Claiming to have the world's tallest building, biggest airport and most expensive hotel, Dubai is a city of superlatives. Cultures learn to get along in the Arab melting pot.
Dubai is the city of 150 nations.
Some says there are so many interesting people in Dubai.
Some says you can feel so free, as a person, as an individual.
However, some says Dubai is pompousness and manufactured perfection. They also say there is nothing real about the city and you could hardly breathe any more.
People who live in Dubai have an "E-card," which allows you to bypass the passport control at the airport, where you simply place your index finger on a sensor, a door opens and you walk through.
When you pick up a visitor from the airport, you can go online, type in his flight number and your mobile phone number -- and receive a text message every half hour updating you on the flight's arrival status.
Water and electricity bills, dentist appointments, road toll -- everything reaches you via your mobile phone.
When there is an accident, the police record mobile phone numbers before they write down the vehicles' license plates. The mobile phone serves as a universal identity card in Dubai.
If you go to a clinic or hospital, an Indian receptionist can welcome you. You can be surprised to be greeted by Filipino nurses an a Syrian doctor can treat you.
When you leave the clinic, do not ask for the bill. For the Emirate of Dubai is paying for your treatment.
Dubai is not a city where you feel observed or monitored, and it has none of the annoying routines of places like Turkish cities, with their metal detectors at entrances to public buildings and armed patrols in shopping malls.
On the other hand, anyone wishing to read a tabloid online is greeted with this message: "The content of this Web site is incompatible with the political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates."
Paradoxically, print copies of any tabloid are for sale in Dubai supermarkets.
Nowhere else in the region are there so many young, ambitious and well-educated North Africans, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis and Saudis who have turned their backs on their repressive countries.
During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, eating, drinking and smoking in public are strictly forbidden, and non-Muslims are politely reprimanded.
On the other hand, the supermarkets sell pork, and anyone interested in wine or whisky can drink to his heart's content in the international hotels.
Dubai is a global village, but even more than that, it is an Arab village.
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