Monographs from the Middle East - Chinese Takeaway!

One of the perks of living in the Middle East is the wide variety of people you come across. This is probably true of any place but what makes the ME standout is the variety of nationalities you come across and this makes people-watching so much more interesting and fun.

Often some people turn your belief systems upside down. It happened to me.

I always thought you could tell a man by the company he keeps. After meeting R I realized I was wrong.

Whenever people spoke of R it was with a smirk even though everybody liked him and he had a cheery word for everybody.

R is Scandinavian, male and sixty plus. His second and current wife is East European. R met her in Dubai.

For those that do not know, Dubai was overrun by Russian and East European women a couple of years ago and these women were what I will euphemistically call ‘ladies of the evening’.

Given the reputation of Eastern European women and R’s fondness for women, everybody said the wife was a professional. After extracting the last bit from R, they said, she had left R behind here while she carried on her trade in her home country.

The husband and I thought no more of all this other than ‘time-pass’ gossip.

Then one day R told my husband how his girl friend makes excellent Chinese food. After a few days he spoke quite warmly of his new girlfriend - a Chinese.

For those that do not know, Dubai, Muscat and even puritanical Doha is overrun by Chinese ladies I will again describe as ‘ladies of the evening’.

Then R told the husband the Chinese had moved in with him.

He said he had picked up the girl at the Petrol Station opposite Zakher Mall one night. Things clicked and after a few get-togethers they decided to live together.

R is all praise for his girlfriend who is in her early thirties. In spite of R giving her the option to freelance, (isn’t the man scared of AIDS?!) she prefers a monogamous relationship.

As for R, if the Chinese lady was the King of Spain’s daughter, I doubt he would have treated her any differently.

So now I have altered my belief system.

I think you can tell a man by the way he treats others.