Posted on 06/15/2017 9:38:16 AM PDT by Lorianne
653
The wealthy never run out of ways to amuse themselves in Dubai, where you can party aboard a house floating in a man-made sea, stroll through an indoor rainforest, or kick back in an ice lounge where the temperature never climbs above freezing. In a city where everyone is rich, shopping malls resemble the Silk Road and the theme parks make Disneyland look small.
Nick Hannes takes you on a whirlwind tour of the emirate's carefully engineered attractions in his ongoing series Dubai: Bread and Circuses. “Dubai positions itself as a leading tourist and luxury lifestyle destination,” he says. “By this enormous supply of leisure activities, the emirate expresses the idea that everything is possible in Dubai, that the sky is the limit.”
Despite occasionally blinding sandstorms and triple-digit temperatures, Dubai is bent on becoming the Orlando of the Middle East. Some 15 million people visited the emirate last year, a number expected to reach 20 million by 2020. Developers are building attractions at breakneck speed to lure ever more people. "The hunger for new projects is unstoppable in Dubai,” Hannes says. “If they have 20 theme parks it doesn’t mean they will stop building theme parks. As long as they have space they will keep on constructing.”
Hannes enjoys photographing tourism in places like Turkey and Spain, and always found Dubai fascinating. He made his first visit in 2015 and has returned three times since then to wander the emirate's theme parks and malls (where visitors can shoot zombies, ski indoors, and dive with sharks) and visit its most opulent nightclubs. "It’s a conservative Islamic society on one hand, but 90 percent of the people are expats, a lot of westerners, and of course they have a more liberal lifestyle that is often completely the opposite of the locals," Hannes says.
Everything looks like it came from somewhere else. Ibn Battuta Mall, designed to resemble a trek along the Silk Road during the middle ages, features ornate Tunisian, Persian and Chinese ‘courts.' The Green Planet brings an artificial rain forest to the desert. “They import a lot of foreign architectural styles, some from the ancient past, and make up new things with it,” Hannes says. “It’s copy-paste architecture—beautiful, but completely fake."
Hannes' images might depict gilded relaxation and luxury, but he never got the chance to relax. He was too busy working. Dubai isn't exactly his idea of a vacation anyway. “I go to cities to photograph and to learn about society, but these are not the places where I enjoy myself,” he says.
SNIP
We built one hell of a city over there didn’t we?
Thank you Jimmy Carter without you it wouldn’t have been possible.
You could pay me enough to go back to that shithole, but it would have to be a *lot* of money...
It's my understanding that a good percentage of the water used there comes from desalination plants (Dubai is on the coast).
No thanks.
Daniel 4:30 The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?
Most beautiful place in the world to get raped with total impunity.
“She raped ME. My friend here says so...”
The Babylon of Revelation 18...
11 “And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more—
12 cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from very costly wood and bronze and iron and marble,
13 and cinnamon and spice and incense and perfume and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and cargoes of horses and chariots and slaves and human lives.
I wonder how many little girls and boys are trapped there being abused. “How long, O Lord? How long?”
Small apartments come with ‘servant quarters’... maids can be hired for less than a dollar an hour... taxi hubs have wanted posters for foreign nationals attempting to escape. That said, the ‘surface’ is impressive... (kind of like the democrat party)
bump
The Emirates uses oil, gas and business revenue to build Dubai.
They build it opulent to attract international business. The economic principle been around since the start of civilization.
You want something normal go to Abu Dhabi.
Bottom line: small country, large petroleum reserves = opulence.
Seriously, have you ever even been there? Have you ever met and spoken with foreign workers there? There are tons of freelancer foreigners who skipped out on their visa hosts.
The ‘escape’ scenario you detail are foreigners who leave their visa host to work the private sector freelance. More pay and freedom for them so it’s an attractive choice. The government doesn’t want people skipping on their visas and staying indefinitely which is a huge problem there. So they hunt them down just like our Immigration officials used to do.
If any foreigner wants to leave they just need to go to their nation’s consulate/embassy and get their passport re-issued then buy a plane ticket from wealthy Dubai to their impoverished 3rd world home country.
It’s all about money, freedom and opportunity. To the young, able and willing the attraction of capitalism is universal.
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