As I described in my previous posts, my primary reason for visiting World’s Fairs is their upbeat nature, always promising a brighter future. My second reason is the uniqueness, everything is new and ephemeral.
My third reason is the people.
I can enjoy people-watching anywhere but nothing compares to people-watching at a World’s Fair.
The visitors come from all walks of life. The pavilions are staffed by residents of each country, meaning that the people here come from 192 different countries!
Because Dubai is on the Arabian peninsula, many of the visitors come from Arab countries (like Saudia Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain). Because UAE is a Muslim country, many of the visitors come from Muslim countries (like Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh).
Nearly everyone here speaks perfect English. I hear some Arabic being spoken and most signs have Arabic subtitles but the major language at this Fair is English.
The way to know where someone is from is to eavesdrop on their private conversations for a few seconds. From past travels, I recognize enough words that I can distinguish many languages, including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and Japanese. Except for Arabic, I rarely hear any of these languages spoken here.
Usually, on my travels, when I hear English spoken I can recognize a strong accent, typically Indian, Australian, or British. There’s a lot of Indian accents but essentially no British or Australian accents.
What surprises me is that about half the voices that I hear are in English with no recognizable accent. I haven’t figured that out yet. I doubt they all traveled more than 6,000 miles to see a World’s Fair. They’re not all as crazy as me. Where are they all coming from?
COVID-19 might be a reason that many Americans are here. Throughout the pandemic many countries closed their doors to Americans. UAE didn’t. And the UAE airlines, like Emirates and Etihad Airways, have drastically reduced prices. Even though it’s a very long flight, it doesn’t cost much more than flying to the Caribbean.
What I do know is that most of the tourists in Dubai came for “fun in the sun”. The beaches are mobbed. There’s lively music everywhere here in the evening. Lots of eating, drinking and smoking.
In addition to how they talk, what they wear is always interesting.
The afternoon temperature here is generally above 90° every day. I wear a tshirt and my lightest slacks but am always overheated.
Some people here are dressed like me for hot weather but not many. Most are wearing multiple layers. It’s technically winter here so that makes sense.
Here on the Arabian Peninsula, many of the men wear a white “thawb”, also called a “thobe”, which is an ankle-length robe with long sleeves. (I will post some photos when I get back home.)
The rest of the men wear western style clothes, typically a long sleeve shirt and jeans.
The women wear an incredible variety of clothes. For the non-Arab women, that’s generally a long dress. But it could be slacks. Often they wear a very short skirt.
Most of the Arab women wear a black “hijab” that covers everything except her face. For some it covers everything except her eyes. But the full range of traditional long black robes can be seen here. Some of the women wear robes that occasionally reveal what they are wearing under the hijab, which invariably are stylish slacks.
In addition to the pavilions, there is lots to see and hear from the visitors
