Dreaming Systems: Dubai

So far, Dreaming Systems has mostly taken place in documents, concepts, whitepapers and imagined territories. But what happens when those imagined systems turn into experiences - sudden, dazzling, improbable?

I am standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling tinted window in a hotel room, looking out over a sea of lights.

Behind me: a queen-size bed, a large flatscreen television, a small desk, subtly patterned carpet, dimmed lighting. The hotel room could be anywhere in the world. Only the view from the window provides orientation - and the fact that in the bathroom, beside the large freestanding bathtub, a hose is installed next to the toilet.

I know bidets from around the Mediterranean and high-tech toilets from Japan, but this is my first time in a country with a hose.

On the bedside table stands a trophy.

Its base is a transparent cube made of plexiglass. On top sits another piece of plexiglass shaped like a flame. Partly transparent, partly covered in blue foil.

On the flame is the name of the project that brought me here.

To protect the identities of the people I am about to talk about, I wanted to invent a name for the project. This much is true: it ended in “coin.” The problem is that during the blockchain boom of 2017 and 2018, so many coins were born that people simply ran out of names. Nearly every coin name I could possibly invent already exists, or existed at some point.

Though I use the word “exist” here somewhat loosely.

So I cannot simply call it Globecoin or Worldcoin or Mycoin or Yourcoin. Not Centercoin, not Edgecoin, and certainly not Bitcoin or Litecoin. Not Onecoin, not Twocoin (and not Nonecoin either). Not Hundredcoin, not Billioncoin. Not Lovecoin, not Dreamcoin. Not Suncoin, not Mooncoin, not Earthcoin.

Oldcoin would work, but that would be misleading. Losecoin might not be entirely inaccurate, but it would clash with the mood of the whole undertaking.

So let us call it: Maybecoin.

On my bedside table stands a blue plexiglass flame with the words Maybecoin on it.

A few hours earlier, it had been handed to me during a ceremonial presentation.

But let’s go back a little further.

A taxi picks me up from Dubai International Airport. The driver is from Pakistan and chats with me on the ride about the rainy forests of his homeland while I stare out the window in amazement.

He is actually a software developer, he explains. He used to work online from Pakistan as a freelancer. But the fees were too low, the competition too high.

He came to Dubai to make connections, to seize opportunities.

Once he has earned enough money, his younger brother will be able to study abroad.

“In Dubai?” I ask, unsure whether Dubai even has a university.

He shakes his head.

Not in Dubai. Here, people like him and his brother are treated merely as servants. People like him - meaning people from Pakistan.

He did not come here to drive a taxi, but there had been no other option.

London, he believes, is better. That is where his brother should go.

The roads here are as wide, as straight and as hostile to pedestrians as I imagine roads in the United States to be - away from the civilized East Coast, at least. Perhaps like Las Vegas. I have never been there either.

The desert air competing through the half-open taxi window with the cold blast of the air conditioning seems to fit this image. So does the glowing neon at night.

What does not fit are the Arabic letters into which this neon arranges itself.

Eventually the driver pulls up in front of a hotel.

Behind the glass facade stretches a large lobby where enormous signs point the way toward the “Maybecoin Convention.”

The driver opens the door, places my small suitcase into my hand, and wishes me a successful stay.

My suitcase and I roll uncertainly through the lobby and follow the signs.

Through wide double doors I finally enter a conference hall filled with large round tables, ten or twelve seats each, and a large stage opposite the entrance.

On the other side, beside the doors, stands an enormous buffet.

Steaming platters of meat, vegetables, colorful rice dishes. Every meal labeled carefully in English and Arabic, with additional signs indicating halal and Hindu-friendly dishes.

The desserts impress me most.

(The desserts always impress me most.)

Small works of art: cream-colored flans on violet fruit sauce, tiny cakes with glossy chocolate glaze and flakes of edible gold.

I hand my suitcase and coat to the cloakroom and wander uncertainly between the tables.

Suddenly a young Indian man approaches me decisively, greets me by name, and enthusiastically shakes my hand.

“So glad you could make it! … please, please, have a drink, take a seat, the show will commence shortly!”

This, it turns out, is Adesh - my contact person at Maybecoin, who booked my flight here. I only received the tickets a few hours before departure. He had promised to send me more information about the schedule, but kept postponing it.

I take a glass of orange juice from a waiter’s tray and sit down at one of the large tables.

A young woman and a young man are already seated there, both with African features - the woman wearing an elaborate braided hairstyle and an emerald-green sheath dress, the man in a black suit. They smile politely at me. From their slightly hesitant conversation, I gather that they have also only just met.

The man, as it turns out, is from Nigeria. The woman from Kenya.

Nathan and Lucy.

Both are working on the Maybecoin website, they explain.

And me?

I wrote the whitepaper and the press releases, I reply.

Looking around, it seems to me that I am almost the only European woman in the room. Except for one woman standing beside the stage - very tall, very blonde, with a very short skirt and a very closed-off expression.

Meanwhile, on stage, a short, sturdy woman in an expensive-looking sari is busy arranging people into position. I cannot hear her instructions, but those being addressed nod eagerly.

A man with a moustache tests the microphone and immediately produces a painful feedback screech.

The lights go out.

The spotlight comes on.

A presentation appears on the giant screen.

In front of it stand the people the woman in the sari carefully lined up earlier, unsure where exactly they should look.

The presentation shows aerial footage of large cities with skyscrapers glittering in sunlight. Heavy bass music. Videos of fast cars, men shaking hands, smiling women walking purposefully toward somewhere.

In between: animated currency symbols, also moving purposefully toward somewhere.

A group of three or four men hurry past the stage with lowered heads and distribute themselves among the free seats at our table.

Whispering. Then silence.

On the screen now: abstract patterns of green and blue hexagons on a dark background, connecting themselves into chains.

As the music reaches its climax, the Maybecoin logo appears like a final chord.

Applause.

The lights come back on.

The moustached man has now subdued the microphone and delivers a speech heavily seasoned with statistics about the world economy and cryptocurrency trading volumes.

Then the people lined up on stage are called to the microphone one by one.

Handshake. Maybecoin trophy. Thank-you speech. Next please.

Adesh comes to our table and ushers us toward the stage as well - friendly, but firm.

The same procedure:

Handshake. Trophy. Camera flashes.

Back at the table, I look at the trophy in confusion and glance at my table companions.

Do they know what is planned for tomorrow?

General head-shaking.

But first: buffet. On this, we quickly agree.

And so I eventually find myself in this hotel room many floors above Dubai, standing at the window and replaying the day in my head like a video someone edited together while leaving out important context.

The next day:

Now-familiar faces at breakfast in the hotel.

At first Lucy and Nathan, Adesh and his Indian friends seem slightly dazed - but sleep deprivation soon gives way to infectious enthusiasm.

Adesh explains the plans for the day while the others practically bounce in their chairs like rubber balls:

A trip into the desert! Quad bikes! Camel riding! Falcons! Belly dancing!

After breakfast we gather in front of the hotel.

The jeep arrives to take us into the desert.

Exuberant mood, loud music - everybody takes selfies wearing the sun someone playfully stole from my head.

And with every improbable turn the day takes - because we really do arrive in the desert, ride quad bikes, ride camels, hold falcons on our arms, and eat on carpets in a tent camp while belly dancers play with fire - with every turn, my skepticism softens a little more.

I still do not know why I am here - this work meeting is obviously not a work meeting at all - but we are having fun, so why not simply take things as they come?

The others celebrate with the devotion of people who know that every opportunity comes only once.

I decide to celebrate too, though with the somewhat hole-ridden devotion of a person who always wants to understand what exactly is happening and why.

We visit the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, where I buy a small stuffed camel in the souvenir shop and name it Sahin.

Sahin was the name of the camel I rode the day before.

We eat in an Indian restaurant surrounded by large families, and the others compete with one another suggesting which specialties on the giant serving platters I might be able to eat without my Central European tongue catching fire.

After nightfall we take a boat tour and watch a whirling dervish dance on deck.

Slowly I begin to enjoy spending money that does not really exist.

Before going to sleep, I ask Adesh whether I might visit the hotel hammam for a massage and manicure.

Without hesitation he pulls a thick bundle of dirhams from the pocket of his jeans and presses part of it into my hand without even counting it.

It turns out to be far more than enough, including an extravagant tip for the women working in the hammam.

The massage is performed by a silent woman who later serves me peach-scented tea and then disappears without a trace.

The manicure is done by two Filipina women who show me photos of their children on their smartphones and chatter continuously with me and with each other while a television flickers in the background.

I correct myself: The money I spent here certainly does exist. And part of it will hopefully reach the children whose faces I had seen on those phones.

I spend the final afternoon taking a taxi to neighboring Sharjah to meet my Indian pen pal for the first time in my life.

We have written to each other since we were both thirteen years old, but we had never met. She became an engineer and now works here, like so many of her compatriots.

We drink tea and wander through the bazaar.

Something that under any other circumstances would have seemed completely surreal fits perfectly into this strange weekend, like a puzzle piece.

Within two days, my sense of probability has shifted so dramatically that my mind can barely keep up.

The tea tastes good. The air conditioning blows cool air across our skin. The fabrics in the bazaar shimmer seductively.

Then I have to leave, catch a flight.

Back to the land of cause and effect.

Maybecoin disappears shortly afterward. My final invoice remains unpaid.

But Sahin the camel is still here with me.

I remember how I once photographed him, on an unnaturally green lawn in front of an Indian restaurant, in a city that does not really exist.