The Ethnographer

“The ethnographer seeks a deeper immersion in others’ worlds in order to grasp what they experience as meaningful and important. With immersion, the field researcher sees from the inside how people lead their lives, how they carry out their daily rounds of activities, what they find meaningful, and how they do so. In this way immersion gives the fieldworker access to the fluidity of others’ lives and enhances his sensitivity to interaction and process.” (Emerson et al)

Amelie and Ataturk

All who have seen the film Amelie will recall the opening scene in which the idiosyncratic likes and dislikes of Amelie, her mother, and her father are profiled, one by one, in an inventive, quirky, “Amelie-esque” fashion. The protagonist’s mother, for example, takes pleasure in emptying her mammoth handbag (croissant crumbs and metro stubs included), classifying its contents, and then returning them to their compartments; her father, correspondingly, revels in organizing his toolbox. Amelie skips stones for fun.

I can’t, at the moment, remember what these characters dislike, so we’ll stick to the subject of passionate pursuits. Why? Because I am indulging in one of them at this very moment: I am sitting in a steamy cafe, reading and thinking amongst others who are reading and thinking. I am sharing silence with strangers. While I also like cleaning out my purse and skipping stones, I like this activity even more; it is, to be sure, one of my favorites. Luckily, it takes many forms: studying in a hushed library under a vaulted ceiling (preferably at a wooden table set with green lamps); pouring over maps and Duty Free catalogues on a trans-continental flight, a plastic cup of cranberry juice in hand; and even riding the tube with stone-faced Londoners. I love printed material, I love silence, and I love sharing both.

Maybe this is why I’ve been so happy lately. I am in a chilly, utilitarian city that is redeemed by atmospheric cafes packed with smartly dressed Turks who speak in low tones (the PDAs are rather loud, but never mind). I have a lot of reading to do, and so I’m grateful for the lack of distractions. I feel more studious than I have in years. Yesterday I blew through an article on Identity Politics, “Current Issues in Turkish Politics: The Rise of Islamism, the Kurdish Issue, and Women’s Rights,” in the morning and an article on Religious and Ethnic Minorities, “Unravelling the Trade-off: Reconciling Minority Rights and and Full Citizenship in Turkey,”  in the evening, and still had the energy to study Turkish and lay with Orhan Pamuk before falling asleep (my favorite number? 81, seksen bir). Today has been no different.

There is no doubt about it: I have a healthy appetite for Turkey. Whereas India gave me a headache and made me nauseous, Turkey sits well with me. I am intrigued by accounts of the diamond-studded Ottoman Empire and tales of “Sultans, Washerwomen and Snakes [on the Bosphorous],” but even more so by the history of modern Turkey, which began at the close of WWI when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, “Father of Turks,” entered the scene. A decorated soldier and member of the Young Turks (elitist-idealists), he was a remarkably charismatic and influential man (Zsa Zsa Gabor boasted of having an affair with him!). Ataturk led the National Resistance Movement and founded the Turkish Republic in 1923. Influenced by Rousseau and driven by a passionate commitment to secularization and modernization, he banished Islamic officials, shut down religious organizations, revamped the educational system, changed the alphabet, and even implemented the usage of last names and Western dress. He declared that anyone tied by citizenship to the Turkish state was a Turk, and thus pushed a sense of belonging and unity.

*** Dammit! There is a lot to say here and I am no historian. I have to meet Rachel and Jeff in 20 minutes (we’re planning to watch a film called “Two Lovers,” inspired in part by Dostoevsky’s  ”White Nights”) so this will have to be Installment #1. My purpose in relating my neophyte understanding of Turkish history is to set the stage for future reflections. I hope it is not too tedious.

Until I blog again, imagine me in a steamy cafe, with flushed cheeks and a furrowed brow, re-casting Amelie in Turkish, ama tabii ki …

p.s. The above photo has nothing at all to do with Amelie or Ataturk, but I like it. Also, if you want to read more about “Sultans, Washerwomen and Snakes [on the Bosphorous],” click on the link below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/world/europe/25istanbul.html?em

Ich liebe dich./Я тебя люблю./Seni seviyorum.

 

 

As a little girl, I reveled in my father’s references to Berlin and Sinop, two chilly, lonely cities he visited while in the Air Force (“Air Farce,” as he calls it). I hung on his every German, Russian, and Turkish word and, one afternoon at Lloyd Center Mall in N.E. Portland, made him promise to meet me in Berlin someday.

 

I’ve since changed my mind; I want him to meet me in Turkey. I want to eat lemon-soaked hamsi (yep, those are sardines, believe it or not) and break (corn)bread with my papa on the Black Sea, just as I want to weave through Istanbul’s lesser-known streets with him and his manual camera. 

 

I’ve found myself feeling really close to my dad since landing in Turkey, perhaps because a part of him that lives in my childhood imagination lives here. We’ve been engaged in a rich dialogue via email (not Facebook), which I’d like to share for two reasons: 1) to give you a sense of Turkey then and now, and 2) to expose the intelligence, irony, wit, and humanity of a man I love very much.

 

He speaks of me writing a book someday (post-foundation), which is a long-held ambition of mine. I’m presently seeding the ground with blog entries; we’ll see what comes up and out of the ground in a year or two.

 

p.s. “Amasya Rose” and the waterlogged beggaress, pictured above and spoken of below, are images that I carry with me (literally and figuratively). My dad took these photos in 1970.

 

*** 

 

And then to your blog…  What I have found (in comparison) all these decades later is that your contemporary writing and photos are even more substantial, and probably, substantive, than any I ever achieved.  Sweat not that you aren’t capturing every detail.  That can actually get in your way.  What I remember about Turkey is what draws me back (perhaps someday?)… Even more-so than Berlin.  I think I’ve already told you this.

 

Blog and Facebook are two very different phenomena.  (I didn’t do that that with my experiences; I did it with my dreams.)  I, therefore, remember more about my dreams in Turkey than I remember about the real year I spent there.  Your journal is a very different other, far beyond any of those.  Make sure you write very personal stuff to yourself, every day, so you can actually remember and write about the experience later.  Your memories and introspections tell you the story you’ve been telling yourself through all of this.  Your blog is a close second (not really, because you aren’t getting that intimate with yourself, as you would-and-do in your journal).  Your blog, however, will help you string together time and place and people.  That’s its benefit.  Facebook is, well, Facebook.  Yes, you can connect with people, but to do what?  Chat?  Is it serious?  Is it more than, “Oh, I do so like your dress!”  I heard the other day that social networking has replaced pornography as the number one internet search.  Does that tell you anything about our desperation?

 

Let me tell you a little about foundations…  To make one, for a building or otherwise, you must first define, then prepare the site.  Next, you dig.  Then, you dig even more deeply for the “footer;” that which supports it all.  Into that, you stick pieces of steel, which you will subsequently use to bond the next layer to the first (We call that re-bar).  When that has cured, you build ‘forms’ to make the ’stem wall.’  You pour the concrete into that, insert the next level of connectors, smooth it off, wait, and you have a foundation.  Only then can you begin to frame your vision.

 

 

Don’t even think about your book!  You haven’t finished with the foundation.  You may be into the ’stem wall’ part, but I doubt it.  You have to have time to walk about your virtual living room, cooing and cussing, taking various names in vain, and then repenting.  “I hate you!  But, why do I keep coming back to you in my mind and softening the picture?  Why did you have to be so damned beautiful?  Why do I forget, and then think that it wasn’t so bad after all?  Why did I find the smells so repugnant, now that they are so far from my actual memory?  Why did I glamorize my “Amasya Rose” when I know full-well that she hadn’t bathed for a week?  Why did I pity the beggar woman, when she may have been making more per day than an ‘honest’ worker? What qualifies me to think that I know anything beyond anything about anything anyone else has already, and for a long time, known, and counts as their heritage?”

      

That’s a mouthful, but an honest one.

      

The long and the short of it boil down to this: I had my experience of Turkey at a time when it was going through myriad challenges (although more subtle, sort of), and you’re having your experience of now.  What would one expect?  Turkey of ‘09′ could/and/should never look like Turkey of 70′.

 

Your Papa

 

***

 

The Turkey I find myself in, 39-years-post-papa’s-stint, is radically different, and yet holds onto its Turkishness. Ataturk’s picture is everywhere, conversations still engage issues of secularization and modernity, and Turkey is still an amalgamation of East and West, old and new, religious and secular. This is what makes it so interesting, and this is what makes “brutal and hopeful” a fitting tag.

 

Being here makes me feel close to you. In our modern history class, for example, I find myself paying particular attention to what was happening when you were here (10 years prior to 1980’s economic collapse, street violence between rightist and leftist students, and the subsequent military intervention and takeover [80-97]). Was the “Turkish-Islamic Synthesis,” outlawed in 1980, in effect? Did you feel the presence of Islam strongly? What do you remember of the time?

 

And what do you remember of your Turkish Dreams?

 

Your Daughter

Folk Music and Foreign Puddings

I’ve been tucked away in a well-lit, jazzy corner of an Ankaran Starbucks for nearly four hours now, and I’m beginning to feel a bit embarrassed. What have I been doing all this while, exactly? I’ve been conference-calling (ugh), wading through personal and professional emails, guiltily wasting time on Facebook, uploading photos, and wanting desperately to write (with one thing in mind, not twelve). I’ve become obsessed with documenting my experience with images and words, and I feel far behind.

I’ve yet to to wax poetic about my love for the saz, a lamenting string instrument integral to Turkish Folk Music. I discovered the saz last week in the smoky lobby of White Garden Pension, where my friend Yusuf began strumming and singing somethin’ ancient, and then again at a club in Antalya, where we drank beer, ate popcorn, and waved our arms, snap-a-snapping, while tipsy Turks beat the floor with their wooden-heeled boots. Completely taken with the music, and with the whole scene, I stayed until 3am, which meant boarding a plane to Istanbul in a bleary-eyed state.

Even so, Istanbul is exquisite enough to rouse the sleepiest of souls. After a hit of sahlep, a orchid-root-nutmeg-topped drink, and a tour of a fine bookshop, I was fully alive and beset with a desire to move to what revealed itself to me as the most beautiful city in the world (that I’ve seen). I spent the next two days exploring Istanbul with Emilie and Jordin, a charismatic (platonic) pair from Calgary. We managed to see Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, and the interior of the oldest confectionery in town, which makes and sells heavenly marzipan and Turkish Delight. Really, we ate and drank our way through Istanbul; it was cold, so we cafe hopped. A little sahlep here, a little hot wine and artichoke hearts in olive oil here, a little mezze platter here … we even tried charcoal chicken pudding, which is deceitfully innocent looking. Despite its composition and texture, it is (I hate to admit it) kind of tasty.

I was sad to leave Antalya and sad to leave Istanbul; fortunately, I know I’ll be back to both (we’ll be in Istanbul April 7-May 2). I was also sad that my vacation had come to an end, but looked forward to meeting up with the students again. We met at the airport yesterday and made our way to Ankara, the business and government center of Turkey. This morning we woke to snow! The students, who’ve just come from India, were shocked, as was I (it is freezing here!).

While not as glamorous as Antalya or Istanbul, Ankara has a charm of its own. This is where our academic program begins. We’re going to be busy studying the language, history, politics, religion, and social aspects of Turkey. I’m excited for what promises to be a cold but enlightening experience. I’ll try to sneak away to cafes from time to time (no WIFI in our hotel) and send posts from Ataturk’s domain … and I’ll try to get more orignal than Starbucks.

“Maybe your blog is your book.”

The yarn I spoke of before? It braids us, it binds us. David, my papa, and I. This morning I received a letter from him that spoke directly to my heart and purpose. At first glance, I thought it was a clever, relevant article he’d found in the NYT or the like. And then I realized that it was written from him to me, for me. A Message.

Without his permission (he would grant it, but he is sleeping in Crestone, Colorado, while I write at a lunch table in Antalya, Turkey), I am publishing his note. This is one of the two large-hearted human beings who brought me here:  

“Maybe your blog is your book.  Maybe you take a little-lot time for reflection, then you write your “In-Advance-and-Preliminary Memoires.”  Who has done that before?  Maybe you write just because you love to, and because you’re so very good at it.  Maybe you write because what you say and how you say it wraps each and every one of us around each and every little stick of your experiences that we cannot possibly share, other than, in some way, through what you write.  Maybe you write because you have to. 

Let’s start at the beginning.  I, you, we were born when we were born.  Okay, there’s the intro.  Then, let’s compose the ending.  I, you, we died.  There’s the conclusion.  Neither are such hot material, but boy! the stuff in between! 

If you believe that, you’re not much of a writer.  The ending is more-than-important, and to prove that, here is one that recently blew me away.  We’ll pick up “the stuff in-between” later.  And then, therefore, the beginning must also be important (more than so).  I’ll rummage around to find a good beginning, but the best one that comes to mind right now is from “The Tin Drum” by our friend Gunter Grass.  Seven layers of skirts and the smell of potatoes is a rather unusual early memory.

 

The following is from a book entitled, “Empress,” that I happened to pick up in PDX as Vicki and I were returning home from Ms. Casey’s wedding.  From what I can tell, she (the narrative first person) was the one and only female “emperor/empress” that China ever had.  So, this would land in the “historical fiction” realm, I do believe.  I know this is a lot, but here is what your papa has read of late; at least, that which has taken me somewhere.  The rest has been on how to hang doors properly.”

 

—

“Eternity runs on.  Ivy crawls up over the walls, and the frescoes fade.  Wooden pillars are gnawed away by worms and rot under the lichen.

 

“Why do some things cross through the curtain of time?  Why do some places resist erosion and decline?  Why should one name, one jewel, one vase moor up in a distant century, stray vessels finally finding a harbor? …

 

 

“God robbed me of a legacy to make me timeless, to spread my soul over the entire earth:

 

I am the peony blushing red, the swaying tree, the whispering wind

I am the steep path leading pilgrims to the gates of heaven

I am in words, in protests, in tears

I am a burn which purifies, a pain with the power to transform

I travel through the seasons, I shine like a star

I am Man’s melancholy smile

I am the Mountain’s indulgent smile

I am the enigmatic smile of He who turns the Wheel of Eternity”

 

—  

I am gratefully the papa of Ms. Heidi the Wise,

 

Your papa,

 

R. David Hillman

 

The closer we get to any transition, the clearer The Message becomes.

 

P.S.  What I was/am blown away with is how she (Shan Sa, the author) carried the first person on and into the place where the “I” stops.  Or does it ever?  I think not.  I think that perhaps the “I” continues until no one remembers it. 

            A new “I” may begin before that point (as in Rumi’s case), because everyone has-and-will remember him long beyond the time for that energy/soul/awareness/being to appear again and delight us once more with tantalizing bits of the un-easily-seen.

Maw (cakehole, gob, hole, trap, yap)

 

I wish “maw” were not only a noun, but also a verb, for I want to begin with “maw” as an action word: We mawed (chewed and talked) on flattened peasant bread, turkey thigh stew, baby artichokes, and local rosemary. I sang for my supper, but silently—by listening. The disheveled, weathered Turk, the bookseller of Antalya, needed someone to listen to his tales of drunken wars—external, internal—and to relive the trauma of his love for a Dutch Montessori teacher and his subsequent marriage to an actress from Britain who played her best, most dramatic role as an anti-social, self-defeating wife (I thought of Camille Claudel the whole time he was talking).

 

It seemed to me that he needed to sit with someone who would listen to his barking until it began to sound like prayer, and I was happy to indulge the old grouch. Brusque as it was, I enjoyed his company. And really, the setting was perfect: there were five vases on the table (poppies and white freesia), fifteen cats milling about and knocking things over, and books in every nook and cranny: stacked, wanting-to-be-read, wanting-to-tumble. Dinner in a used bookshop is a rare experience. We mawed on Chatwin and Theroux, Will Self and Charles Simic, the wispy-bearded Pre-Raphaelites, Virginia Woolf, and her husband Leonard. And then, after discussing a Financial Times interview with Slavoj Zizek, “The Modest Marxist,” we traded books. In exchange for a hardback copy of Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety, I gave him Among the Believers by V.S. Naipaul, a book that I have been toting around for months without reading. I also loaned him a few of my favorite titles.

 

“You’ll make dessert,” he thundered, dropping a plastic bag of fruit in front of me. I made our pudding—sliced strawberries and kiwi fruit dressed in blackberry sauce from a recycled bottle—while he leafed through Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times.

 

“You read good books,” he concluded at last. Coming from this man—this beast of articulacy and complaint—this felt like a huge compliment. Instinctually, I kept quiet. We exchanged a few more words, emptied the Angora Red, and then gave a mutual nod. Trailed by an almost-full moon, I walked home in a pensive mood, thinking about books too sad to be written and writers too sad to write.

 

I’ll file it away now, but not without a tab: “Dinner at the Owl Bookshop. Dinner with a Lovable Old Owl.” Turkey is treating me well.

 

 

 

Zizek for Breakfast, Robbins for Tea

I am enjoying myself to no end. Do you blame me?

Read what I’m reading? http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/06b42e32-09dd-11de-add8-0000779fd2ac.html

“The citadel was dark, and the heroes were sleeping. When they breathed, it sounded as if they were testing the air for dragon smoke.

On their sofas of spice and feathers, the concubines also slept fretfully. In those days, the earth was till flat, and people dreamed often of falling over edges.

Blacksmiths hammered the Edge Serpent on the anvils of their closed eyelids. Wheelwrights rolled it, tail in mouth, down the cart roads of their slumber. Cooks roasted it in dream pits, seamstresses sewed it to the badge hides that covered them, the court necromancer traced its contours in the constellation of straw on which he tossed. Only the babes in the nursery lay peacefully, passive even to the fleas that supped on their tenderness.” (Excerpt from Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume)

Resonance

 

 

I am not sure I could be much happier than I am right now (I’m open to it though). Dressed in my old autumnal, tuber-heart familiars—well worn jeans, a heavy belt, and a charcoal sweater coat—and sporting a newly purchased cap in corduroy (9.50 NTY), hiding my bunioned, flip-flopped feet, I am sitting in the corner of a candlelit tavern in Antalya, listening to a strange mix of Turkish dirges and what I will affectionately refer to as “Byron Music” (uh-oh, Sade is now on, and she doesn’t fit into either category) and watching, out of the corner of my eye, four stubble-happy men throw darts (thank you, Tom Robbins, for giving me permission to employ the run-on sentence).

 

The men here are hairy. Let me try that again: the people here are hairy. Hairy, long-lashed, thick-browed, and—in my eyes—exceptionally beautiful. Some of them, mostly men, seem to be children of the sea (them eyes be oceanic, seafarin’ eyes). I like the Turks. I feel at ease and welcome amongst them. These are the people I was looking for five years ago when I moved to the Czech Republic in search of my bohemian destiny (I was a little off). In fact, Antalya—with its faux fur and leather, serious-sexy-svelte women, and German/Russian influx—reminds me of Karlovy Vary, where I lived the coldest, loneliest months of my life. The major differences? Here in Antalya, people smile and the men are attractive. Though they are persistent buggers, they do not reek of surplus resentment and testosterone as the Czech men did (in my experience). I must confess, I have been offered a lot more than three cups of tea. Yet, I do not feel threatened. Maybe I am getting better at forming complete, unequivocal sentences: “I am not interested;” “Leave me alone;” and in India, under my breath, “Fuck off.” I am getting better at standing my ground, and I must say, Turkey—like Scandinavia and the Mountain and Pacific regions of the US—feels like my ground, my soul soil.

 

Yesterday, while bumming around Antalya’s magnificent Archaeological Museum with my new friend Mustafa, I felt a strange sort of elation sweep over me: elation related to what is commonly known as “resonance.” Mustafa and I took turns reading the museum plaques, he in English and me in Turkish. “You don’t know the words yet, but your pronunciation is perfect,” he exclaimed (pause here … I must fan my ego). I must confess that the clay, metal, and silverworks encased in glass, not to mention the marble gods and goddesses (praise be to nimble hands!) lining the halls, were my familiars. I did not look upon them as I looked upon Indian miniature paintings in Hyderabad—“Oh, interesting …”—but as I look upon things I know: my mother’s kitchen sink, my niece’s scalloped teeth. Yesterday, there in the Archaeological Museum, I decided that I believe in past lives. I suppose that implies that I believe in future lives. I’d like to spend the next one in tight jeans on the Mediterranean Sea.

 

I am halfway through my EFES Pilsen and my feet are two blocks of ice. I am in the market for shoes—real shoes—but I can’t seem to commit. Buying and donning close-toed shoes means acknowledging that I am no longer in Asia proper. I’ve been wearing these flip-flops for six months. They’ve walked in and out of more Taiwanese 7-11s than you or I can count. They’ve dodged lady boys, scooters, and stinky fruit stands in Thailand; they’ve been abandoned for love. They’ve squatted in the toilets of India, for God’s/gods’ sake! Oh my God, this has been an amazing trip. I’ve said that before, but I just felt it for the first time. These be some precious flip-flops.

 

Status Updates

• Heidi is—uh-oh—beginning to think of her life in terms of Facebook status updates.

• Heidi is exactly where she needs to be (on the 3^rd floor of the White Garden Pension in Antalya, Turkey, looking out over a cobblestone street graced with hanging plants and lovable birds).
• Heidi, due to feelings of cultural and geographic resonance, officially believes in reincarnation.
• Heidi wants to be Turkish in her next life, not Indian.
• Heidi is bemoaning her Indian inheritance: milk-fed thighs and a tumultuous tummy.
• Heidi wishes she had a prettier set of teeth.
• Heidi needs to invest in footwear (tatty flip-flops are not going to cut it in Europe).
• Heidi is ever-so-grateful, a la Virginia Woolf, to have a room of her own.
• Heidi misses Sam, and also thinks he’s a schmuck.
• Heidi has a crush on Tom Robbins.
• Heidi would like to write a novel someday.
• Heidi feels very connected to the women in her life.
• Heidi has a knack for Turkish pronunciation.
• Heidi is ready for a good scrub-down at the hamam.
• Heidi is still pissed off that Sierra the dog ate out of her ceramic bowl.
• Heidi wants to learn to play the guitar.
• Heidi is set on taking voice lessons.
• Heidi is not growing old as compliantly and gracefully as she intended to.
• Heidi was a prima donna in a Norwegian’s dream.
• Heidi plans to camp under Mid’s cherry tree come late May.
• Heidi dreams of an herb garden and an auburn-fleeced dog.
• Heidi believes in the “hair of the dog” approach.
• Heidi feels rather Amelie-esque at the moment.
• Heidi is trying to deny her coffee addiction.
• Heidi is intrigued by Turkish history.
• Heidi dug Antalya’s Archaeological Museum (pun intended).
• Heidi is going to call Heather, who is waiting ever-so-patiently.

 

Gate No. 1

Astonishingly, I made it. Two months of unrelenting tumult, and just like Phil Collins (was it Phil? I’m not sure!), “I’m still standing.” No giardia, no malaria, and—as far as I can tell—no permanent damage (just a little PTSD, which I attribute to the nauseating scent of moth balls; the blaring, bugling, deafening horns; and the belching, farting, pissing, snorting, leering, lustful men one meets at every turn). It will take some time for the eyebright to kick in, the mosquito bites to fade, and the milky thighs to recover their litheness, but here I am: in one piece. I am waiting—in a crowd of flushed, over stimulated travelers—at Gate No. 1 of the Varanasi Airport. I am waiting to board Flight IC 0195 to Mumbai, where I will bum around the airport, surrender the last of my Indian coins to the bathroom attendants, jubilantly plow through Jitterbug Perfume, and prepare myself for the next and final stage of CRC: Turkey!

*** Note: There was no proper waiting room at the airport, so I had to rent an overpriced hotel room in Mumbai. It was muggy as hell, reeked of moth balls (karma in action?), and was teeming with squat little mustached men asking me for money (“Madame, you have something for me? I’ve just done you a truly unecessary favor!”). I ordered a lassi that turned out to be of the salty/sweet variety. I was not a fan, but drank it anyway, thinking all the while of a book of poems written by Jane Hirshfield that is titled Given Sugar, Given Salt … thinking all the while, “how ironic, how perfect.”