Dear Readers. Iâm 23 years old and Iâm in my last year of university. I will be graduating with a B.A in Finance with a 4.0. I will have around $30,000 saved up and my fiancé will have her CMA designation to be an accountant. We are interested in moving to Dubai in a year, I would like to know if anyone has been there or has any advice of the job scene there. All infomation is greatly appreciated.
I've been there. As an American you will probably feel slightly at home compared to most of the middle east. It's a very car dominated city with lots of new skyscrapers, hotels etc - kind of like Vegas without the gambling. The expat lifestyle is moderately appealing - excellent selection of restaurants, hotels, some decent clubs, you can go 4x4 offroading in the desert, boating in the ocean, lots of foreign music & performance acts tour to Dubai etc. However there is not the selection of culture & leisure activities that you get in major western cities. It's a low tax jurisdiction (big bonus if you are young and on a good expat deal), alcohol can be served in places that have a license - mostly hotels and nightclubs. Real estate can be bought by foreigners, although it has boomed recently ($80k places gone up to $350k, as an example) and you may be better off renting to avoid price risk in the event of a bust or if you dislike the place and relocate later. The legal and social system there, like most places outside the G7, is totally f*cked. Individual rights do not exist and there is no innocent until proven guilty. As an example, I know someone who had a car accident with a local businessman there - he spent about 6 months in jail while they investigated the crime and finally got out after a lot of effort. He was never convicted of anything, luckily, but the way he described the experience he would have got nothing resembling a fair trial. There was also a case of a French citizen who was raped by 3 local men, and when she reported the crime she was actually arrested, jailed, and charged with prostitution. If a woman shares a room with a man she isn't married to, in most of the Arab world this is a criminal offence, and even in Dubai (where it's allowed because of tourism) the authorities and society will basically assume she is a professional prostitute if this happens. This could be an issue for you if you are still unmarried if and when you move there. There is also a huge migrant workforce (only 10% of the population are resident UAE nationals) and they are treated like garbage, both legally, socially, and in the workplace. The country is incredibly racist, discrimination is not only tolerated but encouraged e.g. nightclubs that have race-based entry policies (only other place I've been like that is S Africa), and police treat non-white immigrants like trash (e.g. beating them in the street is not uncommon). If you and your fiancee are white this will probably not be an issue, otherwise it could. Dubai can be an ok place to earn cash and live the expat lifestyle for a while as a man. I would never, ever go there as anything other than a 2 week tourist if I was female, or had a female companion. IMO it is insanity to take any woman to live in the Middle East countries with Islamic legal codes. You are seriously jeapardising your fiancee's safety IMO if you live there long-term. The Middle East is the most sexist place on earth, by a mile. If your fiancee is out by herself often, she will probably experience sexual harrassment. Like many countries with a reasonable economy, it is somewhere that looks alluring to westerners. Because you are from a country with the rule of law, respect for human rights, an effort to treat people equally, and relatively low corruption, it is easy to falsely assume that other countries must be the same or at least similar. This is far from the truth and it's only once you have seen and/or experienced the difference that you truly realise the problems in these kinds of places. If you do decide to go there, I would suggest you make it a limited stay, maybe 1-2 years. Stay more if you want, but just be aware that you aren't in a free or equal society any more. It's up to you if you want to run that risk in order to get the adventure and potential financial benefits. You are young and it's safer than doing drugs, riding a motorbike, or other risky activities that lots of young people in the 1st world do, so I wouldn't say definitely don't go. Just make sure you decided from an informed position, rather than one of naive ignorance.
Take Cutten's words about women and safety very seriously. If you decide to spend time in Dubai with a woman you must understand the risks and structure EVERYTHING you do with those realities in mind. It only takes a temporry lapse to put her at great risk. Their mindset, although disquised under some gracious manners, is insane. Western women are thought to be worthless and a threat to their way of life. Tommy
Dirty filthy maggot- wack jobs abound there. I went there for some r&r while in the military. Its ok for a week, but after that those fucking rags got on my nerves.