Sarmadi... at the Damascus International Fair

"In the loveliest spot in Damascus, along the course of the Barada river, in the month of September — the loveliest and most splendid of Damascus's months — the Damascus International Fair is held every year; civilizations meet there, peoples clasp hands, and Syria looks out upon the whole world..."

This is the third International Fair, and the Syrian government, having felt the abundant benefits Syria reaped from its first and second fairs, has gone to great lengths in strengthening this year's fair and organizing it on the most modern lines and those most agreeable to taste.

The tall, matching trees surround the fair city and lend it an air of enchantment, its splendor heightened by the light of the moon and the swaying, dancing shadows on the face of the river...

You are with me before the great entrance; you feel the grandeur and awe of the moment... The flags of the thirty-two states taking part in the fair flutter in the breeze, now embracing, now pulling apart. The pavilions of the foreign states spread through the city, the management of each pavilion having striven to present it artistically, in harmony with the kind of exhibits, forming with the neighboring pavilions a well-ordered whole... Throughout the fair city the gardens appeared in the fullness of their bloom, with flowers glittering in the lap of the greenery, all freshness and color. And fountains of colored water rose into the air, kneading the waters into butterflies of light... scattering a fine spray over the carpet of grass...

And the fair city by night is other than by day. Visit it in the morning... then visit it in the evening, and you will see what a vast difference there is in the flood of people and their jostling at the two main entrances. You move

with the caravan, passing from pavilion to pavilion, not knowing exactly where to cut your viewing short with a passing glance, and where to slow down and stop... And it will not take you long to realize that a single day of wandering will not satisfy you — enough for you to take from it a general idea like the one I took... And if you make for the "Publicity and Publications Corner" seeking more information, the man in charge there will direct you to the "Tourism and Summering Corner," which will in turn send you back to the first... and by it you will not gain one additional item... or a single word beyond the elegant bulletin distributed by the information office.

And you resolve at once to rely on yourself and on the strength of your senses... you take up your pen and your paper and begin recording a few observations which may have a special meaning for you... and be trivial to anyone else!

... And the announcer's voice comes over the loudspeakers, in the three languages, welcoming "the honored visitors" — but without that warm, captivating voice with which "Abla al-Houri!" addressed the public at the first fair. The proceedings of the broadcasting at the fair went along with much monotony and tepidness... were it not for a welcome insistence on presenting the songs of Fairuz. How strange, this wide popularity that Fairuz's crystalline voice has won in all the Arab countries!

If you are one of those who visited the first fair, you will notice without effort that the "Lebanese pavilion" this year is poorer and more meager, as though the effort had been confined — or so it seemed to me... And you will certainly start when you see the "Iraqi pavilion" closed... yes, closed — and how we would have loved to see it

flourishing among its brothers, the Arab pavilions!
Natural and expected, this publicity for the "Syrian pavilion" and for Syrian goods, for the fair's first and last aim is commercial and economic — and perhaps it is the aim of all fairs! But this does not concern me so much, and I find my eyes ranging in search of the artistic and aesthetic touch, lingering spellbound before the scientific and the industrial...

And I sensed a unanimity of opinion in favor of the "pavilion of People's China" from the purely aesthetic standpoint. Here is fineness of workmanship — in articles of porcelain, wood, ivory, and more — bespeaking an artistic taste of great antiquity and a boundless perfection. In this pavilion you will neither tire nor grow bored.

And you will be amazed as you roam the "pavilion of the Soviet Union," for you stand before a great nation, still unknown to the world, trying to make itself known in the largest possible doses... You will certainly be amazed at the advance of science, industry, agriculture, music, and art.

And you will stop a moment to gaze at the television in the "British and American pavilions." It is the novelty of the century; you have heard much about television, and here is a chance to see it with your own eyes... Inside the two pavilions you will see, behind the glass wall, a miniature model of a studio, and how the transmission of the picture together with the sound takes place — and you will understand some of the technique, if you are a "radio man"...

And every five minutes your ear is caught by the roar of an aircraft in the sky over the fair city — it is the "helicopter," or rather two, one at the American pavilion and another at the Soviet pavilion, circling once every five minutes in a tour around the city of Damascus. And you may be in luck, having had the wit to put your name down in advance, and so ride the helicopter and taste this sweet aerial experience!

And in the "Dutch pavilion" you will meet girls in Dutch national costume, standing before rounds of cheese, great and small, of every flavor and size... and the idea will please you as it pleased me...

And you may wonder with me why the "Saudi pavilion" was not joined to the "American pavilion"? Because 90% of its exhibits are of American manufacture — models of oil wells and grand modern machinery... And do not gasp, as I gasped, when you see a Saudi guide responsible for one of the corners... fast asleep... on a chair!!

And I do not know with what feeling you will greet the eagerness of certain Syrian painters to paint a full-length likeness of Lenin presiding over the Soviet pavilion! My own heart is wrung with grief for these artists, for I understood the gesture as one of the manifestations of Communist zealotry and fanaticism... You, my reader, may have another interpretation, and may judge me guilty of thinking ill...

Finally, I can affirm that the third Damascus International Fair met with great success this year... It is enough to note the continuous streaming of the people; and I came to believe in the truth of the figures shown to me. The fair is entered daily by an average of a hundred thousand persons! — or at least that is the figure the counter recorded on Sunday, September 17 — among them twenty thousand Lebanese —

And so, until we meet at the fourth fair, next year.