A Ramadan moment

My air-conditioner was more of a fan rather than an air-con. No cold air was coming out as it probably was not properly connected to the compressor outside. So anyways, I asked the watchman to come look at it and after 2 days, one of his workers came knocking on my door in the morning. He took a look at the air-con and went outside. About midday, he came back and asked me to switch it on again. Bingo! Fixed.

He then said if there is anything else that needed fixing, I could call him anytime. Oh good! I pointed at the mini chandelier ceiling light that recently dislodged from the ceiling, now hanging precariously by a few wires 2.3 metres from where I'm sleeping, and asked if he could fix that too.

"Yes, no problem. I come back later."

Fantastic, I smiled and was going to see him to the door when he said, "Give me something."

I was shocked at his forthrightness to say the least.

"What? Give you something?"
"Yes, anything," and he said something that sounded like ".. boxes".
"You want boxes?" I asked. "Sorry, I cannot give you my boxes, they are my shelves now."

I had converted the boxes I shipped over to bookshelves the night before, to give me some time to figure out how to get the IKEA truck to my place.

"No,no, " he said, and came sentences I could not quite make out, but then I thought I heard the word "boxes" again.

He must want the boxes real bad. I suddenly remembered I have a spare box in the living room. I got him that box and handed it to him. He then said, "No no no, money."

Wow, these people tell it like it is.

"Money? You want money?"
"Yes, yes! Money. 10 Dirham, 20 Dirhams. No matter."

My face must have conveyed downright utter confusion.

"You don't know?" He asked.
"No..." I answered, eyes wide open and jaw slightly dropping.
"Ramadan now. You ask me do anything, give, I Muslim. Fasting"

Maybe he was saying "fasting" when I thought I heard "boxes".

"You happy give 10 dirhams, 20 dirhams, OK. You not happy?"
"Oh no, no.. I happy..."
"You don't know yes?'
"No..." Still looking confused.

"Ok, ok," he said smiling as he makes for the door, "you don't know OK." And he shuts the door after him.

I admit I have slow reaction. But coming from where I came from, it is extremely rare that someones asks for tips so blatantly. I was slightly intimidated when he suddenly asked me to give him something, I mean, I was alone in the flat with this guy. Yes, I am a paranoid Singaporean female. That said, he was smiling nicely throughout the whole episode, and now I felt a bit bad I did not give him anything. He was fixing the air-con outside in the heat in the middle of Ramadan without food and water after all.

I wondered if he was going to come back to fix the ceiling light after this. I decide to give him some money next time he came, but he did not turn up until I called the watchman another 2 days later to get someone to fix the ceiling light for me.

By now, a light bulb in the living room had burst, and I asked him to change the bulb after the ceiling light. I then gave him 20 dirhams and said, "Last time, First time hear. Shock, ya. Sorry ya!"

"Ok, Ok!" He took the note with a smile, "Next time fixing, call me."

And back to Boxes. 

Another 10 things I did not know before coming to the UAE

1. They REALLY don't have the concept of an address!
2. Cars generally flip over in traffic accidents, and people in them generally all die.
3. Pedestrians generally believe in the afterlife. They cross the road (with cars zipping at dangerously high speeds) slowly and without looking.
4. There is such a thing as beef bacon.
5. Buildings can be designed with no stormwater drainage, coz, there is no rain.
6. Malls are the Alpha and the Omega of life.
7. DRAGONMART sells things at chinese prices! (ok, just a teeny weeny bit more expensive, but still...)
8. Emirate women top it when it comes to veiling yer head in style.
9. Locals leave the engine on when filling their tank so the aircon is still on. So dangerous..
10. Bars can be franchised and can look exactly the same.

Oh, and one more..

11. Speed cameras cannot catch you if you drive above 200km/h   ; )

一山还有一山高

The skewed emphasis developers here put on building villas has resulted in an acute shortage of apartments for couples and expat populations such as W and myself. As a response to market demand, many villas are partitioned into apartment sized residences and rented out.

We have just moved into one of these "apartments". W was the one who sealed the deal. He had to do so quickly as residences the size of apartments are hot cakes. If you do not say yes on the spot, it'll be gone by the next phone call to the agent.

I have not seen the apartment prior to moving in, but I was not really flustered about it. I thought I was ready for any kind of residence having been baptized into the realm of teeny weeny apartment living in HK. I thought I was ready for any kind of renovation/building misadventures having had a contractor, who does not know what a built-in oven is, renovate my Shenzhen flat.

But, as the chinese saying goes, "一山还有一山高”. i.e. For any mountain there is always another mountain higher than it.

Lets start with plumbing.

I have to say I am thankful for the running water and flushing toilet. However, the kitchen sink and its associated drainage system put me into a catch22 situation. A high rate of wastewater flow from the sink means water gurgles out of the floor trap. A low rate of flow (i.e. half plugging the sink to slow down the water) solves the water fountain problem but the sink leaks profusely because the water now has more time to seep through.

I admit I am confused by the assembly at the bottom of the sink. The usual sturdy looking PVC pipes and traps are replaced by a very large black rubber washer-like element and a translucent flexible plastic hose-like element through which water flows to the floor trap. This innovative construction clearly does not work.

If my assessment is correct, all kitchen wastewater enters the kitchen floor trap and flows toward the bathroom floor trap before being expelled. I suspect there is not much of a gradient (if any) between the kitchen trap and the bathroom trap, resulting in a backflow and hence a water feature at the node. This is a retrofitted bedroom after all, the kitchen trap was not there before.

I shuddered at the thought of washing fish, meat and all other perishables in the sink, and having their essences ending up on my floor. Wonder if Carrefour sells industrial sized Detol, I'd probably need it everytime I cook to clean the floor.

Talking about cooking.

The kitchen in teeny. The cooktop sits right next to the fridge. Einstein must have come up with this wonderful kitchen design to test the fire retardation and heat insulation properties of the powdercoated fridge skin. The solution here is to move the fridge into the living room or I'd be living off cup noodles for the rest of my tenure. I have half a mind to put a board on top of the stove and buy an electric hot plate instead. That way, the landlord can pay for the electricity (included in the rent), while I do not have the problem of calling for gas when the gas tank runs out because we do not really have an address.

This is a sub-divided villa. The villa has an address but not the "apartments" in it. There are no apartment numbers, so how will the gas guy find me? Due to this funny yet extremely prevalent situation, dwellers like myself do not have a postal address, and need to apply for a P.O. box in order to receive correspondence.

A subdivided villa also means some basic infrastructure of modern apartment living is missing. I looked everywhere but I could not find a phone socket, and neither did I see a TV signal socket. I decided to be a Wifi criminal and tried to find wireless signal, but none could be found in the area. Am I to believe that no-one in my neighbourhood owns a router?

The combination of excitement and disbelief is yet to wear off as yet another evening draws near. Sitting in an internet café, I ponder over the logic of local space planning. That the bedroom is 2.5 times an average HK bedroom, the living room is 2 times an average HK living room, the bathroom is 3 times an average HK bathroom, and the above mentioned kitchen is 0.5 times the size of an average HK kitchen. The rental price of this property? About 9,000 UAE dirhams a month. i.e. HKD 18,000, SGD 3,600. This is actually quite cheap by Abu Dhabi standards. Sigh...

Endurance City

"They don't have the right to treat Indian workers that way," said P who continued commenting on how ridiculous it is that the world gives China shit for anything she does, but makes little mention of the shocking conditions labourers face here.

P is an elderly Swedish gentleman here on a project. That said, almost everyone is here on a project. Even though he had seen worse conditions for labourers in India, it's still no reason why they should be treated the way they are here.

W was telling disbelieving friends tonight about seeing 2 Indian guys hired to sit out in the open without shade in 40 degree heat just to lift the barrier at vehicular entries to a construction site. At the Abu Dhabi airport open air carpark, where I was overwhelmed by the heat from the sky and the heat radiating at me from the bitumen, south asian men are hired by the truckloads to push the luggage trolleys away.

It is Ramadan now, and one can still see labourers toiling in the midday heat on the roadsides without food and water. Unbelievable.

Rydges Plaza, Satwa Roundabout, Dubai

"Make sure you tell me where to turn off beforehand!"

I was clearly stressed. Everyone knows a missed turn in this place will cost half a gallon of petrol and an extra half hour depending on the make of your car and style of driving.

To which the comforting reply was," I've never been there before, I don't know!"

I took a deep breath and exhaled. Ok, stay calm.

Sheikh Zayed Road is a long one. W and I were soon lost in conversation about how we missed Shenzhen's Sichuan hotpot. Shall we go for one in Dubai? No, not nice enough and expensive. Oh cannot wait to get back to Shenzhen. How I dreamed about Hua Shen Long at Bagua 3 Road.... Maybe when I am in HK next time I'll make my mates go to Shenzhen with me. Good idea...

"Hey what is that?" I asked as I zoomed past a turnoff. The sign above showed a black circle within a white circle.

"That is the roundabout!"

Darn....

OK, now we need to find a way to turn back.

I turned out at the first turnoff I could find, and got to an open field with a hospital nearby. 5 mins driving around I found myself back at Sheikh Zayed Road again, but not in the opposite direction. Ok, nice try. We drove on for some time, and to our delight, saw a sign that says "Abu Dhabi". I nearly missed this one, but I managed to change 3 lanes in 2 seconds.

OK, now we need to find the roundabout again. Don't miss it this time, I told myself.

We saw the sign that pointed to the roundabout. OK, signal, change lanes, turn off. Good.

"DON"T GO UP THE BRIDGE!" shouted W.

Too late. The road had divided up into 2 very abruptly, one going down to the roundabout, and the other to god knows where.

#$%^&#@!!!

What are we going to do? We are lost! Where are we? Why did we never buy a MAP??!!

"Hey, isn't that Rydges Hotel?" said W pointing to his right.

We shook our heads in disbelief.

"You're on time!" beamed D as we entered his hotel room.

Yes D, we were surprised too.

Of Kids

With the noted exception of hotel pubs, families with kids can be seen everywhere in the UAE. The kids are always laughing and running around in malls, supermarkets, and restaurants. So full of the childhood energy that seems distant... and I rather suspect this is not only because a good 20 years have passed since I last chased my cousin across the coffee lounge at mum's workplace.

So I'm sitting in restaurant here looking at kids running around, and having a feeling I have not seen this in a long time. Why is that? Ah, I was in HK the last 4 years of my life, and HK kids don't run around at top speeds in restaurants.

First of all, you are in mortal danger if you do. The waiters barely have enough space to maneuver trying to serve up the boiling hot double boiled turtle soup. Secondly, portable game consoles seem to be standard issue. A clustering of kids generally involve a physical gathering around some lucky bastard with the latest PSP game, or a bluetooth duel to each her/his own console. So whilst the adults spin the web of HK gossip intrigue across the table, the kids fight it out in virtual reality as mum puts a Har Gow on junior's plate telling him to eat it before it gets cold.

No PSPs in sight here. Maybe that is a reason why kids here don't wear glasses. Think I appreciate the good old fashioned watch- out-if-I-catch-you-because-you-caught-me-last-time-so-I-am -getting-even play style. I make a mental note to keep my PSP for myself when I have kids in the future, and continue eating. W's finished his second plate and he makes off to the buffet table as 3 boys dash past him. I think they are playing catch.