old city, new in old city

In one of my previous posts in January, I mentioned how much I enjoyed being in a city for the first time; opening my perception wide to soak in whatever that city can offer. However I just realized that being out of my turf for a while and then returning gave me a somewhat similar experience.

It was the first time that I was away from Istanbul for 9 months. Coming back, my perception of the city wasn't so much different probably because that's not a very long period for a rooted city like Istanbul to change. Yet I felt like a complete outsider. At the end of my first day, I had a headache because of all the second-hand smoke and political discussions that I was exposed to. All of us living around the Mediterranean have always loved discussing politics, I cannot remember how many spontaneous conversations I had with taxi drivers in Greece and Israel on the subject. But now, I wondered why people wanted to share their political views with someone whose knowledge was as outdated as the bronze age. I wasn't even interested but people didn't really mind my yawning and went on. It doesn't make slightest sense to me to spend all that time and energy on stuff that I cannot change. Especially the energy that goes into it; nobody seems to talk about politics without a strong sense of judgment, dislike and blaming.  And mind you, these are neither politicians nor party members, they are my friends who work in advertising, finance, arts etc

Coming to Dubai, politics seemed to lose it's #1 place into a general sense of complaint of heat, stupid jobs, incompetent bosses, bad driving, senseless regulations, just to give a few examples. It's sad to see that only a few people are fully satisfied with their lives here. I'm not saying that life in Dubai makes sense in all the ways. Quite the contrary, it can resemble to an episode of the twilight zone pretty often. Yet we choose to stay.

I've been thinking about this quite a lot because this was my culture shock. I probably wouldn't have noticed this if I wasn't out for so long. Human beings are supposed to strive towards better (and therefore happier) but it seems that we build a very suffocating fence of complaints and judgments around our happiness so it does not grow up to its full potential. Why?

One possible reason that came to my mind was that we need to be heard, we need to receive attention. Since we are babies, we get more attention when we cry or have a sad face because it's an alarm of things not going as they are supposed to. Everyone hovers around when we are sick. Maybe some of never outgrow the need for this type of attention even when we are grown. Maybe we never develop the skills to seek a healthy dose of attention by means other than complaining. Hence we keep our unhappy masks on; we complain with an acute need to be heard and to be paid attention. Imagine a  random night out with friends you haven't seen in a long time, does the group spend more time listening to the one who says “oh it's all good, things are going fine” or to the one who says “in the office I work with the stupidest bunch of people who make my life a living hell every day”.

Complaining is a way to attract attention so that missing/wrong things can get fixed.  Most of those chronic complainers however are happy with things being  wrong/missing. If you actually try to correct things for them, they will either find a way to be unhappy with the new situation or will shift their focus to the next wrong thing, because the source of discomfort is internal.

I've been thinking a lot about this in the last 3 weeks and this was the only possible answer that I could see. I would really appreciate some fresh insight if you would care to share. What do you think? Why do we focus on what we cannot change and why do we keep complaining on things that we can change but do nothing about it?

masafi souq al juma (masafi friday market)

I had enough of sneakily driving around in the city after midnight everyday and decided to get a little bolder yesterday to visit the Masafi Friday Market.

Being Turkish, I am very used to getting almost everything by the roadside while driving between cities. A trip from Bodrum to Istanbul gets me the best olives in Gemlik, honey in Marmaris, freshest nuts near Izmir. Most are sold directly by growers, in the trunk of their car or on a stall by the shade of a tree. So coming to Dubai was shocking; because of the harsh climate there was no roadside culture. No stalls, no mom and pop eateries, no locally grown stuff on a car trunk, nothing at all. After two trips with no food (you can only get the packaged boring stuff from the gas stations) I learned my lesson and started picnic-packing whenever I was going outside of Dubai. Years ago on my way for a day trip to swim in the ocean in Fujeirah I came across a roadside market. It was a colorful surprise among the curvy mountain road, lined with nothing but the desert. There were stalls on both sides of the road, selling fresh fruits grown mostly in the UAE and Oman . It was heaven; the fruits weren't flown 5000km from wherever, they were ripe and I was able to taste them before buying, even bargain a little. Afterwards, I never got the chance to go there again.

Yesterday, I drove about 175km one-way to get there. First surprise was seeing a road sign saying “masafi friday market 500m”. A great indicator that the place became more known and popular. 500 meters later, there was no need for more indicators. The once small and unorganized stalls now had  parking  in front of them wider than the spots in the Mall of the Emirates. Of course there were more shops and they looked pretty uniform. I have no objections to receiving better service but the real shock came when I saw that most of the fruit sold was also flown in from Syria, Turkey and India.

After 4 hours of driving in 45+ degrees of heat and blinding sunlight reflecting from the desert, I ended up buying Indian bananas, mangoes and coconut, Syrian cherries, Lebanese grapes and some local fresh dates; all just marginally cheaper than the supermarket price. The punch line was when my camera decided to stop working as a protest to the heat after only shooting 10 frames. I was really expecting to linger around for quite a while to shoot photos but apparently the camera felt more like taking the friday off. Still, I was very satisfied to be outside the city, seeing long stretches of desert and buying fruit from the road.

Would I go again? Yes, but only on my way to Fujeirah and in a season that my camera would not suffer a sun stroke.

fear factor

The only thing that I really and constantly missed in Dubai was my car and I was looking forward to driving it. As shallow and as materialistic as it is, car is a major attachment that I am yet to learn letting go of. Oh well, every yogini should be allowed her bit of materialism be it shoes, car or make-up :)

So in my second night in Dubai, the only thing in my mind was to get back in the driver seat and ride. (I can't drive in broad daylight because the car registration expired and police would impound the car if they catch me on the road) I started driving a little after midnight; I was curious if I really missed my car or was it constantly in my mind all these months because there was absolutely no way for me to have that in Asia. It turns out that I was still really attached to it.

Sometime around 2am, trying to follow a sign to the Sheikh Zayed Road, I ended up in a dirt path leading to a big constuction site in the middle of nowhere. It seems that the constructions still pop up unplanned in Dubai and they don't even have time to remove the signs before they completely demolish the roads. While I was trying to figure out how to get on the highway, I saw a worker walking in my direction. My initial impulse was to reach for the buttons to make sure that the doors are locked and the windows are up all the way. I immediately sensed the fear arising; something I haven't felt in a long time. Then I realized that fear was just an automatic response, coming from a deep-rooted pattern. The pattern which suggests that I am different and therefore I have something to protect from others; I am better and those who are inferior want to take away what's better or more from me... It was a moment of very shameful awakening.

In reality, I had nothing to fear. If anything, that worker who was just minding his own business walking towards the construction had more than me. He was legal in the country, had a regular job, a salary check and a purpose he was walking towards. Whereas I had no money, no job, no right to drive the car (because my driving license was no longer valid) and the car I was driving wasn't even supposed to be on the road. Why then still the fear response?

Especially in a country as safe and as strict as the UAE, it is unheard that a worker would attack a woman at his work site. I was no longer “better” and I had nothing to protect, however the response associated with it was still there... Why was I still hanging onto a pattern that was no longer relevant to my situation?

Living in Bali, it's easier to feel that I am one with everyone else and we are all different reflections of the same thing, whatever that may be. The real test of change is to feel that sameness in a place like Dubai where there's an abyss between nationalities, ethnicities, income levels, sexes and expectation from life.

third Vipassana

I left Bali at the end of May and gradually made my way to Dubai, arriving just yesterday. I had a 2-week stopover in Thailand, because I felt that another Vipassana was a must before leaving Asia.


It turned out to be a good decision, those 11-day long silent meditation sittings do amazing things for me. I believe that there are “mental membranes” between unconscious, subconscious and conscious minds. The more I externalize my attention, try to seek satisfaction in stuff and do not take time to settle my mind, the thicker the membranes get. Corporate work, drinking, trying to keep up with social expectations and trying to please others have been my major membrane thickeners. As a result I lose touch with the reality deep down and things get distorted in my mind. Vipassana drills huge holes to those membranes, and things start to flow freely towards the surface. I remember things, I see the reasons why things happened, I understand how my mind works. I get in touch with the relativity of truth, my truth... Sometimes it can get quite overwhelming to see myself as it is; that I am not always the ever so sweet and innocent Snow White, in fact I am very capable of injecting poison into an apple before offering it to a Snow White. It's easier to believe that I am a result of randomness or consequences of stuff that other people do. I am commitment-phobic to men because of my father, I could not complete my masters degree because the dean hated me and did not give me a make-up exam, I am now broke because my last company fired me in a horrible way, etc etc... All these may be true or they may be a result of my exaggerated imagination, it doesn't matter at all. What matters is how I respond to such situations. Vipassana makes me realize that giving the power to the others/situations and pretending to be the victim is actually very comforting and easy. It's scary to take charge of my life and accept that I'm responsible for every tiny bit that happens in it. It's like constantly trying to balance myself on a pilates ball; the minute I think I got it and try to release a little will be the moment that I fall flat on my face. If I want to stay on top, I cannot afford to let things go auto-pilot.


Then where and how does “letting go” come into this picture, I have no idea... How can I take full charge and then let things go in their universal flow is a total mystery to me. That seems to be another fine-balance on the ball that I haven't mastered yet. Tighten your muscles too much and you'll be tired too soon, let go of everything at once and you'll fall. Yep, it sounds perfect when I put it this way but I am yet to experience this perfection.

ngaben (cremation ceremony)

Cremation is a happy event, something to be celebrated in Bali because it helps to free the spirit of the dead from this world. Interestingly though, the body of the deceased is not necessarily cremated at the end of the ceremony. In addition, the cremation ceremony does not necessarily take place immediately after death. The ceremonies are very expensive and most times, the family needs to save money before they can hold the ceremony. In some cases it may take 3-4 years before the body is cremated, and until then the body is buried. As far as I understand, there are also certain periods when a cremation ceremony can be held every year.

A few weeks ago however, there was a cremation ceremony in Ubud for someone who died about three weeks ago, which was considered to be quite soon. The ceremony would be followed by the actual cremation. Tourists were welcome and cameras were allowed as long as we respected the local dress code of sarongs and no bare shoulders.

The ceremony was said to start around 12pm, but preparations around the house of the deceased started as early as 8am. The street has been cleaned, bamboo platforms were built, the bull and the cremation tower were brought to the area. Around noon time, the crowd got bigger, with families of the same neighborhood  (banjar) bringing food and offerings. Also the Gamelan group of the banjar started to prepare to play music.  Again, when everything was ready, the ceremony started suddenly. Everyone was in a very happy mood, a lot of chattering and laughing and the pace of the entire event was really high.

We started walking from the house towards the Monkey Forest, where the cremation would take place. The cremation bull was leading; sometimes we were walking in a fast pace, sometimes even running. In crossroads, the people carrying the bull were turning clock-wise several times and often shaking the bull vigorously. I later learned that this was to shake-off any remaining evil spirits that might have been still around. In some of the points that we passed, they were spraying water on the crowd by hoses. 

It was the middle of the day, sun high up, humidity rising, the pace frantic, the loud Gamelan music almost hypnotizing and the crowd just too much... I was already overwhelmed by the time we reached the cremation area in Monkey Forest, I can't imagine how the local guys carrying the cremation tower must feel. Once we were in the forest, everything was placed at certain spots and preparations began. It was time for us tourists to rest, but the actual work for the Balinese attending the ceremony just begun.

There were many steps and each looked very detailed. First the cremation bull was opened and ladies with long hair approached, dipping their hair into the bull. It was quite interesting but so far, I never got a chance to learn what that symbolizes. Then the priest approached the bull and started the preparations; it had multiple steps all very detailed and requiring a lot of details. I was once again amazed how it was handled in a very organized and elegant way, all the while everyone was having fun and using this as an opportunity to socialize. It was really a celebration, not a mourning. Everyone smiling, greeting one another, men smoking in big groups and not even one solemn face, let alone anyone crying. The preparation around the bull took more than an hour, then finally the body, which was wrapped heavily in white fabric was lowered into the bull too. As the bull was closed one again, men started to set up the mechanism to ignite the fire. I learned that wood fire was used in past, and sometime for really big ceremonies (such as a member of the royal family) it sometimes took months to tower up enough wood appropriate for such a big event. About a year ago, a member of the royal family passed away and I was told that it was the biggest wood tower and the cremation ceremony ever in Bali. But nowadays things seem to get a little more practical and environmentally friendly; fire was ignited from 2 flame-machines attached to industrial-sized LPG canisters. Of course first the bull was insulated via metal panels to ensure that fire would not spread around.

The wave of the flames in addition to the midday heat was too much. Plus, all of us oblivious tourists who got too close to the fire to get the best photo shoot were covered in ashes due to a reverse wind... Once the fire lost its blaze and Balinese started spreading around and eating I felt it was also time for me to go. The whole experience has been new; see a lot of happy faces celebrating the death of a loved one, the impeccable Hindu ceremony a lá Balinese, the very welcoming attitude towards tourists and their intrusive cameras.

Lesson learned; to stay away once the cremation fire is ignited unless you are sure about the direction of the wind.