I’ve realized both the power and vulnerability of traveling as a woman alone in lands where men are fascinated by their sudden propinquity to Western women. Everywhere I went, men were offering to carry my bags, airline check-in men were waving my too-heavy bags through, etc. As I was going through the Tama airport, a security worker managing the baggage machines asked for my passport and discovered I was American. He then began helping me with my bags, for which I was grateful. But then he grabbed my hand -- a serious crossing of boundaries.
Probably my usual Asian self would have cringed in silence and pulled away, but for some reason today I was so firmly in Tama mode -- dress, language, demeanor -- that I surprised myself by behaving as I think a Tama woman would. I screamed. Loud, shaming words. Everyone in the vicinity knew that this man had touched me illicitly. “Do you not have a sister? Is this Tamaland? Where is the respect for women?” I screamed. He was quite abashed, yelling back, “Dear sister, I was just trying to show you something!” “Show me with words, don’t touch me! Why would you touch me!” I yelled. We yelled at each other for a while. There was a poor Italian man loading his bag looking with big eyes, not understanding what was going on. When I left, the disgruntled security worker started to shout at the Italian guy for no reason at all, taking out his own ruffled feelings on the next innocent bystander.
I continued to carry on and scream all the way through the various checks, scandalizing all the security people by reporting exactly who it was and what he had done. I wanted to make sure that this man was shamed enough that he would never take advantage of his position to cross lines with a woman that way again. The inadvertent result of my loud complaints was that I got very good treatment. The women who were supposed to be feeling me up instead clustered around me concernedly, consoling me and telling me how bad the men were. They never even bothered to check me. The other security men let me pass without coming within ten feet of me. I sailed through everything easily.
The passage to a more open country is always tricky -- flying to a country like Turkey or UAE, where the airports have people dressed across the spectrum from tank tops to full burqa. When do you make the transition to no-scarf ? In the outgoing airport? (Too soon for me, though I saw lots of other women letting their scarves slip off.) On the plane? (Surrounded by Tama men, I’m usually not comfortable enough still.) In the incoming airport? This is typically where I take off my scarf, but at times, in both Dubai and Istanbul, I have still come to regret the timing -- I’ve inevitably run into Tama acquaintances and am caught unawares and embarrassed.
Today my choice was influenced by the fact that I had overestimated the cold weather and, with long underwear, wool sweater, and wool coat, was burning up during the entire flight. I took off the coat and sweater and my underscarf on the plane, but kept my scarf on. Still, I was sweating and thinking constantly about the long underwear. Once I was safely on Turkish soil and had (I thought) escaped most of my fellow passengers from Tamaland, I was eager to take off the scarf and coat, which I had put on again for transit.
Getting off the plane, I usually make a point of stopping for nothing -- no bathroom, breaks, etc. -- until I’m through immigration. I find that booking it as fast as I can from the plane to baggage claim gets me through faster, if I can beat the rest of the plane there. So it wasn’t until I was standing in the lengthy immigration line that I had a chance to catch my breath and (I’d hoped) disrobe a little, since the rushing made me especially sweaty. I slipped off my scarf first and let my hair down. It was uncanny -- almost immediately a young Tama man behind me greeted me warmly and asked me what I was doing in Istanbul. I was taken aback. I’d seen him getting on the plane, but hadn’t taken any special note of him. He told me he works for Turkish Air, and with a flourish presented me with his card. He chatted me up all through immigration, and, though there were about fifteen immigration desk lines, made it a point to go into the same line as me with that firm “we’re together” attitude. Meanwhile, I was thinking the whole time about how much I was longing to take off my coat but I sure wasn’t going to do it now, in front of him. Afterwards, when he found out I was going to get a hotel room through Turkish Air, he offered to accompany me to find it. I must admit that I let him go along with me -- thinking that if I had any problems, his employment status and obvious eagerness to impress me might come in handy. He helped me with my bags and I let him ask around for information instead of doing it myself.
Then it got weird. He mentioned that he was getting a hotel room through Turkish Air too (he was in Istanbul for training), and it wouldn’t be a problem at all for me to go along with him. I didn’t get it for awhile. I was confused, thinking, “Well, I’m not going to the same hotel as him to pay for a room when they’re going to give me one for free.” I kept saying that Turkish Air would give me a free one. He kept saying it would be no problem at all and that he would have a room. We ended up parting ways since he needed to get his hotel room through Turkish Air management and I needed to go to the passenger hotel desk. But later, as I was waiting for them to call me with my room assignment, he actually came around and found me again -- I blushed as by this time I’d taken off the coat too and put my hair up (scandalous! He saw me in my long sleeved shirt!) He again kept insisting that it would be no problem for me to go with him since he had a room. I kept insisting that they were going to give me a free room. Finally naive little me got it. He intended for us to stay in the same room. I was too shocked to do anything but smile and refuse.
I found the whole thing rather bizarre once I realized what was happening. The desperation in his eyes was palpable. How do I make this woman go with me? I kept smiling and being sweetly contradictory. No, that’s ok, they’re going to give me a room. No, I’ll wait here. Yes, thank you for your help. No, really, I’ll just wait here for them to give me my own room. It is strange for me to think that somewhere out there, some girl might actually say yes to this random stranger hitting on her in the immigration line? Also rather scary. I'm sure this is how kidnappings and rapes happen.
Finally he gave up and left. The guy was probably more than ten years younger than me. Writing this out, I realize that he sounds pretty creepy, but he didn’t come across that way. He was well spoken, polite, helpful, and friendly. And actually, he was extremely handsome in that dark Persian way, with wavy hair and a big dimple. I was sweaty, rumpled, no makeup, relatively conservatively dressed, tired and sallow-skinned -- there was really nothing there to draw the eye. Then I realized: it was all because I pulled off my scarf too early. I'm rather insulted to think that he thought I was such a loose woman I'd jump at the chance to go home with a total stranger. It's pretty sad, the reputation of Western women in such lands, as well as the total objectification of women.
Ah, the power of the scarf. Next time I'll wait til I'm through immigration!
No comments:
Post a Comment