Eureka!: Tales from the Arabian Nights, Part 1: Venturing Out of the Bomb Shelter

The night of my arrival in Beirut, Lebanon, I ventured into the Music Hall to check out the Lebanese “entertainment culture”. It's really lucky that I arrived in time to experience a Beirut weekend. Before I tell you about Music Hall, though, I want to tell you what it is like to be living for 4 months in Iraqi Kurdistan, and then suddenly finding myself walking through a street in Beirut, Lebanon after a couple short plane rides: frankly, it's like emerging from a bomb shelter to discover that the world is actually 50 years into the future, a la “Blast From the Past”, starring Brendan Frasier and Alicia Silverstone. As I walked wide-eyed through a street teeming with cars and people, though it was dark out, I was shocked by the sight of so many women dressed so scantily, elegantly, and fashionably. No demure covering to speak of around here! Nor neon-bright, tacky outfits, Santa dresses, or bumblebee outfits. Only short, stylish dresses, trendy jeans, checkered scarves, and fashion boots. And they all had beautiful, flowing dark brown hair and perfectly made-up faces. Geez, was this for real? I was positively dizzy from sensory overload. Don't laugh, but I actually took a picture of the entrance of a Hallmark store. It was so beautifully decorated for Christmas and the products inside were so adorable and beautiful and of such good quality! Sigh...I really spoiled myself silly during my stay in this country, but it was all totally and utterly worth it. You could say, I picked up the mindset of the Lebanese people (why save when you can spend?) with admirable ease and efficiency during my short stay there. And it all started with Music Hall...

Not really, but what a great transition that would have been! Before Music Hall, I spent the day walking through the city, whiled away time at a coffee shop (!) called De Prague, learned the difference between Iranian and Turkish rugs (one has geometrical designs, the other floral), and watched the tempestuous waves of the Mediterranean Sea seething and crashing against the rocks. I chatted for a long while with the young, friendly couple who owned an artisan crafts shop along the Corniche (the waterfront along the Mediterranean). They had lived in Seoul for six years during the '90s boom years, working for the Lebanese embassy there. They told me a funny story about how their son wouldn't stop crying one night, though they couldn't figure out for the life of them why. Finally after hours of trying everything they could think of, they called downstairs in the dead of night and asked for help from the Korean hotel receptionist, and figured out that all he wanted was rice. Only he was saying it in Korean- not in Arabic or French or even English. It was a story that was both funny and telling. The couple had moved back to Lebanon to raise their sons in a linguistically saner environment. (Only three languages to learn, not four.)

Later, I wandered through Gemayzeh street before it became a crazy party scene, and chatted with the youthful owner of a godfather-themed Italian restaurant there called Corleone Trattoria. He had become owner and manager of the successful business at the youthful age of 21 through sheer hard work. He was proud of his accomplishments, yet regretted not being able to enjoy his youth. He never had time to go out for dinners and drinks and parties like his peers because of his work. And yet, his restaurant was a beautiful success, set right in the heart of the Beirut party scene. This was not an unusual tale in Beirut, I realized later. Many Beirut-ers spend all their time working just to survive in their expensive city. Others work and spend, work and spend, and don't even try to save. It may be that they don't save for the future because their future might be bombed any day. The Lebanese live for the present and party like there's no tomorrow because, in fact, there may be no tomorrow.

I left Gemayzeh street eventually, and wandered through the beautiful downtown where stands a gorgeous mosque commissioned by the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. I toured the tent-memorial of Hariri, whiled away more time at the Apple Store there, flipping through artsy mac covers, whiled away even more time at the Virgin Records bookstore where I read through JK Rowlings latest book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and then finally made my way to Music Hall around 1 am, when the streets were still lit up and lively with weekend revelers.

Though I was dressed ultra-casually in blue jeans and a hoodie under my red coat and sneakers, I had no trouble getting into the concert hall because the party had started awhile ago, maybe a couple hours ago, and they could tell I was a tourist. It was dark inside, and I remember red lights and then a huge audience seating area in front of the bar set in the back, as in a theatre. And a big stage below with a Reggatone band jamming away on it. It was very crowded with people dressed to the nines, all the women in elegant party dresses. People were seated in groups in red, semi-circular booths, eating fancy food, but others were on their feet dancing Lebo-style with their hands in the air to the music coming from the stage. This is what went on at Music Hall, every weekend. It's like a casual concert that you don't need tickets for in advance, that shows a dozen bands each night of a variety of music genres, accompanied by neon-bright roaming stage-lights; where people dine and drink and dance the night away. In between bands, they play recorded music and people dance to that too. House music is very popular, but they play and show all kinds- even a girl who did a remix of Stevie Wonder. The best part was at the end when an old man in his 60's with long silver hair came out with a stick and started dancing a jig of sorts and spinning his stick around like a ninja stick. This was Tony Hanna, a Lebanese musician beloved by his people, young and old, a symbolic figure, and clearly a crowd favorite.

I didn't leave until around 3 or 4 that night, but there were still taxis around and cops stationed at street corners so it didn't feel weird or scary. Before going back into the Royal Garden hotel, I grabbed a cheese pizza from the pizza cart across the street that is open 24/7, and stood at the window of my 4th floor hotel room munching on it and watching the scene below. It was nothing interesting, but just the fact that there was something going on, that there was life on the streets at this hour of the night was enough to captivate my sorely-deprived senses.

40% of the Lebanese population is Christian

Rafik Hariri's tent-memorial set in the shadows of the beautifully-lit mosque set in Downtown Beirut, commissioned by the late Prime Minister himself. He was assassinated in 2005 by a truck-bomb that blew up his entire motorcade. A cab driver drove me past the location of the bombing. "Hariri, BOOM!" he explained concisely.

The older crowd generally praised Hariri for the bottom-up post-war reconstruction of Beirut, while the younger crowd complained that he had sold half their nation to rich Saudis and brought Lebanon neck-deep into debt.

The cedar tree is the national symbol of Lebanon, growing abundantly in their snow-capped mountains.

Hariri's tomb. The white flowers are changed every few days. The wheel-shaped objects hanging on the walls and also covered with the same white flowers are a tribute from each of his children and grandchildren.

Hariri's bodyguards who were also killed in the 2005 truck-bomb assassination.

Music blared from speakers all the while; the flag of Lebanon marked with dozens and dozens of signatures.

I sat outside on the stoops of the mosque playing with my camera.

Ornate towers with octagonal balconies jutting up from the mosque.

Pretty lanterns

Music Hall

I climbed the Saint Nicholas Steps on Gemayzeh Street, beautifully lit for the holidays, lined with bars and restaurants, packed to the max on Saturday nights.