In Tokyo and Singapore, they stand on the left. In London and Paris, it’s the right. But when it comes to escalator usage in Abu Dhabi, it seems the rules are altogether different. Insomuch as there are none. Walking lane? Pfft. Forget it. As I’ve discovered during my time here, this is one labour-saving device that the capital is dedicated to using to its absolute calorie-preserving fullest. The result? A constant, no-stances-barred free-for all that resembles a fleshy car crash.
The most common approach is to stand smack bang in the middle, preventing any opportunity for those slightly pushed for time to ascend manually and get to where they need to be before, say, the end of the decade. More perplexing still, though, is the fact that it’s the same on the way down. Even with gravity on our sides, the city seems content to sacrifice precious seconds of its life for the sake of a brief rest on a juddering piece of glass and metal. Surely they’re not enjoying some white-knuckle thrill that I’ve somehow become immune to? This is the city with the fastest roller coaster in the world, for crying out loud. And even that’s too strenuous for some – I’ve seen people actually sitting down on escalators, presumably while making their way from the all-you-can-eat pie buffet to the 24-hour ice cream stand.
Then there’s the issue of proximity. In most big cities, the one-step buffer is an uncontested standard; one that deserves as much respect as that unspoken rule which dictates that we don’t all go around stabbing each other in the kneecaps with pencils. Here in the Middle East though, we’re perpetually just a few pointy paper hats away from a massive diagonal conga line, with the person behind often stood so close they might as well take up residence on one of your shoulders. Following one particularly gruelling descent to the ground floor of Abu Dhabi Mall – one that I’d been forced to spend idly flicking through text messages having had my path blocked by a man with the girth of a grizzly bear – the gent who’d been standing behind me – so close that I could literally feel him breathing down my neck – tapped me on the shoulder and declared: ‘Hey man, you should definitely dump her,’ before grinning and raising his palm in anticipation of a friendly high five, as if this invasion of my privacy should have somehow made my day.
In the end, I suppose, it’s inevitable, really. In a city with a populace as culturally diverse as Abu Dhabi, it’s only natural that conflicting understandings of certain social etiquettes should cause the odd problem. So while life in the city certainly affords the opportunity to meet interesting people from all over the world, you can also guarantee you’ll occasionally find yourself at the centre of a dysfunctional, jumbled mess of people all jabbing their noses into each other’s shoulder blades.
