Beirut - "Paris of the Middle East" - II

This time I want to write about the people of Beirut and the lifestyle there. I'll actually mention about some specific type of people in Beirut but they have an noticable effect on the rest of the people.

First of all, as everybody has told me before, here in Beirut almost everybody speaks English and/or French. That's why they say it's not the best place for learning and practicing Arabic. Plus they have a strong dialect which is quite different than the Standard Arabic. So far it's ok, but here comes the strange thing. Here, people talk by mixing all these 3 languages: Arabic,French and English. And they dont just borrow some   words from the latter two, they actually form complete sentences in english and french. So when you hear people speaking, you can hear one full sentence in english, one in arabic and another in french. This is really odd.

The first alphabet: Phoenician

When you ask a Lebanese, -How do you say "happy birthday"? , the answer would be -"Happy birthday". Or you can extend this to Hi, Merci, Sorry and etc.

Or even more you can see little kids speaking english with their parents all the time. Because in the schools the first language they learn is not arabic. They choose english or french as the main language and arabic comes later as a second language. I find this totally nonsense and can only explain with this "Wannabe" culture here. Imagine on one hand some French people that dont want to speak english allthough they can; as they are too proud to be French and on the hand some people in Lebanon who dont want to speak arabic because they are too ashamed to be Arab. (Well they actually claim to be not Arab, but come on..)

As a result, people get really surprised here when you say you are studying arabic. Because arabic is not cool. If you want to have a higher status in society you have to speak French with a French accent.


The other thing to have a higher social status is to look good in this country. And there's a very strong pressure on everybody to look better. For this reason, 1/3 of Lebanese girls have had at least one plastic surgery in Beirut. All the noses look like the same and you can see girls smoking shisha with giant lips!! Have a look at famous Lebanese singers and see how all of them look like each other!!

You can see girls going to the university with high-heeled shoes, night dresses and expensive bags. A Lebanese woman on the plane was complaining to me that she had to put her Macbook to her Prada bag and she was also telling that Europeans find her overdressed but that was actually casual for her!

Another exaggerated thing is the cars. Everybody in Beirut drives jeeps or really fancy cars. Your car defines your status. If a man has a new BMW,Mercedes or Nissan Jeep, he has a better chance on finding a girl that looks like above.
You cannot see those middle class cars that for instance I always see in Turkey. I hardly saw a Focus, Golf, Palio, Corolla or anything like that. So what does middle class drive? They also have jeeps but the ones that elites sell after they use a few years. And what about the poor? They also drive Mercedeses but from the 80s!

And there is no other.. Everybody has a car here cause you cannot really survive without a car and the Lebanese never ever walk! You cannot see people walking on the streets. They go to a restaurant and leave their car keys to a Valet.. Dont tell me every restaurant cannot have Valet parking, because even McDonalds has it!!!


So just like everybody I also wondered: Where does this money come from?? Are they really rich?
The answer is no!! They are not patrol millioners. Lebanon doesnt have oil!.. Hence?
The thing is, they only look rich or in other words live like rich. They dont think about the future, they never save money and consume all the money to luxury. They take loans from the banks again and again. This is a place where there is a specific loan for plastic surgery!

And the bad thing is, the life is not cheap in Lebanon.. Eating in a good restaurant would cost quite high especially compared to Middle East or the salaries they earn. Average salary for a university graduate is about 800 dollars and the cost just to rent a room in Beirut costs like 350-400 dollars!

An electric pole

And beyond this luxury, the life standards are not really good. The government doesnt supply electric all day. Everyday they cut at least 4 hours. So you have to buy electric from private companies also, plus the non-ending electric cuts during all day. Gsm companies are really expensive, they cancel your number if you dont charge for only 2 weeks!! And Lebanon has the slowest internet I've seen.. You have to wait half an hour to watch a video on youtube..

The people who have better conditions somehow afford these expenses. And it's very common that working families have a nanny from Philipines or Sri Lanka. You can see them around on sundays everywhere which is their only free day (if they are lucky). They work for 200 dollars a month and do all the housework. They are hoping to save some money and return back after 3 years, the duration that their visa allows.


Moreover, I guess everybody has a house up in the mountains or the house of their parents. There is a terrible traffic every weekend by the people who leave the hot, humid weather of Beirut and run away to the cool, fresh mountains.

There is also certain image of Beirut from the rest of the Arabs that I want to mention. When you say you went to Beirut, all Middle East reacts as if you have been to Las Vegas. Because that's how Beirut is seen by their eyes but it's not really like that. Oil millioners of the Gulf region come to this city just to spend their money on prostitution, nightlife and stuff.
This is why Lebanese people dont like them. They are basicly rich and stupid.

Along with all these interesting things about the people of Lebanon, they are really friendly and welcoming. They do their best to ensure you enjoy your stay in Lebanon and they really care about what you think about their country.

About the critic I made about the culture, actually I can criticise like this, many other cultures including Turkey. Indeed, it's very very similar to Turkey.
These acts are no different than us trying to show everybody that we are not Arabs(the only difference is we are actually not ;)) via changing the alphabet and dressing style, via banning everything from the old, forcing people to "look like" western.. Or Chinese who becomes happy when you say he/she doesnt look Chinese.. Or an Indian or African who tries to become "White" via using some creams and stuff... Or a Japanese who just wants to find a "Western" partner.. Or a South American who gives her child an American name...

The truth is West has not become "West" just because they are white or dont have slanty eyes or have those names. In fact, West wasn't always "West" and probably will not be so forever.

I'm just deeply ashamed of most of the people outside "the West" 

Beirut - "Paris of the Middle East"

Paris of the Middle East.. yes I think this might give a good idea about Beirut and its people. But no, not in the sense that you would understand when you first read this. I mean, when you want to picture the streets and buildings of this city in your mind, your image will definitely not match what you will see in Beirut. However, this phrase reveals the mentality of the people here and what they want to be..They are trying to live and look like the Paris people..

After living 1 month in this incomprehensible city, I had a general idea about the lifestyle in Beirut. But still, it's almost impossible to understand..Maybe it's because of the rich history, occupations and wars which were non-stop in this country.. The known history starts from the Phoenicians and goes on to Egiptians, Persians, Assyriacs, Romans, Arabs, Seljuks, Mamluks, Crusaders, Ottomans and finally the French Mandate. As a consequence of all these, a country with a very very diverse ethnicity and religion has emerged..

There are 17 religions in this country. I dont think it exists in any other place around the world, especially in such a small land. 59.7% of the people are Muslims where Sunni and Shia are 27% each and 39% is Christian. The Christians are mostly Maronite but there is also Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Chaldean, Assyrian, Coptic, Protestant. And the other Muslim communities are  Druze, Isma'ilite, Alawite.

In the end, what you get from all these are a very messy political system, civil war and identity and ethnicity problems.First of all the state is not secular and religions are the basic elements that shape the political system. For instance, here in Lebanon, the president has to be Christian, the prime minister has to be Sunni and the speaker of the parliament has to be Shi'a. So we can say that the main political power is in the hands of the Sunni community.

Other than that, the civil law is not secular as well. That is, when you want to get married or divorce, you have to obey the rules of your religion. For example, if you are a Catholic, you may not be allowed to divorce. Or marriages between people of different religions are strongly discouraged or prohibited for most of the groups. So many people here go to Cyprus or sometimes Turkey to have a civil marriage.. And other issues about inheritance are also handled by the religions. All the laws other than the civil law are copied from the French system.

Although religion is always involved in the politics the main polarization of the country right now is not actually about religion. After the assassination of the prime minister Rafic Hariri in 2005, there are two main groups in Lebanon: March 8 and March 14. In other words Pro-Syria and Anti-Syria.
March 14 group is mainly Sunni and supported Hariri. They blame Syria for the murder of their prime minister in 2005.
For me the more interesting group is March 8 which consists of Christians, Shia and Hezboullah. The thing that surprised me was some Christians who are in this group that support Hezboullah. I didn't expect anything like that as Hezboullah does not sound very positive from the outside. So a Christian Hezboullah supporter was totally unexpected.

But there are many reasons why Hezboullah is so powerful here. First of all Lebanese army is very very weak, thanks to the arms export embargo that is applied by almost all the world, in other words "thanks" to Israel. The army doesn't even have planes. So the only power that can resist to Israel seems to be Hezboullah which is backed by the Shia community, which is Iran and Syria. In the end they are indeed very powerful especially in southern Lebanon. You can see flags and posters all around the cities.

Other than that, your poltical choice will always find and effect you in your life. For instance, when you apply for a job, your qualifications are less important than your political and religious backgrounds. This is something very annoying if you dont want to be any part of it. But this option is unfortunately not available. In this sense this is quite similar to Turkey except for one main difference. Turkey is not that diverse. Right now it's only "Erdogan" or "anti-Erdogan".

In Lebanon, just like in Turkey everybody talks about politics. But they dont just talk. For example, every political party has a color. And these colors do not belong to the people anymore. You cannot just wear whatever color you like, cause people would think you support that party. Here's an interesting article how this can be annoying.

These people even special way of sounding the horn according to your political leanings!!! Everytime you are in a tunnel, you can hear the "horn fight" where you try to make more noise than the others with the rythim that's associated with your party.

Anyways, enough with the politics.. There are many minorities in Lebanon that I found interesting.

Armenian Church in Bourj Hammoud

First of all Armenians who were dramatically expelled from Turkey during Ottoman times, in 1915 and before. They are living in a neighbourhood where the hatred against Turks is still very alive. The violent acts do not continue as there were attacks to Turkish Embassy and secretary of Turkish embassy was killed in 1975 by ASALA. But for instance, this district is the only place in Lebanon, where you cannot find any Turkish products in the supermarkets and where people do not watch Turkish tv series (yes all the Arabic world is watching stupid series from Turkey since the last decade :)
But still, you can meet people who have their grandparents Turkish and Armenian and these old people speak Turkish at home with each other.

The other community I found interesting is the Druze. Maybe it's because of the name which is Dürzü in Turkish and gained a completely different meaning!!!
They say Druze was a branch of Shia before but then changed and transformed to something different. But I still couldnt exactly figure it out. Because the religion is kept secret from almost everybody. Even the Druze people themselves. The truth is only known by some "knowers" and only they have access to these secret teachings..The Druze people might have this opportunity after they are 40 years old, if they deserve it. The Druze permit no conversion, either away from or to their religion, and no intermarriage..
This is all the information and I could find online and I've been heard there. But I don't have any idea about how correct it is.

And the last minority is the people who are always minority everwhere in the world.. There are 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, mostly living in refugee camps. These people are not allowed to be a Lebanese citizen, are not allowed to work or buy property. So, they have no rights at all. They live in the camps in very bad conditions. They cant leave the camp without a special permission. They dont have access to Lebanese healt care system. In other words, they are not behaved anything like humans, and totally ignored. All I can say is, this is a huge shame on Lebanon and Arab world.



Finally, to end the background information about Lebanon, there's the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 to 1990 which caused around 200,000 deaths. It was a war between many groups as a result of the diversity of the country: Sunni, Shia, Christian, Palestinians, Israel, Syria..

In the end Beirut was completely destroyed where you can still see signs from the war around the city. Since then, there's construction all around the city to rebuild the "Paris of the Middle East" again. The signs on the buildings are mostly removed but probably not the ones in the memories.

I'll write my observations about the people and the lifestyle in a seperate post as this background was really long and became just an introduction to understand the Lebanese.

First days in Beirut

I've finished my first year in my Master's and my next year will be in Karlskrona-Sweden next year.. Till then I have this summer time free so I decided to fill this with an Arabic course in Beirut!! I've always wanted to see Beirut for some reason and finally I got here yesterday!

The course is offered by University of Saint Joseph here. It's an intensive summer course which means I have 5 hours of class everyday. I chose this place as it was the most appropriate one for me because of the dates and the price. The other options were Saifi Institute which started in June and it was too soon for me and the most famous one was American University of Beirut. It would be a better choice for me as I wouldnt have any language problem but it's meaninglessly expensive. It was around 4000 dollars!

Here in my university the main language is French obviously. It's totally forbidden to speak any language other than Arabic during the classes but all other stuff goes on in French and everybody speaks French..But I hope this wont be much of a problem as they also speak English generally..

I arrived here on sunday and took the cab to my student dormitory. I unpacked and everything but my internet was not working and I didnt have lebanese money in my pocket and there was nothing around. So I had to stay in my room, drink tap water and eat the my mum's cookies all day  :)

Today I attended my first class. There were many French and Italians.. I was expecting French but I really dont know howcome Italians were into Arabic language course this much. There are also a few Spanish and some half Lebanese half American guys..
The course was funny as always.. It feels like primary school days everytime you start to learn a new language.

After the course I finally went for some shopping to the supermarket that was supposed to be cheap. But woow.. It's almost more expensive than Spain.. I wasnt expecting this. I couldnt buy many things I wanted to. But anyways, paying part did not hurt that much..Thanks to the light in the cashier's eyes when she checked my ID and saw Turkey there... It was worth seeing :)

Well I also experienced my first geting lost.. I walked all around the city for hours, since there's no sign of street names or anything it was quite painful.. I'll write about my impressions about the city after I see it properly :)

That's all from Beirut for now..