Thursday, March 29, 2018

Secret Asian Man: Hammam Amman and on and on


Caution: The following contains graphic descriptions of a grown man having a bath. You’ve been warned.

S.A.M. doesn’t ordinarily go in for massages. Or spa treatments. I've come around to foot massages, but the rest is outside my comfort zone. A Turkish bath, though, has been on my list of things to write about since arriving.

The proposal came in an email from a friend.

“Hey! Was wandering around the Souk and found a Hammam or Turkish bath. One review said it may be the oldest in Amman. It could be sketchy, it could be great. Are you in? “

Spouseless and bored, why not? We made plans for the following day and headed down to the Souk area. Amman's oldest area in the shadow of the Citadel and old Roman amphitheater.

Relying on memory, directions from strangers and a ferreting sense of manly moisture, we found the place. Down some crumbling steps and then down some rickety stairs to where street level must have been hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

The front door is open. Green carpet covers the floor. Several men sit around talking and smoking. A soccer game is on one tv.  Arabic news on another. Pictures of Mecca and, maybe, Khadijah cover the walls. Another man is napping in the corner. It's humid. There are plastic plants. This must be the place.

Mid-sentence, the man behind the desk calls into the back. Two men appear. Turns out they're from Iraq. I didn't get their names. I imagine that the must have real names and Hammam names. In my head, I name them Usay and Uday.

Usay speaks better English. He shows us around. Translate the Arabic price list. Steam, sauna, bath. The works.  Let's do this.

We head through the laundry area to the locker area. We're given a locker and lock. “Put everything here. Money, phone, clothes.”

A man changing next to us speaks English very well.  He emphasizes  “Yes. Put everything away.  Everything.”

Wrapped in a bit of a bed sheet, and broken flip-flops we're led on in. A shower first. A couple of buckets of hot water dumped over head. Then on to the steam room. A 6x10 foot cell with steam so thick and hot, the presence of others is revealed only by voice.

15 minutes in, I remember that my toast and coffee breakfast was 9 hours ago and I've had nothing to eat or drink since.  The steam seems to get thicker. I excuse myself.

“Haha, you can be the guinea pig!” Shouts my friend as I slip out early.

I was hoping for a breath of air, but Uday is waiting for me, now dressed in a bed sheet. He points at me with a finger and beckons me into a stall. Marble slab along one wall. He pats his hand on it. “Up!” I climb on

Scalding water washes over me. I might have shrieked. “Sorry!” He cooled the water immeasurably.  

Then the Brillo.  Starting with my feet and working up. Every square inch of me is scrubbed with what feels like a Brillo pad. “Ew!”  I hear

A little higher.  “Ugh!” he exclaims. I wonder if this is a normal service. Making customers feel dirty. A couple more utterances. He takes my hand and pulls it back and slaps it on my thighs. “Touch here!”  My rump.  “Touch here!  See this?  This is all skin!

Paraphrasing. “When's the last time you washed?! Did you scrub?”

“You know, I've never done this before.”

He nods in such a way as to say this is obvious.  “You should do this every month! Keeps the skin off!”

Scalding water rinse and then I flip over.  Repeat. My nipples must look like dead skin. They're thoroughly rubbed raw.

Prone again. I'm rinsed. While rinsing, Uday hands me two packages.  “Open these!  My hands are wet.”  He douches me with another few gallons of water. My own filth washes by. I start to laugh. One package is a cheese cloth. The other, an Arab variety of lifebuoy soap. Smells pleasant enough.  

He snatches them from my own wet hands and the sudsing begins. I don't know if it's the soap, or the cloth or the magic, but gallons of foam ensues. From my pinky toes to my skull I'm scrubbed and lathered. There's a rubdown, as well. Bending, massaging.

My head pulls up a nervous song to play a long “The ankle bone connected to the leg bone, the leg bone connected to,the thigh bone…”.

The soapy cloth reaches my soapy ass. “Massage here?”

I clench. “Uh, no”

“What?”

“No, thank you!”

“Ok, ok, ok.”

You know, I’m Glad he asked. I'm not sure anyone back home would be kind enough to ask.  Ok. I'm pretty sure no one back home would strip down to matching bed sheets and massage another stranger on a marble slab. I could be wrong.

Sitting upright now. Uday picks up the bar of lifebuoy and proceeds to lather up the top of my head. Foam again ensues. He starts scrubbing my forehead, then my cheeks.  Then nose. Then eyes. My God the eyes. I have no idea why, but my eyes must have been extra dirty, for he scrubbed and scrubbed. I felt thumbs in my eye sockets massaging suds into them.

“ow, Ow, OW!”

“Relax, relax!”  

“I can't! It hurts!”

“Ok, ok, ok.”

Laying back down the sudsing and massage continues. Wanna know something that hurts?  Soaping up your freshly abraided nipples. Yep, he did.

He raises my arm and scrubs the side of my chest. I'm regaining my sight now.  He tweaks a few of my underarm hairs.

Again, “Ow!”

“Why you don't shave here or…? “ he glances at the bed sheet wadded over my junk.

“It's just something I don't do.”

“You want shave?”, he asks.

“What? My armpits?” There is one dim flourescent light. It's damp and you can’t open a pack of soap.  You think a razor is a good idea?  “No, thank you.”

“You want hair remove creme?”

A double no thank you, very much.

He shrugs and goes back to sudsing.  “You should.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes. It's cooler in the heat.”

“Really?” I think, what's your data to support that. I'm really skeptical.  (Stayed tune dear reader for an upcoming blog where I shave one armpit and compare heat perception.)

And another thing, Uday! You can't hide anything in your bed sheet. You've got a super hairy chest and back, how does that make any sense? Cooler in the heat! Pshaw! I say!

A final rinse off with progressively cooler water then he sends me off to the steam room.

I cycle in and out of the steam room waiting for my friends turn, in a state of semi-shock, semi-pain, semi-relaxed.  In the waiting area, other men smoke cigarettes furiously. Of course, we’re in Jordan. Some sing songs. Talk shop. Talk geo-politics.

Three hours after we walked in, we're through. We change and head out. The guy who was napping is now saying his prayers in the corner. We settle up. 15 bucks a piece.

I try and figure out a tip. Any feminine vestiges have nearly been removed. I’m no longer a filthy pig, at least for a month. My eye sockets have been scrubbed. I once was blind, but now I see.  I'm still too hairy. It must be worth 20% for the experience alone.

Would I try it again?  I might. I might even spring for a higher quality place with a softer Brillo pad.



P.S.  If you've not been in a while, venture over to notsosecret3.blogspot.com for some interesting questions.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Secret Asian Man- Six Dollar Hookah


My wife left me.

Took the car. Left the dog.  For the weekend.

Hence, in a curious turn, S.A.M was left at home for the first time in a long time. Having been in the Midwest where temps were just above frigid, I returned to a beautiful spring in Amman. Positively gorgeous. 75 degrees and still. The days are getting longer. It's warm. People are out in the evening strolling. It’s a great time to be in Jordan

I decided to plunge down the rabbit hole and seek out a hookah.

There’s a place I've been eyeing for a while. An outdoor place, chosen because I’m not too keen on second hand smoke. Nice garden setting. Terraced overlooking a pedestrian street. They offer food and sweet drinks, hot and cold. And ice cream.

Hookah bars or shisha lounges are big, big, big here. There are very few alcohol bars, but hubbly bubbly joints are everywhere. Everyone needs a place to socialize.

Even the donut shop offers tobacco water pipes. If you think you can imagine a worse flavor combination, I bet you can't. But, they offer it.

You can have pipes delivered to your house. For a fee, a van full of hookahs will drop a couple off at your house along with all the fixings, and pick it all up the next morning. Uber Smokes.

It's never called a bong though. Or at least that I've seen. But that's what it is. A three foot ornately curved glass bong with water in the bottom and a three foot plastic hose.

There's a tray at top to catch the ashes. A funnel-like bowl holds the tobacco, covered with tin foil punched with holes. Red hot coals are placed on top. Everyone gets a clean hose. A single use plastic nightmare.

And then one sits. And puffs in and out.  One person per pipe.

A charcoal tender circulates A little canister of hot coal swinging from one hand. Clicking his tongs-clickety, clickety, click.  Warning you he’s coming through. Replacing charcoal and cleaning up ash.

The tobacco is unlike cigarettes tobacco. It's not finely chopped and dried, but rather shredded and soaked in honey or molasses and other flavors. It looks like darkened coleslaw. Apple is the most popular. But there is grape and mint and a variety of combos. 

I chose watermelon and mint combo. It is surprisingly refreshing.

On a busy night, the lounge is a forest of pipes topped with hot coals. There are children about. Some running, some toddling. It's a family affair. And a huge safety risk, but I guess that's how one knows one’s in Jordan. They must learn from an early age how to avoid the red hot coals at eye level.
Note: 4 Red hot pipes in view



It's funny, but shisha is a majority female thing here. Men do it, but shisha lounges are usually majority female. There are some mixed crowds, but usually women sit with women and men with men. The men smoke the majority of cigarettes in Jordan. The women smoke the argeelah. The charcoal tenders give the women the small pieces of coal, so they need changed more frequently. Vintage guys,like me, get large hunks. Haven't seen my guy much

The health benefits, of course, are nil.  Cigarette packs are all plastered with warnings like they are in many countries, but not pipe tobacco. It's marketed more like dessert. Exotic pictures of fruit and herbs.




A local pulmonologist estimated that one shisha session of a couple of hours is the equivalent of smoking 60 regular cigarettes. The myth is that the water filters the bad toxins, but this is just that. With no filter, one gets all the toxins along with all that flavor. 

But, on a warm spring evening with nothing else to do, 6 bucks gets you hours of conversation. Or contemplation. Passing the time like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.

“Who...burble, burble…. are…. burble, burble. …. you…. burble,burble, burble?”



CODA:  3 hours after my 3 hour shisha session, my otherwise jet-lagged and fatigued body is absolutely amped from the nicotine equivalent of 3 packs of cigarettes. Every nicotine receptor in this non-smokers body is positively crackling! Formication is about to set in.

There is a tinge of regret.  It tastes remarkably like watermelon mint and pizza.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Blink of an Eye



I was turning five or six and waiting for my birthday party to start. I remember watching the clock proceed glacially toward 1 pm. Staring.  Closing my eyes. Staring. Groaning when the hands hand only advance a few seconds. It was interminable. Seconds, minutes, days. They lasted forever.

Decades later, I meet up with a friend.

We celebrate birthdays twice a year with a drink- a limoncello frizzante. Can't quite recall how it started. It was a fancy drink and we pretended we were movie stars. I was Danny and she was George. Or was I George and she was Danny. It was a tasty way to mark the years.

Now we gather when we can. Birthdays, now, are a figment.

And then this week we sat down to figure out how long we’d been marking. The bartender, the one we’d nicknamed Deputy Dog, had been there for 11 years. The Limoncello Frizzante had been off the menu for 5. We’d met to talk of frustration and pride in our children and grieve out losses. Surely, it couldn't  be more than 5 years.  Was it 8?  Nay, 10 years?! 

Spring break 1987. Before the internet.  Before the proliferation of travel books. We loaded up the car, grabbed a map and headed south. Making our plans along the way. We'd camp in the Everglades. We'd drive down and explore the Keys each day.  No problem. 






Note to others, this is stupid. It's hundreds of miles. By the time you reach the end, it's time to come home. But we made it then, in time to play lacrosse on the beach and rinse off in the rain and have a drink at Captain Tony’s. Before driving back.



31 years onward, we reunite on Key West. “Welcome Spring Breakers” crow the signs.

'Tis the season for flip flops and reggae. Captain Tony's is still going strong. Thousands more dollar bills tacked to the wall. This has to be some sorry of fire code violation, right?

A young musician (Sharese Nicole) with the voice of an angel. Just started playing music in bars. Tied off madras shirt, cut-offs and mirrored sunglasses. She tunes and adjusts her capo. She takes a request for some Pearl Jam.  

She squeaks, “I learned the words to this song in my car seat!”

My God. Where has the time gone. We miss most of the new wave of spring breakers who are likely just waking for the day. We're home in bed by 11:30, destined to wake once or twice to the toilet.

That clock, so glacial when I was a kid, leaps ahead. Each blink a mile marker. A birthday. A limoncello.  

Tick, tick, tick. 20 drinks becomes a decade. And “Boom” someone's grandkid is crooning out Pearl Jam or some other golden oldie.






Thursday, March 8, 2018

Secret Asian Man-There Are Better Ways To Die Than With A Needle To Your Neck


I am a bit of a hoarder.  I like things that are useful. I like to be prepared.  So, when I go to fancy hotels and they have free toiletries, I take some.  

My favorite are sewing kits. They are incredibly useful.  You never know when you might need to sew on a button, fix a hole, darn some socks. There is a tiny box with a couple buttons, a variety of thread pre strung onto needles. When I find one, I chuck into my baggage, to be ready for a fashion disaster. In my carryon there are multiple sewing kits rattling around at any one time.

Flying in the world has become more and more of an ordeal. Nowhere more so than Jordan. Because of its proximity to people who don’t like us, Jordanian flights to the US must undergo extra scrutiny.  For a short time, laptops and Ipads were banned carry-on items. Then, under threat of losing all flights to the US, they had to promise to be extra careful with flights headed directly there. 

So, they did.

Now, after you’ve had your bag scanned at the entrance to the airport, and after you have your bag scanned to get through normal airport security, one must line up and have all your bags hand searched by real-live people.  Men are searched by men. Women are searched by women. It easily adds an hour to the boarding process. They’ve walled off one section of the airport just for these American flights and their searches.

I’ve flown to the U.S. three times now recently.  I go extra early.  I stand in line. I get my belongings rifled through. Each time, they open my bag, pocket by pocket. And each time they pull out my sewing kits and give me a finger wag and throw them in the trash.  

This latest time, I laughed and said, “For sewing” mimicking sewing on a button.  They just shook their head. One of the guys took his finger and poked it into his neck.  

“Really?!”  He smiled and shrugged, all the while overlooking the following…

my eyeglass repair kit
a rubber-tipped dental pick
a mirror, a razor
a charging block
a cord
nail clippers
wire rim glasses
keys

I believe I would have a better chance of beating one to death with my Ipad than killing someone with a needle to the neck. Breaking off a piece of glass and shimming in betweens someone’s ribs.  

But took the needles they did.

You may be shivved, stabbed, bludgeoned or strangled, but be rest assured, America, your necks will not suffer the tiny pricks of terrorists.  Thanks Al Qaeda!

Friday, March 2, 2018

Secret Asian Man: Speaking of School Safety.

Spawn of S.A.M graduated from an undisclosed school in Asia. It was a beautiful campus for 2000 kids or so. Rooftop water garden, covered amphitheater, snack bars, a couple sports fields, smoothie bar.

It was also a fortress. It's not just schools. Cars are searched before entering most shopping malls.  Metal detectors and frisking takes place at all the doors. Even IKEA!  Who hates the Swedes for God’s sake?

The school grounds had 20 foot fencing surrounded the place.  Topped with razor wire or spikes. There were two entrances for cars and people. Every car was searched on entry. Trunks were opened, mirrors were thrust underneath. Each and every car. Large metal gates and barriers raised and lowered all day long.

Classroom doors were all rated to stop an AK-47 round.  Whether they would stop two rounds was another question.

They painted the walls with bright colors and positive affirmations to disguise the fact that they were walls.

Guards were posted by the score at the entrance. Each equipped with a panic button. A few had guns. They all smiled at the kids. Maybe that was part of the training. Maybe the kids were just funny.

No one got in without a photo ID. There were checkpoints within the school. Cameras were pervasive. It would be hard to find a blind spot there.

Guns were restricted as they are in most countries. Getting a paintball gun required a permit. There were always more guards than the capacity of a magazine, in the hope that the last one standing could hit the panic button.

Prior to spawn’s attendance; someone did toss a grenade or pipe bomb over the wall one day. No one was hurt. They raised the wall by a foot or two.

That's how they harden schools abroad. It's a huge infrastructure investment . It's a huge labor cost.  One might even call it a jobs program.

“What's your profession?”  

“I'm a doorman and a target.”

How hard should the walls and doors be?  How many bullet stoppers can we afford?  
   

Schools can be protected. If there are no limits to resources, then the walls can be as high as you want them to be and the guards can out number the bullets. But if there are limits...