Cultural Activity (Outside Berlin)

An Old Painting of a Turkish BathI have just returned to Berlin from my two week spring break and break from thinking about all things school-related, including this blog—for which, I might yet again say my apologies for being a negligent blog parent. This post I mistakenly thought was a free post a while back, but I like the topic of it and so I’m attempting to rewrite it.

Anyway, if anyone has been following my posts, I wrote before about how I was going to go to Istanbul for spring break. And, I did go to Istanbul for spring break. When I was in the city, though, I began to notice how much of a tourist I had to be if I were only going to be there for a week. Seeing the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque, these were things you had to do in Istanbul—these are the cornerstones of travel conversation for anyone who has been to Turkey, or that’s how they’re presented. I couldn’t visit New York and not see Ellis Island, I couldn’t visit Berlin and not go to the top of the TV Tower. But, as I’ve lived in New York and now live in Berlin, I have not visited either of these attractions. So, what makes these attractions and not cultural activities? I think it comes in the fact that they are so ingrained in travel discourse and so overrun with visitors every single day that their value as cultural icons is negated by the fact that the only people who actually are culturally Istanbullus (residents of Istanbul) or New Yawkahs at these places are only there because of visitors.

What, then, about my trip to an off-the-beaten-path Turkish bathhouse was necessarily cultural? Well, to name a few things: I was the only non-Turkish person in the place, no one spoke English except to tell me how much my bath would cost, and, damn it, I was uncomfortable! And, so, to focus on the latter of these “cultural qualifiers,” this might be the most central indication of something being an authentic cultural experience. Why would anyone seek out new “culture” if everything that was entailed by the new culture was exactly as they had been expecting, if it had been tailored-to-fit, so to speak? I seek out the uncomfortable, the grainy, the un-American (and maybe even anti-American) on my travels, or on my vacations, if only to feel like it made me grow. The fun story I get to bring back home is just another perk. And so, let me tell the fun story of “Joshua Visits The Turkish Bath.”

The undecorated, brick façade leads the two girls I’m with to say, “No. Way. We’re going back to the other bath.” The other bath, that is, that had a banner inside that read “New York Times: Top 1000 Things to See Before You Die.” The other bath, that is, that didn’t smell like mildew, and where the workers spoke English, and where the customers were all white, and who could be assumed to not be Turkish. “Do whatever you want, I’m going here.” And the experience commenced.

It’s hard to say what was said to me and what was non-verbally communicated. If I had to guess now, as I said before, all I remember is being told “twenty-five lyra.” Somehow, though, the man threw me into a room and told me to take off my clothes and put on a towel. I wondered exactly how naked I’d get in the course of the next hour or two, and decided it might be best to keep my underwear on in case I had to shy out of any too-uncomfortable sorts of things. Before I even had a chance to fully secure my towel, my door was swung wide open and I was brought by the arm to a sauna. Never will I be able to go into a sauna again. I was left in there for at least a half an hour and didn’t know what else I could possibly do. Finally, waiting against the door, parched as I had ever been in my life, the door swung open again. Let me just tell you, I do not use the term “swung open” lightly here. These men meant nothing but business when it came to door opening.

Rushed into the steamy, large corridor with a huge, beautiful slab of marble in the center, I was sat down and immediately had a huge bucket of water dumped on me while a man started violently scrubbing me. This went on for quite some time, and then he had me look at my piles of dead skin that he had exfoliated. It was disgusting, but I guess it reminded me that I wasn’t just there for a “cultural experience,” I was getting a service done to me that a man prided himself in doing and wanted me to be proud of the work I’d received. This could obviously be ethically problematic, but I’m too uninformed to comment on the specifics of the industry and will leave that untouched for now. Anyway, from there I was slammed, not set, on the large marble slab to have my scrubbing continue. At this point, the man saw that I had left my underwear on, and proceeded to grab it off me as quickly as possible. If I wasn’t so shocked, it would’ve been hilarious. The scrubbing, soaping, and oiling went on for at least another half of an hour, getting progressively more violent. Let me reiterate, if I wasn’t so shocked, it would’ve been hilarious. And now, writing about it, I have a hard time not laughing so much. What wasn’t funny, and still isn’t funny, is being thrown back into the hell hole of a sauna for another twenty minutes after. They need to at least offer some ice water if they’re going to keep people in there for as long as they do. Anyway, I was finally released, towel dried (which I thought was the weirdest part of the service—I can dry myself just fine), and brought into the main room to drink some tea.

I went back into the room where I’d checked all my stuff to get my cigarettes. I started smoking one in the main room and immediately had my pack passed around. Exploiting an American in search of cultural experiences? Maybe. In any case, I didn’t mind.