Well, I beg to differ, but will not elaborate further, I have already been called naive and inexperienced in life, so there.

To answer Singleguy's question...

I agree with Genesis, discrimination is more of a proper word to describe what goes on in the Gulf, including Qatar. People will normally be discriminated based on their nationality (ie chinese women or other asian will regularly be approached as prostitutes, nepalese will not be allowed to enter certain places and so on).

After three years here, this is how I see it...If you visualise "races" from one to ten, then Qataris would be the number one, the masters who can abuse their power at times (although not all do that) by sending the police to kick you out of your home or by keeping your passport as an employer amongst other things. Then you would have the "westeners" (Gosh how I hate this term!) who enjoy a comfortable lifestyle and often get the best paid jobs and somewhat a better treatment. As you move down the spectrum, you would see the labour force from the subcontinent and other parts of asia who have no rights at all and are often living in really miserable conditions.

THere is also discrimination against people who practice religions other than the one's "by the book", ie, it's against the law for buddist or hindus to practice their religion in public, or so I hear.

YOu will notice, upon your arrival in DOha, that almost everyone you meet wants to know where you are coming from. And after a few weeks here you will want to know where everyone else is from.

As someone said before, come test the waters, I think that as a british engineer you will face little discrimination here.