Last but not Last

i know it has been a while since my last post and this is why, a friend of mine came to me a few weeks ago and asked me if I wanted to make with him a blog. this blog will not be exclusively about the life of the local Lebanese and all his troubles but it will tackle a huge amount of subjects including what i have been writing in this blog. with that being said i will have to tell you that this is my last post on this blog, but not my last post ever.
in a matter of days we will launch our new blog, our posts will be more frequent and our will of critique untouched.
you will be able to catch me at the thinking ship

Bravo

In the Lebanese society there are certain jokes that are used on a daily basis by people we know.  These jokes can be verbal as well as gestural. They are the clichés of our everyday life, we are able to anticipate them but unable to prevent them; they are engraved in the brain of every Lebanese such as a Pavlov reflex. There are a lot of these acts, but I will only name a few since I haven’t got all the time in the world, nor are there enough words in the English dictionary to attribute an adjective to each of these clichés.  

One of my favorite cliché is the joke everyone makes on new year, supposing it is the 31^st of December of a random year, and you are about to see this person for the last time for today, as he is leaving you, and holding the elevator door while still making conversation (that is the Lebanese way), this small grin appears on his face, you anticipate what he is about to say but it is too late to stop him. And so it comes out; the most used up joke in the world, the Justin Bieber music to my ears, the new moon movie to my eyes: “I’ll see you next year “he said, and slam the door in his face I did. At least this one is only heard one day of the year. 

Another of my favorite is when you are in a men locker room, as you want to change your clothes from casual to sportswear everyone starts starring at you. You take off you jacket, nothing happens. You take of your shoes, nothing happens. But at the moment you start unbuttoning your shirt every man in the locker room starts to whistle, and they are screaming with these high pitched voices:” lok eh !!!  shala7!! “. This is still merciful compared to what happens when one male takes off his pants, the room turns into a zoo full of hyenas trying to feed off what little self esteem you have on those chicken legs you call thighs.  

You know how there is a different happy birthday song in every country. Well in Lebanon one does not simply cut the cake after one happy birthday song, he has to wait until everyone sings the four traditional birthday songs, in English, French, Arabic and Lebanese. Even though it is the same song in different language and each consists ONLY of saying the following words “happy birthday” in a catching melody. The one happy birthday song that stands out is the Lebanese version, while the other languages wish you a happy birthday; the Lebanese version translates the love every Lebanese has for his belly, since the song consists of saying “we want to eat cake” or in its original Lebanese:” badna nekol gateau”.

Everyone cuts his hair, and it is a perfectly natural thing to do. Quite frankly I am afraid to cut my hair knowing that the next day I’ll have to go to university. There is this other Lebanese clichés that is called a “sa7sou7”, I find myself incapable of finding its equivalent in English. Anyway, the “sa7sou7” consists of having everyone you know pad you on the back of the neck. Some perform a gentle pad out of respect for this “tradition”, as for the others it is an opportunity to show off their power or their and express themselves as the alpha male as they use this chance to give you the strongest smack you will ever receive, really, how often do you get a chance at hitting someone without suffering any consequences. I have absolutely no idea where, when and how this began, and I find it ridiculous and insulting (except when I get to hit others :p ).

Finally my all time favorite, a “funny” joke everyone pulls ever since I got my cell phone, and every cell phone holder suffers from it. If you are sitting with some friends and your mom calls you on your phone, as soon as you pick up these twenty years old friends of yours suddenly loose ten years out of their maturity and they scream:” put away that cigarette while you are talking to your mother”, “Nicolas, it’s your turn to take a sniff of cocaine” or they start making moaning noises as if I was having sex. Supposing I was having sex with a girl, I would certainly not pick up the phone in the middle of things especially if it was my mother. And supposing that for some reason I did pick up the phone, I would certainly not continue my love making while talking to my mother! That would be sick.

Oh! I almost forgot about the extensive use of the word "bravo"...(with a hyphenation on the "a")

for example: 

A: how old are you?

B: 20 years old 

A: Walla bravo !

I can't imagine how hard it was... (there should be a sarcasm font in windows)

p.s. Mom if you are reading this; me not picking up the phone doesn’t mean I am having sex. 

Cloudy with a chance of rain

While you are living in Lebanon many things can go unnoticed because they become part of our routine; things that any foreigner would consider as strange but in our point of you they represent a habit that we got used to, we are like a lion that has been tamed and taught to live by the rules that are imposed on him.  But the subject that I will talk about is in contradiction with the name of this blog since it is not typically Lebanese because it has only manifested itself this year. What I am going to talk about is the weather that has been cast on us this year.  Unable to predict the weather, TV stations left us no choice but to believe the exact opposite of what they are broadcasting. Usually the Lebanese reaction to the typical weather is very predictable:

1-Octobre: in this month, the regular Lebanese hangs his t-shirts in the closet and starts unpacking his winter kit and his ski equipment (the Lebanese are very passionate about skiing and start preparing 3 month in advance).  Also in this month he starts complaining about the lack of early showers that usually open up the rain season. And based on this keen observation, this Lebanese practices one of the sports he is the master of which is jumping to conclusions, and postulates that this year will be dry and that we will have some water troubles in the upcoming summer.

2-November: at this point we start experiencing some rain, but the Lebanese that was complaining in October is still not satisfied and worried that we haven’t reached the yearly amount of water dropped on our territory (noting that we are still in November, and it is called a YEARLY amount)

3-December-January-February:  in these three months every Lebanese will regret every complain he said during the previous months since the sky will open up and empty a bottomless bucket of water onto Lebanon thus drowning us under several meters of snow. It is at that moment that the Lebanese will take out their mitts and boots, jump in a car and go have a snow trip. For the skiers this will be a tremendous opportunity to show off their class skipping skills and enjoy themselves in faraya or the cedars or any other ski station. As for the rest of us, we will go to a mountain, make a barbeque on the snow, build a snow man, and then to practice another Lebanese tradition which is show off, we will put some snow on the car just to show to the rest of the world that we did it, we played with some snow, and now we are going to rub it in your nose, and to push the knife further into the wound, we will post all of the trip photos on Facebook. This period is also marked by the incredibly high amount off cold and flu which attack everyone and leave none at the mercy of their nose blowing, loud coughing and incessant sneezing symptoms.

4-March: usually the wrath of the winter is taken down and the flowers start blooming, the Lebanese is happy to see the sun again and put back the heavy coats in the closet, which he was wearing for 3 months. But there is always something to complain about in this country and this time it is the end of the ski season that is turning some smiles upside down and causing uninterrupted nagging for the whole month. However this year March was not merciful and he hammered us with some heavy rain and snow thus preventing us from healing from our flu or cold and leading us into an infinite punishing circle of nose blowing.  But the skiers are incredibly happy since for the first time they will be able to ski in April while other people might be a t the beach.

In conclusion we can say that this year the weather is more schizophrenic than John Nash, changing from sun to rain in a window of 15 minutes. But this is the beauty of Lebanon, the ability of enjoying opposites in a short term of time, take for example the fact that we can go from the sea to the snow in the matter of an hour, which is the Lebanese fun fact that we brag about the most even if no one does it.

Table for six

The subject that I will to talk about in this post is the food in Lebanon. Since eating is the Lebanese national sport I feel I must treat this subject with the utmost care and attention. There is a variety of food in Lebanon but the most striking and most popular cuisine are; Lebanese, American, French, Chinese, Japanese, Italian … here is the most eaten food and the significance of each:

1-American food: two restaurants describe the fast food in Lebanon; burger king and McDonald, or as it is referred to in Lebanon; Macdo. These two multinational enterprises are in a constant battle regarding the number of peers each one has. There is this group of people who state that McDonald is better than burger king and the other group says otherwise. But what we can all agree on is that none of those two restaurants serve us anything that is even close to meat. But still, they have a large popularity in Lebanon.

2- Burger joints:  the first burger joint that I know of is “let’s burger” near Sassine square, and that lead to an uncontrolled chain reaction and an untamable spread of this very profitable business. This restaurant was later followed by: “classic burger”, “brgr & co”, “the burger bar”… in this category there is also a division among us Lebanese. There is the group that asserts that “classic burger” is by far the best burger in Beirut, and there is the other half who says that “brgr & co” is better than “classic burger” yet the prices of the last one are more reasonable. The difference between these restaurants and McDonald and burger king is that these restaurants actually serve us something that can be considered as eatable, you do not get a wasteburger instead of a hamburger.

3-French restaurants: the French restaurant that is the most known is without a doubt “le relais de l’entrecote” at monot street. This restaurant is synonym to the words valentine’s day and girlfriend’s birthday. It is the hot spot for a romantic date as well as the most cliché restaurant to which you can ask a girl out. There are other French restaurants throughout the city but none of them has the charisma of “le relais de l’entrecote”. This other restaurant is immerging it goes by the name of “rare” but it didn’t quite make a reputation for itself.

4-Lebanese restaurants: it is without a doubt the most spread cuisine in the country and yet I find it surprising how not all the Lebanese have a weight problem; considering the amount of food we eat when we go to one of these restaurants it stuns me that not every one of us weighs more than 120 kilos. When one goes to a Lebanese restaurant, it means that he made a full day commitment, supposing you arrive at one, and then if you eat as fast as you can you will leave at four o’clock, since the Lebanese are relatively slow eaters when it comes to their own cuisine then you have just linked lunch and dinner. This is how a lunch at a Lebanese restaurant usually goes; before you are even seated you must order the arguileh (chicha), then you take your time asking everyone on the table what they want as” mezza” and you order it, for the next 2 hours platters of food will be landing on the table, more than the eye can see, more than the brain can count and more than the Lebanese belly can carry. You would think that this is the end of it, that what you had is lunch, but it is merely the appetizers since a sea of grilled chicken and meat is about to take over, and the irony is that every time everyone gets stuffed of appetizers and leaves absolutely no room for the main course, leaving the barbeque as feast to the bees that are roaming around you. You would say that it is over, that you can leave in peace, but then comes the dessert which is a set of fruits and suddenly everybody finds their appetite again. The saying:”to have the eyes bigger than the belly” can be applied to perfection when one goes to a Lebanese restaurant.

5-Japanese restaurants: in Lebanon Japanese restaurants can only mean one thing; sushi, and that only means one thing; an opportunity to show off my chopsticks handling skills. It is undoubtedly the most expensive cuisine one can find and yet we find a sushi place at the corner of every street and there we come across the homeless man that sits around the curve begging us for money, we can ask ourselves what a man that can barely clothe himself is doing at a sushi restaurant but then we remember that this is Lebanon and that even beggars have to show off. I still recall a time when we cared where we ate sushi because it is raw fish and can get us seriously sick, but now we swallow this food at every place that serves them.

6- Chinese restaurants: there is nothing to specific about Chinese restaurants in Lebanon, the most known is chopsticks and has nothing that jumps of the page. But I brought up this topic in order to express my jealousy towards the American people. In every sitcom everyone always gets Chinese food delivered to their place and they come in these cardboard boxes that can be assimilated to a cube or something of that sort. So I raise the question: why don’t we have these boxes?

7-after party: the after party is what I like to call these restaurants that stay open 24h per day, the most known of them is “Zaatar w Zeit”. If you go to the sodeco branch of this restaurant you will come across a minimum of 5 friends who will be most probably hazy and hungry as hell. The second after party that is quite popular is “domino’s pizza”. However his delivery service is much more active than his actual restaurant, he remains the king of pizza after a long night, since at that time it is the only pizza restaurant that will be open and you would have drank enough at the bar to be able swallow it.

If you walk the streets of Beirut, you will see an assemblage of delivery motorcycles breaking every law in order to fill up the bellies of the hungry Lebanese. Some people work out their jaw muscles 12 hours a day and still it is too much to ask from them to stand up once In a while and actually go to a restaurant.

Growing Up

It is custom to the lebanese elders to perform some visits to their friends or grandchildren. Ever since I was a kid, both my grandmothers came to our house on a weekly basis. At first, these visits were the high point of my week since my grandmothers snuck me some candy which they had in their purse and which my mom forbid me to eat. The question that I kept asking myself when I was a kid, who didn’t discover the world, is where did my grandmother get so much candy, and why did she put it in her purse. Is she like willy wonka? Does she have a secret chocolate factory hidden in her house along with a bunch of umpa lumpas? I performed several searches of her house but I didn’t come up with anything, she was cleverer than I suspected. As I grew up, I started noticing something that I overlooked before; whenever we offered my grandma some chocolate or some hard candy she would take it as it is and put it in her purse. At first I thought that she would eat it later at home but then I came to the conclusion that represents the sad reality. All the chocolate that I had as a kid, were given to her by other people, and our chocolate will be offered to some strangers. From now on whenever she offers me candy I ask her about the latest time she got out of her house, just to estimate the time this chocolate spent in her purse. Like I said, as a kid I enjoyed those visits, but as I grew up they started to cause me more discomfort. Every visit is accompanied by some nagging on my looks; why don’t I shave, by some nagging on the fact that I do not call her on a daily basis, by some nagging on her maid,… I have problems of my own which are far from being solved, I don’t mind listening to her but since it is the same topics of conversation week in and week out I find these visits a little dull. Another thing that elder people do is whenever someone who they knew, even for the shortest period of time dies they wear black for 40 days. While she was young my grandma was quite popular, and now all her friends are leaving us due to diseases or other miscellaneous reasons so this means that I haven’t seen my grandmother wearing anything other than black for a full year. At first I thought that it was hard for her all her friends dying, but once I asked her why she was wearing black this time, she told me that the daughter of the man who owns the mini-market from where they buy their groceries have died. I told her that it was a little bit extreme but then she told me that what if she crosses this man and she wasn’t wearing black, it would be awkward. Correct me if I’m wrong but I do not find it right to mourn on some person who we didn't even know.

There is something that I do not understand in our parents and grandparents, why is it that they find it so hard to send a message on the cell phone? You merely have to follow a set of lousy instructions to get there. We did it; and it is not like we have a divine technologic power that enables us to see through the software. There is nothing easier than sending a message but they find it so hard to understand that “create a new message” means to create a new message. This is not a generalization but a critique of the minority who suffers from SMS syndrome.

Here is a habit that I find hilarious in our current Lebanese society. Whenever someone is at our house for a visit they stay for an hour or so. The first 30 to 40 minutes are intense with conversation but then the dialogue starts to move slowly until it reaches a total stop, and that is when the visitors signal that they will leave. As they get to the elevator door, accompanied by the host of course or else it would not be honorable, all subjects start flowing and the most interesting debate takes place all of this and the visitor is holding the elevator door open completely ignoring the fact that other people might want to use the lift. This much interesting debate finds no end, until it is ruptured by someone banging against the elevator door on a different floor screaming and shouting. It is at that moment that we realize that we were holding the elevator for about 10 min. We let the elevator go as the visitor is too ashamed to go in it and face the rage of the person who started claiming his right from the top of his lungs.

Let us not forget that in a few years we will be like them, in this judgmental and narrow minded fashion. 

Ach8afieh

It has been 20 years that I live in Achrafieh; the heart of Beirut, and I must say that there are some ups and downs to it. First of all let us look at the glass as half full. Achrafieh really has a lot to offer, it is the center of everything that a young Lebanese might find entertaining, let us start with ABC who offers a wide range of shopping, movies and restaurants. But if you are in the mood of clubbing there is Gemmayze who is 15 min away on foot or 40 min by car. Everything is within walking distance so if you are taking a stroll in Achrafieh you can spare yourself the trouble of driving. But there is also a downside, the traffic jams caused by misplaced traffic lights, cabs, … the car horns are the symphony to which every resident wakes up in the morning or from an afternoon nap. This is my regular weekday in Achrafieh:

The smell of gasoline wakes me up

Car horns honking never stops

I am a little late, I race to my car

Cause a little delay may take me far

It’s pointless I didn’t beat the rush

Now my patience will be crushed  

There are traffic jams on every street

I know I’ll spend 2 hours in my driver seat

Accusations and insults are in every mutter

Tension is so sharp it could slice butter

I somehow get to college on time

But on the way back there was a crime

Because my patience was killed and my money stolen

Throughout the journey my gas pointer has fallen

Salvation is near, I can see my place

But the curse isn’t over there is no parking space

I am doomed to circle the streets of this city

And hope that someday, the government will feel pity

And save me from my misery

That is known as Achrafieh.

Enough talking about the city per se, because there is more to Achrafieh than roads, cars and buildings. There are the inhabitants, Achrafieh is known for being the nest of snobs, well that is a typical Lebanese stereotype which is built on a false observation. Achrafieh is divided into many groups, and here are some of the most known:

1-the sassinists: they are a bunch of male teenagers who sit around sassine square (considered as the heart of achrafieh) eating dried pumpkin seeds (bezer). They stand there in their freshly bought moccasin (from Massimo dutti of course) and a blazer that matches with their belt and socks near an ATM machine. The reason they stand near an ATM machine is if a girl shows any interest in them they can quickly withdraw some money.

2-the Snobs: they are this army of aishti buying, Louis vuiton carrying and Sandro wearing girls who lose their identity to a series of brands and become some sort of walking commercial to this high class store. They do not pick an item by the fact that it is beautiful or not, but by the name of the brand it carries ignoring the fact that all our clothing from Armani to Arnani that we buy from ABC or burj hammoud are manufactured in china. I do not encourage piracy, but I am saying that it is ridiculous to be wearing clothes which combined can be the price of a car.

3-the tantes: they are probably the most popular inhabitants of achrafieh, they are this series of elderly women who speak French, a bit of Arabic and English (because it is not chic to speak Arabic) and who spend all their days at beauty salons or at each other places talking about their maids; “ je ne crois pas que celle qui travaille chez hugette a fait sa !!”, gossiping about each other “ tu a su que la fille de wadad a un peiti ami qui n’est pa libanais?!” and criticizing the new generation “ hal jil Abadan mech zabit! Ils passent tout leur temps 3al fessebook”.

Finally, one can say that living in achrafieh is like being stuck in the corner of a room full of ugly naked women except one who is on the opposite corner and who is not attracted to you. Here is why I made this comparison: it is noisy as hell, all you need is around, everyone seems to be preventing you from going where you want and when you get there you might have some trouble parking. 

MpH

This is a subject that I wanted to treat for a while but somehow it kept on getting pushed over. The subject is about an activity that is practiced in every country and yet we find a way to stand out from the crowd since we do it in a totally different way. The action I am referring to is quite simple really, it is driving a car. There are no gray areas in this field, you have to abide by the rules, and obey the laws. You cannot go driving around as you please. Since the Lebanese national sport is bending over the rules, we do not comply and this puts other at risk. The drivers are divided into 2 sections, the ones who do not stop at a traffic light; they are either color blind, or just stupid. And the other half who stops at the traffic light, this section of people has three actions that I find hilarious: first of all, as they are coming, and see that the light has turned to orange they put the pedal to the metal and go full speed trying to avoid the red light and forgetting that the purpose of the orange light is to slow down. The other action that dazzles me is when they are the third or second car in a lane; the second the light turns green they honk for the first person in the lane to move it and do not take in consideration the time needed for the car to kick off. The third one and in my opinion the funniest, when they arrives just as the light turns red, some people get out of their car and go to the nearest shop and charge their phone credit; that is the beauty in the Lebanese driver, he doesn’t have a minute to lose. 

Since we have no control of the streets, those illegal actions go unpunished. And sometimes when stuck in traffic and in the absence of a policeman, some of the drivers go out of their cars and start guiding the traffic as they please just for them to get out of this jam and reduce their gas consumption. Every morning as I get in my car there are three things I worry about on the streets; the taxi cars, the motorcycles and the middle aged women with 4x4. For the taxi, the reason is quite simple, the cars are usually old and poorly maintained; missing every blinker light he has, they can stop at any moment and the only signal they give you is waving their hand out of the window, always wondered what they do when it’s raining. If you are stuck behind a taxi in a narrow street, he insists on taking every person on the block to their destination, and you are powerlessly behind him cursing as your brain is trying to figure out a way to get you out of this mess.

 

The second thing I dislike is motorcycles, or as I call them; the mosquitoes of the streets. In Lebanon motorcycles are not considered vehicles (Go figure) therefore they do not follow the rules the cars abide with, in fact they do not follow any rule, they don’t have to stop on traffic lights, all the streets work both ways for them and they do not stick by a lane. They contempt themselves by slaloming around cars and getting crammed in less comfortable situations letting the car driver to worry about them and if they mess up and get knocked down they do not spare you an insult all the way to your mother, sister and sometimes a whole generation. But the cherry on the top of the cake is the fact that in the occasion of a collision between a car and a motorcycle, the driver of the car is always the one to blame and the cause of the accident will be 100% his fault. Finally, I get to the middle aged women in the 4x4, I like to call them the cleaners (no sexism intended) because in their high cars they do not stop for anyone, pushing everyone away since they want to pass, since in their high cars they are immune to accidents, and if they get into one, they burst out screaming and at you from the top of their lungs because in their minds they are right and you are wrong, but as soon as it turns out that the accident was their fault, they say that the system is corrupt. 

I’ve been going on and on about the drivers but I forgot to talk about the streets, those dark streets where you are blinded by the lights of the car coming towards you, those dark streets where all the traffic lights are off, those streets that have holes deeper than valleys and wider than seas, holes so many that we have to take major risks to avoid them. Let’s not forget about the crown jewel of the Lebanese engineers a true landmark that is sure to make it into the 7 wonders of the world; it is the bridge in the middle of the highway. But still, cars are a true passion in Lebanon, if you ask someone what is faster than a speeding bullet; they won’t answer by “Superman” but by "Bugatti Veyron Super Sport".