Halal Expo Philippines 2024: A Landmark Success
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Something peculiar has been going on in Dubai during the last few weeks.
Eight strangers assemble once a week for an eight-course supper. Before they eat, they must first learn how to wrap Chinese dumplings. They’ll have these alongside fried spring rolls, steaming scallops, and lotus leaf-wrapped rice later.
It’s the kind of supper that many Chinese families will be enjoying this Lunar New Year, but because it’s Dubai, there’s a twist: there’s no typical pork or alcohol, so it’s halal, or permissible, for Muslims, who make up the majority of the emirate’s population.
Lisa Vo, a Hongkonger who formed a supper club in the Middle Eastern emirate that is part of the UAE, organized the lunch. Vo collaborated with a tea sommelier to develop non-alcoholic drinks to compliment her cuisine.
Vo founded the supper club in October because she thought it was her responsibility to bring people together via wonderful cuisine. She also desired to introduce Asian cuisine to the Middle East. She has already hosted 21 similar sessions for a total of 160 individuals, and she claims the menu has been “well-received” thus far.
Vo stated that she does not match her visitors based on hobbies or age to allow for more chance interactions.
“I want to connect individuals who may not encounter each other in their ordinary circles, fostering fresh and diverse perspectives at the table,” she said.
Vo, 29, has lived in Dubai for the past eight years. She was born in Germany, has German citizenship, and is a permanent resident of Hong Kong. Her parents met while dining at the restaurant where Vo’s Chinese mother worked as a waiter, and her parents eventually founded their own Asian restaurant in Germany. Her parents eventually sold the restaurant and went into the recycling industry, which led them to Hong Kong when Vo was still a little child.
She attended the German Swiss International School in Hong Kong before studying international business at Brunel University London and anthropology at University College London.
Vo is a vice president at the consulting firm Teneo and a communications practitioner. Her day-to-day tasks, according to Vo, include assisting Fortune 100 firms and government agencies on reputation management and policy initiatives.
Prior to joining Teneo, she served as an adviser to the UAE’s foreign affairs ministry and as the Asia Pacific head on investment promotion in the UAE prime minister’s office. Vo, as the investment head, was tasked with improving Dubai’s image on the global stage and in China.
She stated that she attempted to dispel people’s preconceptions about Dubai, such as “ideas about the UAE as a highly conservative society that outlawed the use of alcohol and pork or women driving.”
“None of these hold true for the Emirates,” she said.
Indeed, Vo finds parallels between Dubai and Hong Kong. “Both once humble fishing villages, they have now transformed into regional power houses, home to a largely non-local migrant population.”
