🇦🇪 Dubai

Dubai is not a strange place for Iranians. Iranian merchants have had ties to this city for a very long time, and the historic Bastakiya quarter with its wind towers still recalls that old connection to the southern Iranian ports. Today Farsi is easy to hear in the malls, the Iranian restaurants and the company offices, and the flight home is short. That closeness sets Dubai apart from most migration destinations: you can go back for Nowruz, and your family can come to you.

That same closeness can be deceptive. Many people arrive thinking Dubai is not really being far from home, and then discover that homesickness and rootlessness have nothing to do with kilometres. Life here is usually tied to a residency that depends on a job; very few people feel they are here for good. That permanent temporariness makes deep friendships and long-term plans difficult. Why put down roots when you do not know where you will be next year?

The Iranian community in Dubai is varied too, from old merchant families to young professionals who arrived last year. That variety is an opportunity, and it does not always take the place of one close, coherent community.

Dubai is a city of comparison. The cars, the brands, the photographs; everything is arranged so that success gets measured in possessions. For many Iranians here, that constant comparison turns into a quiet permanent anxiety: the feeling that whatever you have is not enough and that you could fall behind at any moment.

Work pressure is real too. Long hours, sharp competition, and the knowledge that your residency is attached to your job, which means losing that job is not only a career event. It puts your entire life in this city in question. That hidden insecurity stays in the background even when everything is going well.

Then the heat: for part of the year it is severe enough to limit time outdoors and ordinary daily activity, which affects how some people live and how isolated they feel.

In that environment, talking about not being well is still taboo for many people. In a city where everyone looks successful, saying I am not okay takes courage.

Dubai may not be short of counsellors and psychologists, and therapy in your mother tongue is a different thing. When you talk about aberu, about taarof, about family pressure, you do not want to have to translate your culture first. An online session in Farsi means that from the first minute you are talking about the problem itself, not about its background.