The Gulf expat experience
Sunday, June 27, 2004
David Olivier perfectly sums up the Gulf Expat Experience:
There's a piece in the Guardian from a few months back which also describes the Gulf expat experience called Sands of Time. (I think Mahmood mentioned it once before also).
An ex-pat in the Gulf probably more so than anywhere else east of the Suez, west of the Sea of Japan lives a life of limited empowerment. Our fat wallets mean nothing here. Here the locals drive better cars than we do and live in bigger homes. We can't bully the natives here the way we can in places like India or Nepal. The lifestyle in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE can be the most sumptuous and luxuriant of ex-pat lifestyle anywhere in the world. But there's something missing when the locals can't keep a straight face when you demand to see the manager or when you give a license plate number to the police when some young Turk cuts you off in traffic--he in his Mercedes, you in your rented Hyundai.I definitely know what he's talking about. But I think the experiences of us brown-skinned variation of the Gulf expat is somewhat different. I've tried to explain before (sort of) but I'll probably need to explain a bit more for you to get the full picture... another time maybe. For right now, I'm still laughing over David's description. Read the rest.
There's a piece in the Guardian from a few months back which also describes the Gulf expat experience called Sands of Time. (I think Mahmood mentioned it once before also).
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on Sunday, June 27, 2004 at 6/27/2004 10:32:00 pm. Permalink
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