[LCM Articles] The World's Most Gracious City (Financial Times, 11/27/04)

[Loai Naamani]

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. 


By RAHUL JACOB 
1,389 words 
27 November 2004
 <javascript:NewWindow(%20'FIISrcDetails','?from=article&ids=ftft');void(0);> Financial Times
London Ed1
Page 16
English
(c) 2004 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved 

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. 

"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. 

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. 

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. 

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.


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. 

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. 

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. 

"Welcome," he said elaborately drawing out the word as if we were on a state visit. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Beirut 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. 

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." 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.



Enjoy!
L.

___________________________________
Loai Naamani
PhD Candidate - Information Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

    Phone: +1 (617) 452 5380
    Email:  Loai at mit.edu
    URL:   www.Loai-Naamani.com <http://www.loai-naamani.com/> 


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