I was wrong about travel
Travel isn’t worth it.
For the past few years, I believed that.
Maybe it was because people traveled to the far-flung reaches of the world and after I peppered them with numerous questions, they replied with banal responses like, It was awesome!, and seemingly had nothing more of substance to add.
Perhaps it was because I spent the majority of a trip to Thailand in quarantine after testing positive for COVID three days after arriving. Unfortunately, I learned far more about Thailand’s quarantine restrictions and United’s arcane flight rebooking policy than I did about Bangkok’s vibrant culinary traditions.
Of course, as a history nerd who spent hours poring over textbooks, I was certainly guilty of mis-managed expectations about these places.
I distinctly remember walking the streets of Rome, the looming spectacle of St. Peter’s Basilica rising into my view, my body filling with anticipation. Inside, there were so many incredible paintings and architectural intricacies to contemplate, but I found it difficult to be still and to admire. Eventually, I would still be swept away by the waves of raucous tourists mindlessly traversing the pre-planned route.
I found much more solace in that Italy trip traipsing across the lush foothills of the Dolomites. Also, I met some farm animal friends there too.
The same trip, I went to the Roman Colosseum, a place that I had wanted to visit since my sixth grade history teacher, Mr. Marks, regaled us with stories of the gladiatorial games. My imagination far outstripped the sad reality of the ancient site. The Colosseum’s stone walls were smudged with graffiti, and the facade itself was circled with chain-link fences and dirty construction materials. I took a few turns around the interior of the stadium, dodging all the selfie sticks and attempting to weave through the throngs of tourists. I remember thinking, Wow, the Colosseum is a lot smaller than I thought.
I finished that trip with one thought: It was all so underwhelming.
What was the point of traveling if I would simply end up disappointed?
Then I went to the United Arab Emirates.
In March, I led a trip of thirty Stanford MBA students on a global studies trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Four of my friends wanted to organize a study abroad trip to the UAE, and asked me to join the leadership team. I was intrigued because I had never been to the Middle East, and also because Stanford would pay for the leaders’ trips — I was always looking for ways to recoup my business school tuition.
Planning and leading the trip was a huge investment of time. We had a laundry list of responsibilities, from arranging meetings with business, government officials, and cultural sites to coordinating other travel logistics for our group of thirty. Since it was an academic trip, we crafted educational materials and organized pre-trip seminars on campus. And of course, we had to craft a COVID quarantine policy in case one of our group fell sick during the trip.
While in the UAE, we would spend the vast majority of our time in Dubai, and would also have brief stops in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Ras Al Kahimah. There were a lot of details to hammer out.
The preparation process was certainly more than I had bargained for.
In return, though, this trip fundamentally shifted my perspective on travel.
It’s been almost eight months since, and I’m still mindboggled by this excursion.
It all started with an innocuous outreach email. Then a few weeks later, our group found ourselves in front of Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, being hosted at the royal palace in Ras Al Khaimah.
Some quick background is in order. The UAE is a federation of seven emirates united under a monarchical system. Each emirate is an absolute monarchy, with its respective leaders forming the Federal Supreme Council, the UAE’s dual executive and legislative body. Each emirate — Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm Al Quwain — is functionally an autonomous state.
So we basically had an audience with a king.
It’s classic Stanford, relationships, signalling, power of networks, etc., but it is not lost upon me that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. An iftar feast hosted at the royal palace by the Sheikh? I’ll likely never have that chance again in my life.
Many months later, I’ll admit that I don’t particularly remember the exact didactic details of what he shared with us, and perhaps only a few select points. When asked about the role of government, the Sheikh used an art analogy akin to something like how a country is a variety of different paints, requiring a master to take these paints to create a beautiful painting, whereas an untrained person will not be able to produce something like this. There might have also been Deng Xiaoping’s famous quote of “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice” integrated in there too.
However, what I do distinctly remember was our group’s simultaneous snap to standing attention when the Sheikh strode into the visiting hall — we hadn’t been prepared to do that, but somehow it just felt appropriate. We visited during Ramadan, and I remember that when the sun set to signal the end of the daytime fast, the Sheikh and the Sheikha (his daughter) excused themselves to pray and drink water; once he came back from drinking water and eating dates, his voice sounded so much more vibrant and strong.
When we entered the palace dining hall, our eyes were bombarded by a panoply of gold-crested plates and silverware, a feast laid out in front of us. The Arab ethos of hospitality was on full display at the royal palace.
It was later pointed out to me that no one from our group was overlooked, and the palace staff gave our bus driver a box of dates as a gift, as well as feeding and serving him too.
As we left the palace, the Sheikha found out that we hadn’t yet tried karak tea, and she told us about one of her favorite places for it. When we arrived at the location, we found that the Sheikha’s attendants had already arrived and bought over thirty cups of karak tea for our entire group. Then they led our bus through the dimly lit roads of Ras Al Khaimah in their Land Cruiser and guided us back to the main highway towards Dubai.
And hilariously, this was when we found the Sheikh’s media team had already memorialized our visit on Instagram.
It was the last meeting of the trip, and a spectacular way to cap it off.
Can countries with rich natural resources (like the UAE) go beyond the “resource curse” and achieve sustainable economic growth?
This was our trip’s central academic question, the motivating reason we were on this trip. As someone fascinated with economics, I have always been intrigued by the resource curse. To quote the great bastion of human knowledge, Wikipedia, the resource curse is “the phenomenon of countries with an abundance of natural resources (e.g. oil, certain minerals, etc.) exhibit less economic growth, less democracy, or worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources.” It’s certainly not a natural law, but it seems to hold true for many countries (e.g. oil-rich countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa).
The more analytically-rigorous and logically-exacting readers may argue that our central academic question was, while falsifiable, exceedingly hard to answer in the affirmative. And while I remember quibbling with our affiliated Stanford staff on this precise issue, our question was a useful guiding beacon in our conversations with government and business leaders.
Spoiler alert: a large swathe of the UAE’s objective rests in its goal of sustainable economic development post-oil. The government realizes that its oil-driven economy, while instrumental in catapulting it to the world stage, will not land the country where it wants to be in the future.
The UAE has huge ambitions. Its goal is to become the economic hub of the Middle East, setting it up in competition against Saudi Arabia. There were multiple instances across both our business and government conversations where Riyadh/Saudi Arabia was seen as the chief rival, most notably with competing over hiring and talent acquisition. I find it fascinating that competition between countries is now typically expressed commercially, rather than physically (but I’m also not naive enough to believe in Fukuyama’s end-of-history illusion).
And for all its grand aspirations, it seems like the UAE has a legitimate shot to achieve what they seek economically. They are extremely long-term oriented, with numerous plans that outline scheduled progress in multiple domains through the next few decades. The UAE even has a minister of AI and has established many other future-oriented ministry positions. Governmental entities move with impressive speed and have embedded incentives to compete between each other — a seemingly foreign concept to our calcified US agencies. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it comes with an all-powerful and centralized government.
A surprising stat: Oil production makes up less than 1% of Dubai’s GDP. Most of the UAE’s oil production comes from Abu Dhabi.
However, one thing is inarguable: the UAE has experienced incredible economic development, and it feels like it is continuing with strength.
In certain ways, I’m reminded by my early visits to China. When I first visited Shanghai in 2004, from an American comparison, many parts of the city felt somewhat dirty and run-down, still very much in its developmental phase. I next returned to Shanghai in 2014 and I was stunned by the forest of magnificent skyscrapers that towered around me. I distinctly remember thinking, somewhat befuddled by the new environment — Wow, this is like New York City, but cleaner, and with a ton more Chinese people!
To some degree, at least Dubai feels like that: a rapidly-evolving modern city, potentially accelerating into the future.
When I first told friends that I was going to the UAE, I got many similar responses.
Dubai is the most luxurious and opulent place!
They have the tallest building — it’s absolutely incredible!
Wow, the UAE is of the richest places in the world!
The UAE has some of the most visually stunning buildings ever!
It was superlative after superlative after superlative. Upon hearing this, my initial reaction was skepticism — I tend to have an instinctive aversion to ostentatious displays and extravagant proclamations. In my view, the urge to highlight impressive features often indicates something fundamentally lacking.
Nevertheless, when I arrived in the country, the sheer scale of everything was beyond my imagination. Expressed another way, the grandeur was so grand that it stopped me in my tracks.
We visited the Palm Jumeirah, an archipelago of artificial islands in the shape of a giant palm tree, which houses over 10,000 people. I saw more Italian supercars than I thought possible, so many that I wasn’t even surprised when I discovered that the Dubai police force features numerous Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Bugattis, and Maseratis.
But few things in Dubai compared to visiting the Burj Khalifa. For over a decade, it has stood as the world’s tallest building, and a symbol of the government’s decision to move away from an oil-reliant economy.
I had read about it in middle school, and had wanted to visit ever since then. But unlike my colossal letdown at the Roman Colosseum a few months earlier, this time I was not to be disappointed.
The Burj Khalifa was my first stop after checking into the hotel. It was nighttime, and I took a taxi to the business district. As we got closer and closer, I could see a thin skyscraper standing above all its surroundings. It is a steel and glass structure extending over half a mile into the atmosphere, a magnificent spire in the desert stretching into the night sky.
I spent a few minutes craning my neck upwards, studying the flashing light display that cascaded across the surface of the building. For a few minutes, the mesmerizing dance of lights played across the Burj Khalifa. The tower was alive, pulsating with the energy of the city around it.
Simply put, when I stood next to the Burj Khalifa, I felt overwhelmed. I felt awe at the people’s sheer audacity to even conceive of such an idea, let alone muster the coordination to build something like this.
For a brief moment, my mind flashed to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel — was this the successful incarnation of the mythical tower to heaven? Or were we Icarus, flying too close to the desert sun? It felt like religious references and mythological metaphors were the only things powerful enough to sense-make.
Expressed another way, the grandeur was so grand that it stopped me in my tracks.
I left with one overriding emotion: wonder.
While our trip was technically about the entire UAE, we spent most of our time in Dubai, hence most commentary here being Dubai-centric.
Dubai is a fascinating metropolis. It’s an incredibly cosmopolitan place, with its residents hailing from all over the world. More importantly, it has the culinary infrastructure to reflect this diversity — in just this one trip, I had some of the best Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Uzbek food that I’ve ever eaten.
And it’s obvious why people come to Dubai. It’s safe, with extremely low crime rates. There are no income taxes, and there are huge incentives to attract businesses. And if the UAE government is on your side, that’s an incredible tailwind.
Besides the local Emirati population, however, few people would call Dubai their home. An estimated 90% of the Dubai population are expatriates, a transitory population. When we talked to people, most would share that they had only been living in Dubai for a few years and while things were going exceedingly well, they had no plans of staying long-term.
Like most societies, an army of construction laborers, service industry professionals, and other blue collar workers undergirds the smooth functioning of Dubai. Blue collar workers contribute their tireless labor because they can make much higher wages in Dubai than in their home countries, remitting payments back to their home countries and saving up until they could permanently return.
White collar workers are wooed to companies in Dubai, enticed by expanded responsibility and fewer financial constraints (read as: more money to work with and deploy!). As a result, the UAE is able to attract a disproportionate amount of global talent to help develop its various industries. But, perhaps as a result of the tight coupling between the government and industry (or for other reasons), we noticed that the heads of the most important companies tended to be local Emiratis, their leadership supported by a revolving door of skilled expatriates in secondary leadership roles.
Even in the absence of explicit rules, there’s a noticeable social divide between the Emirati people and the expatriate community. It’s certainly not a unique facet of UAE society, as many multicultural societies functionally bifurcate into separate subgroups that seldom interact.
But there are some fascinating things shared with us about the support given to local Emiratis. The government provides free education for all Emiratis, supporting their education up to any level (e.g., a PhD program in a foreign university). Upon reaching certain conditions, Emiratis can receive free housing or land. And Emiratis receive unparalleled access to medical care: for them, local medical care is completely free. If the care isn’t available in the UAE, the government will fly you out and pay for the treatment, transport, housing, and associated costs. Local Emiratis are supported by the government to an incredible degree.
There is a stark contrast between the extensive government support for Emiratis and the transient nature of the expatriate community. It raises intriguing questions about identity, belonging, and the role of government in shaping stable societal structures (now say that five times fast).
Like all good trips, I left the UAE with many more questions than answers. Here’s a few:
How can the UAE (its startup ecosystem, public officials, and people – citizens and non-citizens alike) continue to retain its rich cultural history while it focuses on driving the future development of their economy through technological innovation?
How far should a government’s responsibility extend in taking care of its people?
How has the dialogue between entrepreneurial innovation and public policy formed the UAE that exists today?
What are the necessary changes in that public policy in order to realize the UAE’s envisioned future of economic prosperity beyond oil?
Which countries, if any, would benefit from porting over elements of the UAE’s centralized approach to economic development?
Answering these questions is certainly far above my pay grade and might well be outside my circle of competence, but it does make me curious.
But there is one question about my trip that I certainly can answer: “How was your trip to the UAE?”
It was awesome!
And before my former self punches me in the face for such a banal response, I’ll continue:
But, let me tell you more about it…