Damascus 2008

Preparing pays back. And while we are working for the big celebration of Damascus being the capital of Arabic culture for 2008, we think about the real meaning of culture. One of the vital components that shapes a culture is the releases of its people. What the people of this culture reveal in terms of their customs, food, art, laundry, and even trash. What is interesting about cultures is that so long as we don’t want them to, they don’t grow like wild bushes. Cultures get formed. They get planned, sup-ported, and nurtured. It is the uniqueness of each and every citizen that gives culture its diversity. Forming a culture—and maintaining it—requires time. When I first began work in the branding domain 10-years ago, I was very ignorant about branding knowledge and communication. One of my basic exercises to understand customer consumption habits was to rummage through their trash. That was an inspiring—not dirty—exercise. It taught me very interesting and informative stories. One observation was that some people waste what others need. Our trash tells us something about us. The old theory says that nothing comes from nothing and nothing goes to nothing. This is also valid to the consumption/communication field as well. So long as we consume there will be left-over evidence as to who we are. If next year, Damascus is to celebrate being the capital of Arabic culture, then serious attention needs to be paid to the smallest cultural depictions. The basic communication experience says: “expressions accumulate to generate an impression.” Some of these details/expressions, are found in our trash. As rational citizens, we need to familiarize ourselves with two concepts: taste and public taste. The environment needs to be treated appropriately—not only from an ecological perspective—so that we can bequeath it to the next generation. Streets are homes. The way we treat them and everything that lies within them (cars, parks, walls, and public property) reflects a vital component of our culture. More importantly it relects our own self-image. Some trash can be re-cycled. Others can be used artistically to create magnificent instillations in public spaces. We need to start extracting beauty from our ugliness. This requires knowledge. We must grab at it; it is our chance.

Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, frequented by historians, geographers, travelers, architects, poets, diplomats, writers—and tourists. They all re-turned home with favorable stories about Damascus.

Restaurants and cafes are so yesterday; boutique-hotels are the latest rage in old Damascus. Syrians and foreigners alike have been visiting old Damascus to see how the traditional Damascene houses have been transformed into re-furbished and inviting boutique-hotels of four to 40 rooms. Examples include Beit el Mamlouka Hotel, (rated one of the top hotels on tripadvisor.com), Talisman, Beit el Yasmin and still impending is Beit el Farehy. Each hotel promises to take you back in time to Syria’s traditional way of life where you will be sipping hot zhoorat, peeling juicy oranges plucked from your tree while sitting around the soothing water fountain.