'Tell me," a successful French chef asked me recently. "Is it true that Americans eat at least one meal a day in their cars?"
Like almost everything the Europeans believe about Americans, this is both true and untrue. We like our drive-through, yes, but not quite (I hope) once a day. I tried to explain this. We're an automobile culture, I said. To us, cars symbolise freedom and vitality. And we're always in a hurry to see things and do things and in a country of such vast open spaces, eating in the car just seems natural.
He still seemed troubled by this. Europeans - especially the French - often zero in on this particular American habit when trying to figure us out. It's bewildering to them why anyone would chose to drive and eat at the same time, when both of those things are so pleasurable by themselves. It seems almost decadent to them, even shameful.
"But would it not be possible", he said after a moment, "to stop the car and maybe get out of the car and eat at a table and then get back in the car and continue driving?"
"I guess so," I said.
He nodded. "Yes, I think that would be better. Maybe then you would not all be so terribly fat."
The patriot in me wanted to respond to this insult with something equally withering. Something about certain former directors of the International Monetary Fund, or maybe a sarcastic mention of the speed with which Hitler's tank divisions made the trip from Berlin to Paris.
But Americans are fat. Groaningly so, in many cases.
If you could build a time machine and go back in time - not far, say 50 years - and you told the first American you saw that in the future, man would walk on the moon, we'd all carry video telephones the size of a deck of cards, and that poor Americans would be fat, I guarantee you the response would be: "Wow! Really? Poor people are fat?"
Because, of course, poor people are supposed to be skinny. They're poor. But the astonishing rise in standards of living since the 1950s, coupled with advances in food preservation - not to mention the brilliant invention of the triple cheeseburger - have meant that the once universal indicator of wealth, the big belly, is now an indicator of the working class.
Rich people in America today look like old photographs of poor people during the Great Depression. Poor people today look like the corpulent, trouser-bursting cartoon sketches of the Robber Barons of the 1890s. The stereotypes still apply, only in reverse.
I didn't bother explaining this to my chef friend. Instead, I decided to ignore his (rather accurate) characterisation of the American waistline and bring him up to date on the rest of the world.
China, I told him, is getting fat, too. Slowly, of course - China's billions move at a glacial pace, but like a glacier, once they're moving they're impossible to turn around - yet as the country gets richer and pulls itself out of poverty, the inevitable happens. People discover the joy of fatty snack foods.
One of the most popular fast food restaurant chains in China is Kentucky Fried Chicken. A huge part of its success, though, is that it sells food well outside of the traditional American KFC menu. Aside from the famous buckets of fried chicken, the Chinese KFCs offer local flavours like chicken wraps and spicy tofu rice.
China's economy grew about 10 per cent last year, but apparently its belt size grew even faster. The Shanghai Daily reported this week that obesity in local children is up a whopping (or should I say "Whopper"?) 25 per cent. The usual suspects are rounded up: fast food, television, soft drinks and insufficient exercise. But the true root cause of all of this swelling is that people who once worried about not getting enough to eat are now awash in food choices, most of them fried. If you grew up hearing stories from your parents and grandparents about the Great Depression (if you grew up in the United States) or the Great Famine (if you grew up in China), the moment the buffet opens you're bellying up to the fry station and loading up on the carbohydrates.
The good news for the Chinese is that they're all getting richer, that the Chinese standard of living is rising. The bad news is, they're going to get as fat as the Americans are. There are already one billion and more Chinese people in China. If each one gets twice as large, they're going to need a bigger country.
Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood
Getting there
The flights
Flydubai operates up to seven flights a week to Helsinki. Return fares to Helsinki from Dubai start from Dh1,545 in Economy and Dh7,560 in Business Class.
The stay
Golden Crown Igloos in Levi offer stays from Dh1,215 per person per night for a superior igloo; www.leviniglut.net
Panorama Hotel in Levi is conveniently located at the top of Levi fell, a short walk from the gondola. Stays start from Dh292 per night based on two people sharing; www. golevi.fi/en/accommodation/hotel-levi-panorama
Arctic Treehouse Hotel in Rovaniemi offers stays from Dh1,379 per night based on two people sharing; www.arctictreehousehotel.com
SUCCESSION%20SEASON%204%20EPISODE%201
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NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
Red Sparrow
Dir: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Egerton, Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons
Three stars
'Morbius'
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Stars: Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona
Rating: 2/5
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Brief scores:
Toss: Nepal, chose to field
UAE 153-6: Shaiman (59), Usman (30); Regmi 2-23
Nepal 132-7: Jora 53 not out; Zahoor 2-17
Result: UAE won by 21 runs
Series: UAE lead 1-0
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”