old KFC on the way to my new apartment.

But once in a while I experience things that remind me that modernity here is just an illusion – or at least, incomplete. Here’s a small example: Waiting at a taxi stand one night, two friends suggested I tuck in my shirt; we were evidently headed to some shi-shi hotel. I unbuttoned the waist button on my slacks and unzipped a few inches, trying to be discreet while tucking down my tails. My friends, Americans and normally very chill dudes, started hopping up and down and making noises of warning and severe discomfort.

OK, I’ll admit it, unbuttoning your pants in public is on the borderline of etiquette even in America. But come on, if you do it quick, and hide behind a planter, and you’re wearing boxers and you’re careful not even to let those show, you’re not going to cause a fuss. But my two friends, veterans here and wise to the culture, told me afterwards that I had run a very serious risk of major trouble. A local woman could have raised the alarm, and what I had done could have been considered against the law.

Another American teacher got caught by an Emirati policeman one night while in the front seat of his Jeep, giving his Swedish girlfriend a passionate kiss goodbye before she left town. The cop was ready to arrest him. His salvation was that he’s lived here awhile and has made the effort to learn Arabic. White boys speaking Arabic are a rare and charming thing to the Emiratis, and the teacher talked his way out of what could have been a huge problem.

Sometimes it doesn’t work out so well. My former boss told me a story his brother brought back after living in Dubai. A British woman he knew, living in Dubai, married a local Arab man, an Emirati. The Arab husband went off to Britain on a business trip and left his wife in Dubai. The husband came home from the trip early and caught his wife having an affair. Then he did exactly what Emirati law allows him to do: He had his British wife locked up and threw away the key.