Spot the difference: life in the United Arab Emirates vs life in Austria

May 25, 2020 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, food, lists, local culture, photography, UAE, Austria

For ten years, from 2009 to 2019, I lived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Since moving back to my native Austria, 18 months ago, I’ve gone through my personal version of reverse culture shock – slowly but surely wrapping my head around the many contrasts between how life was and the way things are now. I have no regrets about leaving but wouldn’t say it was easy either. Looking back, it’s clear that even though so much has changed, ultimately, the essence of “home” shines through. Here are eleven images that sum up the many ways my old reality diverges from the new.

The personal versus the universal at the Louvre Abu Dhabi launch

November 16, 2017 by Lisa Reinisch in art, architecture, anecdotes, Abu Dhabi, construction, design, launches, master plans, UAE

There is this thing I do whenever I drive across the bridge that links Abu Dhabi to Saadiyat Island, the emirate’s cultural tourism megaproject: I look over towards the stretch of shoreline where the master plan envisages five major cultural institutions (Louvre Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a performaing arts centre and a maritime museum) to take shape. I did it back when there wasn’t anything to see except an empty patch of sand. I did it when construction on the first of them, Jean Nouvel's Louvre Abu Dhabi, finally began. And I do it now, that the museum has been open for almost a week.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi opens in two months and I'm still here

September 07, 2017 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, art, architecture, construction, design, events, history, journalism, launches, master plans, UAE

Having followed the twists and turns of the Louvre story for eight years, I found myself walking into yesterday's press conference, at which the museum would reveal its opening date, in a state of giddy anticipation. As they addressed an auditorium full of journalists, publicists, curators, officials and dignitaries, the speakers seemed to share the sentiment. When the first address, by HH Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, was over the opening date suddenly appeared on a large screen. An awkward, short ripple of applause went through the crowd. 11 November 2017. On deadline and just over two months away. And so, voilà, just like that, le chat was out of the bag.

Desert vinyl

January 15, 2016 by Lisa Reinisch in music, UAE, recommendations, Dubai, Abu Dhabi

While copious amounts of red tape continue to stymie the opening of The Flip Side, the independent record store the UAE so sorely needs, I thought it would be nice to draw attention to something our nascent independent music scene already DOES have: two vinyl-only record labels. Yes, you read that right. Unbeknownst to many, experimental imprints Bedouin Records and Ark to Ashes have been releasing homegrown beats on 12" for over two years now.

Vampires and pomegranates, or: why my brain almost imploded with joy the other day

October 29, 2014 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, anecdotes, cinema, events, Movies, music, recommendations, UAE

Last weekend, two films at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF) blew me away, although they could hardly have been any more different from each other: one was the 1968 Soviet/Armenian classic, The Color of Pomegranates, by Sergei Parajanov; the other, Ana Lily Amirpour’s directorial debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, aptly described in the catalogue as ‘the world’s first Iranian vampire Western’. Discovering a surprising link between them felt unfeasibly exciting and pleasantly short-circuited a whole bunch of synapses in my cultural grey matter.

Adihex 2014: guns, gadgets and… conservation?

September 16, 2014 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, events, UAE, trade fairs

On the labyrinthine marketplace that is Adihex (Abu Dhabi International Hunting & Equestrian Exhibition), exhibitors from all over the world tout anything from live falcons and remote-controlled tents to equine treadmills and designer rifles. You never know what you are going to find. As usual, I walk away with an utterly random, firmly non-hunting selection. This year's pick: an enamel teapot, a satellite phone, a dressage whip and, not to forget, some memorable impressions from my first visit to the fair's weaponry section.

Good deed of the week? Go see Champ of the Camp

February 01, 2014 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, construction, launches, Movies, UAE, cinema

This weekend, Champ of The Camp, the remarkable documentary film by locally based filmmaker Mahmood Kaboor (Being Osama and Grandma: A Thousand Times) hit cinemas nationwide. For a film like this, in a country like this, to get a theatrical release is a major achievement and it follows months of social media campaigning, international press coverage and negotiations with local distributors. But if ticket sales don’t live up to the distributor’s expectations, Champ of the Camp might disappear from cinemas within days. Right now, there is no better way to support two historically disregarded groups in the UAE: manual workers and independent documentary filmmakers.

Bad ad of the moment: Center for Waste Management - Abu Dhabi

November 17, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, advertising, bad ad of the moment, comedy, media, UAE

While it is clear that the Center for Waste Management – Abu Dhabi (CWM) is valiantly fighting an uphill struggle to get the general public to dispose of household trash in a responsible manner, this attempt at an innovative public information campaign is not doing them (or us) any favours. Using comic strips to make unsavoury topics such as pest control and domestic hygiene more palatable is not a bad approach. But cramming cultural and gender stereotypes into six panels of patronising storyline is no way to go about it.

Here be museums: promising signs at the Saadiyat construction site

October 10, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, architecture, master plans, UAE, construction, anecdotes

The neatly dressed man with the backpack is standing by the side of the highway, next to a broken-down car, and waves at us. At first, we think he wants us to tow him, but it turns out he is not worried about getting to a repair shop; he has applied for work at the Louvre Abu Dhabi construction site and the breakdown has made him late for his job interview. Can we take him to Saadiyat island? Sure, we say. Of course. Secretly, I am not just happy to help the guy out, I'm also quite excited to see what is going on at a construction site I've watched with anticipation ever since I moved to Abu Dhabi. A few months ago, it finally went from stagnation to 24-hour activity and I have been wanting to peek behind the security fence ever since.

Beef graphics, anyone?

September 29, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, journalism, media, UAE, food, graphics, illustrations

Cows are getting a lot of press these days, most of it bad. Whether it is because of their climate-destroying metabolism, the use of vampire steroids in their rearing or the deeper meaning of steak, media outlets everywhere have been serving juicy stories on the ins and outs of red-meat consumption. In the UAE, a number of magazine editorials have focused, perhaps unsurprisingly, on the less ominous, more marketable aspects of our infatuation with beef, such as restaurant reviews and recipes. As a result, bovine diagrams like this one are popping up all over the place.

Guilty pleasure: tales from behind the veil

August 13, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, books, Dubai, literature, local culture, UAE, women's rights, saudi arabia

As a visit to any bookshop in the UAE reveals, an entire genre of novels based on the promise of ‘lifting the veil’ and revealing the ‘hidden lives’ of women in traditional Muslim societies has emerged and is doing brisk trade. Many of them, such as Jean Sasson's blockbuster Princess series, deal specifically with the lives of women in Saudi Arabia. Slowly but surely, the women of the UAE are also becoming the subject of such literary portrayals. To me, these books are strangely irresistible, a guilty pleasure. Guilty, because the reasons for this fascination seem to oscillate between a principled intention to explore local writing and an indignant kind of voyeurism. Awkward stuff. But I can't help myself, I want to read them all. For better or worse, these are three tales from behind the veil I've devoured most recently.

No joke

June 23, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, events, UAE, comedy, lebanon, israel

No country for funny men, this. The entire Middle East leg of Russell Brand's world tour The Messiah Complex, which was meant to open in Abu Dhabi on August 15, just got cancelled because of threats from extremists. How dreary. How tedious. How disappointingly predictable. Update (24 June): Come to think of it, if this outcome happens to have been part of Brand's PR plan all along, I'd like add this: how lame. How manipulative. How defeatist.

Road rage: Emirati journalist gets slated for controversial blog on driving habits

March 27, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, UAE, journalism

It’s safe to say that Ayesha Al Khoori has had a pretty terrible week. On March 21, The National published a controversial blog post by the young Emirati journalist, in which she intended to argue against a new proposal to lower the legal driving age in the UAE; an argument she decided to spice up with personal anecdotes about her own driving habits. Three days later, she was forced to respond publicly to a deluge of thousands of angry responses from readers.

IDEX Envy 2013

February 24, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, UAE, events

Another two years gone by, another edition of IDEX I have watched from the outside, like a would-be party crasher: full of grand visions of what it would be like to get in; held back by nerves and the lack of an invite. Ever since reading Robert Fisk’s account of his visit to IDEX 2001, I’ve been harbouring an intense curiosity regarding what goes on at this biennial show of global defense gadgetry.

Archive finds: Zahrat Al Khaleej front pages from 1980

February 12, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in fashion, UAE, UAE media history, Abu Dhabi

Going through the small but well-kept collection of old magazines at the National Centre of Documentation and Research, I was excited to come across a stack of old Zahrat Al Khaleej ("Gulf Flower") magazines. This was the UAE's first widely distributed women's title. What strikes me as interesting about these covers is that, 33 years ago, ordinary girls from the UAE and other Gulf countries were happy to be photographed without covering their hair. Today, the vast majority of UAE nationals wear traditional dress and one would be hard pressed to find a Khaleeji (Gulf Arab) woman to do a magazine photo shoot without full abaya and shayla.