ABU DHABI // With National Day just four days away, plans for celebrating the 38th anniversary of the founding of the UAE are well under way, and every year the market for local memorabilia increases.
For people looking to join the festivities in colourful style, there is a bewildering array of red, white and green merchandise on offer in shops and malls to suit just about every taste and budget. From scarves and feather boas to car decorations, there is something for almost everyone.
The cheapest trinkets are buttons at around Dh5, while at the top end prices are many times higher. This year, merchants have more products than ever and say demand keeps rising. And even the most patriotic of customers do not seem to be put off by the fact that most of the wares are made in China - not the UAE or elsewhere in the Middle East. In fact, there is little Arabic lettering on any of the paraphernalia.
Kamrun Hasan, a worker at a stall in Abu Dhabi's Madinat Zayed mall, said the accumulation of merchandise begins more than a month in advance of the December 2 holiday, and grows more elaborate each year.
Almost a week before National Day, Mr Hasan said, he was starting to run short of paper decorations, streamers, coloured boas, hats and headscarves. "The stock is finished in Dubai," he lamented, while wearing a felt top hat with the letters "UAE" along the side.
Every year, he said, the merchandise available became more creative and varied, and so did the public appetite for such items.
A sequinned tie attached by a rubber band, feathered masks, wigs and coloured angel wings, artfully dyed to match the country's flag, are among the items found at Mr Hasan's stall.
Zakariya Mohammed, another worker at the stand, said that in his experience Emiratis tended to go all-out during National Day. "Especially in Abu Dhabi. They only really celebrate this one day, so they celebrate it big."
Shopkeepers said Emiratis were the most reliable customers, although some expatriates often get into the spirit of the season as well. Particularly popular this year are scarves, bangles and jewellery, as well as traditional dresses in the UAE flag's colours for young girls.
National Day will be celebrated in high Emirati fashion across the country. The largest shows are typically put on in Abu Dhabi, whose streets reach gridlock for hours on end as locals with decorated cars take to the road to blare their horns in an impromptu procession along the Corniche.
Masood al Jnabi, 22, from Abu Dhabi, said he would be spending Dh1,500 (US$408) decorating his Toyota for the night. The business and computer student expects to pile his friends into his car to cruise the Corniche and is hoping to stand out in the crowd.
Sousan Ahmed, an Emirati from Abu Dhabi, bought a knitted scarf emblazoned with the image of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the UAE, from a stall selling sequinned and fluffy canes, coloured wigs and patriotic prayer beads.
"It's for my daughter, actually," she said, adding that the 14-year-old would wind the scarf around her shoulders as her family took to the Corniche. "Especially this year, there is too much excitement. Look at the souq: everything is red and green and black." She said her family most looked forward to the fireworks.
About 60 events are being planned across all seven emirates this year to mark National Day.
It's not just individuals who get dressed up, however. Government buildings, streets and hotels will follow tradition and be strung with fairy lights and illuminated designs.
The Emirates Palace hotel is planning to light up the sky with a laser show beginning on Wednesday for one week, from sunset to midnight. The hotel also announced it would attempt the world's largest pyrotechnics display on National Day, with some fireworks soaring up to 2,000 metres high. The goal is to be included in the Guinness Book of Records.
jgerson@thenational.ae
Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
Rating: 1/5
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
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How to improve Arabic reading in early years
One 45-minute class per week in Standard Arabic is not sufficient
The goal should be for grade 1 and 2 students to become fluent readers
Subjects like technology, social studies, science can be taught in later grades
Grade 1 curricula should include oral instruction in Standard Arabic
First graders must regularly practice individual letters and combinations
Time should be slotted in class to read longer passages in early grades
Improve the appearance of textbooks
Revision of curriculum should be undertaken as per research findings
Conjugations of most common verb forms should be taught
Systematic learning of Standard Arabic grammar
The struggle is on for active managers
David Einhorn closed out 2018 with his biggest annual loss ever for the 22-year-old Greenlight Capital.
The firm’s main hedge fund fell 9 per cent in December, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent, according to an investor update viewed by Bloomberg.
Greenlight posted some of the industry’s best returns in its early years, but has stumbled since losing more than 20 per cent in 2015.
Other value-investing managers have also struggled, as a decade of historically low interest rates and the rise of passive investing and quant trading pushed growth stocks past their inexpensive brethren. Three Bays Capital and SPO Partners & Co., which sought to make wagers on undervalued stocks, closed in 2018. Mr Einhorn has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the poor performance this year, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to value investing.
Greenlight, which posted gains only in May and October, underperformed both the broader market and its peers in 2018. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.4 per cent, including dividends, while the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, an early indicator of industry performance, fell 7 per cent through December. 28.
At the start of the year, Greenlight managed $6.3 billion in assets, according to a regulatory filing. By May, the firm was down to $5.5bn.
'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
If you go
- The nearest international airport to the start of the Chuysky Trakt is in Novosibirsk. Emirates (www.emirates.com) offer codeshare flights with S7 Airlines (www.s7.ru) via Moscow for US$5,300 (Dh19,467) return including taxes. Cheaper flights are available on Flydubai and Air Astana or Aeroflot combination, flying via Astana in Kazakhstan or Moscow. Economy class tickets are available for US$650 (Dh2,400).
- The Double Tree by Hilton in Novosibirsk ( 7 383 2230100,) has double rooms from US$60 (Dh220). You can rent cabins at camp grounds or rooms in guesthouses in the towns for around US$25 (Dh90).
- The transport Minibuses run along the Chuysky Trakt but if you want to stop for sightseeing, hire a taxi from Gorno-Altaisk for about US$100 (Dh360) a day. Take a Russian phrasebook or download a translation app. Tour companies such as Altair-Tour ( 7 383 2125115 ) offer hiking and adventure packages.
A State of Passion
Directors: Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi
Stars: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Rating: 4/5
Tonight's Chat on The National
Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster who has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
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