Living in a home away from home

People often talk of the many faces of Dubai, the way in which the city is a melting pot of different nationalities and cultures that exist alongside each other.

Indian expatriates can eat in Indian restaurants, Europeans can enjoy an evening at the Irish Village and Filipinos can relax to the tunes of one of the many Philippine bands.

For most of us it is fun to relax in the reassuring surroundings of one's own kind.

Expatriates here are also lucky to have to learn first hand what the Middle East is really like.

But do expatriates, particularly those from outside the Arab world, try and learn about the region from their UAE national hosts?

In the workplace, opportunities to mix with UAE nationals vary with seniority, says Edward Macura, 26, an Australian property consultant who has been in Dubai for just six months.

"Junior staff are more likely just to work with fellow expatriates, while businessmen and women who have been here longer tend to have a broader circle of colleagues.

"There are expats who have met UAE nationals through work and meet with them for dinner or a coffee.

"They catch up for business in Dubai business brings people together while a personal rapport has been found beyond that," he said.

At the opposite end of the age scale, although many schools are targeted at those of a particular nationality, there are others, particularly the colleges, that attract a broader range of pupils.

Alex Salway, 59, a British aircraft engineer who moved to Bahrain in 1975 and to Abu Dhabi in 1987, said his son Christian's time at Dubai College led to a longstanding friendship with a UAE family.

"We got to know them well," he said.

Geof Malone, 58, a media consultant from England who has lived in Dubai for the past 27 years, agreed that expatriate youngsters end up with an impressively international outlook on life.

"It is a wonderful place for children to grow up because they are exposed to so many different cultures and people from so many different parts of the world. They form an international view that will remain with them throughout their life," he said.

In Macura's case, it was a friend he made with a UAE national while studying in the United States, that helped to broaden his social circle when he later moved to Dubai and reawakened their friendship. His friend is employed by Dubai Municipality.

"I have been exposed to a new culture through my UAE national friends.

"We might go for a soccer game at Safa Park or for a bit of sheesha or for Moroccan tea at a café," he said.

It is examples like this that led a Scottish expatriate who has lived in the Gulf region for 25 years, to say that UAE nationals and Western expatriates mix "really well".

He said there was "a common respect" between the groups that means they get along well.

"They participate jointly in many activities and many European expatriates get very close to UAE nationals as friends. He added that at times UAE nationals and Westerners took on parts of each other's culture in Dubai.

"UAE nationals might go to certain fast food restaurants and some of them wear Western clothes, and Westerners eat food here that they wouldn't try back home," he said.

However, despite this willingness of Westerners and UAE nationals to mix, few expatriates learn Arabic, according to Malone. Even many senior diplomats in the country are not fluent speakers of the language.

"There are some people who make a point of learning Arabic as a hobby but unfortunately living out here can make you very lazy so they are an exception. "I know a smattering of Arabic and if I was in a remote part of the country I could find my way around, but I am not fluent.

"The UAE nationals have good language skills and many of them have taken the trouble to learn English, so the incentive to learn Arabic is reduced," he said.

Hani Al Shibani, 31, a UAE national film-maker who lives in Dubai, agreed that locals did not live in isolation.

"We tend to make relationships with everyone here that we have to and mostly we tend to make relationships with each other.

"However, I don't think it's a matter of the groups being isolated from each other. Every community has their own community, but they need each other. They need to interact with each other, even if it's not that often," he said. Likewise, engineer Nasser Abdullah, 32, a UAE national, said that although he mostly socialises with compatriots and other Arabs, he also spends time with Europeans, Indians and other expatriates.

"As UAE nationals, we try to change ourselves to deal better with the expatriates. There are some borders, but we try to adjust with other cultures. You adapt with the environment," he said.

For all these cases of Arabs and Westerners mixing with each other, Macura said there were many expatriates who did not make enough effort to learn about the new world they were living in.

"This city is remarkable. There are people from 182 different cultural backgrounds, so mixing with some of them is bound to happen if you keep an open mind and are willing to make an effort.

"Most people who come here are well travelled and have experienced different cultures, but some people cannot be bothered and only like to go out with their English buddies," he said.