The New Mecca by George Saunders - Essay Example

Saunders narrative the new Mecca has assisted a considerable number of people to change the attitude developed in certain things. Ignorance can make individuals to develop perceptions about certain places that are completely misplaced and untrue. According to Saunders, misconceptions from a far are sources of biasness that can be costly to a person, touring the world is a remedy to eliminating some of these perceptions. The magnificent city of Dubai changed Saunders attitude about a place he had never travelled before and the conclusive statement at the end of his narrative the new Mecca city carries the theme of the narrative.

The picture created about Dubai was that it was a risky desert town with makeshift structures, which could not house people of class effectively. When Saunders had not travelled to Dubai, he heard the magnificent ideas that the government of United Arabs Emirates had but he only thought that these were just blusters. Saunders (23) states that, “Dubai looked something like Dallas circa 1985: a vast expanse of white boxes, punctuated by clusters of freakish skyscrapers”. This implies that the government had indeed fulfilled its plans to develop United Arabs Emirates to the benefit of its loyal citizens.

On the plane to Dubai, he was amused to see a new technology based city dazzling in the desert. The ideas that sounded only theoretical to many people were indeed practical and all the projects were underway with some completed. There is a conception that the people in Dubai are violent hence, difficult to learn their language. Very many people doubt whether they can cope up with life in Dubai because of the language barrier. They think that they would find only uncooperative natives as city dwellers who only understand the local languages and it would be hard for them to find a translator.

In reality when Saunders landed in Dubai, he was surprised that most of the city dwellers were foreigners who spoke very decent English and were very welcoming even if there were dressed like local Arabs. According to Saunders (24), “they are young sweet hearted guys from Nepal or Kenya or the Philippines, who speak terrific English”. Indeed Dubai proved to be an international city hence the idea of a language should not linger in the people’s minds. Most of the workers in the city came from the world poorest nations of Africa and southern Asia and all of them were satisfied with the life in this city.

Saunders stated that,