UAE--Culture Smart! by John Walsh

Author:John Walsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kuperard
Published: 2018-06-24T04:00:00+00:00

NEW YEAR

There are two New Year celebrations in the UAE—the start of the Islamic New Year, which varies according to the sighting of the moon, and the Western New Year on January 1. The Islamic New Year is spent with family or in prayer and contemplation, and people are increasingly using the day to make resolutions.

OTHER CELEBRATIONS

Family occasions such as marriages and birthdays are opportunities to reaffirm social relationships as well as occasions to celebrate.

Informal celebrations are also likely to break out in response to important sporting, social, or political events. Winning a big football game, for example, inspires a procession of beeping cars, with riders leaning out of windows waving scarves. On occasions of spontaneous celebration, those with access to Emirati women’s quarters may hear the famous ululation (a high-pitched, celebratory trilling vocal sound)

Funerals tend to be low-key and the deceased is, according to tradition, buried secretly in the desert wrapped in a simple white sheet. Funerals are not usually the occasion for the mass public gathering of relatives and friends found in other Middle Eastern societies, except on the occasion of the death of a sheikh. When Sheikh Zayed died, forty days of national mourning was declared, with government departments closing for eight days and private companies for three.

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