Miami is Dubai with Cubans

Mike Barry
Jul 25, 2017 · 4 min read

Everyone has an “informed” opinion on America. I definitely had a set of beliefs before I arrived, based on copious amounts of TV, online news and two hours in-country a decade ago. I arrived “knowing” the politics is hysterical, gun laws are awesome yet scary, healthcare is unnecessarily complicated and foreign policy is littered with mistakes. I was in the flawed but good camp of thinking, not The Great Satan camp. I wasn’t sure what the reality of America would be like, but was confident it wouldn’t smell of sulfur.

I arrived in Miami which had always intrigued me. I spent two days walking up and down Collins Avenue, drinking coffee on Lincoln Road and hitting the beach. I came to an inescapable conclusion: Miami is like Dubai with Cubans.

That seems like an absurd statement. How can the steaming party city of Miami and Islamic desert city-state of Dubai be similar? The similarities are striking:

  • The inhabitants of both cities have a penchant for hulking SUVs with dark windows and flashy sports cars.
  • Their populations are a strange mix of very fat people and the perfectly sculpted.
  • They appeal to tourists primarily because of the beach and shopping.
  • The local languages are barely spoken in parts.
  • Both cities are brimming with women who earn a living horizontally, being chased by foreigners spending their ill-gotten gains.
  • Their city planning departments exist to segregate their cities with wide highways.
  • Large migrant populations add variety to each cities food, nightlife and culture (Cubans in Miami, Lebanese in Dubai).
  • Both suffer from the strange phenomena which give men misplaced hope: the older and fatter the man, the younger and thinner the woman hanging off his sweaty flabby arm.
  • Finally, both cities are outrageously expensive.
Miami park art. Kind of like my second grade art project.

However, Miami is a grittier, more authentic city than Dubai. The art deco buildings add history whilst still looking fresh. The wait-staff and bar-staff aren’t imported enmasse from the Philippines and India. The hotels in Miami are full of Americans escaping the northern cold or beach-less interior cities, where as Dubai hotels are frequented by people who struggle to get tourist visas elsewhere and Saudis escaping the mind-numbing life on offer at home.

More park art.

The major difference between the two cities is that the steaming sexiness of Miami is everywhere. Middle-aged bra-less blonde ladies walk back from the beach via Lincoln Road with a surgeon enabled perkiness. Salsa music and regaetton spill out of Latin restaurants into the bustling streets. I saw a fit black girl with billowing curly hair walking across a park in tight jeans and a light green bra, as if out of that Seinfeld episode. In Dubai, religious and cultural norms limit the fun to hotels and the sand.

The other major difference for tourists is that in Miami you will actually interact with Americans. You could be in Dubai for two weeks and the only interaction you will have with an Emirati is getting your passport checked on the way in and out of the country. Even if you live in Dubai, you are unlikely to make friends with Emiratis, they tend to keep to themselves. The beauty of Americans is that they are open, some would say too open. After a two minute discussion you have a deep understanding of their health problems and post-divorce sex life.

The afternoon I spent in a shisha (sometimes referred to as hookah) place encapsulates the openness of the American people. A thunderstorm had destroyed Miami’s beach vibe and I needed to kill a couple of hours. I ordered a shisha, and got chatting to the gigantic man sitting on the chair opposite me. I’m talking Stone Cold Steve Austin sized, bearded and bald headed, with heavily tattooed neck and arms. Among other things he had “Allah” on his right arm and “Akbar” on the left. He wasn’t religious but his father was Muslim. He was dressed in black, and had a flat brimmed black cap with “DOPE” scrawled across the front in white letters. He was intermittently shifting between smoking shisha and drinking giant can of Bud Light Mango-o-rita. I quickly found out an awful lot about the Giant. He was worried the liquor and shisha were making his arrhythmia worse, and he asked me to check his pulse on numerous occasions. He liked to travel, but hadn’t seen much due to the time he’d spent incarcerated. He thought Apple and Samsung were ignoring obvious technological improvements and marketing strategies. He knew the biggest threat to the world is terrorism — US government terrorism — and 9/11 was an inside job.

The real beauty of America is the people. They are loud, proud and open about who they are and what they think. An openness which lets you get under the skin of the country. The same can’t be said about Dubai.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade