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Blah Blah, Culture, Random Thoughts, Thank you

Title: Abu Dhabi hotel apologizes for $11M Christmas tree

From: http://news.sympatico.ca/oped/coffee-talk/dubai_hotel_apologizes_for_11m_christmas_tree/b9756dd2

Abu Dhabi hotel apologizes for $11M Christmas tree

21/12/2010 8:30:00 AM
by Daniela Syrovy

Emirates Palace hotel in the United Arab Emirates erected a 13 metre Christmas tree adorned with $11 million worth of jewels. They now regret it. Is the tree in bad taste or should we loosen up and enjoy the elaborate gesture?

The folks in Abu Dhabi have received international attention after luxury hotel Emirates Palace decked out a 13 metre Christmas tree with $11 million worth of jewels. The government news agency has now issued a statement saying they regret the “attempts to overload the tradition” of decorating a tree for the holiday season. The statement was issued after critics condemned the tree as being in bad taste.

At first this story did not compute for me. Emirates Palace, a hotel in a predominantly Muslim country, has erected a giant, jewel-covered Christmas tree?! Something has gone awry in the world. It turns out that in the United Arab Emirates many hotels follow the tradition of putting a tree up in the lobby, to make visitors from abroad feel welcome.

I can appreciate the gesture though the irony of it leaves me wondering if extreme cultural sensitivity only occurs in Canada. Here, schools are removing ‘Santa’ images and have replaced the term ‘Christmas concert’ with ‘winter concert,’ leading some to speculate about our country’s cultural compassion and its ability to kill Christmas. Meanwhile in the Muslim country of UAE, publicly displayed Christmas trees are commonplace.

That said, this particular tree – described as the most expensive tree in the world – is a gaudy, tacky, tasteless PR stunt. I understand an ambitious attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records, but if you were decorating a tree to truly show your holiday spirit, perhaps you’d be better off with a tree that is dressed by the community and not an overzealous jeweler.

A more modest tree might have done a better job of not rubbing in the fact that you’re one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Abu Dhabi holds 9% of the world’s oil reserves. We get it. You’re rich. You’re really rich. No need to shove it in our faces, especially not during a time when the emphasis is meant to be on giving. There are so many better ways to spend $11 million.

If the hotel and the country truly wanted to draw positive attention to themselves they should have donated a large portion of the $11 million to the countries starving labourers, who for twenty years have worked tirelessly to build the UAE up to its current state of metropolitan glory.

Oh the poor people of my home land Palestine. That money could have fed a family or two for the next couple of centuries.

Blah Blah, Confused, Culture, Religion, They said what?, Whatever!

Have you ever wondered if you are part of the blog circle or out of it? I do wonder sometimes. You see, if I was part of the Arab blog groups or anything like that then I would have a lot more people commenting on my blog just to get noticed. That’s why people join groups, to find each other and get noticed by their fellow peers. Believe me, it is nice to be recognized sometimes, and what is good about writing is that I am not being recognized for the way I look or act, but the written words on my site.

Fortunately, I got out of the whole group thing a long time ago. I do not participate in any. I don’t even advertise my blog anymore. I have not done so in years! I was in many Arab blog group sites in the past, and some contacted me later to join, but I just don’t want to deal with being part of any clan anymore. If I am part of one, I will get people saying, “You are only doing it to get people to come to your blog and your blog sucks!” If I don’t join, people will say, “Why are you not part of one, who do you think you are!”

Honestly, who cares about the above. Who needs groups to get noticed now a days.

Strangely enough, because I don’t advertise and I don’t go around marketing my self in any way or form, I get people saying that I write this way to just get more and more visitors. I ignite fires just to get noticed. So, explain this to me logically so I can make sense of it all, I do nothing at all but write in my private blog whatever the hell comes into my head, and I do not go around advertising just to get noticed, but my writing is the big NO NO!

Hmm. Yah, that makes sense. Hell, last time I checked this friggen site was a blog where I write run on sentences and have several syntax error. I do not use Microsoft Word to type my blog essays or an English editor to make sure everything is perfect before I click on that damn blue Publish button.

You know what I despise about certain people’s personality? I despise fake people. I despise people that are too anal about other people’s words and like to correct them to just prove how articulate they are. Finally, I despise people that think they can come here and freely insult me, and I know for a fact that they are scared shitless to do it to my face in real life.

I rather stay out of every circle, out of any association with certain people, and just be my SELF: a stubborn, egotistical, selfish blogger who only writes crap on her blog without thinking twice who reads it.

There, I got it out of my chest. I can sleep now.

Advertising, Advice, Blah Blah, Confused, Culture, Depressed, Random Thoughts, Ranting as usual!, Thank you, They said what?, Whatever!

I have nothing against Arabs. I am one.

I know how sad it is for Arab girls who are highly educated, hold post secondary or post graduate degrees and end up sitting at home taking care of the kids. I have nothing against them. I find it quite sad though that they wasted all those years to get a piece of paper to hang. Don’t they know how much money they spent and it should have been an investment to their futures?

You see, I am a horrible person right now and pretty much the don’t care type of person. Oh well, but I feel really sorry for those Arab girls who think or are forced into a life that is very one dimensional.

Honestly, some days I think to my self that I hate working, why should I work, blah blah and quit and just get married to any loser and live the rest of my life with no use of my degree or skills. Fortunately, that 5 minutes unlike me thoughts disappear so quickly that I thank God I am not like that.

I commemorate those ladies though that decide to have a family and still study and get a good education to better their position in life. It’s good to work and contribute to society in one form or another, but some will never experience that. Sucks to be them!

Blah Blah, Culture, Random Thoughts, They said what?, Whatever!

Define rebellious in your own terms please, and don’t give me some dictionary phrase.

I wanted to write blog after blog the past few days, but I have very important things to do in my life. This blog is not top of the list anymore like it used to be. This blog is purely for discussion of various things that go on in my life and the way I perceive some things when I have time to write them.

I know that many of you have emailed me the past few days with the same thoughts almost. Many of you have claimed that you read my entire site and came up with one conclusion. I find it very funny that people come up with the same conclusions about anything. Can you imagine if that is the case for everything in life? So the conclusion was, “you are rebellious, that means you don’t follow the Arab way of life.”

Honestly, I think I am the most Arabized person that you can meet living in these lands because I follow the ethical essence of being an Arab. Do you follow that? Because being an Arab is not just getting married before you are 25,  having at least 3 kids by 30, being the “good wife,” and living in a happy marriage. If not married, you are secluded from the rest of the circle of being a real Arab. I am taught to be a good person first, for others to accept me for who I am, and to show others the proper way I was raised by following great traditions and morals.

Why is that so hard to understand? Where in my blog did I say or claim that I should HATE everything about being an Arab and act like a total slut? Where do I say that I go around dating a different guy every other week and go clubbing and drinking? Is that how you define rebellion for an Arab girl? Because according to your definition, a Rebellious Arab Girl is a girl who doesn’t follow the rules of being an Arab or even her religion. There are no rules! Believe me. There are raised morals that we all should have learned growing up as part of this culture.

I didn’t chose to be rebellious. It chose me. This blog chose me to be a Rebellious Arab Girl in order to speak up; by proving to others that I don’t need to follow this group of Arabs that think life should be this way and that is it. Unfortunately, as years pass, far too many Arabs are living in diaspora, and a huge gap between the generations have emerged in the past century because of this culture clash. The traditions have slowly diluted to cope with another, and being a true Arab or defining an Arab is becoming harder and harder every day.

All I can say that I am tired of emails that begin with, “please read this to the end,” or “I am sorry I have to say this.” Why apologize or make sure you grab my attention to tell me the negative? I would appreciate it more if you stick up with what you believe in and say, “You know what Mona, I don’t agree with you because so and so.” That I read. Everything else with an introduction of reason to even begin reading it is something I don’t even look at.

I am tired of preaching to the choir. I am going to go back to the days when I started this blog and what my true beliefs are. If you disagree with me, then dare to comment about it in the comment box below. Start a real discussion and stop hiding being a screen name. It is almost the end of 2010 and people represent themselves for who they are with their real photos and their true image. That’s how we accept one another in the real world. We represent who we really are with no shame with what we say or who we are. Why can’t you dare do that?

Advice, Angry, Blah Blah, Culture, Random Thoughts, They said what?, Whatever!