I’ve been enough places in the world now that I can see similarities between new cities and places I’ve visited before. Pyongyang has elements of Moscow and Beijing, while Barcelona had some similarities to Paris and Amsterdam. Part of this is the emergence of global culture where H&Ms, Zaras and McDonald’s are everywhere (well, obviously except for Pyongyang). The other would be the cultural influence of the Russians, the Chinese, the English, the Spanish and the Americans, where the ubiquity of these four cultures have created some elements of homogeneity or at the very least similarity across many different cities.
On the way out of the Maldives, we had a 5 hour layover in Malé City, and the resort was kind enough to pay for a guide to show us around. I’ll just say it – Malé was like no place I had ever been before. S. said “reminds me of Egypt,” the streets were very narrow. Since it was Friday in an islamic country, men were hanging out on every street corner doing what could be accurately described as “not much.” And the people hanging out were overwhelmingly male. Maybe 85%. Some were attending Friday prayers, but really most were just standing around.
Despite having lived in Hong Kong and visited Macau, I found Malé claustrophobic, but also oddly prosperous for a developing nation. I was almost hit by a Nissan GT-R. Store windows were stocked the newest iPhones, Samsung phones and full runs of Nike, adidas, Puma and lotto football boots. It was a mix of first world consumer goods and developing world markets and fishing vessels and streets.
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