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<h1><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
world's most gracious city: Rahul Jacob finds the traditions of the ancient
Phoenicians are alive in Beirut, where even immigration officials invite you
home. </span></font></b></h1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>By RAHUL JACOB <br>
1,389 words <br>
27 November 2004<br>
<a
href="javascript:NewWindow(%20'FIISrcDetails','?from=article&ids=ftft');void(0);"
title="Financial Times"><font color="#6666ff"><span style='color:#6666FF'>Financial
Times</span></font></a><br>
London Ed1<br>
Page 16<br>
English<br>
(c) 2004 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Immigration
officials at airports the world over tend to be a dour bunch - repetitive
strain from all that rubber-stamping perhaps - but not in Beirut. Bleary-eyed
from having flown in at 4.30am, I returned from the currency exchange booth to
find the two friends I was travelling with deep in conversation with an
immigration official. I imagined there was a problem of some kind, but as I
drew closer I realised they were bantering, among other things about where to
find the best Lebanese food in town. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"My
mother cooks the best," he said in characteristically Mediterranean
fashion. "I invite you to my home." They looked uncertain. "I
mean that," he insisted. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>On the
flimsiest of pretexts, the baby-faced, khaki-clad official then waived their
visa fees and wished them a pleasant stay. Beirut's charm offensive starts
early. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In the
past couple of months, politics have taken a worrying tack in Lebanon, but to the casual visitor the party town that is Beirut still seems the most gracious city
in the world, even if it can seem occasionally schizophrenic. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Divisions
between Muslims and Christians still simmer under the city's glitzy
cosmopolitan veneer while Syria's hold on Lebanon is tightening: Rafiq
al-Hariri, the highly regarded architect of Lebanon's rebound since its very
uncivil war ended in the early 1990s, quit in October. He did so apparently out
of frustration after a long battle with the president over Syria's influence over Lebanon. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>At street
level, though, the immigration officer's kindness turned out to be only the
opening act of what seemed like the handiwork of a welcoming committee. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>After
four days in Beirut, I began to think it perfectly normal for someone to offer
you a lift to a place just because you happened to have asked for directions
there. On one occasion even a cab driver did it. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Close to
sunset one evening, we wandered into the picturesque grounds of the American
University of Beirut and were passed on to a security guard who asked for
identification. Then, realising we were foreigners, his face creased into a
broad smile. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Welcome,"
he said elaborately drawing out the word as if we were on a state visit. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The young
caretaker at the so-called Fountain mosque, set amid a garden with date palms in
central Beirut, was busy putting up a canopy to accommodate the extra
worshippers expected the following day to celebrate the end of Ramadan, but he
took us around the mosque anyway. I made the "mistake" of asking the
young manager of a cafe for the way to the best part of Beirut's beachside
promenade. Twenty minutes later, he was still mapping out the rest of our day
for us. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This
hospitality is a Middle Eastern tradition of courtesy towards travellers, but
in Beirut it goes deeper and is much more informal. I felt I was wandering the
streets among a large and welcoming family that had just reclaimed an ancestral
mansion and was looking for any excuse to share its good fortune. Beirut has long been described as the Paris of the East, but I can think of few cities
less like each other. As cityscapes go, Beirut's jumble of architectural styles
doesn't begin to measure up to the Left Bank. Philosophically, the Beiruti is
as patient with tourists as the the Parisian can be disdainful. There isn't
much existential angst in Beirut either; against the odds, life - and business
- goes on. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Being
endlessly obliging makes good business sense in a city that takes pride in its
history of trading and the wealth of its far-flung diaspora. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Beirut</span></font>
has recently been rediscovered by the wealthy of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Many no longer feel welcome when they holiday in Europe or the US and spend their summers in Beirut instead. </p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Makram
Zaccour, chairman in the Middle East of Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner &
Smith, waves at a plush shopping centre just outside his office in the midst of
the sea of reconstruction that is downtown Beirut. "When you shop here, no
one will tell you, 'We close at 6 pm'. You want it delivered to your home, it
will be delivered to your home," says the courtly banker who moved back to
Beirut from London four years ago. "This is the Phoenician spirit that
carries on. We look after people." </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Then,
quite unconsciously proving his point, Zaccour guides me to a bookshop after
lunch, and leaves only after he has called a couple of stores to be sure that
they have reopened after the holidays and after he has made the bookshop's
staff promise they will direct me to them. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi says that while links between the Phoenicians
and the urban Lebanese are impossible to prove, there are many common traits.
"Like the ancient Phoenicians, they are socially playful to the point of
irresponsible levity, yet serious, highly alert and efficient, though somewhat
unconventional, when it comes to real business," he writes. We were met
every night, usually around mid night, by a restaurant manager one of our group
had befriended, after he had finished a long day's work - and usually before he
made his way to yet another party. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>There may
be a Neroesque quality to the all-night revels that are a commonplace on the
weekend in Beirut, but in few cities is the clubbing so good-humoured. We were
leaving Acid, one of those techno-blasting nightclubs that should hand out
industrial ear-mufflers at the door, when a man was shoved out by a bouncer.
Inside, the neon sign above the bar had read improbably "Open Bar till 5
am." Ripe conditions for a bust-up, I thought grimly, except that few of
the 30-something crowd were really knocking it back, despite the offer. The
argument was settled amicably enough and the ejected man sallied back into the
club where a few lesbians had commandeered the stage while a mixed gay and
straight crowd danced the night away. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Fittingly,
in a city where hospitality is a byword, restaurateurs and bar-owners really
spoil you. After we had settled the bill at The Gallery, a bar in Achrafieh,
the manager insisted on a farewell round on the house before we left. The same
evening the assistant man ager at a cosy French-Italian restaurant, Julia's,
brought dessert and liqueurs to our table after we had ordered coffee - as far
as I could tell just to keep the good-humoured jousting with our table going a
little longer. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
lesson I learned in Beirut was that cities are both a stage on which to be
sociable or a refuge where we can be anonymous. Most of us elsewhere in the
world take the latter route, the path of least engagement. By my last evening
in Beirut, I was beginning to acclimatise. Even so, while shopping at a
shirting retailer that featured fine cotton from Italy and Switzerland, we routinely declined the offer of home-made sorbet and ice cream from the
grandfatherly owner before feeling obliged to accept. Who could blame us -
where else in the world do they do this sort of thing? A few minutes later, the
sorbet arrived - from his flat nearby. </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Through
the hour or so that we spent there shopping for all of four shirts between us,
we were peppered with questions about London and what we thought of Beirut. The elderly owner insisted on accompanying us to the street when we left, making
elaborate farewells in flowery French, pointing out the grand mansion nearby
and tut-tutting about the family squabble that had left it unoccupied. He
gallantly kissed the hand of a friend of mine, told her Italian husband he
wished he spoke French and chucked me under the chin as if I were a child. </span></font></p>
<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0pt 0pt 1.0pt 0pt'>
<p style='border:none;padding:0pt'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>As we waved goodbye, I could not help feeling that
underneath Beirut's sweet bonhomie and generousity of spirit was the anxiety of
a city energetically rebuilding itself yet uncertain that the world is taking
notice.</span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><br>
<br>
Enjoy!<br>
L.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>___________________________________<br>
<strong><b><font face=Verdana><span style='font-family:Verdana'>Loai Naamani</span></font></b></strong><br>
PhD Candidate - Information Technology<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)<br>
<br>
Phone: +1 (617) 452 5380<br>
Email: <a href="mailto:Loai@mit.edu">Loai@mit.edu</a><br>
URL: <a
href="http://www.loai-naamani.com/">www.Loai-Naamani.com</a><br>
<br>
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