Cyprus-Forum.com

[miltiades]

Comparing the ME countries with Cyprus is like comparing shit with ...halloumi on the bbq !!
As for their women, well if all women looked like them I would give sex up 3

[Paphitis]

Comparing the ME countries with Cyprus is like comparing shit with ...halloumi on the bbq !!
As for their women, well if all women looked like them I would give sex up 3

Sure! if you are happy with waiting on tables or growing kolokasi!

Mate, I think they can buy Cyprus something like 10,000 times over.

[miltiades]

Was it not for the West the Arabs would still be riding on camels.

Incidentally, how many westerners retire in the ME !!!
Mate, they are years behind in every field not least their perception of their women folk.

People who buy children as young as 6 from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries in order to satisfy their perverted wishes don't measure up as civilized people.

By the way, do they still strap "bought" children on to camels for racing ?

Cyprus IS the place to be , thousands of Brits, Russians and Eastern Europeans love being here, the Paradise island.

[Paphitis]

Was it not for the West the Arabs would still be riding on camels.

Incidentally, how many westerners retire in the ME !!!
Mate, they are years behind in every field not least their perception of their women folk.

People who buy children as young as 6 from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries in order to satisfy their perverted wishes don't measure up as civilized people.

By the way, do they still strap "bought" children on to camels for racing ?

Cyprus IS the place to be , thousands of Brits, Russians and Eastern Europeans love being here, the Paradise island.

Mate, usually Westerners who work in the ME retire in Monaco and pay a million to become citizens.

Yes, they smoke Shisha's.

Yes the bedouins ride camels.

Yes they eat what could pass off as Greek Food whilst sitting on pillows on the floor.

Yes they have amazing pastries and sweets.

The music is excellent and the belly dances are exotic and very fit and ripped!

The place is full of contradictions and surprises. my advice to you, is to not listen to the mass media.

Yes you can even get alcohol even in saudi arabia. Yes, workers there get a get out of jail free card signed by a prince or person of high standing.

Even cocaine which is a Capital Offence and used by some of the Royals themselves. I only know this because I know someone who use to work as a Body Guard for a while. This body guard was a retired SAS and worked there for a while because most SAS who deployed to Afghanistan are fluent in Arabic. It was offered to him who politely declined. He also declined the alcohol and never drank a drop which is a smart move.

Yes, you can learn Arabic in a space of 3.5 months believe it or not.

(I wouldn't advise anyone doing anything stupid there under any circumstances. Consequences are too severe and just not worth it)

[Tim Drayton]

Tim, that was a great post you made above. I haven't even been to any Arab countries in this region aside from Egypt and I really have no desires to do so for all the reasons you have written about, and even I know that these Arab countries are useless in most things they try to do. This uselessness actually applies to most, if not all, Muslim countries in the world, and Turkey is no exception in this regard. The only thing the Arab countries have going for them is the oil in the ground, to pay for everything. There will come a time when these Petro-dollars rich Arab countries will not be able to keep their artificial living standards up when their oil will not be needed anywhere the level it has been in the last century, thanks to renewable energy technology created by the industrial countries. Then what will they do? Our good friend Paphitis is lucky to be white male and from the west living in Saudi Arabia right now ( I think that's what he said few months ago), or else he would be singing a different tune if he was a migrant worker from South East Asia, working in these racists and pretentious Arab countries.

Egypt? I've been to Cairo and found it quite scary especially if you walk the streets on your own - and only know a handful of words in Arabic - (and from what I've heard you are justified in being a bit nervous) but it is a wonderful place that bears not the slightest resemblance to the Gulf states.

[Tim Drayton]

In Qatar, at the time I was there, labourers from South Asian countries earned in a range from 150 - 300 US dollars per month and that was after they had spent the first year paying off the middle man's cut. No foreigners working in Cyprus are paid that little. In fact, the person who started of this thread (and somebody who not so long ago had as his avatar the flag of that fascist war machine named Israel, where right now a soldier who shot a wounded civilian lying helpless on the ground in the head and killed him in territory occupied by that expansive power is being feted as a hero in that place which masquerades as a UN_member state - perhaps he should tell his new found Saudi pals that) once had the temerity to criticise (rightly so in my view) the low pay earned by South Asian housemaids here in Cyprus, yet is happy to excuse the treatment meted out to South Asian slaves (did no slave-owing Roman ever call in a doctor for one of his slaves?) just because they are paying him a decent cut - although why somebody who claims in another thread to be making billions as a whizz-kid entrepreneur on borrowed money needs to moonlight in a place like Saudi is beyond me. By all means take their money, but you don't have to put on rose tinted spectacles just because of that. I have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence there of household domestic staff just being given food and accommodation but never being paid a penny of the money they were promised - and what possible comeback do they have in a country where they have the status of subhuman shit and will be summarily deported from the country if any Arab, especially if they are a national, makes a complaint about them. In that part of the world, an Arab is automatically right and a non-Arab is automatically wrong and a national or Gulf Arab is automatically right and non-Gulf Arab. What chance do they have of complaining about not being paid? In an environment where their boss only has to lie to the police that they have stolen something in the house and their lie will automatically be believed - and in Qatar that lie probably won't cost them one of their hands as it would in Saudi Arabia, and they may be lucky just to be summarily deported without any of the pay they have earned. I can assure you - and I rubbed shoulders a great deal with Sri Lankans while in Qatar and if you don't believe me get somebody to test me out on my fluency in everyday spoken Singhalese and they might get a surprise to see how much I know and the only way I learnt it was by hanging out with Sri Lankan people in my time there - that of all the places that takes migrant labour from Sri Lanka, Cyprus is considered the absolute jewel in the crown because even if the pay is about the same and they will be at the very bottom of the social ladder, they will at least get treated as human beings. I witnessed the following scene this very morning here in Limassol at the Old Hospital Bus Station while waiting for a bus. A middle-aged woman obviously of Sri Lankan Sinhalese appearance was also waiting there. Then another middle-aged woman, obviously Cypriot walked by and they recognised one another. The local woman went up to her, they greeted one another saying 'Ti kaneis?' then embraced and kissed each other on both cheeks. 'Big deal?' you say. Maybe its not unusual in Cyprus, but I can assure you that in your beloved died-in-the-wool racist Arab Gulf you will never, never, never see a Gulf Arab even give a South Asian a handshake, and they are into the embracing and kissing style of greeting a lot there, but never with a South Asian. Here's a challenge. Prove me wrong. Ask one of your beloved Saudi buddies to pose in an embrace with a South Asian and post it here to prove me wrong. I know that no Saudi will do this, and you will be treated with scorn and derision for even suggesting it. Go on. Prove me wrong. When I was leaving Qatar and said I was moving to Cyprus, do you know what? Absolutely every Sri Lankan and other South Asian I knew gave me their contact details and begged - yes, begged, not asked - me to find them a job in Cyprus. I have still got all these little slips of paper to prove it. How dare anybody suggest that any South Asians receive worse treatment in Cyprus than in the Gulf?

[Paphitis]

In Qatar, at the time I was there, labourers from South Asian countries earned in a range from 150 - 300 US dollars per month and that was after they had spent the first year paying off the middle man's cut. No foreigners working in Cyprus are paid that little. In fact, the person who started of this thread (and somebody who not so long ago had as his avatar the flag of that fascist war machine named Israel, where right now a soldier who shot a wounded civilian lying helpless on the ground in the head and killed him in territory occupied by that expansive power is being feted as a hero in that place which masquerades as a UN_member state - perhaps he should tell his new found Saudi pals that) once had the temerity to criticise (rightly so in my view) the low pay earned by South Asian housemaids here in Cyprus, yet is happy to excuse the treatment meted out to South Asian slaves (did no slave-owing Roman ever call in a doctor for one of his slaves?) just because they are paying him a decent cut - although why somebody who claims in another thread to be making billions as a whizz-kid entrepreneur on borrowed money needs to moonlight in a place like Saudi is beyond me. By all means take their money, but you don't have to put on rose tinted spectacles just because of that. I have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence there of household domestic staff just being given food and accommodation but never being paid a penny of the money they were promised - and what possible comeback do they have in a country where they have the status of subhuman shit and will be summarily deported from the country if any Arab, especially if they are a national, makes a complaint about them. In that part of the world, an Arab is automatically right and a non-Arab is automatically wrong and a national or Gulf Arab is automatically right and non-Gulf Arab. What chance do they have of complaining about not being paid? In an environment where their boss only has to lie to the police that they have stolen something in the house and their lie will automatically be believed - and in Qatar that lie probably won't cost them one of their hands as it would in Saudi Arabia, and they may be lucky just to be summarily deported without any of the pay they have earned. I can assure you - and I rubbed shoulders a great deal with Sri Lankans while in Qatar and if you don't believe me get somebody to test me out on my fluency in everyday spoken Singhalese and they might get a surprise to see how much I know and the only way I learnt it was by hanging out with Sri Lankan people in my time there - that of all the places that takes migrant labour from Sri Lanka, Cyprus is considered the absolute jewel in the crown because even if the pay is about the same and they will be at the very bottom of the social ladder, they will at least get treated as human beings. I witnessed the following scene this very morning here in Limassol at the Old Hospital Bus Station while waiting for a bus. A middle-aged woman obviously of Sri Lankan Sinhalese appearance was also waiting there. Then another middle-aged woman, obviously Cypriot walked by and they recognised one another. The local woman went up to her, they greeted one another saying 'Ti kaneis?' then embraced and kissed each other on both cheeks. 'Big deal?' you say. Maybe its not unusual in Cyprus, but I can assure you that in your beloved died-in-the-wool racist Arab Gulf you will never, never, never see a Gulf Arab even give a South Asian a handshake, and they are into the embracing and kissing style of greeting a lot there, but never with a South Asian. Here's a challenge. Prove me wrong. Ask one of your beloved Saudi buddies to pose in an embrace with a South Asian and post it here to prove me wrong. I know that no Saudi will do this, and you will be treated with scorn and derision for even suggesting it. Go on. Prove me wrong. When I was leaving Qatar and said I was moving to Cyprus, do you know what? Absolutely every Sri Lankan and other South Asian I knew gave me their contact details and begged - yes, begged, not asked - me to find them a job in Cyprus. I have still got all these little slips of paper to prove it. How dare anybody suggest that any South Asians receive worse treatment in Cyprus than in the Gulf?

Can't say about QATAR. But the lowest I have heard of in UAE for unskilled foreign workers is about $2500 USD per month. Which is still pretty low but quite livable. These positions are filled by unskilled labour, usually Indian, Pakistani etc. Westerners are usually employed as Skilled Labour and the earning capacity is virtually almost unlimited. Salaries can be much higher than in any country of the EU, USA and even Australia.

I think this has changed a lot, but in QATAR it might not have because construction workers for the World Cup are being mistreated, and work in conditions with virtually no OH&S. Several are killed each year.

But I would bet that they are on a lot more 300 per month today.

QATAR is actually becoming quite progressive to the point that it is nearly approaching the UAE. The UAE of course is just off the scales. Almost no different to living in any other European City. In fact, quite better in many respects such as quality of life, employment opportunities, health, infrastructure and so on. Oman and Bahrain along with Qatar are following the UAE model which I got to say is fantastic. Even Sharia Law is being wound back and they are moving towards a more liberal society. If you go back 30 odd years you can appreciate how much progress has been made both economically and socially.

The most backward country socially is Saudi Arabia. Massive violations of HR but as I said, these violations don't seem to apply to most westerners. A 2 tier system. Most foreigners actually work for joint Saudi and American joint ventures. So there are American OH&S standards applied by these firms. Others may work for Government departments as consultants or even for firms which are controlled by the Royals. Again, Sky is the limit as far as salaries are concerned. We are talking about ridiculous pay rates which make your eyes water.

Maids are usually recruited from Eastern European countries, some are from Asia, and there are even Maids from Sweden and Western Europe which are highly sort after. I don't know how much they are paid.

Economically, Saudi Arabia is developing at a fast rate. Infrastructure is A Grade. Citizens are quite well taken care of. I anticipate that Saudi Arabia will eventually follow the UAE. It may take 20 or 30 years for them to get to a point where the UAE is today, but I think it is inevitable. Patience!

[Tim Drayton]

You obviously don’t hear much, mate, or only hear what it suits you to hear:

Jobs in the UAE do appear to pay much higher wages than those in home countries. For examples, low skill workers in India barely survive at USD 77 per month while low-skill Indian expatriate workers in the UAE make a median wage of USD354 per month.

http://sciencewebpublishing.net/jeibm/a ... 20Awad.pdf

[Tim Drayton]

PS - I must say I have heard anecdotally that South Asians are treated better in the UAE. Just relatively speaking.

[Paphitis]

You obviously don’t hear much, mate, or only hear what it suits you to hear:

Jobs in the UAE do appear to pay much higher wages than those in home countries. For examples, low skill workers in India barely survive at USD 77 per month while low-skill Indian expatriate workers in the UAE make a median wage of USD354 per month.

http://sciencewebpublishing.net/jeibm/a ... 20Awad.pdf

I don't know exactly but I can tell you that my Indian Unskilled taxi driver was earning approximately $2500 per month.

Never thought you can get more unskilled or under paid than a taxi driver. I would have thought they are bottom of the pile.

Never saw any evidence of people being paid as little as you say. First of all, you would be homeless. Life is not that cheap. Property and rent is expensive. Very expensive! Like about 7 times more expensive than Cyprus.