Perihan Hanim speaks: On the limits of sharing

Posted on February 10, 2012 by lizcameron

Perihan Hanım, my fairy Godmother puppet paid an unusual visit to me tonight. You may recall meeting her, several months ago, in this post.  I found her on my shoulder, stroking my hair and watching over my shoulder as I alternated between my newfound love of pinterest.com and the data analysis I am supposed to be working on tonight.  I noticed her presence, but waited for her to speak.

“M’lady,” she began, in the most loving tone possible, “it is one thing to want to do good by sharing, but it is another thing to create discomfort in your loved one’s life.  It is not a great discomfort as he is about to walk up the stairs and tell you, but it is enough for you to listen to.  You can be true to your goals for this blog without putting in the kitchen sink, you know.”

Of course, Perihan Hanım was referring to the disagreement M. and I had the other day, and the ruminating that has been going on since about which aspects of our various responses were culture-bound.  Some of this was shared in my last blog post.  All is well, dear readers, no emergency here, just normal marital murky moments, as I like to call them in a lighthearted way.

Hopping off of my shoulder, my fairy Godmother floated down the stairs like the seed of an oak tree only to capture M. in her invisible turkuaz-colored ribbon and guide him up the stairs into the mango room, where we commenced to having a good and productive discussion about what does and does not go on this blog!

When I began the slowly-by-slowly book/blog project, M. and I talked about it ahead of time. He said “I support you no matter what and I will never censor you.” As an artist, anti-censorship has a special importance for him.  From time to time, I have run posts by him to make sure that he is ok with what I am posting. While my intent is to push the envelope, so to speak, with respect to what is discussed in the public world about cross-cultural relationships – I don’t want to overstep.  I thought that by sharing, normalizing the challenges of cross-cultural marriage without the vilification that is so common in what writing exists out there, I would help some people to not feel quite so alone or confused in their own marital murky moments.

In many ways, this blog is about a reaction to the seemingly constant stereotypes about men from Muslim countries – that they are macho, patriarchal, have many wives, abusive, fill-in-the-blank negative adjective, falan  (yadda yadda).  I do feel that it is obvious that all couples have disagreements and challenging moments…but I see that we have reached a cultural impasse on the limits of sharing – when it is it ok to share and when is it not.  Is it a Turkish tradition to be fiercely private? I am not sure one could lump that in as Turkish.  Is it a Turkish tradition to be fiercely loyal to one’s family? In M.’s family, yes, thus the use of a pseudonym here…much to my regret.  Is it a Yankee tradition to be private and loyal? Yes, but somehow I have broken the mold on the Yankee side of my cultural upbringing.

As our friend A. likes to say, we work hard to “take care of each other” and this should involve as much “holding out the light for one another” as possible.  So, thank you, A. and thank you Perihan Hanım for your words and wisdom. It takes a village to raise a marriage, and thank goodness for it. 🙂

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Karagöz bangs the marriage counseling drum: Explains tone and twirl

Posted on February 10, 2012 by lizcameron

Davul in shadow puppet theater. Here, Karagöz ...

Image via Wikipedia

Karagöz came into my mango room to have tea with me today at teatime. He was unusually calm and collected – not in trickster mood at all. This surprised me. Hacivad Bey called up the stairs, “We sent Karagöz because we thought you might take the news more seriously from him.”

Sensing a puppet coup d’etat, I turned away from my newfound love (pinterest.com) and faced the tiny wax paper puppet, who was standing on the windowsill, the late afternoon grey-orange dim light of February illuminating him in what could only be called a very serious way…

“Karagöz,” I ventured, clearing my throat ever so carefully, “what is it that you have been sent up here to tell me?”

“Well, m’lady,” Karagöz began carefully, “we see that you have been distant and hiding out for the last day or so. We see that you are exhausted from work and that your back and neck hurt and that you are sad. We also saw that, well, how shall we say, you had a tone and twirl moment with M. the other day – something about a disagreement on terminology and remembering stuff.”

Sighing, I just nodded my head in defeat, and turned to the Ibuprofin bottle sitting next to me, pushing down the cap to twist it and shake out my medicine booty. Downing two of the dull coral circlets with vibrant orange carrot juice, I turned back to him.

“M’lady,” Karagöz continued, this time with more confidence, “your disagreement aside, what you need to understand about M. – and indeed many Turks – but I would HATE to make a generalization – what you need to understand is that tone – be it loud or louder – does not mean the same thing to you as it does to them. Tone is not such a consideration here. You need to let the tone thing go a bit – although we plan to whisper into M.’s ear at night that just as you, M’lady, are trying to be cross-culturally sensitive and aware, perhaps he should understand how he is perceived as well.”

Shifting in my seat, I looked at Karagöz directly. “You make a fair point, Karagöz. You are, after all, King of the Screech, Whoop and Holler – so maybe I do need to think a bit about that. Cross-cultural sensitivity – and what to do once you understand that different people may have different standards for tone – well – that is hard. It is just hard.”

“We agree, M’lady, we all agree. And that brings me to twirls. OK, in case I am being too obtuse, twirls in this case refer to the shaking of hands and arms in gestures. We Karagöz shadow puppets, we LOVE to twirl – and if you think back to your knowledge of the streets of Istanbul, for example, think of all the twirling going on there in the form of hand movement. Don’t get upset at the twirls, M’lady, you have your own associations with them, and they are separate. We promise, though, to whisper into M.’s ear at night so that HE can work on his side of it all as well.”

“Well, Karagöz, I never would have thought of it even though it is so obvious. I agree,” I said, sighing.

Concluding that his serious business was done for the day – neigh the year – Karagöz hopped off of the windowsill, resumed banging his davul and marched on down the stairs just as the dog marched up the stairs, his leash in mouth, with the entire troupe of Karagöz shadow puppets regally riding on his back to congratulate me on completing my first formal Karagöz puppet marriage counseling session, all by myself.

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Global warming and diving ducks: Our “cultural iceberg” looms

Posted on February 8, 2012 by lizcameron

Image of the cultural iceberg thanks to cross-culture.de

Yesterday, icebergs were spotted off of the Northern Aegean coast on the Turkish side here at slowly-by-slowly.  The field of ice was so wide that it reached all the way to the craggy New England coast.

Karagöz was at the helm of my ship of life and called out – “land ho!” and then screeched in horror “not land – crap – iceberg ho! scramble the hatches and lift the boats and whatever else sailors do – I don’t even know their terms!”  It is rare to see Karagöz shaken up like that.  He is the agent provocateur, the mischief, the imp, that wax papery shadow puppet from Ottoman times who has come to reside in my head.

Now, mind you, the icebergs I am referring to are metaphorical icebergs.  You can see the image to the left – or you can read a bit more about it here.  So, this morning I awoke to the wise wan Yehuda Rebbe, who was studying the iceberg intently.  “You see, m’lady,” he intoned, “I am observing this iceberg as I myself and my countrymen have much to learn about our own Israeli-Palestinian cultural iceberg fields. You, however, have it a little easier.  Make the silver lining of the aqua ghost monsters worth it to you and M.  Be sure to explore it all.”

“Hmmm,” I thought as if old oil was clogged in the mechanics of my brain, “I am not sure what he means.”

Icebergs or no icebergs, I am not a morning person, but my life partner and husband M. is very much a morning person, so, icebergs spinning in my head, I got up to spend some time with him.  I tried to offer something nice, to drive him to work on a chilly day.  What better place, I now realize, to find icebergs, than on the road to work, in the morning, on a chilly day?  And of course, we drove right smack into one.

“You haven’t commented on the new puppets, Saf and Dobra, and their love-hate relationship with Turkey,” I said slyly, referring to my last blog post and wondering how M. would respond. “Ce to think of it, nobody else has either – I wonder if they are afraid to comment as I wrote the words “Armenian genocide” even though do not think I was being offensive to the Turkish state and/or at risk for being 301’d.”

“You know me, I am better with images than words,” M. countered, “I love your blog.” Shifting a bit in his chair, M. continued “and you can write whatever you want, but don’t be surprised if they track you down and it impacts your Turkish citizenship application.  But you need to follow your heart and not be afraid to write what you think.  Screw the Turkish citizenship, you know?  I mean, I don’t think you wrote anything offensive – you wrote about your mixed feelings about how the whole thing is addressed in Turkey by the government – and you are in the U.S. so that protects you some – but I have been out of the country for many years and people may take something differently than I would expect so I don’t know.”

My head began to pound.  I was caffeine-less and driving and in the morning, a tough tripartite oligarchy for the moment.  “What are you saying, M.?” my brow was furrowed, and my sharp stomach pains from what I guess is a pre-ulcerous condition as a result of my stressful professorship panged and pinged across my upper-duodenum (site you start to feel an ulcer).

“I don’t want to censor you,” he said strongly – his voice loud with conviction, “I will never do that.  I want you to speak your heart and mind no matter what.”

“Are you saying you think I have insulted the Turkish state?” I gasped out the words as I inched the car across the intersection.

“Well, here is what I can say, in Turkey, we have a saying….” M began.

[Cross-cultural interlude:  I always know we have hit an iceberg when M. starts a sentence this way.  I feel as though there is a to-my-ears obscure/opaque Turkish saying for EVERYTHING. This is part of how I first began to notice the icebergs on our cross-cultural roadtrip called Turkish-American marriage]

Ducks, in this Turkish proverb, are a symbol of being made a fool of when people take things the wrong way...it took me a bit of time to understand the Turkish logic/mores/values/customs behind this one (image from http://www.poetry-innerspace.com)

M. cleared his throat and began to narrate the story.  “The story starts like this…two friends are talking with each other.  One said: today the weather is bad and it is going to be rainy, looks like it anyway.  The other friend said: you mean to call me a ‘duck!’ Scrambling to clarify, the other one said ‘No I didn’t mean that, where did you get this idea?”

Cocking my head to the right, I said, very eloquently, “huh?”  I heard the iceberg scratch the car as I drove along.

“OK,” M. said, “let me try it in this replay way.  The friend said ‘when the weather is bad, it rains, what happens in a rainy day?’ Well, where the water accumulates in the pit, it consists of ponds, the ducks swim in the pond, so you called me a duck…’ do you understand now?”

The metaphorical scratching of my head in confusion was only blocked out noise-wise by the shardingly-steely (new word) screech of iceberg against steel and I thought about the Titanic sinking.  “M.,” I said, “what the hell are you talking about?”

It took a while, but M. explained that in Turkey, to call someone a duck is to call them stupid or ignorant. The proverb suggests that people can take seemingly innocent statements and misinterpret them…which links to how M. was warning me about what I wrote on my post the other day.  Specifically, he wondered if someone might take it the wrong way…

So, here we have it – M. and I in the car, in the morning, pre-caffeine, debating the far-reaching fingers of cool censorship and oppression and how it may or may not be infiltrating our life in New England.  So, that iceberg that the car was grating on as we drove through the city?  Refer to the above graphic which suggests that 10% alone is visible.  Today, my image of that iceberg was one that was bobbing up and down in the waters of our relationship in the context of the world.  So, cultural customs are showing (albeit unclear from the fog at times) and the need for cultural courtesies are abundantly clear (e.g. Turkish cultural mores in the current political environment there re: not insulting the Turkish state).  However, the glimpses I am catching of the underwater portion of hte iceberg are harder to identify, namely, the values, the priorities and the assumptions – they are down there swimming with the diving ducks in M.’s story, I suppose.  I wonder when one of those diving ducks may surface to show me sliver more about the iceberg matter underneath – values, priorities and assumptions as they relate to speaking my mind and how to handle that.

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