Thursday, March 12, 2009

What are Pockets Made For?

What are clothes pockets made for? According to a 20-year-old UAE resident, carrying around FOUR cell phones "impresses girls. Carrying around many mobiles is not easy, but that is what pockets were made for.”

Although UAE's "steroidized" consumerism doesn't sit well with me, I thought I got used to it. Well, it still managed to amazed me to read the consumer culture on why there are almost twice as many phones as people in this country. Some of interview quotes from the article include:

"It is cheap to get a new [N.B. cell phone] number and it impresses people if you are seen having many phones."

"I have four mobile numbers. I use two Etisalat and two Du numbers. I use one for my girlfriend, one for family, one for work and one I keep in case I need to transfer credit to another phone."

Image from The National article.

"I sold a number about a year ago for Dh25,000 [N.B. 5000 euro or 7000 dollars]. He [the buyer] was only about 17. His family paid for it."

"They [N.B. teenagers] don’t necessarily want their parents to get their telephone bill and see who they are calling. So they get a new number and a new phone that they pay for, which they can keep secret."

As for Q and I, we each have one cell phone and an extra number for visitors. None of those multiple phone nonsense for us - our pockets are quite happy to be empty!

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