Behind the Ghutra

Marjorie in Qatar has an excellent post today on the discrimination faced by men in Qatar.

Many of us Westerners are apalled by the subjegation of men in Qatar (only the other day I saw an angry Qatari woman berate her obviously intimidated husband in public), and it is great that finally an expat woman has the courage to speak out about it.

As Marjorie writes:

Since it would be preposterous to believe any person would choose to wear an item of clothing that I personally don't wear, I am led to the self-evident conclusion that the men of the Gulf region are being forced to wear the ghutra by their oppressive female overlords.

Check out the full post here: Behind the Ghutra

Qatar Game Banned in the US

According to The Qatar Times, a Qatar computer game has been banned in the US. We have scanned and added the newspaper article below, but we have also typed out the full article for those of you with text browsers. (It's about time the Qatar Times got a website!)

Qatar Game Banned in the US

The Qatar computer game Landcruiser, based on driving experiences in Doha, the capital city of Qatar, has been banned by authorities in America for being too scary.

"An old women died of a heart attack after using it, one teenager is still curled up in a foetus position two weeks after purchasing it, and some of our staff have now reverted to using horse and cart after routine testing of the game," complained the head of the US board for approval of computer games, which has previously approved controversial games such as Scary Death Monster Cannibal Ghosts for the under 5's.

In the game, which uses real footage of driving taken from car cameras in Qatar, users have to complete a number of routine tasks, such as driving the wrong way round a roundabout in a Landcruiser while speaking to an angry customer on a mobile phone and eating a large cheeseburger and fries.

The designer of the game, Dr F. Ool, who is also the brainchild of Qatar Snow City, defended the game.

"It may not be popular in America, but it is perfect preparation for actually driving in Qatar."

Qatar residents didn't see what the fuss was about, with one expatriate, Ahmed from Egypt, saying:

"I thought it was boring!"

Qatar has a burgeouning computer games industry, and the game is just one of several hundred to be released this year.

Also See: Qatar Visitor's 90 Second Guide to Driving in Qatar

Only in Qatar!

Having a coffee in Souq Waqif - the first in a while - we were pleased and suprised to see two mounted police riding two super Arab horses on patrol. And then taken aback to see, trotting behind the two horses, two men ready to clean up anything the horses left behind!

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The RSPCA in Africa: Movie

This has nothing whatsoever to do with Qatar, but hey, it made me laugh...

We hear much of the excellent work undertaken by the RSPCA. However, in Africa, the work of RSPCA volunteers goes relatively unnoticed. If you have some time to spare and want to do something really positive for Animals in Africa, then becoming an RSPCA volunteer may be for you. The attached clip highlights an RSPCA volunteer at work in a Game Reserve.

Wealthy Fish

In Oil and Gas rich Qatar even the fish are wealthy - in fact they even have their own wealth department, which is probably why this Lobster is so happy!

Original Lobster image by Sr Curran.

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Famous Visitors

It seems that Qatar is gaining more and more recognition, with a string of celebrities visiting the country. In addition to a lot of local royalty, the opening of the Islamic Museum also saw De Niro, who will be returning with a duplicate of the Tribeca Film Festival next November.

World Leaders are arriving for a major UN conference - including one Qatar probably won't be boasting about: Robert Mugabe. They will be rather more pleased that the top two tennis players in the world, Federer and Nadal, will be coming here in 2009 to battle out the Qatar Open. In fact, it is perhaps a mark of how much attention that Qatar - and the Islamic Museum - is getting at the moment that hardly anyone noticed the four famous visitors below.

Original Image By Amar

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Qatar's Future

What will the future hold for Qatar? Gazing into our crystal ball, Qatar Visitor came up with these ten predictions...

1. Qatar will become richer - much richer. Not in the immediate future - gas and oil prices will fall, reducing the revenue available to Qatar, but it will become richer in the long term. After buying up all the shares in the world at rock bottom prices during the coming depression, Qatar will be able to live off dividends long before its fossil fuels run out. America will survive on Qatar handouts, while collections of food and clothing will be made for the poor and hungry in Europe.

2. As wealth increases, the quality of life will fall. As more money enters the country, more people will buy cars. Continued road building will fail to keep up with the growth in traffic. The eight children most families here seem to have will grow up and want a Land Cruiser each. People will spend more and more time in their cars, stuck in traffic, and less time with their families. On the rare occasions people venture outside, they will have to wear oxygen masks.

3. There will be public transport. The public transport will be world class. No one will use it except for the poor, who will find it very useful, and a few mad expats. Everyone who has a car will continue to drive.

4. There will be more cities. They might not be cities in the the sense that we have them in other countries (i.e. with more than ten people living there), but they will be called cities. If you have been in Qatar for a while you will understand this.

5. The real estate bubble will pop. People always say a bubble is not going to pop, and it always pops. There will be another bubble a few years later.

6. Inflation will decrease - in the short term. However, this will be associated with recession, which may be milder than the rest of the world due to Qatar's oil and gas reserves. After a while inflation will rise again, and after five years an apple will cost one hundred million riyals.

7. Qatar will face problems with flooding. We live in a world which is getting hotter, and Qatar is a low country. As Qatar is gradually swamped it will suddenly become very environmentally conscious, and will champion the environment across the world. They will build a city, and call it Environment City. They may even put the price of gasoline up, and will certainly invest in Nuclear Energy and solar power. The richest, realising the world is doomed, will also invest in large boats.

8. The Qatar stock market will go up. And down. Or down and up. Whenever it goes up people will think it will carry on doing so and put all their money on it. Whenever it goes down people will think it will carry on doing so and take all their money out just as it reaches the bottom. A few smart cookies will realise this and do the opposite, making a fortune in the meantime. Actually, this goes for most of the rest of the world too.

9. Qataris will suddenly become aware of the Internet. There will be an Internet bubble. Barwa will build Internet City. Sites like Qatar Living will be exchanged for a 1000 times earnings. Then suddenly everyone will become aware that websites don't actually make much money and the bubble will come crashing down.

10. Qatar will become high tech. Japanese scientists will be brought into the country to create thobed robots who can clean, cook, take a beating with a smile and build buildings even cheaper than expat labourers can. Robot City will be built.

Got any more to add? Let us know...

Smell Checkpoint

Amnesia has a great cartoon on his blog, Mr Q, which focuses on the recent comment by Hyatt Plaza that they will not allow smelly and badly dressed bachelors into their mall. (See No Bad Smelling Men Please for the full story.)

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My Dear

Today, my dear, we are going to speak about language.

Or specifically, my dear. It's a phrase you will notice when you work/live here, and may be used to a complete stranger. In fact, I pulled one friend up and she retorted she was Asian, that this was Asian English and she was going to use it.

To a native speaker it sounds over familiar, close to my darling - not something you would say to a lover, but to your family. Even then it sounds wrong. My dear sounds old fashioned, or condescending - if we used it, it would be to achieve a certain effect, either self-mocking or patronising. Personally, I am more likely to use the word dear with an Oh in front - normally in front of my mother-in-law when I can't say anything stronger!

But it has become part of the language here, a variant of a language which is, after all, spoken by more non-native speakers than by native speakers. It is used to be friendly, often during the first meeting, though it may still jar with a native speaker.

There are a lot of odd phrases here, many of them imported and picked up from India - not surprisingly, as there are more Indians than Qataris here. One I always love is an old fashioned phrase which must have been preserved in India long after it was lost in England. "May I know your good name, sir?"

Of course some things are just plain wrong, if we are allowed to say anything is wrong in this post modern world. I personally hate "open your shoes," mostly because my daughter has picked it up from someone or somewhere and always uses it. This error has come about, I believe, as it is a translation of what people say in many other languages.

I like, on the other hand, the over-use of the present continuous, which still seems to be a mostly Indian trait, with limited use among the Arabs here. There is nothing like a "I am liking this very much," accompanied by a friendly waggle of the head to warm your heart. (Presumably it was one of these chaps who came up with the Mac Donalds ad "I'm lovin' it".)

A lack of awareness of the subtlities of English can lead to embarassment - or even loss of appetite. I was put off by one menu when fried crab was spelt as fried crap, only to move on to the next cafe and discover that there was pregnant chicken on the menu. (Fortunately, it tasted very nice, especially when accompanied by Truckish coffee.)

It's not just menus where you can find such gems - at one building site there was a sign saying "Danger: Erection Going On."

But none of these errors really matter; the great thing is that people from all over the world and with many different tongues are able to communicate - and native speakers of English like me are very lucky that it is our language being spoken. So at the end of the day, as long as you can get your meaning across, it is all "Same Same".

Want to communicate with the locals? Check out our Beginners Guide to Arabic.

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Turning the Desert Green in Qatar

The Supreme Qatar Desert Development Council (SQDDC) has released its plans for the development of the desert, according to a report in the Qatar Times today. The SQDDC plans call for a greening of the desert which will, in time, return the desert to a much more hospitable environment. Qatar, like much of the Middle East, was once thought to have been a much greener place than it is now, and recent finds of hunting tools designed to kill animals such as aurochs and elephants have lent weight to this theory.


The development of the desert, said Dr Lotfi Al Baloushi, head of the SQDDC, will also involve the building of a new urban area, which will be called Desert City. Virtual images have been released by SQDDC of what the Qatar desert will look like by 2010 - including one where a larger than life Qatari strides across grass with the giant sand dunes at Messaieed (now covered in a verdant green) in the distance. However, one United Nations desert scientist who we contacted, Icelander Dr. S. Keptical, said the plans were over-ambitious.

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Reasons to move to Qatar

This is our comprehensive list of reasons to move to Qatar. We'll probably be criticised for being too pro-Qatar, but we plan to follow this up with a counter-balancing list of reasons not to move to Qatar, when, no doubt, we will be criticised for being too anti-Qatar.

1. Money. Well, let's be honest, the reason most of us come here is not to experience a new culture but to make ends meet. Despite inflation in Qatar, working in Qatar is a simple decision simple because we earn better wages and because there is:

2. No income tax. Hooray! And you still get a:

3. Health service - not quite free, but almost. Then there is:

4. The price of petrol. Coming from the UK this always seems miraculous to me. Twenty pounds in the UK got me fifteen litres when I arrived back home - the same sum can get me 200 litres in Qatar. Of course, the price of petrol in the UK is a better reflection of the economic cost and the world's diminishing supplies, while the price in Qatar encourages overuse of a scarce resource - but as a personal, selfish decision - hooray.

5. Eating out - despite rising food costs, the cost of eating out is still very reasonable. We can still eat at our local Thai restaurant, Thai snack, for less than ten UK pounds for the whole family. Mmmm!

6. Crime and safety. Kids shot down in the streets of London, rising knife crime, gang warfare, Mr Bigs running a 40 billion crime economy - Qatar may have experienced an increase in pickpocketing and burglary, but it is still far safer than the countries such as the UK and the US.

7. Bringing up children - we are not claiming there are no drugs in Qatar, but it is a lot easier to keep your kids on the straight and narrow - forget all those street corners and parks where kids can hang out, drink and enjoy drugs. There is no local off-licence they can sneak off to for a bottle of cheap cider either - the only place to buy alcohol is either from the single Qatar Airways Qatar Distribution Company, alcohol permit with picture required, or at a club or hotel bar.

8. Child friendly - it is also a county where people adore children, and are tolerant of them. So no more wincing in restaurants every time your child makes some noise.

8. No hoodies - (too hot!)

9. No hug-a-hoody politicians either - anyone messing around gets chucked out of the country asap (unless they are Qatari, of course!)

10. Liberal (ish). This may not be hug-a-hoody land, but it is not a stone-an-infidel land either. While there are both conservative and fanatic elements in Qatar society (with a lot more of the former than the latter) the country is currently run by a fairly moderate and liberal elite. There are no stonings, no executions and freedom of worship is allowed - see The Cross Shall not be Raised in Qatar.

11. Sun, sun, sun. I am writing this in the UK at the moment, and, though it is the middle of August, it is pouring with rain. Qatar has almost continuous sunshine throughout the year. Against that, it is too hot to go outside before dark for several months of that year!

12. Culture - If you are from the West, you are coming to a country where people, in many ways, are completely different from you. You may not want to adopt the culture as your own, but it is fascinating to experience a country where people are so different, from the way they dress to the way they think.

Well, that's it for now. If you can think of any more reasons to move to Qatar, please add them, and we will incorporate them into our list. And if you can think of any reasons not to move to Qatar, add them too.

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Unique dishes

Some unique dishes are available in Doha's Souq Waqif.


Also see: Qatar Images

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