This blog is about one Turkish-American couple’s road trip through a cross-cultural marriage. In the U.S., one of our regular cross-cultural moments comes in explaining things about Turkey, the Middle East, and Islam to others – to the best of our ability.
A sign honoring the Galatasaray Spor Kulubu
At work, I have a small Galatasaray Futbol Kulubu sign on my door. In part, this is to welcome some of the Turkish students who study in the English as a Second Language program where I work. Sometimes, when my students visit during office hours, this leads to questions. I consider this a good thing – and try to have a range of interesting objects, art and books that can generate conversations either about the topics I teach – or about the Middle East. I want to do my part in creating more understanding amongst our students – and our society in general.
So, the impetus for this post comes after reflecting on a conversation last week with one such student, who had noticed my Turkish sign, and had asked about it. Although it wasn’t a surprise, one of this student’s first questions was “Gee, well, I guess I am wondering – if it is a Muslim country, do Turks drink alcohol?” In these moments I often sigh inside – and put on my freshest, most open face and walk them through the metaphor about people who are, for example, Jewish, but for example, do not keep kosher. During this type of explanation, I channel the calm, collected and wise Hacivad, instead of the flighty, oppositional agent-provocateur with no patience, Karagöz. This usually does the trick. If it doesn’t work – then I move to Catholicism, and how there can be differing views on abortion, birth control and sex before marriage amongst people who attend Catholic mass on a regular basis. In this case, I explained that most people in Turkey have Sun’ni heritage – but that many also drink – beer, raki, etc.
M. alerted me to this video today – and while it is an advertisement for Yeni Rakı, the Turkish equivalent of anisette or the Greek ouzo. I wish I had had this video in that moment with my student – not only is the video gorgeous – but it shows people singing a popular folksong all over Turkey – the landscapes, traditions and settings of the various regions of the country are shown along the way. Of course, the downing of Rakı is everpresent in the video. It’s lovely, take a look. I especially love seeing the Urfa scene – near the Syrian border in South Central Turkey where we visited last year…a chili pepper is dipped into Rakı before being consumed…
Now I need to decide whether sending that student a link to this video – a link that gets the cultural message across but is also an advertisement for alcohol – whether that is a good idea professionally!
Image via Wikipedia - Winslow Homer's Veteran in a Field - this image was evoked by our drive through the Aegean region north of Bodrum
We had been driving for just under an hour – most of which had been spent with me commenting on every little thing by the side of the road that I noticed. In between sipping on my rosehip juice and mineral water after the great supermarket moment in Migros. Most of the puppets were snoozing on the back seat – but that energizer-bunny-known-as-Karagöz was just biding his time, bouncing on the middle part of seat, occasionally bumping into Hacivad (who was, apparently, meditating) or the others. His verbalizations mainly consisted of “wheee – we’re free!!!!!” I was ignoring him in some ways – but his energy source with the “whee” was certainly enabling my excited-ness about finally being on the road with M.
So there were were, driving along the highway, and I was revelling in being able to OBSERVE – something I have done with my family on road trips since childhood. We used to go out to the Peking Garden – a Chinese-American eatery near our home, and spend the meal in almost silence – just looking around us. Then, once safe in the confines of the car, we would each tell our stories about our “take” on the person around us. Sound pathological? Well, maybe, I was raised by a team of academics. If nothing else, this kind of nutty activity taught me to enjoy and learn from everything around me – and perhaps is what led to my undergraduate studies in anthropology. Of course, throughout this, my first trip to Turkey to meet M.’s family, my anthropological lens was on high-usage-rotation as I encountered lots of new phenomena.
As the car sped through the arid but lovely countryside, avoiding pot holes and at least two traffic pile-ups along the way, I chattered on and on. “Look – why are there only women in the field?” I would exclaim. M. would usually give a short answer along the lines of “awful, I know, it’s what they do here” before reverting back to silence. I would keep chattering. Perhaps trying something like “this looks sort of like Southern Minnesota, have you been there?” or “how lovely the golden light is on the grassy hillsides! Does it remind you of a time in your childhood? What about a Winslow Homer painting? Do you like Winslow Homer?” There is nothing I love more than the kind of unexpected conversations on a road trip that feel like basic banter but can lead to revelations and a depth newly reached with your travel partner. I had been SO excited for this trip – especially given some of the difficult moments in Bodrum – I could barely contain myself from pushing the conversation all over the globe to engage in the kind of conversation I loved.
The only problem was, M. was not responding. His short, clipped answers were starting to bug me. “Are you mad at me?” I finally said, after my latest round of bubbly observation and questioning had fallen quite flat. “Did I do something wrong?” He sighed. “We have so far to go – we must get there before dark! We don’t know where we will stay.” I sighed. “Um, but, don’t you like to enjoy the PROCESS of the journey – not just the DESTINATION?” I was feeling a bit miffed and frustrated and wasn’t trying particularly hard to hide it. “I am responsible for you – for us – for this car – we have to find a place to stay as that last call did not pan out.”
I was silent for a time. Reading my mind, because of course, he was part of my mind, Hacivad spoke. “Do not worry that he is in some way inhabiting some macho, male protector role. Yes, this is likely a facet of his cultural upbringing. Is it lethal, no. Is it loving, yes. Is it meeting your need to talk as you go through the journey? No. You may just have to live with that.” I wasn’t ready for the latter. I could even get into the idea of a boyfriend that loved and respected me enough to want to assure safety for the night. Isn’t that what good people do? Yes. I decided. Of course it is! What is the matter with me for even thinking this is some weird macho-ness. But the no talking on road trips? Where was the fun in that! Isn’t life about the observation along the way? Apparently M.’s parents did not engage in the same lokanta-based activities as mine had. Well, I thought, let me try the radio if he doesn’t want to talk.
“OK if I turn on the radio, dear?” I asked as I simultaneously hit the “on” button. “Do I have a choice?” M. joked as the crackling of static filled the car and woke most of the puppets up temporarily. “Sure,” he said, “just don’t play any of that modern Arabesque music – I hate it more than anything. Try to find some REAL Turkish music.” Hmm. I thought. “I am not sure the difference? Can you tell me?” The next five minutes of the trip were spent going from station to station – all of which, M. told me, were unacceptable, as they did not cease with the Arabesque music and the “incessant wailing and clanging” as M. referred to it. At every stop on the radio dial, Karagöz sang along loudly and off-key – he seemed to know the words to everything and clearly he, as was I, was kind of into this music. I felt glad that M. could not hear Karagöz.
“Starting in the 1970s, immigration from predominantly southeastern rural areas to big cities and particularly to Istanbul gave rise to a new cultural synthesis. This changed the musical makeup of Istanbul. The old tavernas and music halls of fasıl music were to shut down in place of a new type of music.[1] These new urban residents brought their own taste of music, which due to their locality was largely middle eastern. Musicologists derogatively termed this genre as arabesque due to the high pitched wailing that is synonymous with Arabic singing. Its mainstream popularity rose so much in the 1980s that it even threatened the existence of Turkish pop, with rising stars such as Muslum Gurses and Ibrahim Tatlises.[1] The genre has underbeat forms that include Ottoman forms of belly-dancing music known as fantazi from singers like Gülben Ergen and with performers like Orhan Gencebay who added Anglo-American rock and roll to arabesque music.”
Eventually, no radio station was ok with M. As the driver, I figured, he deserved his choice – he was doing the hard work here. Driving on Turkish roads is often no small feat of focus, reaction and prevention. But, there I was, in silence, with nobody to talk to and no music to bide the time. Trying not to be grumbly and sad, I felt let down nonetheless. Hacivad spoke up after his long silence. “Your needs are not being met, but you are learning to be part of a team. You are also learning about the challenge of compromise – and the reality of getting to know someone really, really well. Just sit with the process.”
As the landscape near Bodrum shifted as we approached Selcuk, we began to see countryside that looked like this...
I sat. I sat some more. It was hard to turn off my mind. I decided that this was not a culture thing alone – it was also a gender thing. I looked at the changing landscape. Then I decided it was also a personality thing. I sat, tried to talk with M. about my meta observation about this whole interaction, it fell flat, and I sat some more. M. reached over and held my hand after that. He held it for a long time while the road was free, only taking it away when approaching one of many crazy road moments. So, I sat, and then I slept. While I slept, Hacivad whispered this quote from Rumi into my ear, over and over again:
“Practice patience; it is the essence of praise. Have patience, for that is true worship. No other worship is worth as much. Have patience; patience is the key to all relief.”
What the little lady chorus of puppets later told me, is that Hacivad had booted Karagöz out the window as I began to sleep, so that he would not interrupt the indoctrination process. Don’t worry about this perceived violence. As wax paper puppets, the shadow puppet troupe is quite resilient. They have all been known to fly off into a cactus, gully or Aegean bay once in a while, only to emerge like new lickety split. This is one of the distinct benefits of being the manifestations of someone’s inner thought chaos.
With sleep, came patience. With sleep, the little rental car got dustier and dustier on it’s meandering path from Bodrum up to Selcuk…where we shall see how the next stop on the roadtrip plays out…
It was here, the day to leave Bodrum for points north. Ready for the road – our first long, international road trip as a couple – through the heat of the Aegean region of Anatolia. Ready for where the road would take us literally and figuratively as a couple.
Despite the fact that it was her day off, Kalinka stumbled out of her room – more like a nook than a room if you ask me – just to hug us goodbye. She was bright and sprightly despite her protestations about too much to drink the night before. I would go on a bender on my night off too, I thought, if I had her job. The little chorus ladies clucked in disapproval at the very thought of a lady drinking Rakı. I ignored them. The had 13th century sensibilities that didn’t always fit my life, although my old-fashioned Granny might have been on their side despite her Jerez sherry each evening. It reminded her, I think, of life in Southern Spain where she was raised. I think she reveled in that melancholy a bit. But this was not a melancholy moment.
As Karagöz catapulted himself up each of the marble stairs to the kitchen, he sawed out a characteristically odd tune – something along the lines of “spring free, gonna be, just we!” Hacivad followed a distance after, dragging a duffel bag of books up each stair with him – ka-lumph, ka-lumph, etc. Kenne and her maid, Khadijah were already up at the ironclad ironsides known as Mr. X’s Mercedes, supervising the placement of each of their trunks in the back of the car. Did you know, dear reader, that Karagöz shadow puppets travel with trunks that can squeeze through keyholes of cars into trunks in much the same way that a mouse can squeeze under a door? I did not, but was too sleepy to protest much.
Mr. X., enlivened at the thought of a responsibility to engage in as the firstborn caring for his younger brother’s send-off, puffed around the place looking for his low-cholesterol breakfast – a single dried fig, a few fresh walnuts, a quick glass of çay that he had prepared himself as it was Kalinka’s day off. Mrs. X. made a quick appearance with two-cheeked kisses and a subtle slip of the arm down my side to my waist, where she tweaked the tiny roll of fat there as she wished me good luck on my weight-loss journey. I gave her a tight squeeze and thanked her for her hospitality, my best inner self wishing for the future of our relationship to only go onwards and upwards.
As I slipped into the back of the Mercedes, M. and Mr. X. were laughing and joking in the best possible brotherly swing that soon launched into the singing of a Galatasaray chorus replete with the cim bom bom chorus and mentions of aslan – which had something to do with a lion but always made me think about the Chronicles of Narnia. The lion emblem of the futbol team swung back and forth from the mirror and I thought I saw it wink at me, but decided that my own personal madness needed to start and stop with my resident shadow puppets. I set myself to focusing on the movement of all the puppets, who were settling into the backseat in order to get the best possible view on the way to the marina where we were to pick up the car. Karagöz hung upside-down from the handle above the window, ancient Ottoman coins falling out of his pocket as we curved around and out of the gated compound in the peachy early morning light. Khadijah ran around collecting the coins, then passing them to the chorus of dancing ladies, who secreted them all away in the depths of my open-mouthed purse. Kenne sat next to Hacivad on the back of the seat, looking out of the back window. They were all talking a mile a minute and I couldn’t keep track of it all so I just gave in to the various voices in my head that they represented and watched the highway scene – early morning shops opening up as workers hung their wares in windows and many dolmuş taking workers into the inner city.
Simit - a savory bagel-like, pretzel-shaped pastry covered with sesame seeds - eaten often at tea, but for breakfast on the run today
As we reached the marina, Mr. X. took me and stationed me at the cafe – apparently car rental shops are no place for ladies. He was in too much of a rush to supervise/assist M.’s rental process to remember to order for me – but I was glad to try out my own nascent skills and managed to have three teas, three sesame-covered simits fresh from the oven and three glasses of freshly-squeezed orange juice appear before the car negociations were complete. Looking back with the wisdom of the present day, I now understand the at-the-time imperceptible web of expectation related to “who knows best” and “favor-sharing” that goes on between families and friends. At the time, I thought Mr. X.’s behavior about the car rental suggested that he did not think M. could seal the deal himself. I felt a bit irked about it. I now know that the power of networks on price (not to mention the provision of perks) had more to do with his behavior. What it means, of course, is that there will be a time when we must do a favor for Mr. X.
After the mighty negociations were complete, the volume of voice was back down to a decent decibel and the waving of hands above the head had ceased, the two brothers walked arm in arm towards me in the cafe. Hacivad began to meditate on my shoulder, but I knew that something about the words he chose related to the moment “love is grabbing hold to the great Lion’s mane.” As I sipped my tea, taking care not to burn my fingers, I watched the exact walk of one mirrored in the other – there was no denying brotherhood between these two, despite their hair, height and way-of-life differences. Picturing myself flailing about while hanging onto some massive, Martian lion’s mane, I thought “there is an element of trust, of letting go, I suppose, in loving. In loving one an another and in loving the other’s family too.” Just as I began this high, best-self thinking, Karagöz screeched in with his thoughts on the matter – “lion’s mane, it’s the bane, of your existence, keep your distance, let’s be plain, you’re on the wane.”
The brothers stuck to Turkish for most of our breakfast – having the type of brotherly interaction that clearly brought joy and left all difficult moments they might have ever had aside. I let the rising sun wash over me, swept the sesame seeds from the simit onto the floor for the waiting birds hovering nearby, and focused on implanting the scene around me into my brain for good. After a hearty hug and two-side kiss, I was packaged up into the front seat of the car before Mr. X. turned his attention to packing a gift for my family in the backseat – a series of shrink-wrapped packets of kuruyemiş (dried fruit and nut items) from the finest store in the bazaar. Thinking of my Dad’s enjoyment of the pistachios crunched into the vacuum-sealed packs made me happy, as did the thought of those dried sultanas in my mom’s wintry fruitcakes.
We followed Mr. X. out of Bodrum town in our put-put alternative to the grand Mercedes, and waved a hearty goodbye as he returned to the beach and we wound our way up into the foothills. If this was grabbbing onto the lion’s mane of life and love with M., I was up for it.
Slowly-by-Slowly 