Tag Archives: France

Paris – The Most Beautiful City I’ve Been To

I’ve been to quite a few places in the past few years. Some were enjoyable, others were underwhelming. But there’s one place out of them all that stands out, completely and irrevocably drawing me in every time I think of it: Paris.

Paris is the city of the streets that might as well be museums, the frisson that sends shivers up your spine as you get lost around the city marveling at wonder after wonder, the metro that closes at who knows when leaving you stranded and walking back to your hotel at 2 AM, the lovers huddling at Pont Des Arts kissing to a Parisian sunset, the artists singing around Montmartre while you slither your way around winding roads taking you up to Basilique du Sacré Coeur.

Paris is the city of the monuments that you had thought were cliches but can’t really appreciate until you’re standing at Trocadero, looking at the Eiffel tower shining as the sun behind you dies down at 10:30 PM or when you buy an impromptu lunch and sit with your best friend on the grass that is really greener there, under the Eiffel Tower.

Paris is the city that convinces you to splurge on the food that makes your mouth water at the mere mention of it, the ice cream that tastes like the fresh fruits from which it was made. It’s the city of you walking up the Champs-Elysées slightly tipsy from the wine that flows down smoother than water.

Paris is the city which, after two visits, I’ve yet to get enough of. It’s the city that makes me both happy and nostalgic at the thought of it. It’s the city that quickly turns into a main discussion between the people who have been to it. It’s the city that has charm in every step of its sidewalks.

Is there anything more beautiful than Paris? I don’t think so.

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Why The “Anthony Touma”s of Lebanon Make Us Proud

When I spent a month in France, back in August of 2012, I was somewhat surprised to find most people there had some gross misconceptions about Lebanon. I had thought that French people out of everyone would at least know slightly more than your average info about this country in the Middle East. But it was the same thing all over again: desert, camels, tents, oil, everyone is rich, etc…

It was grating at first. Then it became amusing. There was really nothing I could do to change what those people thought of me or my country or everyone who had my passport. It’s not only the French, it’s basically everywhere else as well. And we try to pretend as if the stereotype isn’t there but kidding ourselves is all we do.

I’ve been pondering for a while over why is it that the Lebanese candidate Anthony Touma on France’s The Voice managed to instill a sense of nationalism among us, one that doesn’t necessarily reflect the same way by the French over the French candidates on the show.

In more general terms, because Anthony Touma isn’t a lone example, why is it that we cannot not be proud of the Anthony Toumas of Lebanon, no matter how hard we try and knowing that they may not be the absolute best at what they do? Why do we feel wronged when they get wronged? Why do we, as Lebanese, feel involved in what they do and what they accomplish fully knowing that the benefits they reap don’t reflect on us in any way?

I am not the type of Lebanese people who gush over the Shakiras and Salma Hayeks who never set foot here and yet some people feel obliged to try and get them to identify with us.

But when I look at Anthony Touma, Amin Maalouf and others, I see people who are like me, who lived my life, who probably went to schools similar to mine, who walked the same streets that I walk everyday and who are doing the best they could with the talent they have.

The Anthony Toumas of Lebanon are the people who, with each word they write or each note they sing, give a better image of our country than we could ever do. And some might believe we don’t need that. But we do. We terribly do.

Our sense of nationalism as Lebanese kicks in often because we have something to prove. We want to prove that we can do better, that we can be better. We want to prove that this small nation can give the world great gifts. We want to prove that the confines of the 10452 km2 don’t limit us. We want to prove that war and violence and absurd politics don’t bring us down. We want to prove that we can rise above the terrible hands we are dealt on daily basis. We want to prove that this small Middle Eastern country has something to give and give well.

For many, those prospects are never self-fulfilled, which is okay. We are not all given the same chances in life. But when we look at Touma, Maalouf, Gebran, Nadine Labaki, etc… We see people who are trying to make it or have made it. And they give us hope. And those people who walk and talk and think like us make us proud.

There will come a time, hopefully, when we no longer feel we have something to prove to the world. Perhaps our sense of nationalism towards the Anthony Toumas of Lebanon lessens when that time comes. But until then, there’s nothing wrong with feeling proud of our countrymen who represent us despite everything and represent us well.

Or you can hate on them because feeling proud of someone because they’re Lebanese is just too non-scientific and mainstream.

Anthony Touma Loses On France’s The Voice

After a successful run on the second season of France’s The Voice, the Lebanese candidate Anthony Touma lost in the show’s semi-final to Olympe.

Despite winning the public vote with a huge margin: 59.7% to 40.3%, Anthony Touma only got 15 points out of the 50 allocated to his coach, which seems fitting enough since 35 points was all it took for Olympe to beat out the Lebanese candidate by 0.6 points.

I find the way Anthony Touma lost to be quite fishy. It’s strange how all the other judges awarded their 50 points in a more balanced manner (26-24) except Jenifer who decided to go as lopsided as she did.  And it’s strange that, after having lost the public vote twice consecutively to Olympe, Anthony Touma would come back to win with such a wide margin.

It all feels very calculated and fishy. Perhaps they didn’t want a non-French to win the second season of France’s The Voice?

Either way, my Facebook friends are already on a witch hunt against Jenifer:

Jenifer The Voice The Bitch

I don’t think Anthony Touma is a talent that knows no match. I think he’s slightly overrated but I’m still immensely proud of what he’s accomplished. Good luck to him in his future endeavors though it seems he doesn’t need them. Pascal Nègre, CEO of Universal France, already wants him to sign a record deal.

This is Anthony Touma’s performance at the semi-finals with “Les Mots Bleus” with the results in question (link).

Carrefour Lebanon’s Tough Path To Success?

Carrefour was one of the simple pleasures of my life in France. It was close to my apartment – a two minute walk. I would find everything that I needed among its not so numerous shelves: the place was as small as a mini-market in Lebanese standards.

Carrefour also represented an entire shift in my thinking paradigm when it comes to grocery shopping. For starters, they didn’t offer plastic bags for your purchases for free. I no longer needed hypermarkets to find mundane things I had come to believe only existed there. But most importantly, it made me deviate from buying the brands I had grown used to in favor of its own offering: the brand Carrefour.

Let’s take a simple example: fruit yoghurt. 12 Carrefour little packets of the substance cost €1.23 whereas half that amount of other brands such as Danone or Nestlé cost at least 3 times that much.
This quickly perpetuated to my purchases of my entire grocery: from cheese to bread to toilet paper. The amount of money I was saving up because of that kept me from thinking about any potential difference in quality which I frankly didn’t even encounter: the brand Carrefour offered stuff which were equal if not sometimes better than the more expensive alternatives.

Today, Carrefour is opening in Lebanon in Beirut’s City Center – a new mall in Hazmieh, because places outside of Beirut and its suburbs are not supposed to get malls. It has ads spreading all the way to Tripoli announcing the place. This is proof if you don’t believe me:

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Is Carrefour overdoing the marketing blitz? Definitely. How so? Well, ask yourself this simple question: regardless of how much money you’d be saving, would you be willing to drive 81km in Lebanon in order to buy grocery?

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But that’s not the major hurdle Carrefour will be facing in Lebanon: it’s getting an entire country to have the paradigm shift I had when I stayed in France, something that other brands tried to do and failed.

Spinneys, for instance, does the same thing Carrefour will be doing in a few days: it offers its own tissues, its own grains, soda, chips, etc…. But people rarely buy them because we, as Lebanese, have somehow associated the cheapness of the brand and the fact that it isn’t as trustworthy compared to others with it not being good enough.
Carrefour, which is sending text messages to almost everyone in Lebanon, will not be cheaper than any of their other already present alternatives if people refuse to buy its brand which begets the question: will it be any different and do we really need another chain in the country?

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Besides, will the Carrefour brand be cheaper than what the market currently offers? For instance, will Carrefour yoghurt be cheaper than the one Taanayel offers? Or will it feature a price hike because it’s “signé” and imported from “Paghis” à la Paul and Fauchon and other French outlets in Lebanon?

Moreover, the success of Carrefour in Europe stems from it being accessible to everyone through small shops like the one I described previously. Few are the Carrefour hypermarkets across France but many are the mini markets, which makes any customer’s shopping experience more personal and less hectic.
In fact, the entire city of Lille, France’s 4th in size, has only one major Carrefour store in the city’s main mall Euralille. However, it has dozens of smaller Carrefours spread around the city and its suburbs offering almost the same thing.

Will Carrefour adopt the same approach in Lebanon? Or will it be the same thing all over again: spreading across the country in huge chains that won’t offer anything different from what’s already present?
If Carrefour wants to spread in Lebanon and offer a true alternative to the Lebanese, shouldn’t it start differently from what others did and not follow up with the current trend of you finding everything you need in malls only?

If Carrefour moves to Tripoli for instance, it will have a very hard time battling it out for market share with the wildly popular Spinneys. But if it offered smaller shops around the city, then people might end up making it their go-to place.

Perhaps market research showed some room for an alternative. But I don’t think the alternative is necessarily another grocery chain but a whole new approach to what’s already here: to get people to buy cheaper and equally good products, make things more accessible and make them need driving from Achrafieh and nearby Spinneys or TSC to said alternative.

I don’t think Carrefour will do that in its present form.

Your Healthy Dose of Lebanese Reality

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I submitted my papers to get the Schengen visa for a couple of weeks in June this morning. My appointment was at 8:30 so I went there early.
We stood in the cold, clinging tightly to a folder of documents that contained more papers than anyone would like to read.
We waited and waited until they were kind enough to let us in to wait some more before they called our names to have our pile of documents checked.

Check, check, check, check. All is in order. Or not – they need a couple more papers from my working friend to prove the company he’s working in truly “exists.”

Why would anyone not invent an entire company just to apply for a visa?

You pay $115 and leave. You are asked to go to the embassy the following day to have your fingerprints taken. Because the ones they took less than a year prior are no longer valid. Fingerprints change yearly in case you didn’t know.

This is your healthy dose of reality: walking the walk that makes you feel worthless just to have embassies consider letting you in so you can spend your money in their territories for a couple of weeks of tourism.

Feeling like third rate citizens of the world is a nice way to start your day. But it’s okay because we have “el Jabal el arib men l ba7r w trab l arz yalli aghla men l dahab.”

Meanwhile, my dual citizenship friend has booked her ticket for the summer. She doesn’t have to bother with all of this.