It seems like every time I go to the movie theater to check out one of Hollywood's latest creations I bump into one or more, much more, of my fellow bloggers. It could be just coincidence, after all this is a tiny "country". But after looking at a list of the top 20 movies at the Lebanese Box Office for 2006, something leaped out. The Lebanese cinema frequenting crowd is miniscule. The average viewership for the top 20 movies of the year is around 40,000 or roughly 1% of the population. That's for the top 20 movies, so the number of regular movie goers is smaller. This puts me and the other Lebanese bloggers in this 1% of the population, so how representative of Lebanon can we possibly be?
Personally, I dread each time I must go to Haret Hreik, Tareek Jdideh, or Burj Hammoud. The tight roads and the pedestrian and scooterized masses there make driving a nightmare even in Lebanese road standards. I've only been once to the Buj Brajneh Refugee camp, Tareek Jdideh's alleys look like the autobahn compared to the roads there. I've never been to Nabatiyeh, Jizzeen, Hasbaya, Rashaya, Akkar, or Hermel. I'm trying to get my friends in the 1% to win me a laptop in an online vote, by the way don't forget to vote for me again today and every day
.
But what do I know about the other 99% of Lebanon. What do you?
4 comments:
Wow! You haven't seen much of the country. I've been to all of those places. Bourj al Boureijne is not the nasty place everyone makes it out to be. There are bad spots, but there are also nice spots. I've got cousins who live there, so I've been down quite often.
You should see the other side of the country. Get out of your Qureitem tower. :)
BTW, whenever I go to the movies, it's usually with Syrians, Saudis, and Palestinian Americans who all live in Lebanon (not including Eve). That means that it's an even smaller portion of Lebanese who are seeing the films.
Good luck Jamal.
Sallimli 3a Burj Hammoud next time.
My parents lived in Beirut from 1993-2002, and commuted regularly to the family home in Mieh-Mieh throughout that time. (Just east of Sidon, about 45 minutes from Beirut, for the non-local readers). They had a huge apartment at my uncle's place, with views of the Mediterranean, orchards, relative peace and quiet. It's not the country by any means but it's more idyllic than Beirut.
Almost all of my parents many, many Beiruti friends completely refused to travel South to visit them in Mieh-Mieh. Only the other Southerners and the foreigners would bother.
Yet when my cousin the banker in London got married in Mieh-Mieh, her whole tribe of British and American (and Chinese, Swiss etc.) expatriate friends and colleagues flew to Beirut and blithely took cabs or rented cars to descend upon... Mieh-Mieh. They didn't know it was "hard" or "insecure."
Now that things are so unstable in Lebanon, my mother, recently widowed, has decided she's not going to visit from America this year. She feels worried to go without my father to take care of her. Her Beiruti friends all tell her to stay away - it's too uncertain they say. Yet you bloggers continue with the bars, the movies, the cafes.
Security is a state of mind...
Mabrook...Glad to see you've done some work on your blog's header...and learnt a trick or 2...lol
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