With us fasting[20] is more strict than it is in the West. From sunrise to sunset, no one would dare to touch a mouthful of food or even smoke.
When we are lucky enough to have Ramazan during the winter months the fasting hours are shorter, but when it comes in the month of August “Believers” have to fast for sixteen hours, and the labourers suffer much in consequence.
Imagine how long a soirée can be, when you begin dinner at half-past four! What must we not think of to amuse our guests, for no one dines alone! The Oriental hospitality demands that every evening friends should assemble, and acquaintances come without even letting you know. When people are known to be rich, the poor and complete strangers come to them to dinner. I remember being at one house which was filled to overflowing with women of all classes, most of whom had never before even seen the hostess.
At the Palaces a special door is built, through which anyone who wants to dine can enter, and after the meal money is distributed. You can understand while this patriarchal system exists there is no reason for the poor to envy the rich. Turkey is the only country in Europe which in this respect lives according to Christ’s teaching, but no doubt in the march of progress all these beautiful customs will disappear.
I have often thought when in a Western drawing-room, where one stays a few minutes, and eats perhaps a sandwich, how different are our receptions in the East. We meet without being invited, talk till late in the night, and a proper supper is served.
It surprises me, too, in the West to meet such poor linguists. In Turkey it is quite usual to hear discussions going on in five European languages without one foreigner being present.
Wait till you have taken part in some of these Ramazan gatherings, and have seen what hospitality really is, then you will understand my rather slighting remarks about your Western society.
*****
I am constantly being asked how a Turkish woman amuses herself. I have a stock answer ready: “That depends on what you call amusement.”
It sounds futile to have to remind my questioners that amusement is a relative quality, and depends entirely on one’s personal tastes. The Spaniards are mad with delight at the sight of a bull-fight—to me it was disgusting; and yet, probably, were those bull-fights to take place in Turkey, I should enjoy them. We used to have in the country exhibitions of wrestling at which whole families were present. Travelling circuses were also a favourite amusement, but during the last years of Hamid’s reign Turkish women have been forbidden the pleasures of going to a travelling theatre and Karakheuz, the most appreciated of all the Eastern amusements.