Back to the Coalface at Dubai Media City

Ok, so I drive to work, but here's a photo anyway of Dubai's flashy new metro, which now stops at Media City

I went back to work about six months ago, mainly to ensure I didn’t go round the bend looking after the littleboys full-time. As luck would have it, we live just 20 minutes away from a place called Dubai Media City (there are cities within the city for everything here – Internet City, Knowledge City, Studio City, Healthcare City, Sports City, even Endurance City, which I thought might be for very, very fit people, but is, in fact, where horse marathons are held).

Media capital of the Middle East (photo by Fredrik Lindberg)

Dubai Media City (DMC) is one of the region’s largest media hubs, with more than 84 towers and writers, journalists and TV presenters from around the world. Ten years old, DMC is the product of Sheikh Mo’s belief that if you “Build it … they will come.” And so they did. In their hordes. DMC grew from 99 firms in 2001 to more than 1,400 multinational media businesses today – lured by commercial benefits such as a 50-year tax exemption.

BBC World, CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg and MBC are just some of the media companies that have set up shop in Dubai Media City. Publications such as The Times and The Sunday Times went further by publishing international editions in the Middle East and there’s a whole host of magazines, from Time Out Dubai to Middle East versions of Rolling Stone, Grazia and Cosmopolitan.

And this is all despite the fact that the UAE has been ranked 86th in the world for press freedom, according to the Reporters Without Borders 2010 report. When a caricature of Dubai’s ruler floundering in a sea of debt was published in a well-known British broadsheet, the paper was banned from sale in the emirate and a highly critical article in its sister publication a few days later was blanked out in copies available in Dubai (press freedom in DMC is actually less controlled than elsewhere in Dubai and the UAE).

My own little patch of DMC is a tower at least 30 storeys high, from which Emap (who I used to work for in London!) publishes a business magazine called MEED. Each morning, I queue for the lift with people of all nationalities and ride up to the 20th floor where Emap Middle East has its offices. The view is amazing and if I’m lucky I get a window seat.

I’m working as a sub editor, covering busy periods and holiday, but as staff numbers were slashed in the recession, I seem to be there a lot. It’s been a steep learning curve, getting to grips with new technology (amazing how things move on the moment you turn your back to have kids), but mostly because the subject matter is not my natural territory. You know those stories on the business pages of newspapers that you skip over to get to the lifestyle section. Well, now I find myself subbing them. Islamic finance, petrochemicals, oil and gas… who knew!

A good thing – apart from the new iPhone I bought so I could do that scrolly thing everyone does in the lift – is I can actually have the occasional conversation with my husband about the economy rather than the kids’ latest school/mealtime/toilet incident. I could even tell you a thing or two about the political uprisings that have been taking place in the region recently. It’s all a far cry from the wedding magazines I worked on in the US.

Logistically, it’s a challenge, but this is made easier by having Catherine the Great, my wonderful wife at home. And, of course, DH, whose erratic flying schedule means he’s actually at home a lot. He’s stepped up to the childcare challenge magnificently – though every now and then I hear him sounding like me, with comments such as: ‘I’ve been with the kids for three days now,’ and the best one, ‘, ‘Do I have to do everything around here?’

A few other projects have popped up – this morning, for instance, I was working on a start-up magazine for the showbiz industry called Variety Arabia. But I’m learning that everytime a new job comes along I need to weigh up what it’s going to add to my life: a whole lot of extra stress/lots of new handbags/new contacts. It’s a fine line between satisfying my passion for writing and editing and not plunging our daily lives into deeper chaos. The boys are still so little and growing so fast and, this afternoon – as I tried in vain to stop LB running round our compound pool with his watering can watering everyone’s towels – I truly appreciated that time spent with the kids is precious.

Expat brats: The signs to look out for

A friend of mine was recently worrying whether her kids were becoming expat brats. Apparently, on a trip back to the UK, they were absolutely horrified when she got out to fill the car with petrol and insisted they wait for ‘the man’.

A more extreme example is cited on Mrs Dubai’s brilliant blog. She knew a mum who told her: “We once had to fly economy class and my son had a tantrum because he’d never had to ‘turn right’ before. He hadn’t even realised there was a cabin behind business class.”

It’s something we think about a lot here in the Middle East. The easy comforts of life in Dubai (housemaids, villas, swimming pools, 4-wheel drives) mean kids are at high risk of expat brat syndrome. If parents don’t nip it in the bud quick enough, the results can be quite dire.

Aside from breeding little monsters who refuse to tidy their rooms (the maid will do it), wash the car (the man at the mall will do it) or put groceries in a bag (yes, we don’t have to do that, either!), fast forward 10 years or so and you end up with teenagers who are totally unprepared for real life.

The culture here means children lead sheltered lives. In the UAE, there’s little crime, begging is banned and unemployment is virtually non-existent. We don’t feel threatened walking down a street at night; teenagers aren’t even allowed to take part-time or holiday jobs; and they don’t know what a job centre is. Forget ‘signing on’, they’re more likely to sign in at the beach club.

Imagine, then, when said offspring flee the nest for University back in their home countries. Instead of maid service, tennis lessons and pool parties, they’re faced with grotty digs, rain, domestic chores, hard drugs and even harder students.

In my own household, we’re trying to make sure BB and LB grow up knowing what real-life is like. For starters, we’re making them clean up their own toys.

Our housemaid Catherine the Great has been instructed not to continually tidy up after the boys. On walking away from the mess, she always looks nervous, as though thinking: “Madam, Can you not see how messy it is?”

But it’s a step in the right direction and is beginning to work, occasionally at least.

Expat brat syndrome: The clues

-They flew before they could walk

-It’s not nice outside unless it’s tropical

-They rate entire countries by how good a hotel was

-They have to take at least one plane to get ‘home’ and bump into friends at international airports

-They’re members of at least one country club

-They automatically take off their shoes as soon as they get home

-Their best friends are from five different countries

-An invite appears for a classmate’s party at the Atlantis hotel on the Palm, followed by a private desert safari (note: this gift requires some thought and probably shouldn’t be wrapped in Toys R Us paper)

-They watch the Travel Channel or National Geographic specials and recognise someone

-They know what TCK* means and consider themselves to be one

-Their school is private, international and closes (or threatens to close) for prophets’ birthdays, national mourning, SARS and swine flu

-Someone brings up the name of a team and they get the sport wrong

-They act confused when asked where they’re from

-A VISA is a document stamped in their passport, not a credit card

-They don’t think British beaches are really beaches at all

*TCK=Third culture kid, the name given to a child who spends a significant part of his or her developmental years in a culture(s) different from his or her own.

A royal roast Dubai-style

Conversations about the Royal Wedding went something like this in our household:

Me: “We need to get there early so we see the whole run-up to the wedding” (thinking crazy hats, mad wigs, the royal family arriving).
DH: “Run-up? What run-up? Is there a support wedding, in case the main one doesn’t work out?”

Me: “Look at the dress – and the train.”
BB: (ears pricking up). “Train! – Is it diesel or electric?”

Pimms on the beach

So the level of interest in my family ranged from high (me, remembering Charles and Di so lovingly) to zero (the rest of them), although DH, resigned in the knowledge that he did marry a Brit, amicably agreed to go along with the whole thing.

I was determined that we’d celebrate, despite being far from England with all its street parties, pomp and circumstance, spring weather and days off (feeling quite homesick at this point, I might add). On my side was the fact there are so many Brits here in Dubai – plus it was a timely show. Starting at 2pm on what is a weekend day in the UAE, it coincided perfectly with a Dubai expat staple – the Friday brunch.

Street parties were out of the question, of course, because of the heat, but the city’s hotels and clubs came up with the goods, and even the bunting. At the Dubai Raffles, a royal roast was held with a five-tier wedding cake, while the Polo Club hosted a 12-hour extravaganza, complete with an afternoon of polo. In Jumeriah (the Chelsea of Dubai), you could drop into the Hilton for high tea, including cucumber sandwiches, scones, a Prince Harry (chunky sandwiches, a slab of cake and a pint) and Princess Bea’s Chocolate Afternoon Tea.

In our garden party gear, keeping out of the heat

All sounds rather civilised, doesn’t it? The trouble was I’d left it too late to get bookings for any of the above – and an invite from the British Embassy for its invitation-only bash failed to materialise.

But my desire to see a prematurely balding aristocrat marry a well-spoken girl from Berkshire and spend a day eating my favourite British nosh (how I crave sausage rolls out here!) was well and truly satisfied. A kind and more organised American friend invited us to join her table at the golf course royal brunch, where we dined on roast beef and Yorkshire puds and watched the wedding on a big screen, albeit at the same time as doing dinosaur stickers with the kids. (Just love how our American friends pronounce Bucking-ham – rhyming it with spam – here I go again, talking about food I miss.)

Later, we trooped down to a royal beach party for a knees-up on the Gulf. It was boiling hot until the sun went down – our turn to get roasted – but well worth it to see so many bikini-clad Brits on Union Jack towels raising their glasses, along with revellers of all nationalities enjoying a jolly good party.

So, a great, flag-waving day it was, even here in the desert. I did get to see the hats (my favourites being the ones that jutted out obtrusively from people’s foreheads and Tara P-T’s shoe-on-her-head contraption). Like I have very vague memories of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 – we all got commemorative plates, followed by Golden Wonder crisps and squash on the school lawn – BB at least may remember something of the royal nuptials. And we didn’t have to worry whether it would rain or not. Sunshine was guaranteed.

The royal pageantry aside, I was also fascinated by how my English friends living overseas were celebrating. My friend in Azerbaijan did get an invite from the British Embassy and spent the afternoon at the ambassador’s residence, even winning the royal quiz. She went home with an apron. Over in the States, my fellow blogger Nappy Valley girl watched the wedding in bed at 5am, making good use of her new teapot.

The comments her littleboys made are so good, I have to repeat them:

Littleboy 1: Where’s the King? There’s no King? (she explained about the Duke of Edinburgh). He must be older than the Queen. He’s taller. Where’s the president? (Good question….)

Littleboy 2: I like that girl. The one in the white dress.

The romance: their first kiss, vs Charles and Di's only kiss? I had to laugh on hearing that Fox news in the US had a countdown clock to 'The Kiss'