Wayward Betty

One night in New York I was riding the subway from the Lower East Side back to Queens. Sitting at the end of the train and facing the car, I made eye contact with a large, rough, broken looking man, standing by the sliding door. I was going to smile, but after noticing the intensity in his eyes, I quickly looked away, perceiving the threat with animal instincts. Something wasn’t right. I tried to appear disinterested and distracted, feigning interest in my Ipod, and digging through my purse. I knew he was watching me. We went through two stops and on the third, when the door was about to open, the man stepped towards me, leaned over and spit in my face.

This was an aggressive, strategic blow of saliva: nothing light. It was personal. I wiped my face and when I stood up (not sure whether to try to hit him or just hurl some expletives), he got even closer, looking directly into my eyes and spit in my face again. Before I could do anything, he ran off the train, lost in the shuffle of the exit stairs. I watched the doors close as we pulled away from the platform.

Back in the train car, everyone was confused. A petite and elderly Asian woman drew a Kleenex from her purse and handed it to me in silence. An Israeli woman looked over and saw that I was crying, “What the fuck happened?” she asked me and I told her the story, which was not complicated: this was a random assault.

“If I would have seen that I would have chased him and beat his ass,” she kindly reassured me.

“Thanks,” I smiled, still trying to clear the spit smear from my face. I didn’t want to admit that I was seriously panicked about hepatitis, AIDS, and any number of viral or bacterial threats that accompany the visceral disgust of getting spit on by a stranger.

Pretty soon everyone in the train car is playing Sherlock Holmes, trying to figure out what made this guy so pissed off.

The teenage black girl: “Maybe he thought you looked like his girlfriend oh sumthin.”

Her mother: “Maybe you was in his seat.”

The hipster chick: “Maybe he got fired and just had a bad day.”

This was the least plausible. The guy was clearly insane and the rage was no one-time fluke. It was the kind of thing you could see in his eyes.

The pea-coat donning, Upper West Side woman: “Some people are just crazy you know? You never can tell who you are dealing with.”

My first night in Turkey I was told not to make eye contact with the men. I arrived in Kadikoy (a neighborhood on the Asian side, which I promptly named, the “Brooklyn of Istanbul”) wearing only sandals and dragging my bag out of the cab. It is cold and raining, and I follow four American girls to a small club, where we are sitting at a round table on the second floor of a bar, looking over the railing to a small stage rocking a Turkish cover band. Even though we were smoking rolled cigarettes and drinking wine, I felt like they were having some kind of first-night intervention, as I am told emphatically, “Don’t make eye contact. It’s different here. You can’t just smile at someone. They will take it the wrong way.” One of them had been recently assaulted.

There is an older Turkish man watching us from across the room, who I happen to make eye contact with, while listening to a table of women share horror stories about misinterpreted glances. Consciously, I stop myself from smiling and avert my eyes. I worry that it is already too late. Our eyes have met. Predator versus prey. I recall National Geographic scenes, the hunt or the eye contact of a mating ritual. There are human universals and then there are animal instincts. Either way, I have learned this lesson before.

Since traveling, I have encountered a large population of stray cats and dogs, particularly in Turkey and Greece. I am always surprised that they are allowed to run rampant through the streets and that the locals are accustomed to their presence, the same way we step over rats in the subway station.

The stray cats and dogs can be off-putting, especially if you hate cats as much as I do. They are everywhere—in the garbage cans, resting on the hoods of vehicles. A lot of the animals are pretty mangy, some missing legs and tails or with open wounds, protruding tumors and scars. Street life ain’t easy.

I worried about crossing paths with the wrong dog, like the guy in the subway; with one wrong move, I could be the next victim of an animal attack. One of the women who told me not to make eye contact with Turkish men is the same woman who said, “The dogs are not a problem here. They will protect you. They know who is good and who is bad. They know who to bark at and when something is wrong.”

Though I am a dog lover, I am also a cynic, and initially scoffed at the idea that the stray dogs are as trustworthy and loyal as a family pet, or more trustworthy than a Turkish man. Being a skeptic, I ask, “Isn’t this just a nature versus nurture question? What if one of the dogs is a bad seed? Any of those dogs could attack.”

She responds quickly, “There are no bad dogs, because dogs already know the bad ones and they will drive them out.” It sounds simple enough. Throughout my trip I encountered other travelers and locals who have had this similar experience with the stray dogs. Two Australian guys we met in Athens were actually getting robbed when the stray dogs attacked the assailants. Even in Greece they told me, “The dogs know who to protect. They see good people as part of the pack.”

Within a few days, I find that the stray dogs and cats are quite docile, living peaceably in the alleys, hidden in basements, and sleeping in packs around the water front. They are well fed and run along the streets, going in and out of the shops without even getting shooed out. I have seen them sleeping on couches outside furniture stores or inside the warm shops. I have watched old women lower boxes of food attached to ropes from their windows. On one of the more trendy avenues in Kadikoy, the waiter took our plates and delivered our leftovers to feed the stray dogs in the alley. Most of the dogs have tags to indicate that they have had their shots. They are cared for, like community pets.

On a side trip from Istanbul, we went to Cappadocia to visit the underground cities and famous dwelling caves. Arriving early in the morning on the night bus, I felt my first taste of snow this season. I was cold and tired, underdressed and underprepared for landing in the middle of Turkey without a connecting transit to the hostel. At the bus stop, we are approached by a man who says, “I will take you to your next stop. You go to Goreme. You come with me.” With no other options, we agree, and he brings us back into a small room. He shuts the door and tells us to wait.

We speak in hushed whispers. I try to leave to find some coffee at the terminal and he blocks me at the door, “No, you cannot go. Stay here.” Instead of allowing us to go get water and coffee, he pours water into small cups from his Thermos. Locked in this room, waiting for our “ride,” we notice that the man is drunk, and getting grabby, trying to put his arm around us, kiss me on the cheek. I fend him off, but things are getting awkward. It is only 7 in the morning and no one else is around. We stay because we have nowhere to go.

My girlfriend and I are starting to get nervous because we remember this is the same person we were warned about; the same tour company that has caused problems in the past, though, we have now missed our connection, if there ever was one. I start to get impatient and increasingly more demanding about when exactly we were leaving, who was driving and whether they even operate a legitimate service. Finally, the drunken grabber hails two guys from the back and throws them keys.

The two men take our bags and we follow outside to climb in the back of their “tour van,” an unmarked, run-down beater with shredded seats and a roaring muffler. Now careening down the narrow, snow-dusted streets, through the Turkish tundra, my friend reminds me that these people are known to steal money, and leave tourists stranded on the side of the road.

They did leave us on the road, but fortunately, close enough that we could walk. We found out later that they owed money to the hostel owner, who made a fist punching gesture when we explained who dropped us off. Except for the period of lock up and harassment, we arrived unscathed. We were relieved, though the head of tourism in Goreme tells us to file a formal complaint, “He is very bad man.”

Bad seeds often smell like old liquor and aggression.

Last week, instead of going home after the bar, we decided to buy beers and hang out down by the waterfront. The four of us sat in a row, looking out over the Bosphorus Strait, feeling the wind pick up into early morning. I turned around and found that a pack of stray dogs had approached the rocks and collectively, positioned themselves in a circle around us, employing a natural defense against predators. When anyone walked by, they would start barking, chasing away those who got too close. A drunk man walked by singing and started throwing rocks at the dogs. I felt protective of the dogs, of our pack.

I considered throwing rocks too.

The pack of stray dogs sat with us for a couple hours, occasionally darting off to chase a stray cat, but always returning to their aligned corners. When we stood to leave, the dogs rose too and followed us up the hill, towards the neighborhood. They watched, almost longingly, as we split off.

The next day, I was at a busy intersection and I spotted the same pack of dogs lying in a circle. When I walked by, I pet one of them on the head, said hello, smiled and continued on my way towards the ferry. After a couple blocks, I glanced down and the same dog was still walking next to me, looking up and wagging his tail. I turned around to see the other four were also in tow. They walked me down to the ferry, several blocks before turning back towards the center of town. Maybe they sensed I was foreign, or alone, or simply, that I was not a bad seed.

I am honing my animal instincts, but finding comfort in the pack.

Residing in a non-native English speaking country inspires linguistic and communicative innovation. Whether ordering a coffee, directing a cab driver, or when trying to convey larger ideas, like, “No, I do not want to go out with you,” expression demands the creative and the savvy.

After seven years of formal Spanish education and years of dating a French man, my foreign language abilities are no better off. I am becoming sort of hopeless, even with the expectation and potential of “full emersion.” In foreign countries, I have found it extremely difficult to remember and pronounce even the simplest of phrases. In Turkey, “teşekkür ederim” (“thank you”) has been repeated to me ad nauseam, but I still find myself mumbling in English and under my breath, rather than attempting Turkish. I speak English to everyone, as though, just saying the words means something. Subconsciously, I think that if I repeat the same thing more than once, it will eventually be understood. This parroting  is not helpful to anyone.

In Hanoi, I decided it was high time for a hair color re-dye.  Realizing that it would be impossible to explain color in broken English, I smooth my hands over my hair and point at a Paul Mitchell poster of a model with reddish blonde locks. The male colorist seems to understand and offers me a sample of color swatches while running his fingers through my knotted hair. When I confirm a reddish-brown, he smiles, nods his head, sharply gestures to the chair, and brings out the black cape.

I am a trusting person, so I sit in the chair and watch calmly, as he mixes the color bowl and uses a brush to paint my hair with bright purple dye. At no point was I able to assert that the dye was burning my scalp or that I worried it was going to be the very wrong hue. Also, miscommunication with a stylist is always a possibilty, regardless of what country you are in.

When the color is rinsed and the two assisting Vietnamese girls finish drying and spin my chair towards the mirror, my glowing red hair is revealed. I look a little bit like Pippi Lockstocking or Run Lola Run and am now a definite stand-out as I walk the streets of Hanoi. I tried to get used to it quickly, but remained shocked each time I caught my reflection in the shop windows. This hair was nothing subtle.

That night at my hotel, the manager knocked on the door of my room and announced, “You have phone call.” I was confused because no one knows where I am and I do not have friends in the neighborhood: “He says he wants ‘girl with red hair.’”

I am not hard to find. Again, Run Lola Run.

When I pick up the phone, the man on the other line says, “I see you. Want time with you.” I try to ask who it is, how he knows me, and make attempts to clarify his intentions. He just kept repeating, “Want to make time with you,” or “You make time with me?”  I deduce that I am getting asked out by a Vietnamese man who I have never met, in barebones broken English, because, he spotted my garish red hair and followed me to the hotel. I try to kindly decline, though I am sure my response came off a bit rude, followed by a dial tone (this, need not be translated).

Most communications are based on necessity, and learning language never became so desperate, as in love. In a romantic fantasy, I imagine that most languages were transferred, not via commerce, but by lovers and suitors. In Cappadocia, Turkey, we stayed at a small hostel at the edge of Goreme, owned and operated by the native husband, “Mustafa,” and his wife, a South African woman, “Zeia,” who speaks English fluently. Mustafa is 11 years younger than his wife and, now into middle age, they are still very much in love. “A human being is a human being,” he tells me, after explaining he does not mind that she has gained weight over the years. I imagine him 20 years younger, barely through adolescence and trying to learn English to impress an older woman. Mustafa tells me, this is not so far off, and shares a secret, “To learn the language, you must touch the tongue.” He winks.

I have a friend who married a Portuguese woman, who was (not surprisingly) passionate and playful in the sack. The two had previously engaged in some sadistic dirty talking, where she would say things like, “You bastard,” and he would whisper, “You little bitch.” Anyway, experimenting with his newly acquired Portuguese, he says to her, “Sua desgraçada,” which he thought meant, “You naughty little whore.” His wife, taken aback, was initially offended, then started laughing and explained that the phrase actually translates into something like, “You unfortunate wretch,” which isn’t sexy at all.

There is something attractive about linguistic and communicative gaps- as though the mystery allows you to infer something more captivating (think dirty talking with no comprehension of the language at all). I once fell for a German, who used the most creative ways to express English. He was usually grammatically incorrect and often made no sense, though, I was always charmed by the way his ideas hung differently, more poignant, if only because the expressions were new. I wonder what he would have sounded like as a native English speaker. Perhaps, he would not have liked me as a native German speaker, either.

It is impossible to tell.

When unable to speak the same language, it is not uncommon to resort to gestures and pantomiming. It is an easy first and last resort: pointing to the desired pastry, using fingers to indicate numerical values, or a nod of the head to say “excuse me” or “hello.”

Sometimes pantomiming can get complicated, in other situations, downright dangerous. Like, yesterday, at Starbucks, I wanted a glass of water with my coffee.  I did not know the Turkish word for water and the two male baristas did not understand English.  When we are all smiling and looking very confused, I start putting my hand to my mouth gesturing a drinking motion, my mouth open, when again, they both look at each other and start laughing. I realize the gesture looks like the international sign for BJ, and I quickly close my mouth and put my hand back in my pocket. 

Last week I was sitting with a friend at a café in Istanbul, chatting with the waiter, when he invited to a party in his village, “Everyone come for celebration,” then he says, “You know, for snip snip.” He makes the gesture of snipping off the tip of a finger.

“A circumcision party?” I ask him.

He looks confused, then says, “No, no, just a little bit of snip snip for the boys,” again gesturing scissors and a cutting motion on the tip of his finger. I am lost, because, the only thing that made sense was circumcision, but he insisted that no, it was not and continued to use his fingers as a point of reference. I have never heard of this custom and considered that maybe it was glossed over in Anthro 101.

Naively, I ask, “You cut tip of finger?” I use the same snipping motion with my gloves.

“Yes, you know for 8, 9, 10 years old boys.”

I am still confused, also really interested in this party. I try to clarify, “So this happened to you?” I point, “You– had snip snip party?”

“Yes, me.  I have,” he says.

“Ok, can I see? Let me see your fingers,” I point to his hands and ask to see his scar.

His eyes get wide and he looks around, “No not here,” then laughs, “Too many people.”

My friend decides to nip this conversation in the bud (pun not intended), “You mean here,” (she points to the groin region), “Not here,” (points to her fingers).

“Ahhhh yes!” he says laughing. Finally, the pantomiming has paid off.

He emphasizes that circumcision is not as traumatic as it sounds: “Only little bit, then cry, then Turkish delight on tongue.” A Turkish delight is a small candy made of gel and dusted with powdered sugar. I remember the line from the They Might Be Giants song, “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” that goes, “A Turkish Delight on a moonlit night.” Point of reference. Everything becomes clear.

I was a little disappointed to miss the Turkish village circumcision party, but had the feeling that maybe we were not linguistically equipped to participate. Imagine the awkwardness, “Congratulations?” or “Good luck?” These kinds of events are difficult enough, even without a language barrier. Also, my friend did not want to endure the coming-of-age screams.

My foreign language skills are partly lacking because I am afraid of being misunderstood or making a mistake, though in pantomiming and without a common language ground at all, it is likely that this will happen, anyway. Even in our own language, we are always subject to misinterpretation.

I have a friend who has been living in Korea for six years and every time I see her, I am always stunned by her broken English, wondering what happened. While traveling together recently, she has made things easier for us, having a calm, slow way of talking to natives. After speaking in broken English for the last few months, I start to understand why she would omit pronouns, drop unnecessary articles, and simplify the spoken word into non-grammatically functioning sentences. Habitually, she continues to do this, even with native English speakers. I have also met Americans abroad who, not only speak in broken English, they also have appropriated accents, something I have also started to sympathize with: English translates better when spoken with a native flair.

Usually, with a sufficient amount of desperation or desire, things work out, and everyone gathers enough information to get by.  Sometimes it is best to just call out a translator off the street. There are still times, when communication becomes impossible, the foreign words are left dangling in the air and dead silence is punctuated by the throwing up of hands. It is in these cases, when I resort to a very long, hearty, smile.  This smile lasts even longer when it is unnecessary or inappropriate. I probably come off looking like a well-prescribed Prozac patient, or in the best case scenario, just a friendly, redheaded foreigner.

Employing broken English, accents, pantomiming, gestures, awkward smiles… language and communication, generally, is fluid.  As in love, it works best when we take risks… and, we will do, whatever works.

Given the formality of customs in Asia, the Vietnamese are surprisingly unreserved about personal interrogations. From most, I received the following line of questioning:

1) How old are you? (29)

2) Are you married? (No)

3) Do you have a boyfriend? (No)

This was usually followed by a longer conversation, where I am forced to explain why I am single. No reason is good enough, as their intuitive logic reminds me, “But you so pretty. Why such pretty girl with no man?” Certainly, something must be wrong.

I took a ride up the Vietnamese coast on a Harley with a driver who calls himself “Eddie Murphy” or “Fast Eddie” as he boasts on his business card. It took me an hour before he would tell me his Vietnamese name: one syllable, “Tahn.” Among our side trips to a Vietnamese cemetery, a house of wood carving artisans, and through the rice fields, he took me to a fishing village where I met a woman who was around 75 or 80 years old. She sat next to her husband who was spreading cow dung to seal the cracks of a coracle, a small fishing boat he would sell to the local fisherman.

After they ask me the normal round of questions, she says something in sharp, pointed Vietnamese, which was translated by a smiling Eddie Murphy: “She thinks you are a lesbian.” It is not the first time I have been asked.

In America, the interrogations are not so different. My great aunt approached me at a wedding last summer: “You know you are turning thirty this year, and the longer you wait, the harder it will be to find a good man.” I didn’t remind her that she married a lazy, unemployed alcoholic, a man I would have never married, even if I knew he could impregnate me with the  future president.

In Istanbul, I meet a rocket scientist; an actual rocket scientist. He works to impress me with lines like, “Improvements in space technology focus on adjusting compression ratios across the turbine engines,” and, “Considering the rotation of the earth and the momentum of gravity, clearly, it is difficult to launch a rocket when you are far from the equator. This poses potential issues for the future of space mining.” He draws me a diagram on a napkin.

Yawn.

After ten years of dating, I don’t swoon, I snooze. I try to remember the last time I was rapt by a man.

In Turkey, I am staying with a house full of single women, between the ages of 28 and 31. Collectively, we are financially self-sufficient, educated, and single, arguably, by choice. We like to travel. One is so dead set against children and marriage that she had a voluntary hysterectomy when she was 22. While our circumstances are varied, I would say that, for us, the general excitement of dating and “finding a man” has worn off. Prince Charming and romantic love looks more like eating comfort food at McDonald’s rather than drinking champagne at The Ritz.

For those of us who are not ready to “settle down,” as they say, creating a viable defense for singledom is almost impossible. On our hike back from Ba Ho Falls outside of Nha Trang, I give Eddie Murphy the same line of questioning he gave me, “How old are you? Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend?” He is 32, unmarried and still lives at home. He sees nothing wrong with this, as most men are never forced to explain their choice or give a reason. When it comes up, they simply boast their ability to attract younger women, even into old age. As though this makes everything clear, he says, most unforgiving, “You are too old for single. You are too old for me,” then laughs.

I tell him I like younger men anyway.

In Istanbul, we decide to head to the Turkish bath. The experience feels like an odd combination of playing Slip and Slide, getting a car wash, and going to Sunday mass—except that everyone is topless. We are handed a towel and given a key to a small room where we lock up our things. I pass a  round chamber where five Turkish women are thronged together and smoking cigarettes. They are naked and do not seem to care about the flesh that curves over their hips, the spreading patches of cellulite, or their hanging breasts, that swing dangerously close to the ashtray.

The Turkish bath house was built in the 15th century and smells like humidity, sweat and mold. The bath is held beneath a church-like dome with small stained-glassed windows, that cut angles of colored light in the marble floors. There are echoes of women yelling in Turkish from both ends of the building. The experience is simultaneously private and public: people do not do much talking, but the room is open to walk around, lay spread eagle on the middle of the marble flat bed, or sit naked in the sauna. It is not set like a massage parlor, because the purpose of the visit is to bathe: everyone is wet.

We are told to take off our clothes and each given a small bowl to ladle water from the private sinks. After some self-bathing and a trip to the sauna, we are sprawled out, wearing only swimsuit bottoms, on a marble slab that is set beneath the dome of the hamam. The masseuse uses a large glove to exfoliate, giving me orders in Turkish to roll over or hold up my arms. She then grabs a bucket full of soap, like the one I used to wash my father’s Ford Taurus in the driveway, roughly dragging the sponge over my body.

The proximity of the masseuse and her breasts is uncomfortable, I realize objectively, when I receive an accidental nipple smack in the face. Her breath is heavy, smelling like an ashtray that hasn’t been emptied for twenty years; her fire red hair and ashen face resemble the tip of a lit cigarette. When I lying on my back, she hovers over me, sweat from her brow dripping onto my face.

I feel that I might need a different kind of shower.

Slipping naked around marble, we collect our things and move back to the sinks. After rinsing, we sit naked with the women, who ask, “Good massage for you? We give good massage?” We say thank you and give them a tip, covering ourselves as we exit. Our skin is now exfoliated, clear, though I am covered with soap residue and stepping out into the brisk Turkish air, my hair wrapped in a towel.

I have also been naked at a Japanese onsen (hot spring), where the women separate from men, and getting naked is widely accepted. In other cultures, same sex customs dominate much of daily life.

Approaching the 30 mark gives any woman the shivers, single or not. This has nothing to do losing life’s momentum, but there is always the haunting feeling of missing the proverbial boat: things that must be accomplished, especially those with an age limit. As women, we fear the graying of our hair, the cruel workings of gravity on our skin, and the loss of attractiveness that rides out with youth.

The proverbial boat in this case (marriage), insulates us from our fear of ending up alone. Like my aunt so boldly informed me, without youth, without beauty, I will never be able to find a “good man.” She must be referring to that widespread pool of awesomeness I have already encountered.

Whether we are married or not, we will all get old. On the upside, camaraderie comes in all forms: the men playing Backgammon and sharing a hookah; the older women sitting naked in a circle at the Turkish baths. Then there are the widowed or divorced women and men I know back home, who have sustained life-long friendships and closeness with their families, companionship that gets them through their very real days, even after romantic love has faded or is lost.

At this point, running around Istanbul with a bunch of single women seems most appropriate. We coin the word: “T.I.L.F” (think Turk), watch MTV, and ignore the incoming phone calls from unimpressive locals and the host of men from our pasts. We visit the baths, ride the inter-continental ferry between Europe and Asia, admire the Aya Sophia, and share Turkish phrases that we use to confront the more pragmatic issues of the day.

We laugh.

Judgment is sort of irrelevant when you have people around; and, it helps to share the same worldview. Still, as single women, we will endure the interrogations. I need to learn how to succinctly articulate “contentedness” to strangers. Logic symbols? Venn diagram? Mathematical proof? I could carry around a napkin. For single women, a smile is never enough…