Full body scan

While walking around the mall today a thought occurred to me for the first time. The fancy dandy people who walked around the mall were easy to spot. They were either rich or they wanted to look rich.

The tell would be the shoes, the garments, the watch, the jewelry, and the swagger.

There would be several types of people walking the mall. On the one end of the spectrum would be the people who were paid to be there. That entire huge chunk would range from the cleaners to the Damac property sales crew. From the serving crew to the Michelin rated chef. I don't care where they lie on that spectrum, let's call them the paid professionals.

The opposite end of this scale has the oil/property Sheik and his family.

They wouldn't normally be seen at a mall when they could just as easily been in Milan. They would if spotted at the mall be slumming it. Trying to see how the regular folk are doing. Once in a year is quite enough thank you very much. Now hand me the sanitizer.

The rich Emirati come next. They make quite an entrance as the perfume precedes them and announces their arrival.

They usually have some glitzy version of the latest iPhone with one earpiece in place usually engaged in some passionate conversation full of guttural expletives. They are perfectly adorned like swans on the lake.

Behind them come the fakers. The expat community who have lived here all their lives learned the language and made their fortune. They would much rather be counted amongst the Emirati who I have no doubt laugh behind their backs at the sad affair.

Then the gawky tourist who thinks he is above all this "game of thrones" drama.

The tourist is in slops and short pants. His foreignness gives him cred in the mall or so he believes. He looks down his nose at the entire charade and assumes he is not a player in the game. But I think he is. As much as any other. The fact that he is there, dropping his hard-earned euro makes him the most important sucker in the whole game.

The paid professionals we mentioned are trained in the art of identifying which group you are from.

Many things depend on this skill.

They look at the shoes, the jewellery, the speech and they know. Most of the time. Often with a very high level of accuracy.

It's our speech, choice and manner of dressing or they way we treat others that tells the keen professional exactly where we are from.

This implies that we might not be competing in the Dubai game of thrones but we are all playing some form of that game back home. And it shows in our speech, make-up, jewelry and manner.

So don't look down your nose.

Yes you.

M Parak
April 2019
Dubai


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