Cultural Logic

The overarching lesson of my class is the idea that respecting another culture means always looking for the cultural logic.  If my students feel frustrated or don't understand something, I ask them to try to figure out how the thing makes sense within the culture... what values does it reveal, what else is it connected to, etc.  Then I ask them to consider the cultural logic of whatever it is that we do by contrast... this encourages them to reflect both on the culture they are in and their own in a non-judgmental way, and also to adapt better (it is easier to accept something different or inconvenient when you get why it exists).

So I ask the same of myself.  I've been doing this for years, and it is why I am a good traveler and why I love to travel.  I've had a lot of success, but there have been a few things that have bugged me for years because I've never figured out how to understand them.  Here is a great example.

Greek pools.  I've been swimming in Greek pools since 1990, and never understood the rules, which are much stricter than American rules.  In many places, everyone must wear a bathing cap.  Everywhere, they actually enforce the request to shower before one swims.  This trip, one friend showered, then applied sunscreen and got her daughter organized, and was asked to shower again because the lifeguard had seen her applying sunscreen.  Adults and children are kept pretty strictly separate.  In one pool, no adult is allowed in the kids' pool.  Phil had his feet in, and was asked to take them out.  We weren't allowed to swim with our little bitsy kids who weren't yet swimming on their own.  No kid is allowed in the adult's pool, either.  And in many places, bathing caps are mandatory for men and women alike.  I've never understood what looks to my American eyes as a crazy concern about hygiene and pools.  It isn't true about the sea (beaches are often strewn with litter). There is generally a European tolerance for body hair, so I don't get why the hair is such a big deal.  I don't understand why kids and adults are so strictly separate (how on earth do little kids even learn to swim?).

And then suddenly, 20 years after my first puzzlement, I found the answer at the Turkish bath museum.  Jeremiah and I went there and had been forewarned that the English signage was lacking, so we asked the grumpy guard for the audio tour.  We nearly bailed on it when we realized that the first 20 minutes were about room # 1.  But I persevered because I'd seen a lot of Roman baths, and was very curious about whether Turkish baths were related.  It was as I was getting my answer that the flash of enlightenment happened.  Yes, Turkish baths descend from Roman baths (both use a hypocaust system for central heating through the walls and floors).

The hypocausts, an underground passageway for warm air under the floor and piped up the walls is revealed in the dark area in the corner. I'd assumed it was an immersion pool, but it isn't.  There are none.  The water comes from the small fountain with the two taps that looked at first like a toilet to me.

Another fountain, this time next to a marble bench. I think most of the experience was about the steamy room rather than about the water itself.

The lighting, too, added to the mysterious contemplative atmosphere created by the steam.  It was brought in through these holes capped with semicircular glass that sent small diffuse beams of light around the room.

But the Turks didn't feel like still water was clean, so there are no immersion pools in a Turkish bath. All water is drawn from a sink (hot and cold running water!) and poured over the "bathers."  Bingo (Thanks to Phil who made the connection as I was describing what I'd seen).  Greeks don't like still water.  It feels potentially dirty, and hence all the crazy rules.  It made sense too of Greek bathrooms, which typically have showers rather than baths.  Even if they have a bath, they turn it into a shower.  Here are the two bathrooms from our apartment.  One has a "bath" which is a half-sized tub with a shower handle mounted half way up (not at head level, like an American shower).  The other is a shower only (with a very short lip... Greek bathrooms seem designed to be washed from top to bottom, with the floor getting as much attention as the shower since there is little to distinguish the two).  Some of our students have showers which are just a corner of the room separated by a curtain draining to hole in the center of the room.  One doesn't sit under the rain the way we do at home (which the environmentalist part of me appreciates... I'd always assumed it was purely because Greeks have never had enough water to be able to waste it the way we do).  You rinse, turn off the water and soap up, then turn back on to rinse, holding the shower piece in your hand whenever the water is on.  If you left it running while soaping up, it is so low, and often facing the floor, so it isn't meant to just run on you.

The half-bath with a low shower attachment.  This is the big bathroom.

The little bathroom which only has a shower, but again, the  handheld shower attachment is low on the wall, so even if you leave it running, it doesn't rain down on your head or back, so why bother leaving it on?  

The Turkish bath was pretty cool.. it was essentially a spa, with a lot of steam, massage, oil applied and scraped off, and a cafe and waiting room.  But the insight was something that released me from 20 years of puzzlement... bliss.  And now I can accept the pool rules because I get how they make sense.