贝鲁特 10月25日电 —— 在黎巴嫩遭受毁灭性金融崩溃七年后，一场关于鸡肉三明治的争论暴露了那些仍能挥霍无度的人与挣扎度日的人之间日益扩大的巨大鸿沟。
BEIRUT, Oct 25 - Seven years after Lebanon’s devastating financial meltdown, a debate over a chicken sandwich has exposed an increasingly stark divide between those who can still spend freely and those struggling to get by.
一家时尚的健康餐厅希望为注重卡路里的顾客提供一种更健康的黎凡特传统卷饼（即什塔乌克卷饼）改良版。于是，“微光天堂”（The Glow Paradise）推出了“时髦什塔乌克”（Chic Taouk），定价约为13美元 —— 几乎是贝鲁特普通鸡肉三明治价格的两倍。
A trendy health restaurant wanted to offer its calorie-conscious customers a healthier take on the beloved Levantine wrap known as the shish taouk. So, The Glow Paradise launched the “Chic Taouk,” pricing it at around $13 -- nearly double what an un-chic chicken sandwich typically goes for in Beirut.
这款售价昂贵的三明治引发了巨大的争议，愤怒的批评者指责该餐厅在一个许多家庭难以承担基本生活需求的国家里过度收费。
The pricy pun proved hard to swallow, with outraged critics accusing the restaurant of overcharging in a country where many households struggle to afford basic necessities.
然而，正当这场辩论在社交媒体上激化之际，顾客却一直在买单。据管理合伙人赫拉格·杰加利安（Hrag Jeghalian）透露，“微光天堂”在短短11天内就售出了超过2万份“时髦什塔乌克”三明治，他将网上的争论形容为“天然的营销”。
Yet while the debate raged on social media, customers kept buying. The Glow Paradise sold more than 20,000 Chic Taouk sandwiches in just 11 days, according to managing partner Hrag Jeghalian, who described the online exchanges as "natural marketing".
这些截然不同的反应触动了黎巴嫩社会的敏感神经。多年来的金融动荡、政治失能和冲突已经重塑了该国的社会格局，掏空了大部分中产阶层，同时留下了一小群仍能维持富裕生活方式的消费者。
The contrasting reactions touched a nerve in Lebanon, where years of financial turmoil, political dysfunction and conflict have reshaped the country's social landscape, hollowing out much of the middle class while leaving a smaller group of consumers able to sustain an affluent lifestyle.
辩论转移了对紧迫危机的关注 贝鲁特圣约瑟夫大学（Saint Joseph University of Beirut）经济学家萨米·纳德尔（Sami Nader）表示，“微光天堂”里的人头攒动掩盖了另一面现实。
DEBATE PULLS FOCUS AWAY FROM URGENT CRISES Sami Nader, an economist at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut, said the throngs at The Glow Paradise belied another reality.
纳德尔对路透社表示：“所以你看到餐厅里有人，但你看不到的是上个月有22家餐厅倒闭。”
“So you see people in the restaurant, but what you don't see is that 22 restaurants closed last month,” Nader told Reuters.
黎巴嫩活跃于Instagram的社群分成了两派，一派指责该餐厅是在抢劫，另一派则认为这款三明治本来就是为消费得起的人准备的。
Lebanon’s Instagram-active community was split between those accusing the restaurant of theft and others saying the sandwich was intended for those who could afford it.
一些人质疑，这场争端本身是否反映了在一个正艰难应对从以色列对该国南部大片地区的占领，到地方性电力和水资源危机等紧迫危机的国家里，人们的优先事项放错了位置。
Some questioned whether the dispute itself reflected misplaced priorities in a country grappling with urgent crises, from Israel’s occupation of large swaths of the country’s south to the endemic electricity and water crises.
黎巴嫩2019年的金融崩溃是由数十年的腐败和统治精英的挥霍无度引起的，此后的几轮冲突进一步恶化了该国的经济前景。
Lebanon’s 2019 financial collapse was prompted by decades of corruption and profligate spending by the ruling elite, and several rounds of conflict since then have worsened the country’s economic outlook.
据世界银行（World Bank）数据，自2019年以来，国内生产总值（GDP）已下降近40%，由于全球能源和航运价格上涨侵蚀了人们的购买力，通货膨胀率预计将上升至17.5%。这一数字是国际货币基金组织（IMF）在7月标出的全球整体通货膨胀率的四倍多。
GDP has declined by nearly 40% since 2019 and inflation is expected to rise to 17.5% due to rising global energy and shipping prices eating away at people’s purchasing power, according to the World Bank. The figure is more than quadruple the global headline inflation rate flagged by the International Monetary Fund in July.
联合国儿童基金会（UNICEF）9月表示，黎巴嫩五分之四的家庭难以承担基本生活需求。“人们无法承受”纳德尔指出，该国的中产阶层已经“消失”，被2019年金融体系崩溃、2020年贝鲁特港大爆炸以及不到两年内的两场战争等一系列危机瓦解。
Four in five households in Lebanon struggle to afford basic necessities, the UN children’s agency said in September. 'PEOPLE CAN'T KEEP UP' The country’s middle class has “disappeared,” Nader said, dismantled by a series of crises including the collapse of the financial system in 2019, the 2020 Beirut Port explosion and two wars in under two years.
根据黎巴嫩能源部设定的千瓦时电价，在黎巴嫩崩塌的国家电网频繁停电期间，为许多家庭和企业提供电力的私人发电机运营商的月度账单仅在2026年8月就飙升了近20%，使电费比今年2月高出近60%。
Monthly bills from private generator operators, which provide electricity to many homes and businesses during outages on Lebanon's failing national grid, jumped by nearly 20% in August 2026 alone, bringing rates nearly 60% higher than they were in February of this year, according to the kilowatt-hour prices set by Lebanon’s energy ministry.
对许多人来说，这意味着在一个最低工资标准定为400美元的国家，现在支付24小时不间断电力的费用每月需要几百美元。
For many, that means paying for 24/7 electricity now costs several hundred dollars a month, in a country where the minimum wage is set at $400.
来自附近哈姆拉（Hamra）的53岁餐厅工人福阿德·法赫雷丁（Fouad Fakhreddine）说：“一切都变贵了，人们无法承受。我们现在拿到工资，然后为了勉强度日而背上债务。”
“Everything has become expensive, and people can’t keep up,” said Fouad Fakhreddine, a 53-year-old restaurant worker from nearby Hamra. “We are now getting paid, then getting in debt over that just to get by.”
他说，多年的经济不稳定催生出了“一个正在生活的阶层，和一个没有死、正在等待从无法忍受的处境中死去的阶层”。
The years of economic instability, he said, have produced “a class that is living, and a class that is not dead and waiting to die from the unbearable situation it is in.”REUTERS