Slowly-by-Slowly

After the storm: Karagöz puppets gone wild

Posted on September 24, 2011 by lizcameron

Panoramic image of the Aegean Sea (Ege Deniz) at sunset from Clara S. via Flickr

It was an otherwise glorious scene, blue skies heading to sunset, hot sun fading towards evening, smooth teal Aegean sea with the beginning pink twinges towards twilight, a litter of white adobe houses taking on the pastel hues of nature as they lay splayed across the arid landscape covered in sweet-smelling herbs – and the blessed evening breeze. What could be wrong when the world around me looked just like this?

When I last left you, I was sitting on the terrace of M.’s brother X.’s summer home near Bodrum. X had just delivered what I am referring to as a “Sicilian message” about what would ideally happen to women who cheat his brother – and by his definition – the family. It was a jarring statement that took me completely off guard. The statement did not seem to fit right in this otherwise “modern” and from what I could see “western-oriented” home full of English and French speakers, all with master’s degrees from European universities.

As the bead-laced door into the kitchen swirled with the exit of X., I sat, a bit dumbfounded. Silent. Part of me in shock and part of me so imbued in trying hard to accept the culture around me in this family that I almost did not register that X. had talked of “taking a (cheating) woman to the mountain to rape her a thousand times.” This was not some tribal village. This was not Eastern Turkey where stories of honor killings filtered out from in the media. This was not the 1800s, what the heck was going on?

The shoes Karagöz left in the purse once he commenced sliding across the tile floor

I soon learned that my shadow-puppet friend Karagöz was more than happy to fill me in on what was going on as I sat, log-like, confused, torpid even. Karagöz had at first emerged from the purse where all of the puppets had been hiding during my conversation with X. Instead of launching into a crazed, alliterative diatribe as was his usual wont, he commenced sliding across the tiled floor, row by row, at breakneck speed, screaming bloody murder at the top of his waxy-papered lungs. He was sliding in his socks, having left his fancy shoes back in the purse, I presume. Then, stopping at a dead halt, he turned to face me from the middle of the terrace floor, and he said this “Watch out for this guy. Yes, he’s acting crack-cocaine high. But he says this not on the fly. My oh my. You may be asking why. You’re only answer comes from drinking rye. Just let the conversation die.”

At this point, Hacivad crawled out of the purse. I watched him with almost blank eyes as he made his way across the floor, up the white canvas couch and on up my dress and onto my right shoulder. I turned to my left, leaning my head on my shoulder, remembering finding some comfort in my Granny’s house by the herb garden there, the scent of sage intermingling with mid-summer tanned-skin smell. “M’lady,” Hacivad prodded gently, “you just need to take space and time to understand this. You need to talk to M. about this. He will help you to understand. This is nonsense talk, unacceptable talk from X., but you need to understand it and where it comes from. Do not expect to understand today. Also, do not expect to be X.’s equal, which I think you did. You think of him as one of your age cohort, as one of your generation, but it is clearly different for him.”

Karagöz and Hacivad resembled a tumbleweed as they fought, their wax-papery selves getting shreded and intertwined in the process

Karagöz let out a screech. Back to his old mnemonic tricks, he exclaimed with more of a fevered pitch than usual “you need to kick his ass, tell him who’s the lass, no raising of the peace glass, tell him he must not be so crass!” Annoyed, Hacivad began to display a set of uncharacteristic behaviors and verbalizations. “You fool, do not encourage this! Serious business we have here and you must cease and desist! She does not know what she is up against here!” Before I could even imagine it, Hacivad had, in his uncharacteristic ire, leaped off of my shoulder and jumped full-force onto the jokerish Karagöz. The two were fighting, whirling in the process, flailing all over the cool tiles like a raggedy-edged tumbleweed gone wild.

The chorus of shadow puppet dancing ladies began to emerge from the purse by the beaded door in huddles of two and three. “Oh!” they cried to a one, “oh, horrors, this is a terrible, terrible thing. Such things that men do. Such words that men say. So misguided they all are. Shame on them all.” The melee and audience continued as Kalinka arrived through the beads with a glass of strong black tea. She sat next to me for a moment after looking around furtively to make sure her boss was not about to come back and see her sitting with me, or at least that is what I imagined the look to be about. She began to talk to me in her own Moldovian (limba moldovenească or лимба молдовеняскэ) language which, of course, I understood nary a word of. She smoothed her hand up and down my back, clearly seeing some upset on my face.

While my conversation with X. had been in English, and I know she could not have understood it, she had seen a bit of the affect involved in the interaction, and so she had a sense that something bad had gone down. Her soothing led to my tears letting down like breast milk responding to a baby’s cry. Kalinka wiped my tears away with a cold washcloth and got me back into a presentable state by starting to do whatever she could to get me to laugh. First, she amped about like X., imitating his movements to a t. Second, she just began dancing around in the goofiest manner possible. She had no idea that at one point, she stepped clearly and firmly on top of the tumbling testosterone duo comprised of Hacivad and Karagöz, who crumbled to dust under her foot whilst the little ladies sighed and fainted. I felt as though she must be employing the tactics used on a two year-old child to distract them from whatever the upset of the moment was. It worked.

All of a sudden, she stopped at the sound of a door shutting downstairs Turning to listen, we heard X. and M. walking up the stairs into the terrace-kitchen area. Kalinka winked at me and scuttled back into the kitchen. The laughter and joking felt clear and easy between them as futbol-related words emanated from their conversation into the part of my brain that understood some Turkish. As X. went to get his tea, M. jumped onto the sofa next to me, planting a big kiss on my cheek before saying “X. said you had a good conversation, really got to know each other, while I was asleep. That’s great!” I could tell beyond a reasonable doubt that he had no idea about the rape comment. I leaned towards him and stared out at the dimming light over the sea, wondering how such ugly words and mixed-up feelings could possibly be present in such a lovely place.

Of cigars, ironing and my very own “Sicilian message” (slowly-by-slowly.com)
On managing stereotypes about Middle Eastern men (slowly-by-slowly.com)
Tea at breakfast: Sweltering in my smile with Hacivad and Karagöz (slowly-by-slowly.com)

Posted in A Karagöz puppet battle, Cross-cultural learning moments, Visits from the Karagöz puppets | Tagged Aegean Sea, Bodrum, cross-cultural marriage, culture shock, English language, etiquette, family, Granny, Karagöz and Hacivat, Middle East, Mugla, Ottoman Empire, Provinces, tea, Turkey | 16 Comments

On managing stereotypes about Middle Eastern men, such as my husband!

Posted on September 21, 2011 by lizcameron

I get the sense that this is the image most Americans have of Middle-Eastern men…and this makes me sad.

You may recall, dear readers, that I wrote a little something about the receipt of my very own Sicilian message of sorts. I am referring to the story of when my husband’s brother, let me know in no uncertain terms that a woman cheating on her man was NOT ok, and would have dire consequences – in the form of rape. Pretty strong words, but just words. Totally unacceptable nonetheless.

Sounds like your worst stereotype about Middle Eastern gender relations, doesn’t it? In some ways, yes, I suppose it is a stereotype and in other ways, it is not. We hear plenty of terrible things about what Middle Eastern men (beyond Osama bin Laden and the Taliban) did and do to women on a daily basis…

For example, my beloved and meaning-well feminist girlfriends often send me the latest report about ‘honor killings’ in the Middle Eastern world, Turkey in particular, where my husband is from. I always open these emails with a sinking heart. I never know if this is because they think I would be interested in a key topic for women in the region or if they think that I might end up one…it is an awkward in between. Do I say “thanks for the (horrific) article, isn’t it awful?” Do I engage in a conversation about the equality, freedom, love and respect that are the core elements of my relationship? Do I get a little defensive and point out something like “well, a) this was a very religious family and b) this was in the Eastern part of Turkey where this stuff is more common than in the West?” It is all a cop out. Any possible answer feels like a cop out anyway. I have said all of these things – and it doesn’t seem to matter.

Either way, I sound defensive, so usually I engage in a bit of an attempt to educate “he is from a totally secular family, I know more about Islam than he does” and a bit of acknowledgement “can you imagine, how terrible this is, how could this be changed in this culture?” I never quite know what to say to them the next time I see them, and I often just blow it off completely…as if it has never happened. The truth is that it chips away at me inside, knowing that they must have some sort of doubt, or at least that is what I imagine. One woman posted here early on in the life of this blog, saying, essentially, “I just stopped trying to explain to people, I just gave up.” That is one way, and may indeed be a functional way to handle it.

Photo taken from White Girl Blog: Anything But Vanilla

Since the “Sicilian message” post, my husband and I have spent a great deal of time revisiting the topic. We address day-to-day stereotypes people have about Middle Eastern men on a regular basis. As in, the times (plural) M. has been stopped in the most liberal of liberal bastions, to be searched or the time it was assumed he was not a U.S. citizen when he went to vote, when he is asked about whether he had shoes (or a camel) growing up, why he isn’t wearing an outfit fit for Yasser Arafat, and on, and on. I have written before about the things that highly-educated and traveled people have said or asked about M., such as this post on a colleague’s comments on whether M.’s family wanted him to take a second wife. And then there is the whole Turkish love rats thing…see my post on that here in which I come to terms with stereotypes about relationships between Turkish men and non-Turkish women on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. Sometimes, my Turkish-American home feels like an umbrella deflecting the constant stereotypes and assumptions we face.

Now, dear readers, before I protest too much, I must acknowledge that much of this is akin to the experiences of many African American and Black men, Latinos and Native American men. While we are not alone in dealing with this crap, it is still crap to deal with. So anyway, since my Sicilian message post, I have never had quite so many private emails from blog readers I know personally or otherwise. I had expressions of horror, solidarity, shock, concern, anger and even disbelief (“he COULDN’T have said that, you are making that up”). So, I am faced with the “how to handle it” thing once again. Of course, I knew this would happen. This is, perhaps the agent provocateur in me, but I feel that putting things on the table for consideration and discussion are probably the best thing I can do…

But back to mid-life. It wasn’t until I wrote this post about X. and the rape comment that I realized what I have not addressed – not just here on the blog but as a person as well. What I haven’t addressed relates to what happened back on that breezy, sunny day overlooking the Aegean, where X. told me he would have addressed a woman that had cheated M. by ” taking her up to the mountain and raping her a thousand times.” I realize that I have been fighting so hard to show people that the stereotypes about Middle Eastern men are not always true that I have not really accepted that sometimes those stereotypes are rooted in reality.

Of course, I know, I know, of course they are. Intellectually I know this. I have studied women’s history, the various forms in which women are and have been oppressed due to patriarchal structures yadda yadda (or as the Turks say falan filan). I think this is part of coming to terms with having a Middle Eastern partner as a non-Middle Easterner. Interestingly, I think M. is WAY ahead of me on this. He is always pointing out the flaws of Turkish “manly” culture (his word for macho) and telling me about the ways his mother taught him to respect and love the women in his life. Sometimes I wonder if M. and X. truly came from the same family given how different they are. I wonder what X.’s mother would say about the rape comment. M. often challenges “manly” ways head-on. Not the most effective, but at least he gets the dialogue happening, something I have not been brave enough to do. Most of all, I think he just ignores such comments and lives by example. I love him for this.

My very own M., at the iron of his own accord

M.’s view on the rape comment was something like this: “It is an unacceptable, manly comment, you shouldn’t take him seriously, he is just mouthing off, but it does come from that manly place.” Last Saturday morning, M. and I were talking about it with a friend, and M. was commenting on the matter of what X. had said all those years ago. M. said “if you think like X., the problem would be MINE not his, so he is doubly nuts.” I cringed in my armchair, scanning M.’s face and our friend’s face. “Is he going to think M. really feels that way? What if he misunderstands? What if he tells our other friends that?” Luckily, we are close, and we “processed” the whole thing afterwards. My fear of the negative influence of stereotypes is very strong, and ever-present. It’s a lot to manage, but it’s what I have taken on. My only hope is that like the explanation of the evil eye beads not being voodoo beads, small conversations on a 1:1 level (or on this blog) can make some difference in the long run…and perhaps someday I will revisit the rape comment with X. should the opportunity present itself I will let you know if I do.

Mitt Romney and Rick Perry hurt America and Israel with Middle East outbursts (thehill.com)

Posted in America post 9-11, Cross-cultural learning moments | Tagged cross-cultural, culture shock, expectations, family, islam, Middle East, Osama bin Laden, stereotype, Terrorism, Turkey, Turkish love rats, ugly American | 21 Comments

An easy cross-cultural culinary compromise (with recipe)

Posted on September 18, 2011 by lizcameron

What could be more Turkish than a tomato? What could sing New England summer as well as a vine ripened tomato? What about adding some organic garlic? What about adding some downeast Maine applewood smoked sea salt? What about adding some Turkish olive oil? And some kekik (thyme) harvested by the teyzes on the sloping Bozcaada hills by the Aegean? What about adding some heat, to the tune of 250 degrees F for about 3 hours? Now that is an easy compromise in this Turkish-American kitchen. After all the talk of cigars and Sicilian messages (see previous post) here is a welcome respite!

Recipe for roasted tomato deliciousness:

1: make crosses on the tops, bottoms of the tomato

2: place the tomato in boiling water for a minute – no longer

3: strain the tomato out of the water & peel the skin off. Take out seeds and liquid with your hand after quartering it.

4: place slivers if garlic, a shake of salt, a pinch of dried thyme and olive oil on each bit (I am using muffin pan, non-stick

5: bake for 3 or so hours in a 250 F oven – let cool & freeze in Tupperware for a cold day in the future when you need some sunshine.