Amid the towering skyscrapers, sprawling malls and shiny 7-star hotels of Dubai, you will find a smattering of young New Zealanders with a seat on the Dubai express train. Amanda Fisher talks to the young and restless about life in this desert playground – and asks whether all that glitters is gold.
Dubai, aspirationally called the City of Gold, is also the City of Expats.
The astronomical rise of Dubai, which began during the oil frenzy of the 1960s, and rapid development of barren desert into booming oasis is chiefly courtesy of foreign labour. Roughly 90 per cent of the population comes from outside the United Arab Emirates.
Today, on Dubai’s ever-morphing streets you will find Bangladeshi and Pakistani labourers working on the city’s latest skyscraper around-the-clock; Filipino women working in teams of three to remove stray hairs and rough skin inside the city’s innumerable beauty salons; and Brits trading stocks in the air-conditioned offices of Dubai International Financial City.
Among the 200 different nationalities that have made the UAE their temporary home are a 6000-strong contingent of Kiwis, the majority of whom live in the country’s most-populous emirate, Dubai.
Some came here by chance, and some quite deliberately; but there’s one thing that unites them: they agree that are getting better opportunities in Dubai than they would back home.
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Nick Robinson, 34, is a three-year veteran of Dubai. The 34-year-old is a Radio DJ and the Deputy Head of popular Dubai FM radio station Radio 1.
Robinson says one of the biggest changes he’s had to make was softening his ‘thuck Kaywi acsunt’.
Nick Robinson: "On my Friday alone, I do two gigs and I earn more on a Friday than a week in New Zealand.” Photo: Amanda Fisher
“You do have to change your style because you’re talking to a whole bunch of different ethnicities…my style’s changed a lot since I’ve moved to Dubai, my accent’s mellowed, my (radio) links have shortened and simplified, and there’s the cultural barriers as well.”
That means no mention of alcohol, homosexuality, or drugs, and throughout the holy month of Ramadan - during which Muslims cannot eat between sunrise and sunset - presenters cannot talk about food.
Robinson’s journey to Dubai began during a rough patch, when he lost his job presenting the night show on short-lived Auckland station Big FM. He picked up freelance work and was looking unsuccessfully at Australian shores, when a former colleague working in Dubai called him up.
“I didn’t know a whole lot (about Dubai), I had to look for it on a map…I kind of thought it must have been around Brunei.”
He came out for several weeks as a substitute DJ, and then was offered a fulltime position
which – true to Dubai form – did not come through for another five months. Since then, Robinson has hardly looked back.
“I love it here. There are so many more opportunities. I don’t want to criticise New Zealand…it’s just, without sounding too crass, over here there’s so much more money, it’s easy to scoop up some.”
The money, he says, is beyond anything he could have dreamed of in New Zealand. “My salary would be close to double now, but I also do a lot of freelance stuff…on my Friday alone, I do two gigs and I earn more on a Friday than a week in New Zealand.”
Stories abound about abuse suffered by live-in maids, while labour camps in deserted parts of town house South Asian workers living six to a room in bunk beds
Not only are the financial perks good, but Robinson has an audience of about one million people – close to double that of New Zealand’s highest rating station.
Despite Dubai being the scene of his divorce, Robinson’s social life is also thriving, with good friends and a new girlfriend. “People in New Zealand are a lot more closed. They’ve got their clique and that’s it. Over here everyone’s in the same boat and open to being friends.”
Of course, he says, there are the well-worn frustrations of Dubai – atrocious driving, the seeming inability of people to form a line, and the assumption that any Westerner is British – but Robinson is eminently grateful for the lifeline Dubai granted him, even as colleagues struggle back home.
“A friend lost his job in the recession and has not really had a chance to get back into the industry. He’s doing alright now…in real estate…he knows what he loves and he’s not doing what he loves. Only a privileged few get to do what they truly love, and I consider myself very lucky.”
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Shamim Kassibawi, 27, has lived in Dubai for eight years, working in public relations, after first coming on an internship as part of her AUT business degree. She has been an account director for more than two years – something that she says would have taken up to 12 years in New Zealand.
“I think if I was in New Zealand I’d still be cutting out clippings of coverage.”
Shamim Kassibawi: "I love the life experience I’m getting, meeting all the people I’m meeting, and hearing their life stories.” Photo: Amanda Fisher
Dubai has “a lot of opportunities,” she says. “If you work hard, slightly harder than everyone else, you just get places. I’ve had the opportunity to do amazing campaigns and work on amazing things…the PR industry is a lot bigger here.”
Kassibawi, who grew up in Auckland, writes her own popular blog, and her inbox is overrun with offers to test drive luxury cars for the week and invitations to exclusive clubs (something she often gets paid for).
After years of networking, during which she has spent up to six nights each week at after-work social events, Kassibawi is hoping to soon set up her own media consulting agency.
How much does life in Dubai resemble what life in New Zealand would be, had she stayed?
“I think probably zero. I definitely wouldn’t be where I am career-wise, I don’t think I’d have the life experience that I’ve had…it would be a lot more straightforward and simple. I probably wouldn’t have the (one) grey hair that I’ve got.”
Recently a friend from home told Kassibawi this year she and her partner had enough money to either get married, buy a car, or go on holiday to Perth.
“Those three things in Dubai you do like that,” she says, clicking her fingers.
“The lifestyle is amazing, you can get a can of coke delivered. I order milk, my dry-cleaning comes to my house, my car gets washed every day by someone for like…$30 a month…I love that I can order food from any country to my living room, I love that I can order food at four in the morning and it can be delivered …I love the spas, I love that I can get someone to my house to give me a massage and not break the bank, I love the life experience I’m getting, meeting all the people I’m meeting, and hearing their life stories.”
But cheap massages and free delivery come at a price. Stories abound about abuse suffered by live-in maids, while labour camps in deserted parts of town house South Asian workers living six to a room in bunk beds, on wages that are a fraction of their Western counterparts. Wage discrimination by passport is an open secret.
Does Kassabawi have concerns about the low-paid foreign labour that enables the easy lifestyle?
“I think it’s bad obviously, but for me I’m more concerned about working conditions.”
As long as they are being treated well, Kassabawi says Dubai also offers opportunities for people from poorer countries to get ahead.
“It’s either they don’t get a proper job and they don’t work and they’re struggling back home or they come here and they’re not getting much compared to us, but they’re really well off in their country.”
Many people living here do not seem to care about the plight of this class of people, “but I think everywhere has the good and the bad, so it’s not something that I hate about Dubai,” she says.
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Dubai can certainly appear, as 27-year-old Kim Brown puts it, a “massive playground”.
“I absolutely love it, massively. It is such an easy lifestyle….everyone’s here to do the same thing, there’s all walks of life, everyone’s here to make friends, there’s no previous cliques, everyone’s so happy-go-lucky.”
Kim Brown: "You can go as absolutely extravagant as you could ever imagine, or you could go as cheap as you wanted to.” Photo: Amanda Fisher
Dubai doesn’t have to just be about the glamorous lifestyle, she says.
“I think it’s a different kind of playground, you can go as absolutely extravagant as you could ever imagine, or you could go as cheap as you wanted to.”
Brown, who works in human resources, moved to Dubai with her husband, a fitness trainer, just over a year ago, from Auckland.
“We moved here because we wanted to do an OE but we didn’t want to go to London. We wanted to go somewhere that was good for travel, had a good lifestyle and somewhere we could both get jobs easily.”
The Browns’ travel calendar certainly is full. Since moving here they have travelled to England and Uganda, are about to embark on a trip throughout Europe and will go to the Maldives later in the year. Conveniently, two-thirds of the world’s population are within an eight-hour flight.
“I’ve hit the absolute jackpot.”
Both she and her husband are making twice as much as they were back in New Zealand, in the Dubai tax haven. But there are also twice as many things to spend that money on.
there’s so many little differences … like getting everything done for you. It’s not a good way to be, but it’s an easy lifestyle.
“I haven’t saved a thing, accommodation is really expensive [even though] we’ve chosen a cheap place.
“Because people have money to go out for lunch every day, it’s just expected. It’s easy to just spend a couple of hundred dirhams (about NZD$70) and the other thing about Dubai is there’s so much happening every weekend.”
She knows she could save money were she disciplined, but “I’m not… When you move here you want to be sociable and meet people and you can’t do that by saying ‘no’.”
Despite Dubai’s proliferation of shopping malls, Brown says her weakness is not clothes but travelling, although personal pampering is only ever metres away.
“I went and got my nails done last night because I was at home by myself, it’s that easy. It’s so strange but it becomes so normal that I’d have to go home to realise it…there’s so many little differences … like getting everything done for you. It’s not a good way to be, but it’s an easy lifestyle.”
For Brown, there is only one major downside to life in Dubai.
“It’s so far from home for us.”
While friends and family will be the eventual pull back to New Zealand, Dubai is such a central stopping point – one of the world’s biggest flight hubs, with the second busiest airport in the world – they are never too far away from familiar company.
“We’re forever getting people to stay. We wouldn’t go more than three or four weeks without seeing someone,” Brown says.
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Kate Kiesanowski, 29, is nearing four years in Dubai. It took half of that time, she says, to feel comfortable here.
“It took almost two years till I was happy with being here. I have a big family at home … I was the only Westerner (at my job), it was very foreign.”
Kate Kiesanowski: "Coming from New Zealand it was very weird and I felt quite isolated.” Photo: Supplied
For Kiesanowski, who hails from Christchurch, the Arabic city was a long way from home both geographically and culturally.
“It took a while just being familiar with things … doing your grocery shopping and not being worried about people staring at you.”
Before Kiesanowski arrived she had no job, and while she picked one up easily enough, life in Dubai was a steep learning curve, understanding cultural differences and batting off unwanted attention from men unaccustomed to seeing Western women.
“Now that stuff doesn’t faze me. But coming from New Zealand it was very weird and I felt quite isolated.”
That cultural pluralism is something she now cherishes.
She says she is now much more tolerant and understanding of different cultures.
“You’re more open to listen, to really listen. For example, I now understand why Indian men always toot their horn; where they come from there’s a billion people and it’s not perceived to be an offensive gesture. I feel much more connected to the world, living here.”
The former marketing manager exemplifies another Dubai draw, career flexibility. She has recently become a commercial property consultant at the same company she was doing marketing.
But she acknowledges Dubai can be a “house of cards”, with many examples during the recession of expats, indebted up to their eyeballs to fund extravagant lifestyles, losing jobs overnight and fleeing the city.
During the worst years, there was a continual spate of sports cars and 4WDs abandoned, keys in ignition, at the airport, as Westerners escaped debt they could not repay that would land them in prison. Having a cheque bounce is a criminal offence in Dubai.
Dubai appears to have come through the worst, but does Kiesanowski worry about this?
“We don’t really have a contingency plan to be honest, though we definitely keep our ear to the ground … We don’t live on credit cards or take loans, or live an opulent lifestyle and eat out every night of the week.”
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For most expats, New Zealand will be the safe haven to which they return, with – hopefully – a healthier lining in their wallets, and a better appreciation for the world around them.
Shamim Kassibawi says she yearns to return to New Zealand and a more simple way of life, even if only part-time.
“I’ll never leave Dubai completely…I’ll always have (some business) here…it’s a land of opportunity. What I’ve built so far and how well-connected I am, I’d be an idiot to give it up.”
This content was brought to you with funding from NZ On Air.
Cover image: Flickr user Kamel Lebtahi