If you are an Arab living in the awesome country of UAE, then you must have bumped into at least one of the below types… or ran away from them… or pretended you don’t really know them (Samir? Who’s Samir?!) … or maybe you ARE one of them.
After living in UAE for almost 11 years and meeting a lot of my fellow Arabs, I managed to compile this list that sums up the 15 types of Arabs who live in UAE.
1. The Arab men who will never marry a girl they met in Dubai.
The only woman worthy of them is the one their mama back home chooses from a list of under 21 neighborhood girls who know how to cook mansaf and stuff makdoos.
2. The Arab women who live on their own but are worried about revealing that fact in front of other Arabs in fear of judgment.
But who ever said Arabs are judgmental?!
3. The ones who think it is so cool that they can’t speak or read proper Arabic.
Actually that is anything but cool … bro!
4. The ones who will recreate the same lifestyle they had back home.
They are most likely to be found in shisha cafes playing tarneeb and backgammon with a glass of mate.
5. The media moguls who usually have a strong hair game and enjoy smoking cigars inside Porsche Cayennes they can’t entirely afford.
6. The ones who are always complaining about something: traffic, heat, salik, construction.
But will they go back to their countries? Of course not!
7. The Arab housewives who are constantly searching for the best molokhia leaves and vine leaves in Syrian and Palestinian supermarkets.
8. The ones who will politely and patiently stand in line in UAE airports but start acting like cave people the minute they land in their countries’ airports.
9. The party animal Arabs who spend their dirhams on bottle service in music halls every weekend but are too scared to light a cigarette in front of their dads.
10. The Emirati wanna be Arabs.
They will be trying to fake their best Emirati accent while sipping on a macchiato in Papparoti wearing their crispest kandora or shiniest abaya.
11. The Arabs who live with their partners, children, parents, one grandparent and probably a third degree cousin.
Because family is everything.
12. The phonetically challenged Arabs.
They can’t get their Ps and Bs right. They also love the letter Z so much and use it often in words such as: mozer, fazer, brozer and weazer.
13. The political spokesperson Arabs.
Most other Arabs avoid them because they don’t want to get deported for being involved in heated and fruitless political debates.
14. The Western Union Arabs.
If you ever lose them you will find them at the nearest money transfer facility, sending most of their dirhams to buy a gas station or build a beauty centre back home.
15. The fresh in UAE Arabs who can’t get enough of all the foreign and exotic food.
You will most likely find them at Yo Sushi trying to figure out how the conveyer belt system works.