Syria

the land of Assad We flew from Tehran to Damascus on January 3, 2003. My first impression: Hafez Assad (father, died in 2000) and Bashar Assad (son, current president) portraits everywhere, probably more than the Khomeini pictures in Iran. Either they are dictators or people really love them. I'm guessing the former is more likely to be true.

Syria is a lot more relaxed about women's dress code than Iran. There doesn't seem to be any government imposed rules, but most women still dress in hejab. One thing we all noticed is that women are a lot less visible in Syria. In Iran, 50% of the people in the streets are women. In Syria, the ratio is about 80% men, 20% women. I'm guessing the really conservative ones don't leave their houses very much. In Tehran, about 25% of the private cars are driven by women. In Syria, I saw exactly one female driver the whole time I was there.

Hammam: In Aleppo, I decided to try a Turkish bath at a famous hammam (Arabic for bath house) highly recommended by a friend. This hammam was originally constructed in 1491 and was restored recently. The inside is decorated in traditional Syrian style and is truly a work of art. Men and women are admitted at different times. People come here mainly to socialize and have parties. When I got there, one party just got started. The group had the food all spread out and was singing and cheering pretty loudly. Occasionally one would get up and dance. No one was dressed. Most of them were wrapped in nothing but a towel. After four weeks of seeing women in scarves, magnaes, coats, chadors, abeyyas, veils, and masks, I was a bit overwhelmed by the sight of 30 or 40 of women running around half naked.

I bought the whole package - massage, rub down, soap, towel and tea. The bath lady worked on me for about half an hour. She lathered and scrubbed me all over, then massaged my back. After she rinsed me clean, she gave me a kiss on the cheek and told me it was done. When I got out of the bath, a cup of tea was already waiting for me in the resting room. My first Turkish bath experience was awesome.

"Kwayyis:" I don't know the right terminology, so I made up my own. Veiled means a woman covers her face from nose down so only her eyes are showing. Curtained means she has a piece of thin cloth draped over her face so nothing is showing. Curtained women are the most conservative and are not seen very often in Syria. Iranians are never veiled or curtained.

I took an evening bus from Aleppo to Hama to meet my friends. There are usually only one or two other female passengers on the bus, but this time I was surrounded by four curtained women. The guy who was with them looked and dressed like a Quaker. I thought for certain that the four women were his four wives. Later I found out they were his wife, sister, mother and sister-in-law. After he introduced the women to me, he pointed to his mother said: "115 kilograms, very heavy." I tried not to laugh out loud. Why was he telling me this? Was that why she was wearing a hood? I felt compelled to show some respect, so I pulled out my scarf and put it on discretely. The woman sitting next to me leaned over and said: "Kwayyis" (means good in Arabic). I was amazed that she was actually paying attention to what I was doing AND she could see through her "curtain" in the dark. I got the approval from the curtained woman. COOL!

During the two hours on the bus, she counted her rosary beads and murmured some words. I asked her what she was saying, and she told me about the 99 names of Allah. For example, repeating al Salam (the Peace) 160 times to a sick person helps him/her regain health, and repeating al Qadir (the One with Authority) 100 times after offering two Rak'aat Salaah will cause one's enemies to be humbled and disgraced. I wanted to ask her which one I should say to put a curse on the chain-smokers sitting in the back of the bus, but didn't know how to phrase the question in Arabic - probably a good thing. :)

There are a lot of heavy smokers in Syria and Jordan. Having lived in California for the past 14 years, I've grown more and more intolerant toward cigarette smoking. Smoking, along with traffic and pollution, made up the top three annoyances (all pretty minor) on this trip. I don't remember seeing women smoke in public. The face veil presents a logistical problem. I have seen plenty of women smoke in their homes.

For female tourists, Syria is probably easier to visit than Iran. Palmyra, Aleppo and Damascus have some cool sites, but not as impressive as Persepolis or Esfahan in Iran.

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