Today I found myself talking with a friend about whether costumes are ever worn in Turkish culture– I’m planning a speaking lesson that deals in part with Halloween, and needed background information to use when encouraging my students to draw out comparisons between traditions. She insisted that costumes were extremely rare.
Does this count as a costume? Taken in Istanbul, May 2008.
“No, that was his circumcision suit. You wouldn’t call a wedding dress a costume, would you?”
Duh! I’d completely forgotten about the big dress-up party that goes along with the Turkish circumcision tradition. And my friend’s point was absolutely right– although the outfit looked and still looks like a costume to me, there’s an important difference between the archaisms of certain kinds of formal clothes (like wedding dresses and circumcision suits) and the mimicking of history involved in a costume. American wedding dresses, even modern ones, still cling to traditions that seem completely out of step with modern perspectives on clothing: white for the bride (but only the first-time bride), a long concealing skirt with a train, garters, maybe even still a veil. If we weren’t so accustomed to seeing wedding dresses in their own peculiar role, of course they’d look bizarre, archaic– like costumes.
Living here, I find my misinterpretations and mistakes getting mirrored back to me as insights fairly often, but it’s not always comfortable. There’s certainly satisfaction in figuring out (or having explained to me) some cultural note I was perplexed by, and amusement and fascination in the differences. But I do find myself struck by my minor and major misunderstandings alike, and wondering just what, exactly, is getting assumed about me.
Well. At least now I won’t call it a costume in class tomorrow. Small victories.
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Assumptions from both sides can result to be quite uncomfortable – asking (preferably to the same gender in a non-group environment – at least in Turkey) can clear a lot of wrong info.
Try to ask about yourself to your close female friends – how they see you and your behavior/clothing/etc – might get surprised and learn a lot of useful things.
P.S. Wouldn’t recommend assuming that Turkey (especially Southeast/and some parts of the city) is safe for traveling when girls are alone and if one of them sticks out too much as a foreigner (as most people in this region might be polite but also uneducated/or wrong upbringing combined with mostly quite wrong assumptions (about foreigners and/or differently attire) sometimes).
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