Today’s Wall Street Journal (20 May 2010) contains a story about an oil tanker named ‘Front Page’ leaving the port of Fujairah to go to another UAE Port and thence to Saudi Arabia but making a stop in Iran to take on a supply of oil.
It all seems legal but trade sanctions proposed by the UN and the USA have led many countries to keep quiet about their trading business with Iran.
Link to the story: Oil Trade With Iran Thrives, Discreetly, WSJ, 20 May 2010.
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
Image: Trip tracking of the oil tanker (Courtesy of the WSJ)
Thank you for another complimentary copy of The National. As a Fujairah resident it is difficult to sign up for a subscription when there is so little news reported in The National relating to the emirate of Al Fujairah.
The depth and international breadth of your newspaper’s stories is appreciated but to pay for the paper to be delivered to their door, residents of the north-eastern emirate need to feel their growing and rapidly changing region is being regularly investigated and covered.
Fujairah got a mention in today’s paper in the form of a brief notice about this weekend’s fashion exhibition, which is a first for Fujairah.
Disappointingly there did not appear to be any article on the major Middle Eastern conference (DCC MEA) in Fujairah this week for those buying and selling the latest electronics and digital devices.
There was a flurry of in-depth articles on Fujairah last month—five over two days (3-4 April 2010)—when a journalist visited Fujairah for the Easter weekend.
When I last wrote to you on this subject, a read of the paper that day (1 March 2010) revealed no references to any happenings in Fujairah. Furthermore, a search of the online edition during the month of February showed that while the word ‘Fujairah’ appeared 24 times, most of these were fleeting mentions. Only three articles and one online video contained any substantial information on Fujairah.
Put ‘Al Ain’ or ‘Ain’ into the search engine and see the startling contrast. In the Arts and Life segment on 1 March there was a two page calendar on upcoming cultural and sporting events in the UAE. Oasis picks out plenty of cultural highlights in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and to a lesser extent Dubai but after that it appears that all other emirates are a cultural, sporting and epicurean desert.
Until The National takes the smaller emirates seriously the subscription drive is not likely to yield the desired results and all UAE residents and international readers will be the poorer. Your journalists must rove into all regions of the country for this newspaper to adequately live up to its name.
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
Image: The front page of today’s edition of The National.
Here’s a rolling collection of some of the reports coming out of the Digital Channel Consumer Channel Middle East and Africa (DCC MEA) get-together (18-20 May 2010) at Fujairah’s Le Méridien Resort.
New articles have been added.
DCC MEA Opening Ceremony Sheikh Saif bin Hamad Al Sharqi, inaugurated the Sixth Digital Consumer Channel (DCC) MEA 2010. WAM; ZawyaPC MagAl Bawaba
Major Reporters Channel EMEA Shufflegazine: Day 1 Zotac, Freshfiber, Navteg, Kensington, Robert Willett Shufflegazine: Day 2Freshfiber shows off its wares.
Keynote Addresses Robert Alan Willett: on a multi-channel strategy and move from product preoccupation to customer-centric approaches, growth of online selling
UAE Phone Market UAE's mobile phone market has been forecast to grow annually at 7 per cent valued at Dh1.4 billion ($374 million) by 2014, according to research reports.
Major Electronics Event The Digital Consumer Channel (DCC MEA) is the major professional networking event for senior executives from the consumer electronics, digital device and ICT products retail channel in the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region.
Who’s Attending? Over 500 senior executives are descending on Fujairah’s Le Meridien Resort at the Al Aqah Beach today (18 May 2010).
They will come from countries such as Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen.
Why Attend? Launched in 2005 in Fujairah, the 6th annual DCC MEA will bring buyers from emerging markets into contact with vendors.
Billed as a ‘powerful business platform’ and a ‘must-attend’ event, DCC MEA is a networking function allowing vendors to meet face-to-face with existing and potential retail partners from across the region.
In these three days (18-20 May 2010) people will hold dozens of face-to-face meetings with vendors, chat with their peers from across the region and find out more about the latest industry trends and market data.
Why Every Year? The MEA retail market for consumer electronics, digital devices and ICT products is growing at a fast rate. From mobile phones to laptops to LCD TVs and MP3 players, demand continues to grow as the region’s fast-growing and youth population spends ever-increasing amounts on these products.
Vendors attend to keep up to date and to discover the answers to questions like these:
1. How do I improve relationships with the leading retailers and retail distributors throughout the MEA region?
2. How do I find the correct partners in some of the more challenging countries in the MEA region without wasting time and money?
3. How can I optimise my sales and marketing strategy for the MEA region?
The Programme? The three days is billed as an opportunity for 1: 1 meetings, networking, 60 minutes to convince, talk shows, the annual award ceremony and plenty of entertainment.
Take a Look at Highlights from the 2009 DCC MEA
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
Image: A glimpse of the networking activities at DCC MEA last year.
Fujairah in the Dictionary The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is expanding its entries and it now has a listing for ‘Al Fujayrah’ with the variant ‘Fujairah’.
Fujeirah, Fujairah and Fujayrah It is common to see articles and signs around the city using these different spellings and also the common ‘Fujeirah’. Modern Arabic isn’t usually written with vowels so native Arabic writers will not worry about English words being spelt in different ways. In Fujairah most places where you can get a haircut are called a ‘hair saloon’.
Consider how many ways the prophet’s name is written: Mohammed, Muhammad, Muhammed, Mohamed…
Fujairah Fonetically The online dictionary also gives these Fujairah words in phonetics: äl-fu̇-ˈjī-rə\ and \-ˈjī-rə\ . Here the second syllable is pronounced with a long ‘i’ as in the greeting ‘Hi’.
Fujayrah Pronounced Just to be sure, the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary offers two audio files so we can hear the pronunciation.
Variations But who knows whether the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has got it right?
Wikipedia, the fount of online truth, spells the city and emirate as ‘Fujairah’ as well as listing the Arabic: الفجيرة and offering it in anglicized Arabic: al-fuǧayrah.
This last expression seems to suggest that the second syllable is pronounced ‘a’ as with the bird ‘jay’.
The Last Word What is the correct spelling in English and how is the word pronounced?
Does it matter? My Mum in New Zealand uses at least four variations of the word ‘Fujairah’ in the one telephone call but most commonly she calls the place where I live ‘Fallujah’! Or should that be ‘Fellujah’?
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
Image: Note the way the spellchecker on Microsoft Word has an opinion on how the UAE city and emirate should be spelt.
According to the billet, Style 2010 debuts in Fujairah this weekend and “is expected to attract [the] crème de la crème of Fujairah society.”
If you haven’t got your invitation to the ‘exclusive’ country club you can be sure that you’re not a member of Fujairah’s crème de la crème and probably not even part of its crème.
Don’t worry! Buy yourself a French dictionary and practice pronouncing terms like prêt-a porter, haute couture, outré, passé, très chic and ensemble. Make sure you check this site to get the pronunciation superbe for crème de la crème. One year you might get there.
Over the three days of this ‘high profile show’ it will be revealing to see who makes up the crème and who, along with la famille royale, rises to the crème de la crème.
What a relief to have three days away from the riff-raff of Fujairah, living in glorious isolation from the dregs and others who swill around society like thin powdered milk.
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
Videos Fujairah’s Wadi Wuruyah, Gulf News. FJ in Wadi Al—This shows how rough the road in to the wadi can be.
Photos Photos of Wadi Waruyah. Animals caught on camera traps at Wadi Wurayah, WWF.
Fauna and Flora New Species of Fish Named, FIF. New Species of Fish Discovered, FIF. Crocothemis Sanguinolenta, SmugMug, Tommy Pedersen. UAE Birding, Paul Jaquith. Rare Wild Cat Located in Wadi Wurayah, Eye of Dubai. Arabian Tahr, ENS.
Fujairah Location The award-winning director, Sohan Roy, decided on Fujairah as one of his locations for shooting a portion of his forthcoming film, ‘DAM 999’. Update: See the trailer.
The main message centres on the consequences of a dam disaster that symbolises the psychological dam of human emotions. The film traces the emotional life of a mariner and the pressures on his family. The Fujairah segment involves scenes on a ship at Fujairah overlooking the Indian Ocean.
Film Info The film’s official website gives information on the movie, the crew and it offers a photo gallery and a trailer to tease.
Film in the Making The associated blog chronicles the making of the film, including the shooting in the hot Fujairah sun on the largest oil tanker that has ever been on screen and the pre-launch of DAM 999 in Dubai (8 May 2010), which included some Middle Eastern entertainment.
Fujairah Footage Check out this 10 minute video on the filming in Fujairah:
More on Films in the UAE City of Life Screening at Fujairah Cinema, Fujairah in Focus, 11 May 2010 The Dubai Film ‘City of Life’, Fujairah in Focus, 12 May 2010.
Geoff Pound
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Temperature in Fujairah Just after midday in Fujairah 15 May 2010 it was 32 degrees Celsius (according to Gulf News which added that the ‘RealFeel’ was 31 degrees).
Fujairah for Fashion The word ‘fashion’ doesn’t come rapidly to mind when thinking about Fujairah but in a few days (19-21 May 2010) the ‘First Fashion Exhibition’ is being staged in the north-eastern emirate of the UAE.
Programme After the VIP speeches and a ballet performance, fashion shows presented by different companies and brands will consume most of the time and be accompanied by Make Up Demos, Skin Clinics and raffle draws.
Fujairah Getaway One blog writer talking about this fashion exhibition says:
“It’s been ages since I actually went to Fujairah even for a simple get away from the city. You know, to relax, to enjoy the beach.”
This is the attraction that quickly comes to the minds of Dubai and Abu Dhabi residents—a place of retreat, a place to gain perspective amid the mountains, a place to dream as you look across the sea to the endless horizon.
Fujairah Reinvented Traditionally Fujairah has been built on the sea (fishing) and the land (agriculture). More recently with its strategic eastern port Fujairah is becoming a major industrial and manufacturing hub for the region.
In a quiet and unobtrusive way Fujairah is developing as a place for conferences, a centre for retreats and a tourist region where one can get rejuvenated and refreshed.
Conference Centre The Fujairah Fashion Exhibition (19-21May) is being held at the Fujairah Tennis and Country Club.
Check out their web site to find the location and to get acquainted with its many fine facilities.
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
It is intriguing to watch a film that has been made in the country where you are living and about which viewers sense a special familiarity.
City of Life is set in Dubai and it offers glimpses of life in its glitzy villas as well as depictions of those who live in basic apartments and shop at small grocery stores.
The film captures well the cultural mix of Dubai and the UAE as it switches effortlessly between Arabic, Hindi and English in both the spoken language and written sub-titles. The characters also speak with a variety of accents that are typical of the sounds of the Emirates.
The cinematography with its special effects and scenes shot from unusual angles is a big part of the film’s attractiveness.
The quality of the acting is even which augurs well for the growth of the film industry in the UAE. The characters are representative of different groups in Dubai but the way their lives intertwine in the film is sometimes forced and far-fetched.
The story develops with an array of car chases, desert scenes and footage of parties and night clubs that are presented with pace to sustain attention.
City of Life reveals the rapid development of Dubai with its skyscraper skyline, bright lights, expensive cars and people feasting on the city’s excess. When one of the characters earns big money in a Bollywood style café for being a look-alike this suggests a motif for a city that is besotted with appearances and practiced in copying others. Realistically the film shows the city’s underbelly with expats struggling to hold their jobs and make their dirhams stretch until the next payday.
The young generation is portrayed as being adrift from its moorings while the expats struggle with a sense of temporariness and the desire to make meaningful and lasting relationships. The tension young Emiratis face between maintaining the honour of their family while managing the powerful temptations in the city is a constant theme. The destruction of traditional Emirati society by urban growth and wealth is seen as being as damaging and as fatal as a multi-car pile up on a Dubai highway.
City of Life provokes thought and provides a host of opportunities for talking about life in Dubai and in many rapidly growing cities.
Further ‘City of Life’ Screening at Fujairah Cinema, Fujairah in Focus, 11 May 2010.
Listen to the Director
Further ‘City of Life’ Dubai Film—Now for the Sequel, Fujairah in Focus.
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
The acclaimed film ‘City of Life’ is screening Tuesday (11th) and Wednesday (12th) and may be longer at Fujairah’s Dana Cinema.
Synopsis The synopsis given at the Dubai Film Festival stated: “'City Of Life' is an urban drama set in Dubai that explores the existing complexities within an emerging multicultural society's race, ethnicity and class divide. A privileged Emirati male, a disillusioned Indian taxi driver and a European woman's paths are about to collide and irrevocably impact one another's lives. The first multi-lingual feature film to be written, produced and directed by an Emirati with UAE funding, intended for both local and international release, 'City Of Life' blazes an impressive trail for Emirati film.”
Take a Look at the Trailer
Times The film is not mentioned on the Dana Cinema web site but a representative said the film was showing in Theatre 4 at these times:
Tuesday 11 May 2010 and Wednesday 12 May 2010 3.15pm, 5.15pm, 7.15pm, 9.15pm and 11.15pm
It may also be screened on Thursday 13th but check by calling (09) 224 3100.
Ticket Price 30 AED per ticket (18yrs+)
Web Site Here is the official web site of City of Life for more information.
Further ‘City of Life’ Dubai Film—Now for the Sequel, Fujairah in Focus.
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
Image: Ali Mostafa briefs actors before filming a scene in City of Life. The young Emirati director wants to show Dubai as a real city. Picture courtesy of Gulf News at this Gulf News review.
I have created this Google Map to point out some landmarks—things to see and do along the Fujairah Corniche.
The starting point is the Coffee Pot Roundabout in the Fujairah suburb of Faseel (next to the Hilton Hotel).
The progression is southwards past the Marine Club, Bull Butting arena through to Kalba (Sharjah), Khor Kalba and the Omani border.
This newly created Google Map is best used in conjunction with more detailed instructions in the article entitled: Things to See and Do Along the Fujairah Corniche to Kalba and the Omani Border.
New look for Google Have you noticed that Google has a new look, a new logo and a new left-hand panel when you do a search?
Google ‘Fujairah’ Check the left-hand panel on the search results page when you put 'Fujairah' into Google Search. At the top of the left panel you get Everything as you did before. Next is a red flag icon and the heading ‘Maps of Fujairah’ which when clicked opens up in Google Maps with a flag indicating the location of Fujairah city. Further down is the camera icon and ‘Images’ of Fujairah. Here it is possible to narrow down the search according to the size, type and color of the photos. Then there is an arrow down where clicking ‘More’ opens up to Videos, News, Shopping from the Google checkout (posters, books, photos, coins, T-shirts, coffee mugs etc), Books with a Fujairah theme, Blogs (recent blog and web site postings), Updates (new results that appear with the hour as they come available) and Discussions (from forums and site like WikiAnswers).
Time If that’s not enough, you can narrow down your search by Time (things posted in the past hour, 24 hours, week, month, year or you can insert dates for a custom search.
Sort Then you can narrow the search according to relevance and date or widen your search to look at Related Items.
That’s Not All You can narrow the search according to whether you have visited pages before or not.
Google Wonder Wheel You can try out the Wonder Wheel which currently has links to Fujairah airports, the Freezone, hotels and other things frequently searched in Google. Google Timeline Click on the Timeline and you will see references to Fujairah as they relate to the time in history. Currently the earliest reference is to 1670, the estimated date when the Fujairah Fort was built. The Timeline shows how patchy the historical references to Fujairah are until one gets to 1950 and more recent times.
More or Less You can shape your search according to whether you want sites with more or less images, shopping sites and page reviews.
Sites with Images Each search result now includes a strip of images from the website, so searchers can get a better preview of what each page has to offer. To enable this new feature, simply do your image-focused query on Google, click on ‘more search tools’ in the left-hand navigation, and then click on ‘sites with images’. You'll notice the search results page completely transforms.
Lost in Translation The last tool is called Translated Search which offers a list of articles that have been translated about Fujairah especially those from Arabic into English.
These are great tools, not all new but brought together and made more accessible. A great help when searching all things Fujairah.
Geoff Pound
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
Several years ago the Gulf News posted 25 photos of Fujairah from out of its archives.
The picture attached bears this caption:
“Recent discoveries and excavations in the East Coast have revealed that Fujairah sits on a treasure of archaeological and historical sites which prove that man lived along the coast thousands of years ago.”
It would be a great thing to collect up as many of the old photographs as possible to help record Fujairah’s heritage.
Link: Fujairah in the Past, Gulf News, 11 August 2008.
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
The Fujairah Observer is online and its archives are rich with Fujairah information. If you are thinking of visiting Fujairah it would pay to do some digging in the online archives.
Community Builder The Observer is a monthly magazine distributed along the UAE east coast to hotels, clubs and supermarkets but it is also obtainable by subscription. It does much to build a sense of community and it is one of the few local magazines in Fujairah.
Regular Features The Fujairah Observer covers these regular features: Fujairah News—conferences, business news, people College Happenings School Events Health Articles Club News: Toastmasters, Social Clubs Films Reviews Hotel and Restaurant News Local Culture Sporting Fixtures Charitable Projects Editor’s Letter: Dr Al Kindi puts his finger on Fujairah’s pulse Classified Advertisements—services, for sale, jobs, accommodation--they’re free!
In the Archives Here’s a sample of the articles from the online archives (from January 2009):
Eating and Drinking Food Guide to Green Valley, Al Meshwar, Seeran, Gulf Flower Bakery etc. Fujairah’s Top Chefs Talk about Food and Recommend Dishes and eateries Restaurants: Harbour Club, Faseel Restaurant, New Sheetal, Oriental, Munch More Restaurant Reviews: Sapore; Faseel Café The Concept of the Harbour Club Restaurant The Club at Fujairah Free Zone
Well Done! Congratulations to Dr. Khaled Al Mazroui, the General Manager of the Fujairah International Airport who won the award, ‘Airport Personality of the Year’ at the first Emerging Markets Airports Awardshosted recently at Le-Meridien Hotel.
Innovation Some of the innovative ways that Dr. Khaled Al Mazroui is stamping his personality on the regional airport is by developing long term aircraft parking space and establishing areas for dismantling retired aircraft and readying them for recycling.
A further initiative on the drawing board is to build a substation for rescue and fire fighting services.
Despite the financial recession the Fujairah International Airport experienced a growth of 9% in aircraft movements in the first few months of the year.
More Photos and a promotional video give a visual appreciation of the Fujairah Airport and here is a private photo album giving further illustrative material.
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
Image: The Fujairah International Airport against the picturesque mountain backdrop.
Not Much to See? I read many blog postings like this report from tourists who visited Fujairah recently:
“There isn't really a lot to see and do in Fujairah and we really aren't even sure why we are here ;)….[We] took a taxi into a main part of the city where we camped out at a hotel using the internet and doing a little shopping at a grocery store. The Port area has a lot of duty free shopping and we spent a bit of time there doing that - but overall - other than having a Starbucks coffee - it was just another city to put on our list of places visited.”
This travel reflection reinforces the stereotype of a dusty one camel town in the UAE where there’s nothing much to see and do. Admittedly, there is little canned tourism and entertainment so one has to dig deep to discover the delights of the emirate.
Desert of Info In contrast to the larger emirates there is a dearth of information, brochures and maps about what people can visit without the help of a tour guide and this is a challenge for those who market the emirate among potential tourists.
Some Resources
Here is an ever growing Index to the ‘Fujairah in Focus’ site with lots of links to pursue.
Do send me more links to attractions that you have enjoyed in Fujairah. I’d love to include them in this list.
Geoff Pound
Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com
Image: “There isn't really a lot to see … in Fujairah.” One of the pictures these visitors took of the city.
Today’s Wall Street Journal (20 May 2010) contains a story about an oil tanker named ‘Front Page’ leaving the port of Fujairah to go to another UAE Port and thence to Saudi Arabia but making a stop in Iran to take on a supply of oil.
New look for Google
