Things change over distance. Except in extreme cases (such as along the German border during the cold war) cultures fuse from one to another rather than change abruptly at a line. Its akin to the geographic changes, mountains rarely border flat land; they border foothills, and then rolling hills, and then come the flatlands.
Take for example, I don’t know why, but a Brooklyn accent. A person who grew up outside the Brooklyn City line by thirty feet will still have a Brooklyn accent even though they did not technically grow up in Brooklyn. After all, it is just an arbitrary line.
All matters of culture are this way. In traveling extensively, I have had the privilege to see the strange mergers and transitions.
For example, Turkey despite being over ninety percent Islamic, uses Latin script not Arabic. There simply cannot be a line in the sand where European culture ends and Islamic begins. There must be a bridge, and that is Turkey, nestled between Europe and Middle East with cultural aspects taken from both.
I bring this up for Tunisia. This strange merging was clear in Tunisia. Tunisia is in North Africa and is very much culturally confused. It is for all intents and purposes a culturally Middle Eastern country. It has a traditional Middle Eastern medina, which is a twisted maze of narrow alleys serving as the market place with vendors in all its nooks. I was there during Ramadan so, in keeping with Islamic tradition, no eateries were open. On the other hand, the nooks sold Nikes and clothing like what you would find at any American shop targeted at teenage girls. The newspaper stands sold Cadbury chocolate. Little kids, both boys and girls ran around in school uniforms. And most striking, the county speaks French!
It is very strange to be in a middle-eastern style bazaar (shopping district)where you are being hostilely solicited to purchase things, in customary Middle Eastern fashion...
Except the solicition is IN FRENCH!!!
(It was a French protectorate for 75 years).
That is just so wrong in my mind I can hardly handle it. It is kind of like, if you can imagine, going to a baseball game where all the chanting and announcements are in German. The whole city was confused, with its European style streets and signs and cars driving through corridors where people are selling produce from boxes on the ground.
It was clearly a city with a split personality between European and Middle Eastern.
In the Middle Eastern/European blend also found in Turkey, women dressed conservatively. Shirts covered all the way to women’s wrists and very rarely did collar deviate from the neck line. But as in Turkey, I wore a knee length skirt and a t-shirt without any notice from the local people. One of the most endearing thing I noticed was the teenage girls. Remember how I said that the some clothing in the medina resembled any western style clothing store. Well western style teenage girl clothing has a ridiculous level of emphasis on cleavage and is remarkably revealing. This does not fall into the acceptable realm of Middle Eastern/European conservative blend. So the girls just layer up. They where all the crazy styles found in Wet Seal and other western clothing stores… but in layers such that they conform to Middle Eastern/European conservative dress standards. I found this to be endearing. Teenage girls are teenage girls. It is still all about the clothes.
Anyway, once of its amazing charms was its infatuation with ornate doors. I mean the door were out of control.
The small circular black points are rounded head bolts. Then you will notice two symetrical round knockers toward the top of the door. The lower looking asymmetrical knocker is a door knob. It will be clearer below.
This one has a couple mail slots.
This is a great illustration of how the doors were actually opened. All the doors in this shape had mini-doors. That is why there are offset knobs. This one also has a mail slot.
These two doors are kind of close up. The streets were so narrow; I could not get any further away. (I literally took these pictures by placing my camera against the opposing wall and myself standing beside the camera, not behind it.)
In this one you can kind of see the outline of the mini-door. The door is actually lopsided. It is a very old building. In this one, all the black accent points are rounded head bolts. (Having just painted my front door myself, perhaps inspired by these pictures, I cannot even begin to imagine what a pain in the ass painting a door around all those bolts in it is. It explains why in the photo above, the bolts are just painted over.)
Lastly, this door is a less common style because it is not rounded at the top. The similar tile work around the door though was fairly common.
And for reasons I never understood, they only came in blue and yellow.
There was also this stunning building. I have no idea what it was. Much like its schizophrenic linguistic cultural nature (French/Islamic), its buildings are likewise, with some very European and some very Islamic. This building in my mind is the perfect Middle Eastern building.
And finally mister swaby guy. He, and his friend who is not shown, were protecting some building. I know mister swaby did not grow up anywhere near the Punjabi region of India, but he none the less really reminded me of that guy, ‘Punjab,’ from the movie Anne.
So, I have some sort of fun homework for you. In your day ahead, consider the fusion of cultures you encounter. Traveling is fun, and I love it. But you don't have to go far to see the fusion of cultures. Traveling opens your eyes to it.
Personally, I am going to the California Pizza Kitchen for lunch where I can have a Kung Pao Pizza for lunch.
Cultural fusion is everywhere. Look in your own backyard and enjoy the charm.
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