A Thing About Lifts, Or In The UAE, Elevators.

(Photo credit: Jose R. Borras)

I try not to post too much about lifts (or elevators if you hail from the Land Of The Free And Home Of The Brave) just in case I start getting press releases from Express Lifts and the like, but they really are a unique symptom of the hyper-diverse melting pot that is the United Arab Emirates - that meeting place of the cultural tectonic plates of East and West.

A lot of people here, in the face of copious evidence to the contrary, believe that pressing the 'down' button brings a lift down to you. Not only is this not the case, it also results in you ending up in the basement when you actually wanted to scale the lofty heights of the upper floors. Not unnaturally, having predicted a different outcome to that achieved, you are puzzled. In your understandable disorientation, you neglect to notice that not only has the lift gone in an unexpected direction, it has reset itself. And so you shrug fatalistically and wait for the diversion to be over and the lift to do that which you had originally anticipated.

It is at this point that a second cultural trait plays an important role in proceedings. There is a certain vanity abroad that means any lift fitted with a mirror (and most are mirrored, for some reason. Presumably to alleviate claustrophobia) must immediately be used to admire, stroke and even, whipping out a back-pocketed comb, brush the hair.

And so you find that not only has your lift been diverted to the basement (where you have doubtlessly encountered a rather grumpy looking Englishman who might even, particularly when overdue leave and finding you and many others have actually filled the lift to capacity when it arrives in the basement, ask you quite why you are there) but it then takes you to a completely unexpected floor. You might at this point realise that something is amiss and if you don't take some sort of remedial action you might even die of thirst in there. And so you press the button of the floor you want to go to.

Sadly, however, you're already on the way down and someone else has pressed the 'down' button on the ground floor in order to call the lift. In the basement once more, you will begin - understandably - to be alarmed. You could be in there for days. You dash out and, with a sense of relief, take the stairs - shaking your head at the wonderment of encountering yet another badly programmed lift button.

And that, for the benefit of attendees to The Umbrella Series Writing and Publishing Workshops being held at The Archive in Safa Park, is an example of the second person point of view in writing. Ha.

Dubai Summer Surprises - Lift Surprises

I am daily reminded of the joys of unfettered multiculturalism. I’m not sure if there are many places on earth that are quite so polyglot as Dubai, the city that, more than any other, sits on the cultural tectonic between East and West. It is here that cheap sub-continental and Asian labour rubs shoulders with Western White Collars, where retail staff earning $200 a month serve shoppers earning $200,000 a year and more and where Indian labourers working for Irish contractors build Australian designed towers for Arab companies to sell to Indian investors.

And, let us forget the important stuff that is the lifeblood of this odd multinational mixture, we’re all of us better off for being here. Tens of nationalities co-exist here, at times uncomfortably but at least in broad consensus. The oddities and differences, however, can provide fascinating anthropological material.

Take lifts. In this part of the world, lifts often have mirrored back panels. This can provide much amusement for the amusedly inclined.

If you are ever moved to touch a Balinese person on the head, restrain yourself. It’s the worst insult and you’ll end up, if you’re lucky, with a black eye. If you’re Dutch, you’ll likely end up with a rice sickle buried in your chest. A strong veneration for the head appears to be core to Bali’s animistic Hinduism, as well as forming something of a preoccupation for Hindus in general.

So, when in Dubai, do expect Indian chaps entering a lift to notice the mirror, admire themselves fleetingly and then whip out a comb and start to re-shape the super-cranial keratin (hair). Perhaps amusingly, this ritual grooming invariably takes precedence over selecting a destination floor, leaving one’s fleeting travelling companion impeccably groomed but unfloored.

For some reason, many people from the East see the process of calling a lift differently from Europeans. In Europe, and many parts of East Asia, one presses the ‘up’ button if one wishes to go up and the ‘down’ button if one wishes to go down. In Asia, particularly India, it seems that one presses the ‘up’ button to summon a lift up and the ‘down’ button to summon a lift down.

So, if on the ground floor of a 10 story building, many people in Dubai press the down button to call the lift down to them. If you’re on the 8^th story of a 10 story building and aiming to go down, the best thing to do is call the ‘up’ button on the grounds that the lifts are more likely to be below you than above. Often people press both ‘up’ and ‘down’ buttons as this increases the statistical likelihood of the lift coming more quickly. Because this is at odds with the way lifts are programmed, this results in many people being transported in the contrary vertical direction to that desired.

All of which explains why, occasionally, I call the lift from our basement carparking to find it already filled with people grinning out at me as I gape at them. Then the doors close again and they are taken away from me. Which, as summer has arrived and the humidity has rendered the air moist, thick and soupy (I swear I saw a wadi fish swimming past my head the other day), is lucky because people can become subject to violent irritability in these conditions.

Incidentally, I declare Summer upon us with some trepidation as Gulf News has not marked its official advent with a picture of a pigeon drinking from a standpipe or labourers resting in the shade. But I do feel I'm on the right lines and offical confirmation should come soon...