I love Lebanon in general and I am particularly crazy bout Beirut, even in times of trouble. It is beautiful, dangerous, creative, vibrant, optimistic, lethal, addictive but above all, it is full of surprises, mostly pleasant ones, with the occasional WTF one.
I once took the red-eye flight to Beirut and landed shortly before midnight. To avoid the persistent hustling taxi drivers outside the airport terminal, I had arranged for the hotel to send a car to collect me from the airport. As I emerged from customs with my luggage, a middle-aged man with a short beard and staring crazy eyes was holding a large card with my name on it. I made eye contact with him and nodded. In return, he puckered his lips and blew me an air kiss. I don’t know about you but; I thought that little demonstration of affection by a total stranger was both disturbing and unwelcome but, I let it go.
The driver led the way out of the terminal building to the car park and I wheeled my luggage behind him. His car turned out to be a public taxi and not a hotel courtesy car. He loaded my suitcase, opened the door to the front passenger seat and stood back. In the two seconds it took me to step inside the taxi, our eyes met again, I said “thank you” and he repeated his air kiss stunt. Even as a balding middle-aged man, I don’t mind confessing I started to feel uneasy.
He drove up to the double lane tollbooth and lined his vehicle alongside another taxi, rolled his window down and called out to the other driver who turned around said hello and my driver blew him now his customary air kiss. I now had mixed feelings about the matter; relieved that he was not targeting me for this particular treatment but disappointed he was not targeting me for this particular treatment.
We did not speak for the next 20 minutes the journey took to reach the hotel at that time of night.
A concierge opened the car door for me, welcomed me to the Plaza and said something to the taxi driver who of course, blew him a kiss!
The driver followed me inside the hotel and presented a pink slip to the reception desk who signed and stamped it for him, he took the slip and blew the tired looking receptionist an air kiss. I dug in my pocket and gave him a couple of dollars tip and… well, you can guess what he did!
The following day, I asked my Lebanese friends and colleagues if there was a custom amongst certain Lebanese sections who habitually made this gesture as an alternative to “hello”, “Hi”, “thank you” and “goodbye”. None of them ever experienced such behaviour. I guess I lucked out and stumbled across the most loving and romantic taxi driver in Lebanon and possibly the world.
