The 24 year interrogation... and the day things changed

I put this off for a long time...

I had this assignment in which I would embody an difference; the idea was to experience it personally and share this experience with the class. I decided to do it and put it on the blog. I thought it would be easy as pie, and boy was I wrong !

It's hard to decide on what to do. I didn't want it to look fake, I didn't want to accidentally offend someone, I didn't want to pretend I was blind or deaf since I already look different and usually pass as a tourist or an expat (both of my parents are Asian).  

The photos don't show well (actually I think the pictures themselves are a success but don't represent how realistic it is) , but I made a birth mark over my chin, paling out and extending towards my cheek and my neck. I used a dark colored lipstick for this. After several trials and errors, a whole spring break postponing the idea, and a nice sunny early weekend in which I didn't want to spend time bringing more gazes upon me, I went over to my parents, gathered up some courage and did it last sunday.

The real thing is much darker and has pinkish trails over my face which did not turn out in the photo

Here's the catch. I never knew this would make me feel like a teenager again ! It was hilarious. My mom asked if I wanted to go out with her, and I was fuming, upset and I said "No, I'm supposed to do this alone !". My dad asked where I was going and I told him that I had no idea (I was a bit worked up by then, even before leaving the house). I was extremely self conscious even before starting the whole thing ! That brought up so many memories. Because my experience is so directly related to my own life, I thought I might disclose some background information. Do bear with me, and if it doesn't sound interesting or just TMI, please please skip it (the next three paragraphs that is). Argh, maybe I shouldn't talk about it but my experience made sense through my own past.

I grew up amongst half Swedish (well her grandmother was swedish and everyone else was Turkish in her family)/half American and half British kids. Although these kids' parents were Turkish, they liked to pass as foreigners and they were all caucasian looking, blue eyed blond people. They pretended they didn't know Turkish, in fact we barely spoke Turkish at school. My mom always emphasized that we knew Turkish, so we took classes at preschool and were in a bilingual school. My sister and I were the only two Asians who got to stay at the school from preschool through end of secondary school, and we were one of the few Asian kids in the neighborhood as we grew up. I didn't have an accent and that was considered "not cool". At school I was often made fun of because I had glasses, I had braces and later on I had the worst complexion ever. Once my acne was cleared out, my cheeks started oozing out puss out of stress, anxiety and depression. Maybe it was not my ethnicity, but it was always something. I wasn't cool enough, I didn't like Spice Girls. I didn't know how to dance. I couldn't cheat on exams. I was the shortest in class and I do recollect being pushed around a lot. Ok maybe it was not because I was Asian, in fact that's not the reason, but I think not being caucasian definitely contributed in the "you're not cool for school" part. LOL

I wanted to pet the pony and the clown picked me up and placed me on the poor thing's saddle. I was sad for the poor pony. I was a quirky kid though, and in retrospect I was nowhere near ugly or lame.

Now here's the second thing, knowing Turkish as a "foreigner" here is, through my experience something which is not cool. It's pathetic to some people. It pisses people off. Like not professionals, cohorts or colleagues etc, but it pisses off the shopkeepers. It irritates them. Some find it cute and sympathetic, but they always ask how come I know so much Turkish, and where I come from. I have been bombarded with questions every single day of my life. When I try to get past questions by just saying I live here they are NOT satisfied, they say "no no, you don't look Turkish, no, you don't look like you live here, no you don't seem to be a foreigner". When I ignore this then comes the list "Tayland, Cin, Japon, Tatar, Kirgiz, Kazak, ver ar yu furom, soylesene !?!?!?". I get picked on whenever I go out. People mutter funny words with a high pitch usually imitating Chinese of Japanese when I walk down a street. I get to see fingers pointed at and people shouting "Çin/ Japon/ Huaaa/ Hayyyah !" gesturing some martial arts. I have developed a liking for shopping malls, especially high end ones where the shopkeepers are taught not to harass "foreigners". But I always get the "Türkçeniz çok güzel, nasıl öğrendiniz blablbalbalbaa...". Argh. Some friends say I over react. That I think about it too much. I just don't like it. I want to be left alone. I want to be anonymous, I want to be invisible. I don't want my life to be public matter, out for public use and entertainment for strangers.

I have also learned that saying anything even slightly negative about the place I live in, the Turkish bureaucratic system, how extremist some views are as a Turkish citizenship holder of Asian descent is not socially acceptable. "If you don't like it, why are you here?", "Then go, get out of this country!" are comments I'm very familiar with. Every Turkish citizen has the right to say anything about Turkey but me. Which I find quite funny. In Turkey, I have the feeling that shopkeepers, restaurant garçons and and most people like foreigners as long as they don't speak Turkish very well. They always say "Biz burda yabancilari severiz", which means "Here, we like foreigners", but since I don't fit in any category, I guess I'm not "yabanci" enough either. They like making fun of the "yabanci"s accent, to fool around, laugh around with them, trying to teach a few words and getting them to say "Turkiye chock guzelll", there is no sympathy for the yabanci; it's more like the court fool/dwarf that could be gazed upon. Nobody would like an intellectual dwarf in the medieval court would they? My AFS parents had come to Turkey to see me, and I was showing them around, I was always taken as a tour guide of central asian descent and I was told off all the time for not being courteous enough to the sellers. (Apparently in touristic places, tour guides are supposed to be nice and make the rich Caucasian looking tourists spend money so they could split the share and when I tried to find the best deals for people I care about I was threatened, spat on, insulted and shouted at). I told people that these were my close family and friends and I was made fun of and called a liar. It's strange how everyone close to me is so amazing and nice and kind and how people who don't know me are so rude and intrude into my life by either insulting me or interrogating me. At University I get asked a lot of questions but at least people are polite (finally some polite people yay !). Let's not talk about dating at all. That's a whole other story which involved a lot of "I don't like Asian girls, I like blondes".

So when I told I was doing this experiment my mom, my sister and boyfriend all told me that it wouldn't work because people stare at me anyway. That it needed to be something that was more striking than my ethnicity. I decided not to choose a crowded place as a location since there would be too many factors and stimuli. The city was completely blocked anyway, so I took a walk in my neighborhood. My parents were driving to the pharmacy, so they dropped me off in front of a shopping mall. And here's the catch. Although I hate being stared at, it was SOOOO strange. I became invisible. Walking across the street, people would see me and immediately turn their eyes away, only the people in cars who think they're invisible looked a bit and were perplexed. The mall security guard did not smile (they usually do). In fact he ignored me. The neighborhood I grew up and where my parents still live in is known as a celebrity hang out. It's a ridiculous place actually. Everyone was PERFECT looking. Any little defect could be wiped out with cosmetics, everyone had high fashion clothes and the prettiest cars. Everyone was worried whether that jacket matched with that sweater. Even everyone's hair was well kept, the children had comfortable enough but expensive looking clothes. I proceeded with shopping. Out of 20+ shops I entered, only one shop (which was quite small and selling socks, pantyhoses and swimwear) didn't pretend I was invisible. The sales lady was nice to me, she kept looking at my eyes. Other people just hoped I would go. I really felt out of place. Well when I don't have a birthmark, a lot of shopkeepers greet me, because they have the false impression that foreigners have a lot of money and buy a lot of things, which is does not hold true for my case. This time, I was virtually invisible. NOBODY asked where I was from. NOBODY had eye contact with me. NOBODY smiled or commented or said anything. 

Trust me, it was darker.

I decided to take a walk outside, I walked from Akmerkez to home. I dropped in at D&R and bought something nice for my mom. No questions, no interrogations, no comments on my Turkish, my accent, my ethnicity... I actually felt bad because I was feeling the surge and the anxiety I felt as a teenager. The fear of looking ridiculous, not perfect enough. I remember missing school because I had a pimple once. And that was exactly how I was feeling. I actually wondered if anyone would ask what happened to my face (that would be asked when my cheeks had puss all over it), and I never got that question out of people no wonder how long I stayed in a shop. I bumped into a friend from college. He was the only one who asked hesitantly what had happened to my face, had I gotten it burned? I told him it was an experiment. "You got me Irene !" was his reaction. Yup. So it was quite realistic after all. Success :D. 

I was someone else, even through a birthmark. I was not the Irene I knew, I was not the woman who has learned to be self confident. I was very self conscious, worried... and ANGRY (like in some 3rd class comic book villain). I never knew this would bring up so many thoughts. Hah. Oh, and side note, I hate having my pictures taken, in fear that I would look ugly, let along post them. So that's quite a change now !!! It's crazy but it was a relief when I got to wipe it off with a make up remover. A few heavy swipes and it was gone. It must be so much harder for those whose marks don't wipe off. I feel this has changed my perspective towards some people. Sometimes it's harder than it seems to be different. And this was a kind of difference I had never experienced as an adult. Ironically my eyes got swollen up because of some pollens the next day and I was quite upset (LOL). 

Confession, I still feel bad when I go out if I feel I'm not good looking enough. I feel terrible if I'm convinced I'm ugly that day. So it was a very interesting experiment. Yes, I am less obsessed about my looks (not to mention I thought I looked terrible until the end of my teens and only learned to fit in at college) but it turns out I still value it. It was interesting to find out that I care so much about looks, which I think I need to be careful about. I want people to like me. Desperately, and yes, that's pretty embarrassing ! I want to conceal my difference by being reasonably good looking in an anonymous setting, and by being smart and funny amongst friends. I used to boast about the fact that I am quadrilingual in unfamiliar social settings when people asked how come I knew Turkish, which I now find funny. As I grow up and get the hang of what they call adulthood, things are better though. Kindness is more valued, which I think is a rarely found "virtue" nowadays. So there's my experience. I hope this wasn't a too long post. I think I got everything off my chest. That's what blogs are for right?