Turkey Gets a Cold Hard Look at Me.

Istanbul is a complex and wonderful tapestry. History has intertwined threads containing the old and the new, the West and the Near-Orient in a dizzying array of colors, designs, and heritages. Ancient mosques are juxtaposed next to Krispy Kremes and Burger Kings. The famed Orient Express Train station is now situated behind the big yellow sign of a Shell gas station. The imagery of a tapestry seems to fall short in describing this city of many names… perhaps one of those Magic Eye pictures would be a more fitting metaphor. Remember those pictures with all those colors and shapes where if you looked hard enough you were privileged to spy a T-Rex. flying a fighter jet or a unicorn getting beat up by a bunch of leprechauns (if you were one of the lucky ones and could actually make out the shapes you had the distinct pleasure of rubbing this fact in the faces of your friends who were not enlightened enough to cross their eyes and see the images.)? I guess in the case of Istanbul the image of the pilot t-rex would be a thin (in some cases) veil of Islamic culture covering people who are inherently post-modern.
Anyways, in my quest to cross my eyes and see the t-rex of Istanbul, I thought it would be a good idea to visit a hamam. A hamam is a Turkish bathhouse. These things have been a part of Turkish culture for ages. The particular one that I visited was over 400 years old. A bathhouse that is older than the United States of America! Jana, a friend of mine who can speak Turkish took my friend Paul and I to the hamam one Sunday afternoon. We knocked on the door and Jana explained to a very embarrassed older man in a towel that Paul and I were there to enjoy a relaxing Turkish bath. She then left us in the hands of a bunch of half-naked Turkish guys who probably weren’t too happy that we had brought a girl to their all-guy hamam.
After some hand signals and directions in Turkish, we followed a mustached-man back to the dressing rooms, were given some towels and a key to our personal dressing booth. Paul and I looked at each other, walked into our separate changing rooms, took off our clothes and in a bold move that we hoped was culturally acceptable, walked out clad only in towels. (Perhaps ‘hand towel’ would be a more fitting description of the size of the cloth that separated me from the rest of the world.)
Paul and I then walked into the steam room. We sat on the marble floor by a hot faucet and looked uncomfortably at other men in the room who were lounging around with their mustaches curling in the steamy air. All the while I was trying my best to position myself in such a way that my skimpy loin cloth would do its job. We sat in the steam for an uncomfortably long amount of time not knowing what to do until one of the older men who worked there came in and explained to me in a mix of Turkish and English that he was going to give me a bath and a massage. I followed him into one of the backrooms. (Let me just say that normally I would not follow a man in a towel to a backroom when he had just offered to give me a bath, but in this case one of the workers in Istanbul had explained to me and Paul in our home group about the wonderful tradition of Turkish baths. (in retrospect, he did mention that it would involve a lot of touching, though)).
I sat down on the marble floor and the man put on what I can only compare to a brillo pad glove and began scrubbing my arms and back. It actually felt pretty good given the circumstances, and I was interested (and a little startled) to see the amount of dead skin that came off of me. His scrubbing took him down to my right foot and up my calf. I was confused and scared. The last thing that I wanted to do was offend these people of a different culture who were hosting me in their country, none the less I was beginning to feel a bit disconcerted. He began pointing at my towel in a way that concerned me. I gave him a bewildered look and he just kept talking and pointing. So in what I can only blame on a lack of judgment due to steam poisoning and not wanting to seem like a rude American I removed my towel and looked up at the man. He emphatically shook his head and said ‘no’… obviously he had meant something else by his pointing and talking. What it was I guess I will never know. I hastily put my towel back on and shamefully endured the rest of the experience.
After the ordeal was over we paid and walked out. (side note: everyone here has heard of Texas and when I told one of the guys who could speak English that I was from close to Texas he asked if I was a cowboy and then made some shooting motions with his hands and kept saying howdy.) Upon later reflection of the ordeal (and reading in a tourist handbook that no one ever gets entirely naked in a hamam) it dawned on me that my first real encounter with a Turk during my work here had involved me flashing him. I will say that since then I have had better (and more PG rated) encounters with Turkish people, who are really nice and hospitable people.
So here is the moral of the story, whether you are exploring a new place such as Istanbul or trying to figure out a Magic Eye picture, the best advice that I can give from experience is that you should keep your clothes on…