on hair removal

So when I was pondering the mighty question of whether I should return to Istanbul a few months ago, one of the "pros" on my mental list was that any potential second attempt had to automatically be better than my first because I would already know some Turkish people. Every day I am reminded of just how true that thought is. When I arrived here in September, lost, sweaty, confused, and terrified at this manifestation of my own free will, I knew one person. Vaguely. And like so many other things here, that friendship fell through big time. I thank my lucky stars that I'm such a ridiculous teacher and incapable of going ten minutes in a classroom without trying to make my students laugh... usually at my own expense. I'm also a terrible liar, and I can't help but answer a question at least partially when asked. My students and I got to know each other. (In some cases, better than might be advised. Ha.) I started thinking about going to work more as going to hang out with my heavily-accented friends rather than compensated boredom. Miraculously, a lot of my students insisted we stay in touch. By which I mean they sent me an outrageous amount of facebook messages and wrote on my wall and poured through my photo albums and then liked every other picture. Most of my students - good people.

Whereas before my only real interaction with Turkish people was limited to the three or four hour chunks of time I spent in class, and the few words exchanged at the market, my days are now filled with nothing but the people of this country. My roommates, their boyfriends, Aydın of course and his best friend, my former students who I see now and again, the nice man at the bakery who tries to teach me the names of his pastries (saving that post for later - vous inquietez pas), the bitchy girl at the market who always makes fun of me. Every single fucking time. Then there are the minibus drivers, and our neighbors who knock on the door to pull pipes out of our balcony (???). Our nightly TV dramas. It's Turkey Time, all the time.

Aside from the obvious gifts of companionship, having someone to order things for me at restaurants, and having food shoved towards me all day every day, one of the biggest perks of hanging out with Turks in Turkey is that I finally have people to ask all of the embarrassing and potentially invasive questions. And let me tell you, I have plenty of those. (Let's be honest - so do you.) It makes a colossal difference. Not only because my Turkish buddies can hear that I'm curious about their culture and their country and respond in kind, but also because I hear their explanation rather than just letting my imagination run rampant. Which it, uh, is prone to do.

Last weekend I got to hear all about Turkish courtship procedure from Aydın's best friend. He came over after a particularly dull engagement party at which he knew one person - his girlfriend. Sounded like a pretty standard Sunday outing to me. Until he mentioned that he didn't speak to his girlfriend once for the three hours he was there. What the fuck? you might ask. Well, he explained, he didn't speak to his girlfriend because her family was there. And her family doesn't know they're dating.

Two questions come to (my) mind.
1. Why the hell would he bother going if he knew that would be the case?
2. Is it forbidden now for women to speak to men at social functions? Secretly dating or lukewarm acquaintances or perfect strangers?

I asked him both of these questions as politely as I could. I don't know how politely they were translated, but I tried.
Answers:
1. Because crazy demanding and needy Turkish girlfriend asked him to, and they only normally get to see each other one day a week.
2. It isn't forbidden. But Turkish parents are paranoid as fuck, and if they saw him speaking to her, they would begin asking questions. They would just know, he said.

Ok, dude. If you say so. I cocked an eyebrow at Aydın in an "is this for real?" way and he verified. Totally normal Turkish behavior. He even said "In my country, this is how we do things. I know for you it is weird. Maybe in one hundred years we will be like you. Things are changing. But slowly." Ok, dude. If you say so.

Tonight's lessons were two-fold, and perhaps more relevant to my life.
My roommate Hatice's (Ha-tee-jay) boyfriend comes over what seems like almost every night. In another situation, I might find that a little annoying, but I don't because I absolutely adore this man. Firstly because Mahir immediately reminded me of a pirate - and that was before I knew he used to have hair down to his ass. He's got this amazing, thick, black hair, a barbe de cinq jours, and a shiny fat silver earring. He's perpetually smiling and trying to joke with me, despite the fact that he speaks absolutely minimal English. I can't help but laugh even when I don't understand what the hell he's saying. He plays hide-and-go-seek with Hatice's grumpy-ass cat like he's playing with a child. Tonight he brought over a bottle of Bailey's and put it down on the table directly in front of me with a wink. Love this guy. Anyway. After Mahir got settled and the serious tea drinking began, he pointed to his neck and said "Anya! Fire! Fire!" I noticed that the lower half of his neck was indeed very bright red and angry looking. Hatice filled me in.

Today Mahir got his neck lasered. Yes. Lasered. As in laser hair removal. But only the lower half. Fucking. Brilliant. The fact that he not only said as much without a trace of embarrassment but brought it to my attention - even more fucking brilliant. I asked him why he wanted that very tender area lasered, and through Hatice's translation, he told me that he was tired of plucking. Sweet Jesus in your baby manger! PLUCKING?! Hatice said that shaving would only make the hair grow faster and denser, so Mahir has been plucking that part of his beard for years. "And he really has so much hair. Every where. This was a good idea, I think." I'm sure I looked half-stupefied, half-gleeful. Which, truth be told, was how I felt. Aside from talking about Turkish weddings, which Hatice and I did at length earlier in the evening, I really can't think of something I genuinely want to know more about here. And I'm being 100% sincere. Turks are hairy bastards. It's a well-documented fact. How I found quite possibly the only man in this country without chest / back / ear / shoulder hair is nothing short of a divine miracle. Most men, it seems, display the tender locks blossoming from the top of their button-up shirts with pride. Growing dense, gorilla-like arm hair should be an Olympic sport here. Unibrow cultivating should also be also. With so many hirsute male specimens wandering the country, I obviously begin to wonder about Turkish women, who with the exception of young girls and religious types who don't wear makeup or do anything to improve their appearance, are noticeably kempt to the nth degree. (We're talking Kardashian without the money.) High maintenance like whoa.

Apparently, a lot of Turkish ladies are lasered. And we're not talking bikini lines or upper lips or arm pits. We're talking the works. Waxing happens of course, but laser hair removal is the new way to go. There are packages - everything for 1000 TL, (A little over $500). This is such a good deal in fact that Europeans hear about it and come to Turkey specifically to indulge in a little well-priced hairless-ness quite frequently. Who knew? Thailand has its sex-change operations. Russia has its mail-order brides. Turkey has its laser hair removal.

On a related note of hair removal and awkward, my American friend Chip told me back in December that his trips to the (all male) hamam (i.e. Turkish spa) had taught him that many Turkish men go... Brazilian. Chip posited that this might be due to some older notions of hygiene. I went to my go to source of awkward answers and asked Aydın about this hamam observation, and Aydın told me without batting an eye that almost everyone here goes Brazilian - men and women. And yes, that it is a hygiene thing. He reminded me that "it is very hot in the summer and..." Yes. Got it. I'm sure if he knew the words "humid" and "sticky" and "moist," he would've chucked them into that sentence too. Thanks, pal. Question answered.

So. Hair removal. Cool, right?

This could be fun, actually. Do you have any burning Turkish questions you'd like answered? Something you might not really need to know but want to force me into awkwardly asking anyway? Let's make this interactive.