Passports and Embassies

U.S. PASSPORT

The United States has signed treaties with a large number of countries that qualify its citizens for Visa on Arrival. This means that an American citizen can just show up to most countries in the world and will be issued a visa on-site at the immigration desk. Its quite a privilege, considering citizens from other countries are often made to jump through significant hoops to come to the USA.

Who do you know there? What will you be doing? How long will you be staying? Do you have enough money to spend? Do you have a return flight? Can you prove all of this? And all of this must be done at the US consulate in the home country prior to departure. So its quite a bonus for Americans to be able to show up at a country and demand entrance.

Of course, they could always refuse you. But why would they? You're an American.

UNOFFICIAL EMBASSIES

When you are abroad, there are a number of unofficial embassies you can use. You can't register with the consulate there, or renew an expiring passport, but still they are definitely valuable when you find one. There are many examples, but the most common is McDonald's.

The Golden Arches have been welcoming weary foreigners for generations. No matter where I have been, I have always found one. Sometimes I go in and sometimes I am just happy to know its there. Bangkok, New Delhi, Florence, Amsterdam- you always know exactly what to expect once inside. Sure, the New Delhi one does not serve beef, but I expected that too. And every time you walk through the doors you always feel like you are stepping foot on US soil.

And its not because I miss the food, because I almost never ever eat big name fast food at home. Sure, I'll grab a burrito, or a steak and cheese sub somewhere, but I don't eat at McDonald's more than once or twice a year. And I haven't been to a Hardees in over a decade. But here in Beirut, its been thrice in two weeks. I expect the food to walk that fine line between tasty and disgusting, and it always does. And I always take into account that I will immediately regret my decision and feel bad about myself. But I do it anyway because I know what to expect.

The entire routine never changes: I'm hungry > What's easy? > Oh, there's a McDonalds! > But shouldn't I try the local cuisine? > Tomorrow you can; today you are too hungry to think, let alone order in a foreign language > Okay, I'm going in. > Oh jeez, another American stuffing his face at McDonalds. What a cliché. > I don't care, I'm starving > I know, I'll order in the local language > Numero Six, Please > Oh god, this is good. > Oh god, that was good.> Uggh, I'm stuffed > Dammit.

It never changes and I never learn.

Of course, of all these unofficial embassies I have encountered, I never feel better than when I walk into one of the Beirut Dunkin Donuts. I actually do frequent Dunkin Donuts back home, so its even better to see it here (there was a period in the mid-2000s where I briefly flirted with Starbucks, but those days are dead and gone, I swear). Adding to it is the fact that I have never seen a D&D abroad anywhere and Beirut has half a dozen. So any city that can embrace Dunkin Donuts on that level is okay with me. And to my surprise, this Dunkin Donuts (near the AUB) has the best coffee of any of the others. Even The States. I stop in every day before Arabic class and I am never disappointed.

Dunkin Donuts can't compete west of the Mississippi, but here its thriving. Maybe its because its not pretentious enough. Maybe its because its part owned by the Carlyle Group. And maybe its because its coffee can taste a little bit like cigarettes. But for whatever reason, it just never took off in places like California or Alaska. But you can't swing a dead cat in Boston without hitting one (or a CVS for that matter). And the first D&D was actually founded less than an hour from my home in The States. So when I walk in there, it actually feels like Massachusetts soil. I can't think of a better unofficial embassy.

THE NEW SYRIAN EMBASSY

While I am in Lebanon, I plan to make a trip to Damascus, Syria. Damascus is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world and since its only a few hours from Beirut, I have no excuse.

So naturally, I stopped by the brand new Syrian embassy here in Beirut, about half a mile from my house. It actually opened just last week because Syria has always viewed Lebanon as part of Syria and not as its own country (and for the 400 years until the end of WWI, it was part of Syria). Syria had troops in Lebanon up until 2005, when former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated. Many people blamed Syria for the murder and massive protests erupted in Beirut. Lebanon was outraged. The international community was outraged. So Syria was forced to leave.

But it wasn't until five months ago that they established formal diplomatic relations. This is understandable, because its difficult for Syria to admit that Lebanon is a separate country. So when I walked into the Syrian Embassy, I did not know quite what to expect. (Sometimes when you don't expect much, not much is all you get.) I just figured, instead of wasting time at the border, I could take care of it today. Maybe I wouldn't even have to bribe anyone at the border.

There really isn't much to say about the experience except for the following. One, they looked baffled when I asked for a visa. Like “why are you asking me?” And two, when I finally made it into the man-in-charge's office, he didn't even have a computer on his desk. So I knew then that little was going to happen there. The bureaucrat looked like his name was Droopy and had the same presence of the cartoon dog by the same name. He told me just to get one at the border. He said “One hour, three hour, two hour, four hours...its best to get it there.”

You mean, you call yourself an embassy and you can't even issue me a simple tourist visa? Really? I may as well have been in a McDonald's.

THE NEW AMERICAN EMBASSY

A day later, I decided that I should make the trek out to the US embassy to register with them just in case all hell breaks loose and I need to get airlifted from the roof of my apartment building in a helicopter. I say “make the trek” because its not quite in Beirut. Its actually far from Beirut, nestled in the hills a few miles away.

There is a reason for this. The US embassy used to be located right in the middle of Beirut, but during the civil war, somebody destroyed it with a massive car bomb. Always strong in the face of grave circumstances, they rebuilt in a site close by. The following year, that embassy was also blown up. Strong is one thing, but foolhardy is another. The new US embassy would be outside the city, far from the war zone that surrounded the old ones (fool me once...).

So that is why the new and current US embassy is so far away, in a veritable mountain fortress far outside the city. The security was tight getting in. I won't go into details on that, but I will say that even for a genuine passport-carrying US citizen, they were strict and thorough. After I passed through security, I said to the guard “this place is a fortress”. He said nothing, but gave me a look that said, “we both know why that is”.

When I finished registering, I walked out and turned around to contemplate taking a photograph. Then I thought better of it, because I don't think the guards would have been happy, and also because I couldn't publish it anyway for fear that the photo would be used in an attack. There may be photos of the embassy somewhere on the internet, but not from me.

CITIZENSHIP

The US passport is welcomed all over the world (almost). So its nice to travel the planet with that little book in my pocket. It tells whoever looks inside where I am from, where I was born and where I have been. It also is great because people have to at least think twice before they mess with you. Sure, you may get trouble just for being an American, but still you know you're getting special treatment.

Government officials must consider carefully how they handle you. Is your country friendly with mine? That makes a lot of difference. But its also because a nation's relationship with the USA- love it or hate it- is very important. If I get into trouble in Russia or Iran, the situation will be a lot different if I am a US citizen compared to that of another less significant country, say Paraguay.

America accounts for one of every four dollars spent in the world. No one has more weapons, no one makes more weapons. America is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Influential people from all over the world send their children to US schools (the American University of Beirut is considered one of the best schools in the Middle East, and like the name suggests, even that's American). So nations must carefully consider how they treat US nationals. Its like being a Roman citizens: you may get killed just for being Roman, but at least your death will merit substantial consideration.

MY OTHER PASSPORT

Lastly, I would like to mention my other passport. The US passport grants you certain privileges and considerations that not everyone receives. But there is another passport I possess: my fair complexion. While a comprehensive dissection of Race in America is outside the scope of this blog, I would like to mention its significance as it relates to my travels heretofore.

I am white. Caucasian. A gringo. And adding to that, I have blonde hair. Not Pam Lee blonde, more like Jefferson Darcy blonde. Golden, if you will. These two things invite “special” treatment when you are traveling outside of where most people are white, namely Europe and North America. You go to either of those places and nobody cares (for the most part) because you look just like everyone else.

But travel in India, Asia, and the Middle East you will find things to be different. Class distinctions are more vivid in these parts of the world. For the most part, either you are educated and have money or you are not and you don't. If you have light skin and hair, most people will put you into the category of the former.

This is great when you get into certain situations. Me and two friends (all gringos) were traveling together in India a few years ago. At one point, we misread a timetable and missed a very important bus to some place we wanted to go to; and we'd missed it by a good hour. The people at the bus station radioed ahead to the bus we were supposed to be on and told them to pull over and wait for us. Then they put us on another bus to go meet the waiting bus.

One call, and the bus pulled over to wait for three hapless honkies. It was full and all the people were now going to be an hour late to their destinations because some stupid gringos misread a chart.

Another time, we got on the wrong train. When it was discovered by the conductor, he told us to get off and wait for the next train, which was coming four hours later. We got off in a small village in the middle of nowhere and were quickly surrounded by dozens of local youths who were just curious to see some white people at their train station. It must have been the biggest thing to happen in years, because they just stared at us for a good hour. Finally, the manager of the station came by (he had been told by radio about our situation) and told us that those people were from the lower classes and had never seen anything like this before (I didn't ask why the kids weren't in school). He gave us our own waiting room to pass the time in.

(I can't say enough about our treatment in India. Those people bent over backwards to accommodate us time and time again. A wonderful country filled with wonderful people.)

Here in Beirut, my roommate and I were leaving McDonald's after a disgusting feast when the door was held for us and a friendly "thank you" was issued upon exit. He said that he and his friends never get this type of treatment and its only because I was American. Had I been Italian American or Mexican American, the employee might never of known. But as a gringo, he just assumed. I didn't know if they thought I was a spy for corporate, or if I was gonna run back to America and report to everyone on how they were running operations here in Lebanon, or something (I guess I did), but it was still very nice, if only for superficial reasons.

So why is this the case? Why do people like me get special treatment in many parts of the world just based on our looks when we don't deserve it at all? That's a big question which would take volumes to answer. I will only point to post-colonialism, and the fact that most of the most powerful countries in the world are predominantly white. So people think that if you are traveling, that one, you are from one of the aforementioned countries, and two, you can afford it.

But its not all smiles and door holding for us fair-skinned Americans. It can actually be quite a detriment (Whaaaa, feel bad for me, I'm a white male American. Whaaaa!). Whatever, but its true. Its the proverbial double edged sword. If people assume you are European or American, they are gonna assume you have money. And not only that, they are gonna assume you have no idea what's going on.

Typical exchange abroad:

Me: “How much is this?”

Them: “How much you pay?”

They assume that you are not familiar with the local prices and that you will pay more due to that gap in knowledge. And they are usually correct. It takes a while before you learn how much things cost in a country. In Thailand or India, when you are negotiating, prices will often start at triple the price of what they will cost after hard bargaining. And that price is usually double what a local will pay.

Take Vietnam. In some of the stores, in a refreshing breath of straight-forward and honest unfairness, the items will simply have two different prices, on the tags, one double the amount of the other. The smaller price is the local price and the larger price is my price. The gringo price. I call it the White Tax. (Whaaaa!)

You can even find it here in Beirut. Every time I take a stroll down the street, every single taxis that passes by me honks to get my attention. “Taxi?” they yell. And believe me, it gets annoying. Because I know that the only reason they appear to really want my fare is because they think they can get an inflated price out of me. Once, my roommate and I were looking for a taxi to some bar we were going to. Since I was white, the cab driver quoted us a ridiculous fare about five times what should be paid. Hisham scolded him and we got the right price.

But when you are a gringo abroad outside of the gringo nations, you have to expect this. Its your other passport, and you cannot hide it. Sometimes it gets the bus to wait for you and other times it makes you feel like everyone in the city views you as a walking ATM that they can scam extra money out of and probably brag to their friends how they did it, how smart they are, and how stupid that American was.

(You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions.)

Well all you people out there with dark features, who live in dark featured countries, and know how much everything costs- if any of you even know how to surf the internet- let me tell you this: American's have feelings too. If cut, do we not bleed?

So if there is anyway you could hold the door for me and not rip me off, I would greatly appreciate it.

All kidding aside, I completely understand. You guessed right everybody, I really am part of the Haves, so if the Have Nots want to even things up a little bit on my dime, I am only too happy to oblige. It doesn't bother me for more than a second and I'll even try to smile. I only have one request: please, be gentle. I'm an American.