A trip to the Marmara İslands
At long last, I have time to write. Or rather - it is time I feel allowed to me by the circumstance of going to the Marmara islands, a group of islands in the southwest corner of the Marmara Sea. And so here I am, the lone foreigner (yabanci) in a sea of Turks, on a sea of azure. Already, I have experienced the worid-famous hospitality for which Turks are famous towards foreigners. Twice in the first two hours of the voyage I have been offered food - cookies by one family and a cherry by another. The former informed me of an empty chair, without which I would currently by sitting, rather uncomfortably I am sure, atop two plastic milk containers. There is a party-like atmosphere on the top of the boat as it leisurely plows its way through the sea toward our destination (the voyage could be 2 hours but will take 6). People are gathered on chairs around tables - what were once walkways have given way to sitting areas of conversing friends and family. This is a chance for people to relax and do nothing - certainly quite a few of the men I see around me are just sitting quietly and staring off or dozing. Some of the them may have had strokes - I do not know. İt is interesting to me that it is perfectly acceptable to do nothing for some people. Certainly Americans are capable of mind-shattering, couch-bound, plasma screen-oriented idleness, but this kind of hiatus of the brain seems particularly isolated as takes place within the four walls of a home - so very individual, so very American. In Turkey; we see men chilling out all the time in full view of the public - just playing backgammon, smoking cigarettes, or chatting - rarely alone. İt is a communal couch potatoship, sans television and couch.
İt is the men that I primarily see flanking the streets, gaunt faces immersed in so much human traffic, so much daily banter and open exchange, that they are as much a part of the neighborhood as the buildings they live in, or the wares they sell, and even the oxygen that they breathe. It is hard for me to fathom their life-styles. Many of them work every single day. They work for 10-12 hours serving people in whatever capacity they have known most of their adult lives (and maybe since they were children) - laundry man, döner kebap man, convenience story clerk, club manager, erkek kuaffor (barber), waiter, hotel worker. But maybe it is not such bad work. After all, they are constantly meeting people and socializing, which probably beats back-breaking plowing and harvesting any old Anotolian day. The young women, of course, are out and about - with their men, or their maybe-men, or girlfriends. İt is not a good idea for a women to walk down Istikal Caddesi (the main street in the entertainment district of Taksim in which I live). Especially - obviously - if they are attractive. Imagine a slow car, covered in honey, making its way down a street lined by nearly-emaciated, hungry-as-hell bears. This may give you a slightly exaggerated idea of how Turkish men react to such single women. But the older women I do not see as much as the older men. I imagine that they are in their houses being ev hanimi or house wives. The older men are outside chatting and drinking tea - not working, mind you, just chatting up an Istanbullu storm. Such is the culture here. Yes, to an American raised and simmered since birth in a veritable cauldron of P.C.-tivity, this smacks of injustice and sexism. However, I doubt that if I asked a housewife, she would concur. Such is the culture here, and tradition has a way of locking mind with heart.
Now I am hurtling my way back to Istanbul, on a fast hydroplane called the deniz ötöbus. I can see the towers of Istanbul's business section - Levent - standing sentry in the distance. The European side spreads off into the periphery and is rife with buildings. İt sometimes seems impossible to escape İstanbul by land. Only sea affords a way out. My journey to Avşa, the main island of the Marmara adalar group, went well. I got sun, fun, and exercise. İ met with my friend Merve and her friends. One of the them was a Turkish pop singer that is to masculinity what Gilbert Gotfried is to mental stability. Very nice guy, but his constant moving made me feel ill at ease. He was like one of those Sqiggley-vision cartoons - a natural temperment for an entertainer I suppose. I went to one of his shows and received the full treatment - the man was a veritable cauldron of Turkish pop musicality, bubbling over with effeminate gesticulations and cheesy, impossibly tight clothes and frilly hair, and the cheesiest of baubles (for instance he wore a belt buckle with his name - Ayzu -- stamped on it in large glittery gold letters while pop pianist who preceded him used a fake applause button on his electric piano NON-IRONİCALLY. No kidding - there was not enough applause from the lethargic crowd so he simply created his own, without so much cracking a smirk.) I asked my new friend why Turks put up this effeminate cheesiness and corn-ball performance anticatry and he said that essentially such posing broadens one's marketing appeal. The women do not feel "threatened" by a singer who sings about heterosexual love but appears homosexual and neither, I guess, do men worry is this Turkish singer happens to feel up on their wife/girlfriend during a performance. I can safely say that this one of my least favorite aspects of Turkish culture - so far I have heard only one musical artist that I like - Honda Yener. Maybe as I learn the language, however, I will appreciate more, but it all seems so over the top and fake to me. So much of it seems formulaic to me, while America has so many different types of musical artists that thrive on having their own distinct sound.
I also noticed on my little trip that Turkish children are a lot more entwined into adult culture. For instance, I was in a convenience store and noticed what seemed to be a boy of 8 or 9 in front of me buying two 6-packs of beer and cigarettes. Does anybody over here care? No. The kid was just buying stuff for his dad or mom, who had sent him on an errand. Nobody is afraid of him abusing the stuff himself - it is just assumed that it is all for his parents. Or maybe the convenience store clerk knows the family directly. But I suspect there is no age limit for who can buy alcohol or cigarettes. Also, we went to an open-air dance club last night (what a relief these wondrous babies are from the smoky sweat factories some roofed clubs can be) and I noticed some kids in there, presumably with older siblings or parents. I also noticed this in rural province of Muğla, where my father lives. Don't get the wrong idea though -- I have NOT seen children in the clubs in Taksim, the nightlife epicenter of Turkey. I think that this only occurs in tourist areas, to where families flock. Everything here is family and community and I assume that nobody worries that children are in danger in such places. Or maybe nobody wants to trouble with doing anything about it. This age inclusiveness doesn't just extend downwards - what had to be the most entertaining sight of the night was a gaggle of little old ladies sitting in the corner of the club having the time of their long, ripe lives. One song that especially struck the fancy of one these senescent jitterbugs roused her to her feet and sent her into a gyrating spell of hip-shaking dynamics. I was nearly floored with joy. Never had I seen such a thing from some one well in their 60s. And never - it is possible - may I see such a thing again.
I must also mention how important connections are here. This is a recurring theme but I experienced another example of this today while trying to buy my ticket home. I wanted a deniz ötöbus and not the slow ship that would take me 6 hours to get home. Fortunately, when I arrived at the ticket place I had my new friend via Merve - Sena - with me. At first, we were told that all the tickets had been sold out. I was about to resign myself to my tortoise-speed fate when Sena suggested that we stick around because somebody may be trying to return their tickets and we could pounce. Sure enough, we checked 2 minutes later and learned that their was one ticket available for the 1:45 hydroplane. So instead of a 3:00 slow ship ride that would put me in town around 9:00, I was able to get away with a trip that put me in town around 5:30 - important time saved because my father is in town for only a couple of nights. My point is that this would not have been possible without my friend's help - on my own, I would have floundered like a sad fish out of water. Connections and who you know are so important here that İ can barely overstate it.
İt is the men that I primarily see flanking the streets, gaunt faces immersed in so much human traffic, so much daily banter and open exchange, that they are as much a part of the neighborhood as the buildings they live in, or the wares they sell, and even the oxygen that they breathe. It is hard for me to fathom their life-styles. Many of them work every single day. They work for 10-12 hours serving people in whatever capacity they have known most of their adult lives (and maybe since they were children) - laundry man, döner kebap man, convenience story clerk, club manager, erkek kuaffor (barber), waiter, hotel worker. But maybe it is not such bad work. After all, they are constantly meeting people and socializing, which probably beats back-breaking plowing and harvesting any old Anotolian day. The young women, of course, are out and about - with their men, or their maybe-men, or girlfriends. İt is not a good idea for a women to walk down Istikal Caddesi (the main street in the entertainment district of Taksim in which I live). Especially - obviously - if they are attractive. Imagine a slow car, covered in honey, making its way down a street lined by nearly-emaciated, hungry-as-hell bears. This may give you a slightly exaggerated idea of how Turkish men react to such single women. But the older women I do not see as much as the older men. I imagine that they are in their houses being ev hanimi or house wives. The older men are outside chatting and drinking tea - not working, mind you, just chatting up an Istanbullu storm. Such is the culture here. Yes, to an American raised and simmered since birth in a veritable cauldron of P.C.-tivity, this smacks of injustice and sexism. However, I doubt that if I asked a housewife, she would concur. Such is the culture here, and tradition has a way of locking mind with heart.
Now I am hurtling my way back to Istanbul, on a fast hydroplane called the deniz ötöbus. I can see the towers of Istanbul's business section - Levent - standing sentry in the distance. The European side spreads off into the periphery and is rife with buildings. İt sometimes seems impossible to escape İstanbul by land. Only sea affords a way out. My journey to Avşa, the main island of the Marmara adalar group, went well. I got sun, fun, and exercise. İ met with my friend Merve and her friends. One of the them was a Turkish pop singer that is to masculinity what Gilbert Gotfried is to mental stability. Very nice guy, but his constant moving made me feel ill at ease. He was like one of those Sqiggley-vision cartoons - a natural temperment for an entertainer I suppose. I went to one of his shows and received the full treatment - the man was a veritable cauldron of Turkish pop musicality, bubbling over with effeminate gesticulations and cheesy, impossibly tight clothes and frilly hair, and the cheesiest of baubles (for instance he wore a belt buckle with his name - Ayzu -- stamped on it in large glittery gold letters while pop pianist who preceded him used a fake applause button on his electric piano NON-IRONİCALLY. No kidding - there was not enough applause from the lethargic crowd so he simply created his own, without so much cracking a smirk.) I asked my new friend why Turks put up this effeminate cheesiness and corn-ball performance anticatry and he said that essentially such posing broadens one's marketing appeal. The women do not feel "threatened" by a singer who sings about heterosexual love but appears homosexual and neither, I guess, do men worry is this Turkish singer happens to feel up on their wife/girlfriend during a performance. I can safely say that this one of my least favorite aspects of Turkish culture - so far I have heard only one musical artist that I like - Honda Yener. Maybe as I learn the language, however, I will appreciate more, but it all seems so over the top and fake to me. So much of it seems formulaic to me, while America has so many different types of musical artists that thrive on having their own distinct sound.
I also noticed on my little trip that Turkish children are a lot more entwined into adult culture. For instance, I was in a convenience store and noticed what seemed to be a boy of 8 or 9 in front of me buying two 6-packs of beer and cigarettes. Does anybody over here care? No. The kid was just buying stuff for his dad or mom, who had sent him on an errand. Nobody is afraid of him abusing the stuff himself - it is just assumed that it is all for his parents. Or maybe the convenience store clerk knows the family directly. But I suspect there is no age limit for who can buy alcohol or cigarettes. Also, we went to an open-air dance club last night (what a relief these wondrous babies are from the smoky sweat factories some roofed clubs can be) and I noticed some kids in there, presumably with older siblings or parents. I also noticed this in rural province of Muğla, where my father lives. Don't get the wrong idea though -- I have NOT seen children in the clubs in Taksim, the nightlife epicenter of Turkey. I think that this only occurs in tourist areas, to where families flock. Everything here is family and community and I assume that nobody worries that children are in danger in such places. Or maybe nobody wants to trouble with doing anything about it. This age inclusiveness doesn't just extend downwards - what had to be the most entertaining sight of the night was a gaggle of little old ladies sitting in the corner of the club having the time of their long, ripe lives. One song that especially struck the fancy of one these senescent jitterbugs roused her to her feet and sent her into a gyrating spell of hip-shaking dynamics. I was nearly floored with joy. Never had I seen such a thing from some one well in their 60s. And never - it is possible - may I see such a thing again.
I must also mention how important connections are here. This is a recurring theme but I experienced another example of this today while trying to buy my ticket home. I wanted a deniz ötöbus and not the slow ship that would take me 6 hours to get home. Fortunately, when I arrived at the ticket place I had my new friend via Merve - Sena - with me. At first, we were told that all the tickets had been sold out. I was about to resign myself to my tortoise-speed fate when Sena suggested that we stick around because somebody may be trying to return their tickets and we could pounce. Sure enough, we checked 2 minutes later and learned that their was one ticket available for the 1:45 hydroplane. So instead of a 3:00 slow ship ride that would put me in town around 9:00, I was able to get away with a trip that put me in town around 5:30 - important time saved because my father is in town for only a couple of nights. My point is that this would not have been possible without my friend's help - on my own, I would have floundered like a sad fish out of water. Connections and who you know are so important here that İ can barely overstate it.
posted by Evin Demirel at 2:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home