DUBAI 🇦🇪: Performance as Survival — What We Trade to Belong [Episode 5.0]

Dubai doesn’t ask if you’re doing well—it asks if you look like you are.

After losing my dream job, I saw what lives beneath the glass: ambition, illusion, and the quiet grace of people still trying to belong.

This episode is about identity, reinvention, and the cost of keeping up in a city built on appearances.

THANK YOU

Abir, Ali, Andrew, Au, Gladys, Harumi, Karinne, Malika, Paul, Saeed — for your time, your thoughts, your voices.

And to the artists below for helping me tell my Dubai tales. I had no idea there's such dope music from DXB, but there is!

TRACK LIST (in order)

1. Hamam Yeghani - Al Mazyood Band

2. Emirates Boarding Song

3. Boushret Kheir - Hussain Aljassmi

4. Wayak Wayak - Ahlam

5. Bargen Laah - Mehad Hamad

6. Imagine That - Sobbhï

7. Do I Look Like Somebody You Could Love - The Boxtones

8. Motasoa - Eidha Al Menhali

9. Yensa - Fayez Al Saeed

10. Caravan - Serge Quadrado

11. Level Up - Moh Flow

12. Afee Afaham - Shamma Hamdan

13. Ya Adheeman - Ahmed Bukhatir

14. Modalali - Balqees Fathi

15. Mush Fathi - Freek

16. Borj El Ghazal - Fayez Al Saeed

17. Rolla Rolla - French Montana, Mohamed Ramadan, Jasmine Sandlas & DJ Shadow Dubai

18. Hamdulillah - Narcy (ft. Shadia Mansour)

19. Ana Al Mughram - Al Mazyood Band

20. Kafi - Freek

21. Shame Song - Haifa Beseisso

22. Rebirth - DJ Bliss

23. Kash Al Mahba - Mohammed Al Shehhi

24. Ghasban Aleek - Abdulrahman Alazzawi

25. Bad Temper - EZOW

26. Hawa - Balqees Fathi

27. Hum Rahi (Traveler) - Chronicles of Khan

28. Allah Ala Dubai (National Day Song) - Mehad Hamad

(Full transcript below photos)

We landed at 5:15, thirty minutes ahead of schedule. Lucky me, given that I had to clear immigration, jump in a taxi home, shower and make it back to the office by 7. The flight was in business, I slept just fine. I had flown 8 ½ hours, but I was fresh to start the week.

Everything had gone so smoothly that I was early to work. I glanced at the clock as I sat down at my desk and it was still 10 to 7. I haven’t driven to work regularly in years, but this was just like hitting only green lights on your way in. But that would quickly change.

Around 7:30 I got a message: conference room in 15 minutes. I grab a coffee on the way over, sit down at the long table, and 5 minutes later, before I’d even taken the first sip, my dream job is over.

That was the moment Dubai stopped being a fantasy.

I walk out of the building and it’s already 40 degrees (that’s like 100 fahrenheit). The kind of heat that makes glass sweat. I remember looking up at the building, and the airport across the way, and thinking “what just happened?”

Five months and 3 weeks of damn near perfect feedback. No warning. Just…gone.

And the irony was, that job, at that time, was everything to me. Getting it felt like winning the lottery…that 3 days I spent interviewing in Dubai for this one role felt like a game show. 16 candidates the first day, only 8 still standing on the second, and just 3 of us for the last day. I had beaten the odds. I told everyone I know that was moving to one of the best airlines in the world — and overseas for the first time — to a city where “impossible” was a slogan.

I busted my ass to get that job. And in that job. Because I believed Dubai rewarded the hustle.

I believed Dubai rewarded the hustle. And in one jolting Sunday morning, I realized it rewarded something else entirely: Image. Shine.

Dubai doesn’t ask if you’re doing well. It asks if you look like you are. And at first, I loved that…I mean, how could you not?

Every night, the skyline feels like a competition you didn’t know you entered. Towers racing each other upward, each one trying to touch God before the next one does. New Year’s Eve was my third night as a UAE resident, and on that night I sat on my new work buddy’s balcony, watching more fireworks than I had ever seen, trying to convince myself I belonged in that picture.

From a distance, Dubai looks like ambition made of glass — a skyline so bright it could burn the sand back into stone.

Up close, it feels permanently mid-selfie. Everyone’s angling for the best light. It’s a place where “next” always matters more than “enough.” Where even the shadows are air conditioned, and a constant reminder of how unnatural “comfort” can be.

This city sells you a mirage in the desert, literally and figuratively. It makes you believe that if you keep chasing, keep upgrading, you’ll eventually arrive somewhere real.

But that’s the trick. You never actually arrive. Because the real question Dubai asks isn’t “how high can you climb?” It’s “can you keep performing long enough for anyone to notice?” Can you keep the illusion polished? Can you make the hustle look effortless?

And if you ever stop shining, will anyone even remember you were here?

***

"Having lived here for 20 years plus almost, Dubai would be a vibrant, cosmopolitan city in the United Arab Emirates, which, it is known for its rapid growth, innovation, fast forward thinking and cultural diversity. It is a place where ambition definitely meets opportunity, which blends with tradition, with modern luxury."

"I’ve been living in Dubai since 2012, so it’s a little over 13 years now, and to describe Dubai in one word from a dictionary I would say it’s a melting pot, because it allows a person to not just experience the local Emirati Arabic culture, but it also allows one to meet people from all over the world in this one city, and you build long-lasting relationships, you get to learn more about the various citizens of different countries. And you get to embrace their cultures and backgrounds as well."

***

The air hits differently in Deira. Jet fuel, spice, and heat — all mixing into this thick, living smell. My shirt was already wet before I reached the end of my block, but I kept running.

The company had set me up in a starter apartment here, the ‘temporary housing’ kind of place HR probably didn’t expect me to like. They’d put in a crew building actually, probably the oldest one, a stark contrast to the modern villages they build now, with towers of Emirates cabin crew stacked around a swimming pool in the desert. But I did like it.

Deira was the Dubai before the filters; laundry lines strung between balconies, roti stalls still open after midnight. Cats everywhere.

Way before I had ever heard of Dubai — before the gleaming towers sprung from the desert, before the Emirates logo sat boldly on the chest of the best football players in the world representing Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal, before Emirates had even started flying a leased 737 to Karachi (which is actually why the two-letter call sign for Emirates Airline is still EK today) — Dubai was a meeting place. A curve in the coast where dhows dropped anchor and Indian merchants traded cloth for Gulf pearls, and where the wind carried half a dozen languages at once. It was never built for permanence so much as for exchange, for connection.

I didn’t have a plan, just a direction. On the map, Al Mamzar Beach looked like the nicest stretch near me, so I started running that way. After a mile or so, I saw stadium lights cutting through the haze. Not the bright-white kind you see from the highways. Softer, almost yellow, like they’d been there for a while.

I hung a left and ran toward the glow. A few minutes later I’m standing at the edge of a pitch, watching what looks like a serious warmup. Then I see the jerseys, black and yellow, like bumblebees.

Dortmund. Hummels. Aubameyang. Kagawa. Actual Bundesliga players. A guy who’d won a World Cup sixteen months earlier. In a sand-ringed field behind the airport.

I slowed to a walk, half expecting security to wave me off. Except nobody cared.

There was no announcer, no velvet rope, and hardly a crowd at all. Just the sound of cleats scraping turf, balls glancing off heads, and a handful of men leaning on the fence. This is a city where people pay $20 for a flat beer, and $400 for brunch, and I’m behind the airport, in a dusty low-rise neighborhood, sweating through my shirt, watching world-class football for free.

I’m standing there next to a chubby South Indian man who can read the confusion and wonder on my face. So he explains that the Bundesliga has a long mid-season break (this was the first week of January), and teams do short training camps at the end to get back into form. That year, Dortmund’s was in Dubai, and Eintracht Frankfurt, their opponent (and actually where I had seen my only real Bundesliga match a year before), had theirs in Abu Dhabi. So they had arranged a friendly before heading back to Germany.

I was smiling from ear to ear. I had completely forgotten about job titles and skyline views and the fancy New Years’ fireworks. After the match, the players were laughing, taking selfies with the handful of kids who wandered up from the street. It was like I had stumbled into some secret I wasn’t supposed to know about.

And I think I was even happier to meet my taxi-driving informant, who had a name, by the way: Suresh. Suresh was very proud to tell me that he drove an airport taxi, not just any old cab. A promotion, he explained, after a few years of city driving. Any thoughts I had of complaining about my 7am start at EGHQ (that’s Emirates Group Headquarters) evaporated when he told me he worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, sometimes more. In fact, he had just finished his shift at 6pm and made his way here.

He told me about his family back in Kerala: his wife, Mini, and their two kids. The oldest was in the 10th grade and wants to be a nurse, like her cousin in Sharjah. The younger was eight and already taller than his mother.

He showed me a photo on a cracked Samsung phone: the kids standing in front of a house still under construction. The roof wasn’t finished yet, but man, was he proud of that house…I could tell as he tapped the screen with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Suresh hadn’t seen them in two years. His visa renewal had kept him longer than planned, but he sent money home every month. “Not too much, but always on time,” he said…half-smiling. He said he used to drive a school van back in Thrissur, and that when he first came to Dubai, he thought he’d only stay for “a couple of seasons.” Then came the promotions, the airport badge, the habit of long shifts and short sleep. “You tell yourself you’ll go back,” he said, “but you start to feel like the road remembers you here.” I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by that, but it stuck with me.

I never made it to Al Mamzar Beach that day (but don’t worry, I would in the coming days). After the match ended, I jogged home through backstreets lit by flickering shop signs. Every doorway seemed to be a different country: Pakistani barbers, Filipino groceries, Yemeni cafeterias with plastic chairs and steam pouring out the door. The city felt stitched together, messy…alive, and one hundred percent real.

Deira wasn’t the Dubai you see in airline ads. The buildings leaned, the paint peeled, and the sidewalks were all cracked. But there was rhythm here: taxi horns, prayer calls, and the shuffle of people chasing tiny victories.

During that soccer match, I realized how close the two Dubais really are. One where people pay $400 to feel exclusive, and one where a free game under the floodlights feels like a gift. Same city, same night, separated only by a few miles and an entire philosophy of what matters.

A couple of blocks from the stadium, a man standing outside one of those cafeterias tossed me a bottle of water and said “free ticket, brother,” with a big grin on his face. We both laughed. It was such a small thing, a joke, a gesture, but it cracked me wide open. This was the first time since I had set foot in Dubai that I didn’t feel like I was performing. I wasn’t playing a role. I was just there. And I saw that there really is a part of Dubai that doesn’t need to be polished to matter.

A week or two later I was sitting in the theatre at EGHQ, trying to stay away through some half-day HR seminar, and thinking about that run. About how easy it is to miss this version of the city if you only ever look up. I was certain no one else in that room had seen the city like that. And I felt emboldened to start wandering a bit further off the map.

The more I did, the more I began to see how Dubai really works.

***

"So, Dubai is a place that rewards adaptability. There’s a huge mix of cultures and ways of operating and ways of thinking and seeing the world, viewpoints, all meshing together, sometimes mixing and often, um, being really distinct. And, you know, people are bringing that cultural baggage and perspective with them. And if you want to do well in that kind of environment, you need to find a way to navigate those cultural differences well. And I think if you spend enough time in Dubai, you start to learn how to do that with more efficacy over time."

"It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 years in Dubai. When I first arrived I felt like the city was still writing its own stories, growing so fast, you could almost feel it in the air. There was this sense of endless possibilities and like anything could happen if you work hard enough. By the way, over the years I’ve been seeing Dubai change, and I’ve changed with it."

"I’ve been in Dubai 9 years now, it’s coming up to 10. My entire life has changed since I arrived in Dubai. Dubai gave me this perspective of anything is possible. It’s very upward-mobile in terms of the expat lifestyle anyway, from what I’ve seen, from people who arrive. There are growth opportunities and a lot of people take advantage of that, which is great. It’s also a city that’s really really fast moving. So the work-life balance here, I would say, is not the best. And also, there isn’t like a…the vice culture here….so in the UK, right, in London especially, you work really hard, you work really long hours. But there’s this kind of culture of going out for drinks after work, and socializing in that way, with alcohol and whatnot. So because this is a Muslim country, although obviously 90% expats, there just doesn’t seem to be that culture. And I think it’s also because the way the city is actually set up. Maybe if you work in like DIFC or one of these regions it’s easier to do that, but when you are in the likes of Media City or, you know, another kind of somewhat secluded, not secluded but removed, you know, from the center spot, you’re less likely to get that kind of social aspect of it."

***

Inside the Emirates Headquarters, the air felt filtered, literally and metaphorically. Marble floors, orchids, and a faint smell of coffee, so precise it could have been part of the brand book. Everything gleamed. Even the elevators seemed to hum in the right key. Oh, except for the separate elevator bank I never got to test out. Those were only for the executives. In a 9-story building. Yeah.

My badge opened the same doors theirs did. In theory. But hierarchy has a way of showing itself without anyone having to say it. I was a newcomer finding my footing, but wholly convinced that if I worked hard and kept doing what got me here, I’d do really well.

They had, after all, put me through three full days of interviews, psychological tests, behavioral role-plays, group tasks. Reference checks. The whole thing felt like a personality audit.

I remember one moment especially well. A panel hit me with a question I genuinely couldn’t answer…I think it was about attribution modeling. I froze. I felt the sweat collect on my neck. The guy who had asked the question was twirling a pen between his fingers, and after a few seconds that felt like a few days, I shook my head and said “I have no idea. But I know exactly how I’d find out.”

If that sounds relatively smooth, let me assure you that it was most certainly not. It was clumsy and clunky, but honest. And when I walked back over to my hotel that evening, I was entirely sure that I wasn’t being invited back for the next—and last—day of interviews.

And yet, I was the one they chose out of the sixteen that they had flown to Dubai, after all of the preliminary screenings. Which meant that, on paper, me being myself was exactly what they wanted.

I thought honesty was the point. That transparency was what they were looking for. Quite logically, too, based on the interview outcome. But once I got inside, I learned something else. They hadn’t hired me. They’d hired my moment of composure inside that vulnerability. They wanted the performance of authenticity and honesty, not the discomfort of actually living it.

Dubai loved that version of me: confident, adaptable, never out of breath. It rewards polish, not presence. Performance feels safe; you can hide inside it. And the system works so well because everyone learns the dance.

Emirates gave us a little card that was good for half-off at a bunch of restaurants and bars around town. It was a perk, sure, but to me, at that time, it became survival. It made a now-only-10-dollar beer feel like a small rebellion I could afford, and to be able to feel a part of the Dubai ‘scene’ without bleeding for it.

Work felt like a movie where I was never quite sure which scene I was in. Everyone was polished, put together, suited, smiling. There were slogans about ambition and teamwork printed on the walls, while political factions formed. I noticed the irony: limitless ambition in a place that measured everything by status, pay grade, and what kind of view you had from your office window.

Still, net net, I loved it. Loved all of it. I loved walking into a place that ran planes across the world, to every notable city on earth, from Runway 12R/30L outside my window, and thinking this is what ‘global’ looks like. I’d studied globalization in grad school with a bunch of people who wanted this life, and as non-linear and occasionally accidental as my path here was, I had it.

Until the morning I didn’t.

After that morning, everything looked different. The skyline still shimmered, but it didn’t feel ambitious anymore. It felt watchful. Like it knew exactly how replaceable everyone beneath it — and everyone who built it — was.

It was the dead of summer, and yet I started walking more, and running, too. In the heat. Not toward anything in particular, but just to remind myself that I still had some sense of control. I’d go to Kite Beach and run back and forth along the little track there, breathing in air so thick it felt drinkable. The sound of my heavy footsteps on the rubber and the faint hiss of the AC compressors from the cafes along the beach was the only rhythm in the city that I felt wasn’t asking anything from me. The only one that didn’t need to be seen.

I missed Deira, though I had long ago left my place there. I missed the noise and the mess of it, the version of Dubai that didn’t have an HR department to deal with. Sometimes I’d take a cab across the Creek just to wander. One night I ended up near the Gold Souq, watching shopkeepers up close, lights flicking off one by one like a slow exhale.

A driver leaned against his car, sipping Karak tea, and nodded hello. It wasn’t Suresh, but it could’ve been. Same uniform. Same quiet pride. And for a second, I wondered if Suresh was still out there, still driving, still sending ‘not too much, but always on time’ back home.

Back at EGHQ, ambition was wallpaper. Outside, it was oxygen. Different systems, same engine: people doing whatever it takes to keep climbing.

Not everyone fit neatly into either world, though. There was this young Emirati guy I worked with, twenty-three maybe. He was connected to the royal family somehow, but obsessed with digital analytics. He didn’t need the paycheck, but he loved the work. He’d light up talking about dashboards and metrics and the beauty of clean data. (Weird, I know). For most Emiratis, not working is a source of pride.

And then there were the small rituals that kept me sane. That half-off card, and an occasional burger at the most random of small-scale American chains: Fuddruckers. That’s where my parents took me and my brother after good report cards when we were in elementary school back in Virginia. I’d sit there under the fluorescent lights, next to the fixins bar, eating the same burger, and feeling strangely at home. Nostalgia that also served as dinner.

Dubai sells you limitless, but the great irony is that the entire place is actually built on limits. Every visa, every lease, every contract, and every promise comes with an expiration date. Maybe that’s what keeps the place running. Everyone knows they are temporary and plays their role accordingly.

And when I lost that job, I also lost the illusion that success and belonging were the same. That being true to yourself and being true to the role they want you to play was never really meant to match.

Somewhere between the mirrored towers and the souq, it all started to make sense. Dubai doesn’t build things to last. It builds them to be replaced. And in a city obsessed with the next version of everything, authenticity is the only thing that can’t be engineered.

***

"After 14 years in Dubai, I’d say the city can be summed up in my view, by the quote: “Hay que endurecerse, pero sin perder la ternura jamás.” — One must toughen up, but never lose their tenderness. Dubai teaches that balance: the strength to adapt and strive, while holding on to grace, warmth, and humanity amid constant motion."

"Living in Dubai definitely has taught me how to adapt and stay resilient. And it’s a city full of energy and ambition, where you learn to work hard, embrace different cultures, and keep a positive mindset in a fast-poced world. So in a nutshell this is how I would define Dubai."

"Dubai also teaches one person to be resilient, to hustle, because the majority of the expats here, they have left their homes to build long-term careers and a better life here. And Dubai teaches you to live life to its full extent, to hustle…"

"The things that make Dubai Dubai for a lot of people that love living here, is that you can have a luxurious life without needing to be the CEO of the company. Where you can live on the Palm, or another, like, amazing neighborhood. You can have beach right at your doorstep. You can have forever a holiday feel where you live, and you don’t have to be a millionaire to enjoy that."

"It’s the kind of city where you feel like it becomes whatever you make of it. So some people they come here just to party, for example, and you can have that kind of party lifestyle, there’s plenty of that. If you want to come here and be a foodie and explore every restaurant, you know, there’s like thousands of restaurants from all over the world, so you can have that as well. If you want to come here for the beach and, you know, just to chill, you can do that as well. So it’s very much a place that seems to kind of mold to whatever it is that you’re looking for. And it helps you grow because of that, because there’s so much to do and explore and experience, so you kind of end up finding yourself within the city, which is, you know, fantastic."

"And then you learn how to deal with Arabs with very sensitivities when it comes to Islam, their cultural differences. How to deal with Asians whether you re from India or Southeast Asia or elsewhere, you navigate how to be with the Western community. So from that perspective, you have the world all in one place."

***

After I lost my job with Emirates, I didn’t leave Dubai. I stayed. I had, after all, for the first time, packed up my life and moved to another country, and leaving so quickly would have felt like failure. I had also already pre-paid a year’s rent, and that money wasn’t coming back.

But the exit process was messy. Paperwork, visa status, HR signatures that seemed to disappear into a void. For a few months, I held my breath at the automated airport gates as I’d leave the country, half expecting them not to open.

Once, when I was heading to the US for an interview, I scanned my passport and the gate flashed red. A customs agent came out from behind a mirrored door, and for a second, I thought I was being detained. Turns out, the gate just had an error and he sent me on my way, but it was enough to shake me. For months I’d been pretending to be in control, and that little red light proved how little I actually had. That was the moment the illusion cracked. It’s strange how quickly a place that promised possibility can make you feel like an unwelcome ghost.

But still, I was living in my 48th-floor apartment with a corner view of Sheikh Zayed Road and the desert. It was beautiful, after they cleaned the windows anyway…when they hadn’t for awhile, my view was a mixture of diesel and sand. I was interviewing with a few companies, and taking advantage of the Emirates card they hadn’t managed to wrestle away from me yet, to use the nice 5-star hotel swimming pools and fitness centers.

With more time to process everything, I started noticing the small things, the quiet performances that kept the city’s illusion alive. Not the grand gestures Dubai is known for, but fragments that showed how everyone, in their own way, was keeping up the show.

A friend invited me to a Saturday brunch at a rooftop pool, somewhere over by the Marina…JBR. All glass and chrome everything, with a DJ, bottomless mimosas. The most popular corner of the area was the made-for-selfie stage with a swing and a view.

I heard a clearly-buzzed British girl blurt out “if you didn’t post it, did it even happen?” and the cluster of people waiting for the photo opp laughed. The brunch was full, and technically you could swim, but nobody was. Just posing. It was 40 degrees and I was thinking that everyone was working so hard to look relaxed.

When I got back to my building, I was waiting for the lift with a Filipino guy, not much older than me, wearing a maintenance uniform. He nodded at me politely if not awkwardly, the way people do when they share space but not stories.

Halfway up, the elevator stopped, suddenly. The lights flickered for a second, and then he instinctively reached to steady me before I could even react. “You okay, sir? He asked. “Sir.” About 3 seconds later we were moving again. But I thanked him and he gave me this polite, practiced smile. I may have made in a day at work what he made in a month, and yet it’s his kind of professionalism that keeps Dubai working. So many nameless professionals doing work that’s meant to be invisible until the moment it isn’t, keeping the illusion spotless while sweating through 12-hour shifts I never saw…a quiet army polishing someone else’s reflection. It reminded me that everyone here is just performing calmly, but to different levels of applause.

On Sunday evenings, I’d sometimes visit St. Mary’s Church in Oud Metha, another little refuge that felt real. There was a late service, since Sunday at the time was a workday, and Filipinos would pour in by the hundreds, still in uniforms after long shifts. The air outside was a mix of incense, exhaust, and sweat — holy and human at once — but nobody seemed to care what anyone looked like, and it was genuinely joyful. There wasn’t any performance here, just people gathering enough light to carry them through another long week.

I used to roll my eyes at stories about “modern pyramids built on slave labor.” There’s truth in the critique — no city this manicured comes without cost — but Dubai’s record, from what I could tell anyway, was better than many of its neighbors. In the buildup to hosting the World Cup, under international pressure, Qatar had passed a rule that workers couldn’t labor if the temperature hit 45 degrees. From that day on, the official high somehow stopped at forty-four. I don’t know if that’s still true, but it tells you how these places work: heat is negotiable. Optics — and meeting build deadlines — aren’t.

The Emiratis I met were gracious—soft-spoken, deliberate, and often poetic in how they phrased casual things. But some of them drove like they were trying to bend physics: right-turning from the far-left lane in a G-Wagon, completely unbothered, because if there ever was a fender-bender with a foreigner, it was never gonna be their fault.

Not much later, an offer came in from Amsterdam, and I decided it was time to leave my sunk cost in the desert. But the weeks leading up to that felt like years. Waiting. Job interviews that became tentative offers that became paperwork complications. The city carrying on without me being a productive member of it.

My last night before I left, I sat on the floor of my packed-up apartment, leaning against my floor-to-ceiling window. The night view was immaculate. It looked eternal. But I knew better, not to fall in love with it again.

Every corner of Dubai has its own choreography. The Instagrammers, posing and perfecting. The maintenance man, with his precise, polite invisibility. Suresh, with his consistency, endurance, and quiet pride. Most people learn the steps; I tried to improvise, and I guess I never really did. But in Dubai, the show never really ends…it just resets the stage with a different cast.

***

"There’s beauty in the ambition here, and how people from every corner of the world come together to build something bigger than themselves. But there are challenges too, don’t get me wrong. The pace can be restless, relentless. And sometimes it feels like the city moves faster than you can keep up."

"I have a story. When I first moved here, about 12 years ago, it was Halloween and I was going out to celebrate with a bunch of friends, and we went to a party and had a really good time. We all dressed up as well. I dressed up as a zombie, put on lots of makeup, tore my shirt so it was kind of hanging open. Did some fake blood splatters and the like. We went out and had a really great night. Stayed up very late, far too late, um, I ended up sleeping over at a friend’s house. And in the morning I was trying to get home. So I walked out into the street and I was trying to get a cab, and I couldn’t. Nobody would stop because of how I was dressed. I was still wearing zombie makeup, still wearing these disheveled clothes. It looked pretty rough. So I went to a small shop down the road to get myself some cigarettes and something to drink, and as I came out into the road after thinking “how am I going to get back home?” Someone behind me said “what happened to you?” And I turned around and it’s two police officers in their full garb, and they’re looking genuinely shocked. And I told them “no, this is a, I was at a party, this is a Halloween costume, I know this looks kind of bad, it’s not what you think.” And they both looked at each other for a moment, and then they looked back and said “oh, it’s a costume!” I was like “yes.” They started laughing. They walked out into the road and hailed down the next cab and packed me in it, and were laughing as I drove away. And I always remember that very well as, it’s one of those moments that, Halloween really wasn’t a thing at the time, at least to most people. And you could see the adaptability of the police to that cultural artifact that they of course knew about but never really saw or experienced in that moment."

"It’s a full package. And when I say package, it means about different opportunities, which are incredible, especially when it comes to earnings, career growth. The lifestyle and luxury are on another level, from the buildings to the experiences, everything is world-class. And I think honestly the safety and security here are unmatched. You know, you feel protected and at peace every day, which is very rare in today’s world. Plus the diversity, the energy, and the constant progress makes it a place where you truly feel anything is possible."

"So I came to Dubai 18 years ago and I think one of the stories that I always kind of associate with Dubai is when I was a student and I visited my friend whose parents just got an apartment at the brand new (then) Dubai Holding buildings. It was Rimal 1 I believe. And back then there was nothing but a couple of those buildings, not the full development, alongside the road and the beach. So we went for a walk on the beach at night, and it was quite dark, not a lot of the apartments were lived in, and I saw this striking image of Bedouin sitting on the beach with his campsite, there was a tent, there was a camel tied in, he was smoking Shisha, having coffee, next to a little campfire. It must have been Winter because it was quite cold I remember. And the contrast was like, so big, there was like a 40-story building and a Bedouin."

***

I came to Dubai a blank slate, and after a few months started to form a conclusion that performance was the problem. But it turns out, it’s the currency—and maybe the most honest thing anyone can do here is admit we’re all part of the act. Perfection here isn’t the prize, it’s the costume. And everyone, in their own way, is learning how to wear it.

Some get the spotlight — the expats in the towers and at the brunch tables with salaries that far exceed their contribution. Others hold the lights — the drivers, the porters, the men who sweep sand off the marble each morning before anyone arrives. It’s the same performance, just different roles, divided mostly by passports and pay grades.

What’s strange is how naturally it all syncs. Nobody calls it out, there’s no conductor, but everyone seems to know their mark, and everyone believes their part matters. And maybe, for that moment, it does. Roles collide, but lifestyles rarely do.

Dubai is built on connection, quite literally, as a historical fishing port and trading village. And yet, very few of the different lifestyles in Dubai ever connect. The layers move beside each other, but not through each other. Expats are driven around by men whose names they’ll never learn or care to ask, meals are served by hands no one ever really looks at.

Whole lives orbiting within sight, but sealed off by language, visa type, or the tinted glass of a luxury car.

It’s a strange kind of harmony: everyone is essential, but almost no one is visible.

When you really think about it, it makes sense. Like I had shown up as my ‘true’ self in that interview, Dubai never put forth a false image of itself, either. Remember, this was once a meeting place, the curve in the coast where people came to trade, to talk, to exchange ideas. Somehow, the more global it became, the fewer people actually met. The exchanges still happen — of money, goods, and ideas — just not between the people themselves.

When I first lost the Emirates job, I hated that idea. I judged the performance so hard — in others, in the city, in myself. It felt fake. Plastic. Pointless. But the longer I stayed, hostage to my sunk cost of rent and still addicted to that desert sunset view from my bedroom, the more I saw grace in it. Courage, even. Because pretending… showing up, smiling, and showing up again… is how most of us survive the moments when we don’t feel like we belong. And we all have those moments.

That’s how Dubai changed me. I stopped mistaking performance for dishonesty, and started seeing it as effort. As proof that people, in their own ways, are still trying – to be seen, to be valued, and to keep progressing.

No matter how polished the city looks, everything here — buildings, jobs, even people — is temporary by design. The trick isn’t escaping the illusion. It’s in learning to live inside it without losing yourself.

When I think back now, I don’t feel bitterness. I feel awe at the sheer coordination of it all: a city rehearsing itself every day, against heat, against odds, against gravity. A city built to remind you that even impermanence can look flawless under the right lighting.

Dubai never asked if I was doing well — only if I looked like I was. I finally understood that was never a question; it was a test. Maybe that’s what Dubai teaches: that authenticity isn’t about refusing the performance. It’s about knowing when you’re in one, and dancing anyway.

Because in the end, that’s what this place does best. It takes the temporary and makes it shimmer. And if you listen closely, beneath the glass and the gleam, you can still hear it breathing — a city mid-rehearsal, waiting for its next cue. It’s still a meeting place — not of merchants anymore, but of ambitions. And every one of us trades a little truth for belonging.

And quietly under that breath, Dubai gives you a whisper: know your role, but don’t lose yourself in the act.

***

"Dubai has given me everything really. Obviously like I said, 9 years been here, I’m living the suburb life. Met my wife here, had my daughter here. So it’s been everything. I love this city to be honest. There’s ups and downs, but overall I absolutely love this city."

"Dubai teaches you to be resilient. It teaches you how to adapt, to find calm amid constant motion. For me, it’s been a place that has tested me, inspired me, in its own way, and shaped who I become."

"Dubai is second-to-none. I think it’s the best city in the entire world."

"When I came here I was just 17 years old. So all of my adulthood was here. So of course I changed and developed and evolved as a human being, which is normal, but I think Dubai kind of got me really spoiled. It’s hard for me to think about living elsewhere…"

"I can say that I’ve certainly matured, and Dubai has been very good to me, I’ve been here quite a long time. But I’m always surprised by how much I’ve actually stayed very much the same. I appreciate the things that I’ve always appreciated. One of the things that Dubai is very good at is enabling you to have a niche, and to find other people that share that with you. It’s one of the great benefits of living in this kind of environment, you can find your familiar settings and you can, you know, make the most of it there."

***

Hello my friends, Steven here. Always grateful for your help and support, so THANK YOU to you wonderful people who, with your ideas and voice notes, helped me pull this episode on Dubai together.

Thanks to the wonderful artists who added life to this episode…I wasn’t very familiar with Emirati music when I started this, and as I seem to do each time, I ended up really vibing with some of it. It’s so cool to hear parallels in the music, like how, that song “Bargen Laah,” to me anyway, sounds like a Dubai-localized version of reggae. There’s some great music from Dubai, and I didn’t know that before…so I hope you’ll check out some of these artists too. As I do each time, I made a playlist on Spotify with all of the artists, all of the songs, all of the music I used, and I’ll also share it to the website.

Thanks you to Emirates…even though it didn’t work out at that time, you still gave me the opportunity to experience Dubai and start my ‘international’ life, so I’ll always be appreciative of that.

Also, I record this ‘thank you’ part last…you can probably tell that with all of the music, I need to record the main story part a bit ahead of time so I can get all of the editing and mixing done. But having listened back, I want to make sure that my ‘takeaway’ is clear… I am not disputing the ‘superficial’ narrative of Dubai, acting, playing a role…but I think judging that too negatively is quite shallow. And that was my first conclusion, especially in the emotional trauma of unexpectedly losing my job and then worrying about my status and a few legal issues with Emirates. But with more reflection (and hopefully maturity) I’ve come to look at it differently, that playing a role is maybe not necessarily a bad thing. It’s effort. It means you care. And that’s ultimately been my growth takeaway from living in Dubai.

I want to give a few individual shout outs not necessarily about this episode, but on my overall EveryCity Whispers journey so far… we’d say “okage sama” in Japan, which is like “thanks to you” or “because of you.” So: Jordan, Liz, Tenzin, Rolf, Kenny & Paige, Reubin, Segun. Thank you for the consulting, the ideating. Kathia, Gina, Konomi…I’m so grateful for you helping me collect more voice notes from your cities. I kind of have to prove myself as I get started, so it’s really helpful to have a few people on the ground who can give me some perspectives that are from outside of my immediate circle. Karen, Justin, Weiqing, Emi, Tony…all of the amazing feedback and support. I notice every single bit, I really appreciate it, it keeps me going, so thank you. I’m sure I missed a couple of others, but I’ll get you next time.

…

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for listening to EveryCity Whispers: Dubai. If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a friend or three who might like it too. You’re internationally minded, so I’m sure some of your friends are as well. And every little like, follow, review, comment…really helps. So if you can find the time to do that I’d really appreciate it. I’ve been making a lot of short videos to start to promote the show, so you can follow @everycitywhispers on Instagram. Transcripts, photos, and other fun stuff is on the website (everycitywhispers.com), and I’ll always welcome any feedback–good or bad–so I can make this show better. Please email me if you have any: Steven with a “v” @ everycitywhispers.com.

That’s a wrap for Dubai. Thanks again for listening. Next few episodes will be digging into my origin story, so stay tuned. I’ll be teasing them more in the coming weeks…I haven’t quite figured out how I’m gonna approach it, so it’s work in progress, but hopefully I’ll come up with something worthy of your time.

Until then, remember: you don’t have to move cities to move yourself forward. Cities don’t shout, they whisper. If you stay curious and listen closely…you’ll hear them.

***

(Fade out)

"The basic Arabic words that everyone should know, starting with khallas, which means ‘finish.’ A very important word to know is karak. Mashallah, which means, like, you are appreciating something. Inshallah, which means ‘in God’s will.’ Kharban, which means ‘broke,’ or doesn’t work, or it’s not gonna work. So you say “his watch is kharban” or “his phone is kharban.” And then you can say shukran, or mashkoor by the Emirati accent, which means ‘thank you.’ And habibi, that’s the best Arabic word. You can call everyone literally habibi. Yallah is one of the most important words that you’re gonna hear a lot in Dubai, which means like ‘quick quick quick’ or ‘keep it moving’ or ‘let’s go,’ so I guess these are the most important words that you should know in Arabic in Dubai."

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