The Shopping Mall Stories

I was at Festival City with friends this afternoon, looking for a nice evening gown for a friends wedding.
It is such a drag to try on dresses, taking of your clothes, putting on others, messing your hair up, taking of your shoes, stepping out of the changing room to show your friends, stepping back in, trying to judge whether it is worth the price tag it is attached too, what would mother think of it, would she tell me her famous statement "I used to buy this material to line the dresses I used to make for you, such low class material, what happened to the fashion sense these days, does everybody have to dress cheap to look normal". Well this was a CH dress, not so fancy but not boring either. I left it and decided today was not a good shopping day after all.

Shopping or just going to the mall is such a fascinating experience. You don't need to spend a penny to enjoy it and let me tell you, it teaches you alot of things about the demographics of this country.

The majority are Indians ofcourse, then comes the Pakistanis and then the Philipinos, then comes the blonde sector and finally the Arabs, last not least the gulf areas and the locals.

Back in the old days, when a local girl/woman passes by a crowd of men, all of them would automatically give way. Now, you will either have to say "secuse me" 100 times or just choose an alternative route, which I usually avoid doing. I secuse myself though the crowd, making sure they hear me say "men these days have no respect".

While I was on the escalator I saw an ugly blonde man in a Hawaiian style shirt standing next to a red haired woman who apparently had some kind of phobia of her behind falling off, and I guess him being the gentleman, he kept holding it for her (awwwwwwwwwwww). I watched that medical maneuver and expected that she would get a prize at the end of this never ending ride. She did, it was a French kind of prize, that I have seen been exchanged in some movies. If my mother was there, she would have given them a lecture about respecting other people's country, etc etc. Once she approached this Russian looking couple (who turned out to be Russian really) who were Frenching (this would be my official word for that kind of activity), and she told him "you should respect the country you are living in" so he simply responded "do you respect Russia". I laughed so hard I could not keep a straight mad woman face anymore, so I said, "this is the UAE, when we go to Russia, we respect Russia".

Anyways, a local mother of three wearing the Niqab (the face cover which is famously known by our beloved non racist expats by the Ninja gear) approached them, and pulled out her cell phone where she apparently have video taped the whole medical procedure and told them that that was not acceptable in a Muslim country and that they should at least respect the feelings of the local people, the man brushed her off and walked right to Mexican restaurant, while his red haired fairy told the Niqabi woman that she was oppressed and should try to see the world without the mask "maybe you will understand and realize what you are missing out", then just before she stood by her husband who was now rubbing his belly she threatened to call the police if the Niqabi "harassed" her again.

If it wasn't for the high heel shoes, that was giving me headaches and backaches, I would have rescued Ninja. But I was too tired and had no faith in our system to resolve such issues without having to take of my shoes and throwing it at the couple as a sign of protest.

So I made my way to the prayer room and prayed that I will bump into Mr/Mrs. right who will do something about this craziness.

If that Frenching incident happened in France, where a Niqabi woman was looked at as someone who is repressed, oppressed (or both) who wished for a better life than that of a woman behind the vail, I would completely understand the red haired woman's reaction. But here, in my country.

No. But maybe that's just me.

You'll see

The Begining

Emaratiyah is the female for Emarati, which is a person from the Emirates, us, locals.

My blog was totally inspired by the UAE community blog.

Why?

Because, I find it fascinating how people talk openly in the safety of the blogsphere.
I always wonder how those individuals would talk when face to face with an Emarati or Emaratiyah, because so far I haven't had such intense criticism or "views" from the nice looking expat/ visitors I have come across (and I do come across many).

I know we tend to omit certain things when we talk, we don't usually just speak our minds in the presence of others so to read what I read in the UAE community blog makes me wonder, how many of the people I work with share the same sentiments towards us, and by sentiments, I mean the negative ones.

Criticisms, point of views, "constructive feedback" are all good things. But what I read sometimes does not really translate into any of that, it's sometimes just ignorant, arrogant, rude, thoughtless, remarks, that makes me uncomfortable dealing with the expats at work.

I don't want a small but virtually large blogsphere to skew my image and attitude towards the foreigners in my beloved land, so I am going to write down my thoughts, maybe shed some light to how it is for some of us locals here.