Eric Demay

All four levels of the the parking garage of my hotel get a scrub cleaning every week. There are four cleaning guys working every day to scrub a whole level, among the Porsches, the Ferraris and the Maseratis. The next day, they move on to the next level. And so it goes. Rinse and repeat.

There are countless examples likes these in Dubai, where cheap labor suddenly meets and fulfills the capricious requirements of “luxury”. To me, these incarnate perfectly the poles of wealth cohabiting—somewhat too easily—in a truly unfair world.

Every day I walk across the parking, and though I don’t own a Ferrari, I’m far from scrubbing the tire marks; the thought never leaves me: What did I do to deserve such a good life?