Go east, young man — and we did
Reflections on a year in Dubai, creating a new medical school that resembles McMaster
Horace Greeley said it once, I think, the long-ago editor of the New-York Tribune. “Go West,” he advised someone, talking about the opportunities that lay lie in the great opening up of the western states. Maybe he even included British Columbia, coloured pink on the map in my primary school classroom (all of Canada was pink for some reason — shades of our political leanings? Who knows?)
You may have noticed that old Greely isn’t around any longer, and the Trib hasn’t been available on newsstands since the ‘60s. Time flies — and I’m no youngster myself. Just this morning I said to the guy in the mirror, “Who the heck are you? And why do you look so old?” He didn’t answer.
Just the same, the idea of travelling anywhere, especially to something that’s opening up — even at my advanced-though-notquite-doddering old age — is pretty attractive. In addition to experiencing new cultures and cuisines, travel teaches us and deepens us. Oh, and maybe broadens us too; I know my belts are a little tighter.
And so, for almost all of the past year, my wife and I found ourselves in the middle of a city that barely existed before striking oil in 1966 (the same year the Trib ceased publication) — Dubai. Not west, you’ll notice, but east (I never took directions well). We were drawn by three things: the travel gene (our parents were all immigrants to this country), by a big slice of “Gee, what’s that?” and the desire to help create a new medical school.
From the air, Dubai has the feeling of a movie set — a giant, stunning, surprising and impossible creation smack in the middle of a desert. It looks like something that five guys and one of those little Ikea Allen keys could take down in half an hour. On the ground however, it’s anything but impermanent, despite its newness (you’d have struggled to find it on any map 50 years ago).
At first, your eyes are drawn to the staggering skyscraper at its heart: the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, can be seen from pretty much every corner of the city — our apartment for example. It’s a knock-your-eyes-out incredible 150-storey megalith of civic and national pride. Every night, it lights up like a giant skinny Christmas tree, in patterns of every colour. And it’s only one of hundreds of buildings, not as tall but with just as much architectural jewels.
Hundreds of cranes are building hundreds more structures; the crane is the national bird, they joke. And the superlatives keep coming: the world’s most modern Metro system (it makes Disney’s Tomorrowland look like something out of the 18th century); the only mall with a ski hill (yup, a seven-storey ski hill); the world’s fastest commuter system (the forthcoming Hyperloop, which will allow travel between Dubai and its neighbour Abu Dhabi in about 12 minutes; it normally takes 90).
Aquariums and skating rinks in malls. Spectacular waterfront. A canal carved right through the centre of the city. You get the picture.
But it’s not the physical city that stays with you; it’s the people. You’d probably notice the Emiratis themselves first — the women in their black abayas, the men in their full-length white kanduras or dishdashas. The black and white figures often move soundlessly through the malls and businesses. The elegant Emiratis are only a small percentage of the population however; 10 times their number are people of practically every other race and hue. Europeans, Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Southeast Asians, Africans, Filipinos. Workers, waiters, doctors, professors, businessmen, nurses. Pale expats like us. They are world citizens.
There’s something else about the place — a pervasive religious atmosphere, like the air you breathe. It’s magnified during the holy month of Ramadan, an awareness of a calling greater than ourselves. The fivetimes-a-day call to prayer from the ubiquitous mosques. Expressions that implore (‘Insha Allah,’ God willing), or express gratitude (‘Mashallah,’ God has willed it) are so common it’s used like punctuation.
One last thing. In the midst of all the newness, there’s a bit of nostalgia, a wonderful reminder of a form of travel now replaced by something grandiose. The QE2, refurbished in 1960s sophistication, is the grand old ship that now sits permanently as a floating hotel in Dubai. There, in a lounge that looks like it stepped out of the Saturday Evening Post, is this quote, a bookend for Horace Greeley’s.
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
At this particular end, leaving all the stunning newness and the superlatives behind us, we’re glad to be home, Hamilton. We missed you. We have new eyes to see you with.