The Japanese city of Kobe is renowned for its beef, steel, rubber and pearls. It’s also home to Japan’s biggest Lebanese community, all 25 of them. Hani Debs, a third generation Lebanese expat, whose eponymous family firm is Japan’s biggest exporter of textiles, is driving me to lunch at the Kobe Club, established in 1868 to cater to the needs of the city’s new expat community.
We are talking about the devastating earthquake that levelled the city in 1995. “I had flown to Beirut two days earlier,” Hani recalls. “Thank God my family was safe, but I was told you could see the city in flames from our home on the hills. It was a terrible time for us.”
It’s hard to imagine now. Everything is spotless and ordered, like a toy town, an impression reinforced by the omnipresent, low-emission toytown-esque cars that putter obediently through the streets in traffic directed by masked and helmeted policemen with whirling batons.
“You see this overpass? It collapsed completely,” Hani says. I suggest that anyone driving where we were would have been in serious trouble. “Under. On top. It made no difference. But you know what? Within two years you wouldn’t have thought anything had happened. Now of course they have these struts to catch them if there’s another quake.”
Kobe is vibrant and affluent. “We tend to be more laid-back down here,” says Hani. “We’re near the beach and the mountains. Everywhere is a 10-minute drive. In Tokyo the people are more rigorous. If there is a meeting at a certain time, people are there on the dot. Here you can be five minutes late.”
Japanese efficiency is well known, but it still comes as a surprise to the neophyte. It is an efficiency that is underpinned with a deep sense of manners and politeness. It takes a while to get used to hotel receptionists bowing from 15 metres the moment they see you step out of the elevator, and the sight of ticket collectors and train guards saluting each other when changing shifts.
It’s also super-clean. There are dispensers of disinfectant at every turn, while the Toto, the electronic, all-singing all-dancing toilet that is as far as I can tell almost a national totem, reflects a love of hygiene and an inherent sense of modesty that borders on the obsessive. Oh, and there’s no tipping. The price is the price. End of story.
The Kobe Club is everything I imagined, reeking of the late ‘70s expat living I remembered in Dubai before Dubai became Gotham in the desert. “It could do with an overhaul,” admits Hani, “but it’s still popular.” The club apparently used to admit Japanese spouses but charge them four times the regular rate. “Now they’ve changed the bylaws. “Everyone is equal.”
Surely after three generations Hani is now Japanese? He smiles. “Well, yes and no. I have the nationality but as far as the Japanese are concerned I’m still Lebanese.”
Raised and educated in Japan, did he feel more Japanese than Lebanese? “Like I said, you are always a foreigner in Japan. You have to remember this country was closed to the rest of the world for hundreds of years. Sure they respect the fact that I speak their language and know the customs but I’m still a Gaijin.”
The Debs family, originally textile merchants back in what was then still Syria, first came to Japan in the early 20th century, a period of huge emigration from the region. “The idea was to go as far East as possible. To go where no one else had gone to find the better opportunities. We traded in cotton, which we sent to England; to Manchester, in fact, where there was a big Syrian community. There it would be woven into these wonderful tribal designs and then re-exported to West Africa.”
The Syrian Jewish community here was quite large at the time. “They made a great deal of money but they all left during the Second World War and went to the US. Once the American bombing destroyed the harbour, there was nothing for them here. Now there are only about 80 Lebanese in the whole of Japan.”
He pauses and then laughs. “Your arrival has increased our number by just over 1 per cent.”
Michael Karam is a freelance writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The%20specs
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Profile
Name: Carzaty
Founders: Marwan Chaar and Hassan Jaffar
Launched: 2017
Employees: 22
Based: Dubai and Muscat
Sector: Automobile retail
Funding to date: $5.5 million
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Dolittle
Director: Stephen Gaghan
Stars: Robert Downey Jr, Michael Sheen
One-and-a-half out of five stars
Result
6.30pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-3 – Group 1 (PA) $65,000 (Dirt) 2,000m; Winner: Brraq, Ryan Curatolo (jockey), Jean-Claude Pecout (trainer)
7.05pm: Handicap (TB) $65,000 (Turf) 1,800m; Winner: Bright Melody, James Doyle, Charlie Appleby
7.40pm: Meydan Classic – Listed (TB) $88,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Naval Crown, Mickael Barzalona, Charlie Appleby
8.15pm: Nad Al Sheba Trophy – Group 3 (TB) $195,000 (T) 2,810m; Winner: Volcanic Sky, Frankie Dettori, Saeed bin Suroor
8.50pm: Dubai Millennium Stakes – Group 3 (TB) $130,000 (T) 2,000m; Winner: Star Safari, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
9.25pm: Meydan Challenge – Listed Handicap (TB) $88,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: Zainhom, Dane O’Neill, Musabah Al Muhairi
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
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- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The specs: 2018 Mercedes-AMG C63 S Cabriolet
Price, base: Dh429,090
Engine 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission Seven-speed automatic
Power 510hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque 700Nm @ 1,750rpm
Fuel economy, combined 9.2L / 100km
RESULT
RS Leipzig 3
Marcel Sabitzer 10', 21'
Emil Forsberg 87'
Tottenham 0
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5