Lessons learnt in the ex-Byzant
I returned on Friday from an 11-day vacation to two of the most important cities of the Byzantine imperium: Istanbul and Thessaloniki. We spent first two days in Istanbul, then took a night train to Greece, to Thessaloniki, stayed there for two nights, then continued to a small village of Agios Panteleimon for a Greek wedding and returned back to Istanbul the same route for three more nights.
Besides a lot of sightseeing - a dozen of Byzantine red brick churches, ruins, castles, half a dozen of mosques and some more ruins - and countless matches of backgammon, we indulged ourselves with delicious (and sometimes weird) food, drank refreshing white wine, shots of ouzo/raki (especially at the wedding!) and on the Turkish side at least a few glasses of excellent tea every day.
Yummie Turkish tea in Pierre Loti café in Eyüp, Istanbul.
But what would traveling be without learning things? I was happy to notice that my learning skills had not been totally destroyed by thesis-writing. After two days I could almost read the Greek alphabet, and mastered a few words of Turkish. On the return flight I surprised even myself when I understood what the stuert answered to a lady in the toilet queue in Turkish: "bir saat", meaning one hour (to landing, I presume).
Besides a few new words, tastes and experiences, I learnt that attitudes of (some/many) men in Istanbul - a very modern and cosmopolitan metropol, as it probably always has been - were really stuck to the Byzantine period when it comes to women.
I often felt like standing behind a language barrier since very few people spoke English well enough to actually discuss something. Communicating with the local people in the same way as in New York or in Africa, for example, was simply not possible. Those working with the tourism industry were obviously more skilled in English, and we ended up having a longer conversation with a bazaar salesman. He sold tavla (backgammon) boards and seemed like an enlightened, intelligent man and was also a good seller: not too pushy, inquiring carefully what we wanted and liked. But then in the middle of bargaining for a tavla board, Otto asked about this other game the guy was also selling that we had seen being played in cafés and tea houses in Istanbul. I still don't know what the game is called, but it has colours and numbers...anyway, the salesman got carried away and started to explain: "Oh, that's what women often play. You know, women are really bad at backgammon. Like driving cars, hehehe. That game was first designed for handicapped, retarded people and so, it's easy because of the colours. Women like to play that."
Snap, he had compared women to retards just like that! I stared at him silently while Otto remarked: "Do you realize what you just said in front of my girlfriend?". The seller tried to save his skin by saying that he only referred to Turkish women, obviously, and it's all different for other nationalities (quite an insult towards Turkish women!).
Somehow we ended up buying a tavla board from him (tired, not wanting to continue the bargaining at another place). It might be because of the seller's misogynist comments that the board seems to dislike me, I tend to lose more games than I usually do...
It's not only in Turkey where women are thought to be disabled to play games that require mathematic skills or thinking. I recall that in Zanzibar where I played a lot of bao, a Zanzibari guy was very astonished to hear that I could actually play the real version instead of the one that "children and women" normally play. The simplified version, as I later learnt, consists of just moving the seeds around the board and not really counting anything as in the real version. Pretty boring.
On one hand, these denigrating stereotypes constructed by men on the intellectual abilities of women (either retards or children to them) somewhat diminish my belief in humanity, but on the other hand they make me feel lucky for being born in Finland where only red&green feminists (I guess me, then) are hated by some groups of men. I also just don't get what is it that women see in Mediterranean men - not saying that they are all alike, but many have really archaic views on gender roles.
Obviously these disturbing encounters were only a small part of the whole trip. Most of all I really enjoyed being on an actual holiday which had nothing to do with my studies, work or interning of any kind (except that the wedding I went to was of another UN intern last fall). Just looking at the photo below makes me feel tranquil and thankful for being able to see such a beautiful place. Seeing different places and meeting people in their all ugliness is the point of all traveling - this trip fulfilled those goals, for sure.
Lake Vegoritida from our hotel terrace in Agios Panteleimon, Greek Macedonia.
More photos here.
Besides a lot of sightseeing - a dozen of Byzantine red brick churches, ruins, castles, half a dozen of mosques and some more ruins - and countless matches of backgammon, we indulged ourselves with delicious (and sometimes weird) food, drank refreshing white wine, shots of ouzo/raki (especially at the wedding!) and on the Turkish side at least a few glasses of excellent tea every day.
Yummie Turkish tea in Pierre Loti café in Eyüp, Istanbul.But what would traveling be without learning things? I was happy to notice that my learning skills had not been totally destroyed by thesis-writing. After two days I could almost read the Greek alphabet, and mastered a few words of Turkish. On the return flight I surprised even myself when I understood what the stuert answered to a lady in the toilet queue in Turkish: "bir saat", meaning one hour (to landing, I presume).
Besides a few new words, tastes and experiences, I learnt that attitudes of (some/many) men in Istanbul - a very modern and cosmopolitan metropol, as it probably always has been - were really stuck to the Byzantine period when it comes to women.
I often felt like standing behind a language barrier since very few people spoke English well enough to actually discuss something. Communicating with the local people in the same way as in New York or in Africa, for example, was simply not possible. Those working with the tourism industry were obviously more skilled in English, and we ended up having a longer conversation with a bazaar salesman. He sold tavla (backgammon) boards and seemed like an enlightened, intelligent man and was also a good seller: not too pushy, inquiring carefully what we wanted and liked. But then in the middle of bargaining for a tavla board, Otto asked about this other game the guy was also selling that we had seen being played in cafés and tea houses in Istanbul. I still don't know what the game is called, but it has colours and numbers...anyway, the salesman got carried away and started to explain: "Oh, that's what women often play. You know, women are really bad at backgammon. Like driving cars, hehehe. That game was first designed for handicapped, retarded people and so, it's easy because of the colours. Women like to play that."
Snap, he had compared women to retards just like that! I stared at him silently while Otto remarked: "Do you realize what you just said in front of my girlfriend?". The seller tried to save his skin by saying that he only referred to Turkish women, obviously, and it's all different for other nationalities (quite an insult towards Turkish women!).
Somehow we ended up buying a tavla board from him (tired, not wanting to continue the bargaining at another place). It might be because of the seller's misogynist comments that the board seems to dislike me, I tend to lose more games than I usually do...
It's not only in Turkey where women are thought to be disabled to play games that require mathematic skills or thinking. I recall that in Zanzibar where I played a lot of bao, a Zanzibari guy was very astonished to hear that I could actually play the real version instead of the one that "children and women" normally play. The simplified version, as I later learnt, consists of just moving the seeds around the board and not really counting anything as in the real version. Pretty boring.
On one hand, these denigrating stereotypes constructed by men on the intellectual abilities of women (either retards or children to them) somewhat diminish my belief in humanity, but on the other hand they make me feel lucky for being born in Finland where only red&green feminists (I guess me, then) are hated by some groups of men. I also just don't get what is it that women see in Mediterranean men - not saying that they are all alike, but many have really archaic views on gender roles.
Obviously these disturbing encounters were only a small part of the whole trip. Most of all I really enjoyed being on an actual holiday which had nothing to do with my studies, work or interning of any kind (except that the wedding I went to was of another UN intern last fall). Just looking at the photo below makes me feel tranquil and thankful for being able to see such a beautiful place. Seeing different places and meeting people in their all ugliness is the point of all traveling - this trip fulfilled those goals, for sure.
Lake Vegoritida from our hotel terrace in Agios Panteleimon, Greek Macedonia.More photos here.
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