My brother recently moved to Dubai for work, and as I see this hilarious video from a TV skit from Pakistan in the 1980s, I am reminded of him.
For those who cannot understand Urdu in the skit, basically it is making fun of the people who left Pakistan en masse in the 70s and 80s to go to Dubai. It was then that the phrase “chalo chalo, Dubai chalo” (lets, go, lets go to Dubai) became commonsay. Anybody who could madeit to Dubai, and those who could not wondered what paradise their loved ones had migrated to. A large majority of those who moved were the less educated worker bees, exactly what Dubai needed at the time. In this video, the wife is singing to her villager husband to not forget to bring gifts back for everyone in the family when he returns. The words are set to a famous song and that adds to the fun of it.
I am also laughing as I watch this because even now, it is fairly common for relatives to still ask for all kinds of gifts when somebody returns from abroad. I have seen requests ranging from chocolates, and coffee to Joggers and cordless phones. Some of the more interesting ones have included baby formula (its really not that much beter here, women!), aspirin pills (do they really add impurities on purpose in medications in Pakistan), and T-shirts (like there were not enough Tshirts already in Pakistan with Nike, Chicago Bulls and NY Yankees logos on them). The funniest was when a young cousin was disappointed that I did not bring him a US made school bag. Now maybe you can understand why the 50lb weight limit on luggage in international flights is such a problem for some of us…..
