Lost in translation

In Lebanon, people often speak very well both French and English in addition to Arabic and Lebanese dialect. What a great thing to speak so many languages, I wish I could have know as much when I was young!
But, are the Lebanese lost with all those languages, or do they want to use it all when they speak?? This kind of language-mixed sentence is so common: “Okay merci kteer”, “yallah bye!", "Hi kifak ca va”. Translation: “Okay thank you very much”, “Come on, bye”, “Hi how you’re doing”.
Isn’t funny? Well… yes, as long as everybody understand at each other, which I do at this point!

Then, the Internet and SMS brought another kind of language, and unfortunately I’m unable to understand it! It is basically Lebanese, but written with Latin letters and containing numbers, which role is to replace Arabic letters that can’t be translated by a Latin letter. And of course they still mix some French and English words in it!
Does anyone have a dictionary for this new language? I’m lost in translation here…

Social networking, a natural Lebanese skill

In Lebanon, everybody live in community. Everything you’re doing have to be known, by your friends, your family, your neighbors... it is show-off all the time:
Who’s gonna make the biggest dinner, who have the biggest house, who’s woman have the most makeup on her face and the latest fashion clothes, who have the biggest and most luxurious car (even if you can’t afford it)… whose life is most successful?? If others think you are successful, beautiful or whatever, then you get the feeling of being Happy. That’s Lebanon, the country where the way you look is the most important in life.

It isn’t surprising then that so much Lebanese, particularly the young ones, have a minimum of 1 profile in a social networking website such as Facebook. As a user myself and having some Lebanese in my “friends” (Facebook's contacts), I observed how they behave on a web-based social network. I think it is the same behavior as in their real life, but it is also an opportunity to exaggerate everything more and more and to show it to a larger scale of people.

I would be delighted to have real statistics from Facebook or other social networks. Since I don’t have it, I made mine from what I observed in my Lebanese friends on Facebook:
- Average number of friends: 128
- Average pictures of themselves: 42
- Average number of groups they belong to, which subject is related to Lebanon, politics or religion: 8
The main objective for Lebanese people to use social networks is to show them off, which is not a bad thing basically. Unfortunately, a large part of Lebanese do not realize how far they’re going.

When I see groups called: “We’re not Arabs” (1,500+ members), “I Will Leave lebanon if michel Aoun is president” (900 members) / vs. “I will leave lebanon if SAMIR GEAGEA is the next president” (700+ members) , “FaceBook Should delete "lebanon & israel friendship" " (700+ members)… and those one are quite soft, there’s a lot worst as political or religious extremism that I don’t even want to mention here.

I don’t care about what people think, what their political views are, but I care when they create a group against other people, other religion, other countries... It isn’t anymore for show-off only, it is extremism accessible to everybody.
The social networks are enabling people to express themselves to the world, some Lebanese are going too far in this way.