More cultural mishaps in Azerbaijan

The past two days have been great examples of what NOT to do in Azerbaijan.
Yesterday I was having lunch at a, you guessed it, Turkish restaurant in Ganja with a friend of mine, her boyfriend (and they are NOT engaged!) and a mutual friend of theirs. It was all very pleasant and nice until the mutual friend started asking my friend about me in Azeri as if I wasn’t sitting at the table and couldn’t understand. This happens to me quite a lot, especially in taxis. Strangers see and hear that I am a foreigner and then start inquiring about me and my job to the people I am with as if I am not there and don’t understand Azeri. I find this extremely irritating, rude and in part dangerous because then I can’t control what information about myself is being spread about the country. It is normally harmless. People are naturally curious here because there are so few foreigners. The most frequent questions are 1. How old are you? 2. Are you married? 3. Why not? Etc. I’ve gotten used to those questions even though they get a bit bothersome, especially when the old women start pointing to their 43 year old sons and asking me to be their daughter-in-law (see blog on Azeri weddings). However for many people foreigners and especially English speakers are seen as a ticket out of here in some way either through a job, visa, English lessons and the like. Completely random people come to my office and beg me to help them get Visa’s to the United States, mother’s come with their wallets out telling me I have to teach their children English. “You must teach me English, how will you help me!’ are phrases that I have heard more than once as if people feel entitled to my knowledge or that I came here to be everyone’s private tutor. So its when questions start popping up about my job, where I live, and where do I get my money, that I start to get angry. Sometimes these questions really are just out of curiosity but I’ve learned to trust NO ONE here. I say I have friends but I don’t really. Everyone that I call my friend I’m 99 percent sure is only friends with me because they want something from me, not because they like me as a person.
Anyway, back to my story. So this guy begins asking my friend in Azeri about how I get my money to live on. I understand all of this and interrupt them and first of all ask them to please ask me directly if there are any questions that pertain to me. So he then asked me directly about where I get my money and I replied “its none of your business!” in not so friendly terms. This took everyone a bit by surprise and maybe I was a little harsh but I was already peeved at being talked about as if I wasn’t at the table and then to be asked about my money really ticked me off.
What ensued was a lengthy discussion about cultural differences, and I got a very long talking to about how my behavior was inappropriate and that I needed to observe the cultural norms here. This guy was just curious and it was wrong of me to respond so forcefully. It is normal for Azeris to ask each other these types of questions, earnings and money sources are public knowledge.
So then I got to thinking- am I trying to force my way of thinking and world view on them through my reactions? How do I stop from reacting that way? What is the proper way to respond?
The last thing I want to do is tell anyone here about the means by which I am staying here. It really is nobody’s business and for my own safety I really can’t tell anyone. I tried to explain all this and my friend understood but the guys didn’t. So I’m stuck. How much do I try to conform to cultural norms here without sacrificing my safety and peace of mind??

This all happened yesterday, which occupied my mind for quite a bit of the day and then today’s incident happened which although shorter, may have more negative lasting effects. At the school where my office is located there is a night watchman. He is about 60 years old or so. Its hard to tell age here because people look a lot older than they really are. On occasions where I have been working late he has come by office to chat. He brought me potato chips once and water another time. He seems harmless enough I think he just gets bored. I don’t work late enough for it really to cross my mind too much. Tonight he came into my office with a green onion stalk and offers it to me. Then he goes on about how he is cooking something with eggs and to come watch ( I think that is what he said at least, I have to admit that my Azeri has not progressed at the speed I would like- the problems with having a job that depends on English) . I tell him that I am leaving in 30 minutes. I keep working and forget about it. As I am leaving sometime later he waves me into the school’s kitchen. I just want to go home and I am tired but I don’t want to be rude so I go in and he has this whole little meal prepared and he asks me to sit and eat. I don’t want to because its just not customary for men and women to be alone together at night here. But again from my U.S. perspective it would be impolite not to oblige for a few minutes. And come on he’s 60 and he’s only ever been nice to me. So I eat- and it was pretty good. I was mostly impressed that I had actually witnessed an Azeri man actually cooking something. He offered me some beer that he had, I accepted- not wanting to seem an ungrateful guest. And we had a nice little meal together. Then I left for home a few minutes later but warning bells were ringing all around me. I relayed the whole thing to a ‘friend’ of mine (like I said I have no friends here) and he gave me another long lecture about all the cultural rules I had just broken.

As I’ve mentioned before. Most people here aren’t nice for the sake of being nice. They are nice because they want something from you. This is hard for me to get used to. People ask me sometimes- why are you helping people and not getting paid??? Doing something for someone without some sort of reward or favor in return is almost unheard of. So the night watchman has been slowly doing little nice things for me with the future expectation of some sort of payment in return… The fact that I drank beer does not help my situation because women who drink beer here are not looked highly upon. What’s even worse is that I drank during Ramadan! This all sends the wrong signals to him about my character and my intentions. So I’ve got a bit of a situation on my hands but I will talk to the school director and someone will talk to him. I will also no longer be working late anymore. I’m just pissed off at myself for not seeing though it, even though I kind of suspected. I’ve just been brought up to avoid conflict but here in order for people/esp. men to get the message I have to be much more forceful. I am very wary of younger men but I think old men shouldn’t be bothersome but again I’m wrong. I’ve talked to my host family and they will go and talk to him and tell him not to bother me. I’ve also bought a lock for the inside of my office.

Ganja Part II

In reflecting upon my first entry about Ganja I realized that I had painted a very inaccurate picture of the town I live in. While I described many of the beautiful sites and monuments that Ganja has, I neglected to add the things that Ganja does NOT have which is actually more telling of the city's character.

In this city of over 300,000 there is not one McDonalds. This is the first time in my life that I have not lived within 10 miles of the Golden Arches. When I first realized this a few months ago I was overjoyed. I had finally escaped the clutches of Ronald and his gang of hamburglers. But after experiencing public restrooms in Azerbaijan and more importantly lack of public restrooms I realized the advantages to having a McDonalds in every town with a population greater than 5,000. It is the one place in this country that has clean, western toilets, with toilet paper and soap to wash your hands. I'm almost ashamed to admit it but whenever I go to Baku on the bus the first thing I do when I arrive is go to McDonalds to use the bathroom.

There are also no other chain restaurants- no Applebee’s, Pizza Hut etc. In fact for a town this size there are very few restaurants at all, which is of course indicative of the culture. People do not eat out because its expensive and can’t afford to. What is interesting is that almost all of the restaurants are Turkish. There are some that offer traditional Azeri cuisine but there are no food choices outside of these two realms. I think this is directly related to the fact that there is very little cultural/ethnic diversity here. Not a lot of foreign faces walking around. I think they can be counted without taking my shoes off. So this is a factor in the limited variety of eateries. I would LOVE a vegetable fajita and a strawberry margarita right about now!

Along the same lines Ganja has no WalMart or Home Depot or Kohls or Target or Best Buy etc. There are no chain stores anywhere!!! The only ‘chains’ I have seen thus far are the Azercell cell phone stores and the Azpetrol gas stations. All products are sold from private vendors. However- like a chain there is very limited selection and variety at the individual shops. At the Bazaar, where I do my clothes shopping there are many small booths/shops/vendors but they all have about the same thing. Its very hard to find unique clothes here as usually at least 10 other people have the same outfit but nobody cares which is nice. Although there is a lot of emphasis placed on outward appearances, even more so than in Germany, clothing fashion is not a great concern. But again fashion is relative and depends on your perspective. What is fashionable to one person is not to the other and I have to admit that I fall under the NOT category. I’ve had my mother ship over all my winter clothes so that I don’t have to buy new clothes that I won’t like at the Bazaar. I feel like a snob, and I should embrace the culture more but I have my limits. My tastes are just a bit simpler than most here.

There are also no operational movie theatres. During the soviet era there were quite a few cinemas but they have since been abandoned or turned into shooting ranges. When I ask why, most people have told me that it is because men and women should not be alone together in the dark. Well, duh, that’s what movie theatres are for, isn’t it? No, just kidding. The policing of people’s personalize lives is really overbearing at times. However there are many places where one can rent and buy movies, so you can watch all you want just not in public.

You might also assume that if there are no movie theatres than there must be any dance clubs or bars. However there are actually a few such social gathering places but only for men. Women do frequent these places but its to earn their living because either their husbands have died or left them and they have no education or any other means of supporting themselves and any children they may have.

So there is quite a limit on the available social activities for me here so I work a lot, but that is rewarding, too.