Fancy bars and Filthy blocks

After four days in Beirut, I start to understand why they call this city "the Paris of the Middle East". People act as if they are in Paris, wearing fancy clothes, driving in expensive cars, go to fancy bars and speaking french (on occasion). This might not be all that typical of Paris (many people in Paris don't act this way, and many people in other cities do), but I guess it corresponds to people's image of Paris - maybe the British or American gave Beirut this name, or even the Beirutis themselve.
Something normally not directly related to Paris, but present there as much as in Beirut (I think), is a large contrast between rich and poor. But maybe it's a bit more visible in Lebanon. Porches drive next to old, run-down Lada's, large bank-offices tower above dirty appartments and shoe-cleaners try to find customers in front of fashion-shops. Differences between adjacent neighborhoods are equilly striking. Walking through Beirut for about an hour, I came across the nicely restored and clean (touristic) center, a muslim neighborhood with dirty streets and small shops, the coastline with bars for tourists and Hamra with its entertainment and expats.
But Beirut is not Paris - indeed, it is still a Middle Eastern city. So while it contains many of Paris' features, there is more. Of course there is the Arabic on the street signs, Islam with its mosques and narguile with its water-pipes, but what strikes me mosts are the signs of conflict. Between domestic militias, between Israel and Lebanon, between Syria and Israel etc. Many buildings are currenlty being rebuilt or are still inhabitable after the Israelian bombings of 2006. Many walls are damaged by bullets and bombs. Guards and soldiers are keeping an eye on the streets at every corner (at least, in the richer neighborhoods). The upcoming elections of June 7 don't make the situation more secure.
Nevertheless, it seems to be going well compared to Lebanon's history of violence: after the numerous religious, ethnic and social groups realized they could never win because each one of them is too small to subdue all others, they decided to form a government of national unity. That has kept the situation relatively stable for the last decade or so, as long as foreign powers don't decide to intervene.
The upcoming elections are equally expected to lead to a new government of national unity, with a larger representation of the opposition parties. This should keep all parties satisfied enough to prevent any large outbursts of violence. To keep the risks limited, all of Lebanon will close down from Saturday until Monday. Until then I'm still walking through the streets jammed with cars, taxi's honking to attract my attention, bored soldiers keeping guard and gigantic advertisements for candidates in the parliamentary election.
All the while I'm trying to get a better insight in the 'Arabic' aspects of Beirut, but that's not as easy as I thought. The first few days here I stayed with a fellow student from George Washington University who is studying at the American University of Beirut for a semester. He lives with three other American students and mainly hangs out with foreigners. I must say that this made the transition relatively easy, but I did't come to Lebanon to feel as if I was in the US. I was also looking for 'local bars' that didn't try to be fancy and (in my eyes) western, but it seems that they are hard to find. In fact, a Lebanese-American colleague told me that Lebanese like the fancy bars and western entertainment, so it might be un-Lebanese if I would just go to small tea-houses and smoke narguile.
It seems to be equally un-Lebanese if I speak Arabic. Of course I studied 'formal' Arabic in Washington, so here people tell me I should learn Lebanese Arabic. The difference is substantial, but Lebanese are perfectly able to understand the formal version. For me, however, it is hard to make the transition, especially because I don't know exactly what is the same and what is different. So I probably end up saying less than I could say, because I think it's different in Lebanese. To make it even more difficult, everybody speaks back in English. In fact, I probably wouldn't understand if they didn't, but this way it's hard to ever learn. So I just keep asking my colleages how to say things, I keep listening to their conversations (not understanding it) and hope that one day I'll be able to speak Lebanese. Unfortunately that has to be one of the mere 75 days that I'm here.