It is a country that could not even provide lasting electricity and decent, clean water. There is an electricity cut daily for three house from zones to zones because the power is often insufficient here. Water tastes salty and harsh where foaming and bubbling is rare, irrelevant of how good a brand of soap or detergent you used. If you boiled the water using a cattle, eventually the cattle will be filled with hard looking stone that will filled the cattle and you will have to buy some pills to dissolve them. All because the water is too harsh.
With all this basic necessity still unfulfilled, somehow the Lebanese are very proud of themselves. Of what it still wonders me?
Are they proud of the bullet holes on their abandoned buildings? Or the tanks and army patrolling downtown as a standby in case riots or wars break again? Or how most of them can't speak the common language of the world - English? or how no money changers outside of Lebanon will not even consider to take their money? I am puzzled!
When the Lebanese see us Asian, they will think of us all from the Philippines. Yes indeed there are a lot of Philippines maids working for Lebanese here, taking care of the kids and household. That is why when they see an Asian looking face like ours, they despises us, thinking that we are from some third world country.
The landlord of our current house will be the perfect example of it. I think he might have thought that we are uncivilized and uneducated. He kept telling us how to live our daily life. For instance, toilet paper should not be flushed but to throw into a bin? That we are not aware that we should close all windows and doors when the air con is turned on and the list goes on. When i hear what came out of his mouth, i wanted to laugh into his face. If only he has gone to Malaysia and see how we live!
Then there was an incident where we were given some really poor service at a restaurant. When you asked for a coffee, you get a coffee but not sugar or milk. When you asked for a pancake it will only come after the third time you request for it and it was cold. No syrup or honey for the pancake too.
Most Lebanese are very critical of their face values. They dressed well on the outside, everywhere you go you see women with branded bags, lots of blings blings, men with nice cars and gadgets. But i really do wonder if they can really afford these things? I was told that a manager earns a mere USD 3k per month only when a Dior handbag after discount is about Usd1.6k. What about the house loan or rental? What about the car loan? What about the daily expenses?
So in order to distinguish us from bring the maids, we have to carry around a gucci bag or maybe sometimes a LV, wears a tag huer watch, dressed in zara or topshop, drives a Rav 4 and put on a Givenchy sunglasses. After all these you think they will be able to distinguish you?
Nah i bet they will be looking at us and thinking, "damn the maids! Getting all the fake stuffs from downtown! I swear i will not pick up the design or style!" And when you go fancy restaurants to eat, they might just think that we are spending our entire one month salary on some good food just because we cant afford them daily! Then comes the question of to tip how much? Too much means you are showing off because you are trying so hard not to look petty, too little is just simple because you cant afford a good tip when the meal is so darn expensive!
So where can i draw the line here?
:) I guess there is still so much to learn about the art of living in Beirut!
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