Chinese Film Week

Day One: (which does not necessarily mean there will be a day 2 or 3)

We arrived a little before 7. The room was half full at that time, mostly Chinese (or East-Asians). More people started filling in and we continued waiting for the film to begin, or for someone to explain to us the reason for the delay. Organizers were nowhere to be found, not even to assist the newcomers into finding the few empty seats.

7:35 the show begins. Or so we thought. The presenter speaks in Arabic for an audience mostly made of non-Arabs. Then he translates his words to English. 6alib Arefa3ee speaks for another 5 or 10 minutes, no translation follows, then manager of cinema club, whose name I forgot, speaks for another 5 minutes. Presenter translates his speech into English. Chinese ambassador (or was it cultural attache?) speaks for yet another 5 minutes, with his speech interrupted occasionally by the cutest Arabic translation ever in an accent I almost never heard (Chinese reading Arabic amazes me. Why can't I read Chinese?). When that's done, we assume it's time for the movie. But no. Presenter speaks again.

At this time, 8 pm already, my sister and I decide to leave ... coz ... are you kidding me? You start late. You don't apologize for making your audience wait 35 minutes. Then you give your audience a sarcastic remark about their mobiles providing background music, totally inappropriate and a little bit demeaning. Regardless of the audience's lack of consideration in keeping their mobiles on, it is uncalled for when the presenter addresses this issue in such a sarcastic tone. Just tell our audience to please turn their mobiles off. I mean they've been patiently waiting for you for 35 minutes. Give them some courtesy.

So anyway, if you happened to watch the movie, fill me in :)
Details are found here.

لبيروت

لبيروت

من قلبي سلامٌ لبيروت

و قُبلٌ للبحر و البيوت

لصخرةٍ

كأنها

وجه بحارٍ قديمِ

هي من

روحِ الشعب خمرٌ

هي من

عرقِهِ خبزٌ و ياسمين

فكيف صار طعمها

طعم نارٍ و دخانِ

لبيروت

مجدٌ من رمادٍ

لبيروت

من دمٍ لولدٍ حُملَ فوق يدها

أطفأت مدينتي قنديلها

أغلقت بابها

أصبحت في المساء وحدها

وحدها و ليلُ

لبيروت
من قلبي سلامٌ لبيروت و قُبلٌ للبحر و البيوت
لصخرةٍ
كأنها
وجه بحارٍ قديم

أنتِ لي أنتِ لي

آه عانقيني أنتِ لي

رايتي و حجرُ الغدِ و موج سفرٍ

أزهرت جراح شعبي أزهرت

دمعة الأمهات

أنتِ بيروت لي

أنتِ لي

آه عانقيني

update: blogger gave me trouble when I wanted to add more pictures. I gave up and published without the bread and smoke pictures. Flickr wasn't as user-friendly as I expected and I didn't realize that the URL is found when you click 'all sizes.' Now I know, so now I add two pics

To Meriam wherever she may be.

Back in the 80's my sister and I were introduced to Meriam. Her brothers Jameel and Muhammed worked as electrician and plumber for my father. Seeing that we were almost the same age, they suggested bringing her over to play. Sis and I were more than willing. We loved that girl. I think it is around that time that I started loving the Lebanese. Took me a while to actually love the country since it's been in turmoil throughout my childhood so never got the change to be taken there with Mom & Dad. Thanks to my other sister's apparent magnetism towards that country, she was invited to take part in a show in 2001 and she chose me as a companion and that's when I met the country and fell in love with it instantly.

I think I knew Remi Bandali through Meriam. I'd leave it to N to correct me. She'd remember better. Listen here.

update: my bro bugs me about my spelling mistakes in these posts. so i had to edit. corrections, as per my fashion with student papers, are made in red.
ما عندي سالفة

Veni, Vidi, but not Vici

Saw this while visiting Purg. I liked. I used.
Too many white spots that need to be red-ed. Why red? I simply visited the country. I didn't invade it. I didn't kill anyone. Well, maybe a few fish, chicken and cows. But other than that I didn't kill.


Within the U.S.


create your own visited states map

Too noisy to work ...

Dana's rendition of Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"

Saoud's rendition of Mansfield's "Miss Brill"

Sara's rendition of Head's "The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses"

Hussain's rendition of Hemingway's "Soldier's Home"

After each member of the group presented their part, he started wrapping up by saying that Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is considered the best work of literature at the age, at which time she jumped at him to say that she strongly disagrees on that. Being as we have often seen brother and sister competing in class, we thought they were actually having an argument within their group, especially after she pointed out that he, due to his disability, being short, fails to appreciate Swift's story about giants. It turns out this play was part of their presentation. Thank you S & S for livening up our summer course with your act.

She approached me after class to ask if her participation is a little over the top. I reluctantly answered her by admitting that she does have a habit of interrupting people in the middle of their sentences all the time. At which point, she promised to be careful about this next time and wait for me to call on her in order to give the other members in class the chance to talk as well. Today A proved that she cannot help being A :)

I occasionally stay in the office to get some work done. But it seems that as long as my neighbor is this adorably noisy colleague, I can never get any work done. His voice is so loud that you can hear him speak from across the building. This post goes for Dr. H, my neighbour.

لنسمعهم صوتنا

نبي حكومة بلا عناصر الفساد والتأزيم
نبي مجلس برئاسة وطنية تمثل الشعب ولا تمثل عليه
وهم نبيها خمسة
لنسمعهم صوتنا كما أسمعناهم من قبل
ساحة الإرادة - مقابل مجلس الأمة

الجمعة ٧ يوليو2006
الساعة الثامنة والنصف مساء
البس البرتقالي واحضر

For those who mistook my last post as a sign of surrender, I add this here to show that I haven't given up. I received a blow, a strong one, but I haven't given up on Kuwait and never will.