10 Things You Never Knew About Dubai

Transitions are scary because nobody likes changes. 

But moving into a new country can be fun as you get exposed to different culture and experiences. 

Here is an excerpt of an article I wrote for the Overseas Singaporean Unit way back in January 2013!

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Whenever she says she is living in Dubai, people tend to ask her all sorts of questions like “Are the sand storms really that bad?” or “Do you have to cover up your face in Dubai?” And many times, her answers surprise them. Just how is Dubai like? Let Angel Peng give you a rundown of things you never knew of Dubai in her first of four contributions to Singapore Scribbles.

15 months ago, I sold our house, sold our car, packed our bags and came over to Dubai with my son so that we could be with my husband who has been working here since 2010.



My son, Ace, with the Burj Al Arab, Dubai’s most famous hotel.

Whenever I tell people I am living in Dubai now, many questions about the local customs and culture will come up and I find it rather amusing that most of the time, my answers are not what people expect.

My conclusion that is while everyone knows Dubai, their knowledge of this little city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is really limited only to its name and its famous Burj Al Arab (whom many refer to as the white, sail-shaped, expensive hotel).

1) Are the sandstorms really bad?

Because everyone loves Tom Cruise and everyone has watched Mission Impossible 4 (which was partially filmed in Dubai), the most common question I get is, “Are the sandstorms really bad?”

Actually, the sandstorms are NEVER that bad (the film depicted this really bad sandstorm where there was virtually zero visibility). Come on, people, it is a Hollywood blockbuster. Tom is going to look so lame with just some sand dancing in the background, right?

Sandstorms and fogs are pretty common, especially when the seasons are about to change. Most of the time, they are just a pretty sight when you are out on the roads because you will see sand ‘dancing’ on the expressways. If the sandstorm is slightly serious, you just feel sand on your skin when you are out on the roads but you definitely can still see what’s in front of you! You might feel your vehicle going against huge resistance when the sandstorms are really bad since it can get really windy. But really, I have yet to see any sandstorm as bad as those featured in the movie and neither has many of my friends who have stayed here for years!:)




View from the 27th Storey while inside Burj Al Arab on a sand storm day.

During one of the long sandstorm stretches I can remember, I still got a pretty picture and a decent view of the beach while I was out celebrating my 8th year wedding anniversary at the top of Burj Al Arab.

2) Do you have to cover your face up when you go shopping?

I guess they meant whether I have to dress up either like the picture on the left or the picture on the right when I go out.

The answer is NO. I only dressed up in the abaya (the black robe that the females wear) for fun during a desert safari trip when a friend came to visit.

Dubai is an international city with only 30% indigenous population. It is also very different from Saudi Arabia where people do have to cover up when they are out in the streets. I do not think it will be a popular destination for business, investment and holidays if they were to force everyone to wear the kandara (the white robe that the males wear) and abaya.



Mr Nasif Kayed sharing his knowledge with us.

When I attended a session by the famous Emerati Culture Guru, Mr Nasif Kayed, from the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding, we were told that women in the Middle East choose to cover up not just for modesty but also for a variety of reasons such as protecting their fair skin or choosing to remain anonymous as she goes about her daily affairs. Nowadays though, while most women wear the abaya, many of the young ones do not cover their face at all. Some of them even let their hair down freely.

And even though most people’s perception of the abaya is that it is a piece of boring, drab, black clothing, different seasons actually mean different designs! Depending on the current fashion trend, the abaya sometimes end at the ankles and sometimes end trailing on the floor even when they are wearing six-inch heels.

Any woman who visits Dubai is NOT required to wear an abaya or wear a veil to cover her face (though you may do so if you wish as long as you respect the outfit and their customs and don’t do things like drinking alcohol when wearing this outfit).

The shopping malls, will however remind you to “Please wear respectful clothing”. And in that, it means they encourage you to cover your shoulders and also your knees. So if you would like to wear a mini skirt but would still like to respect the local custom, you can just wear leggings underneath your mini skirt. If you do want to wear an off-shoulder top with a mini skirt while walking around in the malls, you won’t be fined or jailed. Dubai is not a “FINE” city (even though tickets for traffic offenses cost way more here in Dubai) but you MAY get disapproving stares from the more conservative men and women here. If you can live with that, then go ahead and flaunt your assets.




My typical outfit in Dubai: leggings or long pants with long sleeve Indian style top.



Me with my friends at a charity event. My alternative dress code, long dress with a cardigan to cover my shoulders.

My mother always said to respect others and be polite when visiting people in their homes. So I choose to cover myself up with my favourite leggings and long sleeves or long dress whenever I go out.. Interestingly, I wear the long sleeves most often during summer because the sun is too scorching hot to have it shine on your bare skin.

On a side note, I found out that the man’s kandara without any hatta (headgear) is equivalent to them wearing T-shirt and jeans. But the moment they add a (usually white) hatta, the kandara transforms itself into becoming an equivalent of a suit, even if they are still wearing sandals on their feet! Interesting, isn’t it?

3) Are The Women Submissive Slaves To Men?

I have once had a friend who told me that she heard that according to the Islamic law, a woman is not allowed to reject her husband’s advances in the bedroom and have to make love to their partners while covered under blankets because they are only allowed to procreate to reproduce.

I don’t have anyone whom I can verify such intimate details with. But my observation here is that men here take very good care of their women. Rather than think of the women here as submissive slaves, I think that women here are well-protected partners of their better halves. For example, if you were to cross the street with a child in tow, the local men will almost always stop their car to let you cross the road first. And if you were to take the metro, they actually have a special carriage for women and children who choose not to squeeze with the men in other carriages which I think is a very good idea!

And contrary to popular belief that women here have no rights, women in Dubai enjoy 5 main rights under Islamic law. And they are: the right to be educated, the right to dowry, the right to inheritance, the right to divorce and the right to their own money and earnings.

The right to dowry is a very interesting concept to me. Apparently, when a woman gets married, she has the right to dowry. This means, the groom’s family will give HER dowry. Yes, that is right. The bride gets the money. Not her mother or her father. This money is meant for her to keep and spend as she is assumed to have to quit her job once she is pregnant with children and will have no source of income. It gives her the right to buy whatever she may need so that she doesn’t have to say, "Honey, I need..."

Just FYI, the MARKET RATE for a normal girl is something like 150,000 in UAE dirhams and that is the basic minimum. That is 50,000 Singaporean dollars! Someone who is pretty, well-educated and in a middle-class family may receive 300,000 to 400,000 dirhams as dowry. And what do most women use this money for? SHOPPING! No wonder I see so many of them carry tonnes of LV paper bags in their hands after their shopping sprees when I am out in the malls.

Also, women have the right to inheritance in the event that their parents or husband passes away and the right to divorce. For example, if their husband wants to have another wife and they are not happy, they can reject the idea or they can divorce him. FYI, most men here only have one wife. 10 per cent of the men have two wives but very few have more than that.

And last and not least, women have rights to their own money. This is like what I always tell my husband, “My money is my money... but your money is also my money.” It is really not too bad to be born as a middle-class Emirati woman you know.

4) How Are The People Like In Dubai?

Walking around in Dubai feels a little bit like walking around in Singapore as Dubai has a huge number of foreign talents. The only difference is that a Chinese face like mine is a rare sight. I very often get mistaken for being either Japanese or Korean as there is a larger number of Koreans and Japanese here. 

You don’t really see the locals except in the malls. People here are not very good at recognising Asian faces and sometimes I’m mistaken as a Filipino. I have noticed there is usually a change in their attitude when I announce that I am Singaporean and usually, people see Singaporeans as being slightly higher on the social rank as compared to an Indian person or a Filipino person.

Depending on where you are in Dubai, you will meet different sets of people. Here in the “older” part of Dubai where I stay, you mostly see Indians and Filipinos walking around on the streets. If you were to walk around in Jumeirah Beach Residence area, you will see mostly Caucasians and feel as if you are on a holiday in Europe!





The beach along JBR stretch, the ONLY place in Dubai with ang moh bikini babes!

The people here are mostly friendly but they have their own quirks. I have noticed with amusement during my metro rides here, that if people see a pregnant lady or an old woman, they don’t actually give up their seats. Before you take out your cameras and handphones to STOMP them, let me clarify that they do instead, move their butts, and shift in so that the seat can sit one more person. It is thus not uncommon to find five BIG people sitting on a four-seater or three people sitting on a two-seater.



Whoever said, “Three’s a crowd?”

I don’t know if the elevator buttons here are infected with viruses or what but most people will not press the button after they walk into the lift. They will usually stand there and stare at the door and wait for the lift door to close by itself. They don’t budge even when everyone is already in the lift, neither do they lift a finger to press the “door open” button if someone is running towards the lift. In the surprising event that they do, they will never ask you which floor you might be going to and press for you too even if they are standing right next to the panel of buttons and you are far, far away.

Also, when trying to cross the road, someone has to press the traffic light button so that the green man comes up quickly. In Dubai, the fine for illegally crossing the road when the red man is up is very high. But yet, there can be 10 people standing there and no one will bother to press the button.

When I try to press the button either for the lift to wait for someone or press the button for the traffic light, I sometimes get strange looks as if they think I am nuts! I kid you not!

5) How can I send something to you in Dubai? What is your address?

This is a rather difficult question to answer. Dubai, unlike what most people think, was never a country. It was formerly a small fishing village where people dive for pearls or fish as a way of living. (Pretty much like Singapore, don’t you think?) Then the Bedouins (nomads in this part of the world) lived here for a while and eventually, a group of people from Abu Dhabi decided to come over here and call this place home. In the last 40-50 years, the country has developed very quickly from a small fishing village to a cosmopolitan city filled with architectural wonders, all thanks to their visionary Sheikh and this is why the Sheikh is well loved by his people here.

And perhaps it is because of this reason that Dubai does not have postal codes. Most addresses in Dubai contain not numbers but phrases like “opposite Lulu Hypermart”, or “behind XYZ Building”. Take the building I live in. I can name you the street it is situated at but there is no postal code. It is merely a white building (most buildings here are either white or sand-coloured) with no signs but the building has a name. If I hitch a ride or take a cab home, I have to tell people where to turn and name the landmarks around me. My husband’s company address doesn’t even have a road name. It merely has the name of the area it is situated in and the building’s name (which is by the way, not very obvious as there are no signs on the building as to what this building is called. Couriers often have to call me and ask for landmarks around it to find it). Not to mention, things get built here pretty fast and roads change directions overnight due to the ongoing road works to build more metros, more roads and more buildings.

Even Google Maps, advanced as it is, is of little help whenever I try to search for a way to walk from the metro station to my desired destination point. The same can be said about the ‘official’ maps provided by Dubai’s own Road and Transportation Authority (RTA). I couldn’t even find my son’s school using their official address on the RTA maps! It is no wonder that most things get lost in the mail! According to a friend who has been staying in Dubai for a long time, if you are lucky, your mail does arrive. Only, it arrives some three to six months late!:)

And that’s why many people use a P.O. Box or their office addresses as a mailing address instead of their home addresses. Until today, I still have a problem deciding what to include in my residential address here but for good measure, I always name the embassy opposite and also the building right next to me. 

When we shifted in, this building had a sign that said “CMAX TOLET”. “CMAX” being the name of the company that was helping to rent out this building and for a while, whenever I had to take a cab, I always said, “xxx road, CMAX TOLET” and I am ALWAYS amazed that they can find it! After they took off the sign though, it became a little harder to describe where I stay.

Until today, my son being only 7, will say he lives in CMAX TOLET if anyone asks him!:)

6) Can you find pork in Dubai?

When I was back in Singapore during the summer holidays last year, many of my friends suggested meeting at places that serve good pork dishes since they assumed I must be deprived of them living in a Muslim state.

Contrary to popular belief, pork is available in the supermarkets even though chicken is the staple and you will find it used as a replacement for many pork dishes in the restaurants. It is only illegal for restaurants to sell it but it is legal to buy and cook for your own consumption.




“Pork” section in a supermarket.

But well, I am actually only a part-time meat eater and pork is not really my cup of tea.

Interestingly, the type of food I miss most often is the Chinese-style vegetarian food commonly available in Singapore.

Vegetarian food in Dubai is mostly Indian as there is a huge Indian population here. The only specifically vegetarian Chinese restaurant I found here is one called PURE LOTUS which is high-end fine dining that sets us back by a few hundred Singapore dollars for food the quality I can find in the kopitiams in Singapore!



I suspect we were probably paying for all the fanciful display, like our toufu served with fire in a jade container and appetizers served in white pot complete with twigs and smoke!

After living in Dubai for a while, I have discovered that whenever one has Chinese food craving, there is a sort of a test you have to do whenever you attempt to try a new Chinese restaurant. Firstly, check with your Chinese friends if they have heard of it before. Then, you should look inside and take a look at the people who patronise the restaurant. If you don’t see any Chinese, forget it. If you do, check again…this time round for the chefs. If they are not Chinese, you also can forget it.



Chindian restaurant alert: Beware beware when you see these bamboo fonts and Chinese lanterns!

There are many Chinese-looking restaurants all over Dubai. The restaurant owners usually use very Chinese- looking fonts and the shop fronts have green-roofed tiles, red pillars or Chinese lanterns as part of the decoration. They usually will also have some very Chinese-sounding names. Don’t be taken in! Those are no Chinese restaurants! I came up with a name for them and call them CHINDIAN restaurants! They are Indian versions of what the Indians think Chinese restaurants and Chinese food is like. They are strangely popular with the Indians here and serve a wide variety of food, including Singaporean fried noodles. These Chindian restaurants usually serve food that is very salty and very sweet and is decidedly very NON-Chinese in the sauces that they use. So avoid them at all cost.

Sadly, Japanese restaurants here are also mostly “Filipnese” restaurants -- a Filipino’s take on what Japanese food means. There is virtually no Sakae Sushi equivalent here. Some of them are so bad I would rather go hungry than eat! You can only find authentic Japanese food in the expensive Japanese restaurants where the chefs are Japanese!

In the event that you do find a Chinese restaurant with chefs from China, it is also important to remind them to add less salt, less oil and no ajinomoto if you don’t want to die of thirst after eating there.

Oh yes, and NEVER order “Singapore noodles” here in Dubai no matter where you see it on the menu. They always come back looking and tasting NOTHING like the char mee we are used to in Singapore. They are only called Singaporean noodles because they are fried with the yellow noodles commonly found in Singapore!

7) How do you get your Singaporean food fix in Dubai?

Generally speaking, the first way to get our Singaporean food fix is to visit Singapore Deli, the Malaysian Noodle Bowl, the Indonesian Siri Nusa Restaurant or Betawi café. The Hong Kong style Lan Kwai Fong, Da Shi Dai or even the Taiwanese Sino Chai restaurant does the trick too. Even so, there is a limit to the types of food you can find here.

Should you be craving for things like fishball noodles and laksa, one way to overcome that is to go to the supermarts and stock up on the Dodo noodles that come in various flavours including prawn soup, laksa and fishball dried mee pok. However, if you should have other cravings like yong tau foo, gao deng kway, economical bee hoon, pandan cake etc, you will have to MAKE YOUR OWN. Should you go down that path, be ready to visit a whole variety of supermarkets!



From one who can only cook maggi noodles, I can now whip up a pretty decent meal and make muah chee, fried carrot cake and fried noodles!

Food is very expensive here. The S$3.50 you use to buy your chicken rice in Singapore can only buy you cheap Indian food or MacDonalds Happy Meal here. My atas friends usually eat in restaurants and say their bills come up to 200aed (S$66) or so for two. Even when a more frugal person like me eats out, our typical cheapo meal costs S$10-20 per person. And so, we cook a lot.

Being Singaporean, this is a HUGE problem. In order to make all the Singaporean foods that my husband and son miss, I often have to go to different supermarkets to get different ingredients! Cake flour and such can be found in the ang moh supermarket like Waitrose or Spinneys. Indian condiments like curry powder can be found in Indian supermarkets like Almaya or even Carrefour. Salted and century eggs and a larger variety of green vegetables can be found in Chinese supermarkets like Phoenix or Wen Zhou Supermart. I think this is a uniquely Singaporean problem since other people from other countries will only miss food from their own country and will only need to visit ONE supermarket to satisfy their cravings! But I guess I can’t complain.

8) What do people do in Dubai?

This is another question that’s very difficult to answer. Dubai has lots to offer her diverse set of residents. However, it depends on what time of the year it is and which portion of this diverse population you are talking about.

Dubai is very hot during summer (usually during the periods between June and August). The hottest being 50 degrees Celsius and you literally walk right into an oven when you come out of a mall. And so, during summer, most people stay at home-- Singaporeans like to hold mahjong and makan sessions. And because the malls know that other than the confines of their air-con retail space, there is nowhere to go, they have lots of interesting programmes and performances to attract you to the malls.

Come autumn and winter though, Dubai becomes much more exciting. Many of the ang mohs will sunbathe by the beach. The Arabs love to have picnics at their many parks and it really is rather pleasant! Think East Coast Park but with AIR CON! An interesting observation I made about the locals is that while we usually just bring a mat to the park for a picnic, they will bring a whole gang of 10 to 20 people and bring 10 to 20 chairs, one for each of them. Some go picnic by the beach as well but no barbeques are allowed on most beaches. Others may camp overnight at the Big Red, the area of desert where the sand is sort of golden red.

Many of the ang mohs and locals will also bring their jet skis and go jet skiing or even boating by the beaches.



Never mind the busy traffic, let’s wind down with a good cup of tea.

The Pakistani construction workers though have a different idea of what makes a good place to picnic. I have seen them picnic along road dividers and also right in the middle of roundabouts!

9) How do people get about in Dubai?

Most people will tell you that you cannot survive without a car in Dubai as the public transport system is still developing. As a result, most people drive from one place to another.

If you looked at the roads, you would notice that most people in Dubai drive big cars like huge four-wheel drives and SUVs like Ford Expedition and Chevrolet’s Silverano that make the Nissan Murano look like a dwarf! Of course, the fact that a typical Arabic family has 4 children has something to do with it but mostly, it is because these huge cars get to do “cool” things like mounting kerbs to “cross the road” (I swear I saw a police car do that once!) or to use it as a parking lot! But these are of course against the traffic rules.




No worries if you can’t find a parking lot. Just park on the kerb!

The roads in Dubai are much wider than that of Singapore and therefore, it may seem much easier to drive in Dubai as compared to Singapore. However, you will have to take into consideration most of the cars here have little regard for traffic rules.

Majority of the drivers I see on the roads either signal very late or don’t signal at all. I have also seen many who signal right when they want to turn left. It is also very, very common to see a “car cross the road” (a car going from lane 4 to lane 1 by driving perpendicular to the roads). I had a friend who drove at 160km/hr on the fast lane where the speed limit on the road is 140km/hr. He was stopped and scolded by the traffic police because “160km/hr is too slow to be driving on the fast lane!”

But what if you do not drive? If you are walking (only a viable option during winter) , it will be good to note that in Dubai, pedestrians have to “show some initiative”. If you are crossing a road without a traffic light or are at a zebra crossing, do not expect the cars to slow down or stop.! The trick is to just cross and make a big action of wanting to cross. Should you stop at the zebra crossing, the cars will just continue to drive past and you will never be able to get to the other side of the road.

If walking is not for you, you might want to take a bus but the bus services here are really limited and even though there is a timetable for the bus timings, my experience is that they are never accurate or on time.

Taking a taxi is another alternative but most of the taxi drivers are from other countries and they may not speak good English so that is a problem for some. Besides, many of them also have hygiene problems and it is no fun seated in a taxi with a strange, pungent, smell especially during summer! Because of this, ladies have the luxury of calling for a Ladies Cab. These are pink cabs that are driven by women but they only ferry men if there are ladies accompanying them.

Alternatively, one may also take the metro but that will only take you to certain more popular places like the Dubai Mall, the Mall of Emirates or the Dubai Creek.

Don’t be fooled by the names of the stations. Unlike Singapore where the stations are named according to where they are located, the stations here are named according to the malls or companies that pay to have stations named after them. Also, do not expect Dubai Mall Station to lead you right into Dubai Mall. Once you alight, you either have to walk 10 to15 minutes to the mall or take a shuttle to go over.

The layout of the metro stations here is pretty similar to the MRT stations in Singapore since many good Singaporean engineers were hired for the project. But that is where the similarity ends. There are never clear signs within the metro stations to tell you where the nearby hotels or shopping malls are. I am assuming it is because they did not pay and so they are not endorsed.

If you are crossing the creek though, there is one special extra transportation option you could use and that is a little boat called the Abbra. During winter, abbra rides are a great source of joy and adventure for our family. It is nothing more than taking a water taxi across the creek and it is cheap! Only 1 dirham per person!




Open concept abbra with a boat man standing in the middle beside the engine of the boat and people seated all around.

If you were less adventurous, there is also an air-conditioned version but it is not half as fun as the open-air one.

10) Why are you so fair?

Yes, the desert is very hot and during summer, the weather can be as warm as 50 degree Celsius in the mid afternoon. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t mean that everyone becomes chao dar and turns black like charcoal.

It is precisely because the weather is so warm most of the time and the sun has such strong rays (you actually feel it burning your skin after 5-10 minutes of direct sunlight) that even boh chup people like me will actually take the effort to wear long sleeves and use an umbrella when I go out.

And it is precisely because it is so warm we have to run straight into our car from the air-conditioned shopping malls that people actually tend to avoid going out or going under the sun at all out of habit. As a result, most fair-skinned people are still fair here in Dubai. In fact, Dubai has one of the highest incidence for vitamin D deficiency because everyone is just avoiding the sun out of habit.

Yet, if you do see people walkingon the streets, you will often see them walking without any form of shade. I have only seen some Indian women carry umbrellas, most people just brave the heat.

Alas, when I was shopping around in Dubai, I rarely can find places that sell umbrellas, much less those with UV protection. I would have thought there is a huge market for such a product here but apparently not. The only ones I can find are the cheap, lousy ones. Dubai doesn’t really rain very often but it does rain every once in a while. The first year I was here, it only rained ONCE. In the last few months though, it rained a total of 5 times and that in itself was considered an anomaly. Because it only rains like once or twice a year, Dubai has very poor drainage system so consecutive rain meant that there would be floods all over. And because the drivers here are not used to driving in the rain, they usually drive very, very slowly when it rains. I pity my hubby who had to literally “drive through a river” a week after he collected his new car.




Driving through a river on a brand new sedan is not an adventure for the faint hearted!

Because it doesn’t rain very often here, most of the buildings are not really water proof. Even the big shopping malls are no exception. One of the rainy days, I was in a huge shopping mall when it started raining heavily and before I knew it, I started seeing pails and containers all over the mall! That is because the building is totally not water proof at all! I literally had to walk through a ‘curtain of rain” to get into the supermarket located within the mall!:)

But on a positive side, you never had to worry about bringing an umbrella when you go out or getting your brand new leather shoes wet because the chances of that happening is something like 0.6%. After so many months in Dubai, I actually do miss the smell of rain. But when I am back in Singapore, I miss the fact that I will almost never get caught in the rain in Dubai.

So there you go, 10 things (okay, actually a little more than 10) that you never knew about Dubai.