Sweet surprise today: Amy Alipio, one of my National Geographic Traveler editors, recommending Expat Harem for #TripLit, a Thursday travel reading event on Twitter. 
Talking To Intel Free Press About Early Adopters Of Tech In Turkey
"Turkey is a very young society, I told reporter Ken Kaplan in an interview for Intel Free Press for his article "Turkey Bets on Tech, Youth to Grow Economy". "One early adopter can get a group or whole family into a new thing almost overnight," which drives quick adoption of computers, smartphones and Facebook.
Sucker Punch Time Zone
With the ambient awareness of social media, my Istanbul time zone (GMT/UTC +3) was ideally civilized for global interaction. That time zone made me feel competent. I could be dressed, caffeinated, fed and through all my emails before urbane London came online. Yes, I missed happenings in Asia, but I could catch up on the headlines and communicate with foodies and expats and culturalists in the Far East.
Then I'd be at my afternoon best when New York and the East Coast appeared, ready to Twitter-attend their conferences and swoop into their conversations with a European knowing.
I'd be a well-oiled social being at night when early morning California finally showed up, including my editors at the publishing house and family.
The converse was not true, however. When my a.m. Twitter path crossed California, I had out-of-sync exchanges with late-night LA snark which I invariably misread with early morning earnest. No longer. Had to unfollow since who wants to build new relationships on chronic misunderstandings?
Now that I'm back in California (UTC-7) I can't believe how late and lazy and slow the time zone makes me feel.
I marvel at how people from here don't seem to notice the world spun without them. I was once one of these people.
I sense I've missed the day. I've overslept my life. Like a particularly undignified Groundhog Day, I awake to a worldwide sucker punch.
Friends and colleagues in NYC are already well into their conferences and commentary on the day's news, and soon enough they're unwinding with cocktails when I'm needing an afternoon coffee.
By the time I start firing on all cylinders, the world has slipped into a long night.
The empty expanse of the Pacific's never been more palpable since my awareness has become global, and real-time.
Time zones were created to organize the activities of a geographical region. For those of us operating globally, with friends, family, colleagues and other parties of interest scattered around the globe, and with a way to be ambiently aware of them, there is no longer a time zone for social (and work) purposes.
Expatriates Are Experts In Resilience
A few excerpts from interviews I've given and articles I've written:
Being an expatriate, you’re naturally a person in transition.
Your worst days can leave you feeling unmoored and alienated. Your best days bring a sense of your agile nature and the qualities that make you unique from the people who surround you and the people back home.
Working toward an understanding of what it will take for you to feel your best in your environment I think is extremely worthwhile. Your answers perfectly define you and the more closely they are incorporated into your business plans the better chance you have of career success abroad.
After five years in Malaysia and 8.5 in Turkey, I've made the limbo state of expatriatism (not belonging to your surroundings but having to navigate them in culturally appropriate ways AND honor the truth of who you are at the same time) a strength instead of a weakness.
With my career disrupted by international relocations and watching the traditional media business being disrupted by digital and social media, my particular m.o. has evolved into gate jumping. That’s a combination of reaction to obstacles in my environments, and a commitment to not be hindered by “what is”.
Gate jumping can work for expats of all kinds.
Here’s how I do it: Fearlessly operating without borders instead of accepting my off-the-grid, situation-mismatch as a paralyzing disadvantage.
Time zones, language barriers, geographical distances, old-school thinking and collapse in my industries of media and entertainment, these things don't stop me.
Being an early adopter of Twitter, I use it for continuing education like virtually attending conferences and entering high level discussions in my topics of interest, to networking and meeting my peers around the world.
One of the reasons I founded GlobalNiche.net is that I have noticed that the majority of expats disappear when they go abroad rather than come to local and international prominence through their expat lives as I have done.
Even fewer women expats accomplish this in Muslim countries or have managed to raise the voices of multiple other women in a country known for its censorship. See the details of this particular adventure in my piece The Accidental Anthologist.
I don't think any of this is easy to achieve. But I do think it's integral to surviving, and thriving.
+++
Linda Janssen has written a book on this topic called The Emotionally Resilient Expat. Jo Parfitt's Summertime Publishing is releasing it in 2013.
Cleopatra For A Day: Expat Beauty & Fashion
I’m still assimilating everything — and everywhere — I’ve experienced in terms of fashion and beauty, but here are a few thoughts.
This appeared in The Displaced Nation, March 19, 2012.
Continuing our feature, “Cleopatra for a Day,” we turn to Anastasia Ashman, an American whose love of the exotic led her to Southeast Asia (Malaysia) and Istanbul, Turkey to live (she also found a Turkish husband en route!). Having just moved back home to California, Ashman opens her little black book and spills the fashion and beauty secrets she has collected over three decades of pursuing a nomadic life.
BEAUTY STAPLES
Like Cleopatra, I’m into medicinal unguents and aromatic oils. My staples are lavender and tea tree oil for the tropical face rot you can get in hot, humid places — and for all other kinds of skin complaints, stress, headaches, jet lag, you name it — and Argan oil for skin dryness. I take them everywhere. I also spray lavender and sandalwood on my sheets.
When living in Southeast Asia I liked nutmeg oil to ward off mosquitoes. (I know that’s not beauty per se but bug-bitten is not an attractive look, and it’s just so heavenly smelling too, I suppose you can slather it on your legs and arms for no reason at all.)
I didn’t even have to go to Africa to become dependent on shea butter for lips and hands, and I like a big block of cocoa butter from the Egyptian Bazaar in Istanbul for après sun and gym smoothing — less greasy than shea butter, which I usually use at night.
I’m not really into branded products. When you move around it’s hard to keep stocking your favorite products and I find companies are always discontinuing the things I like so I’ve become mostly brand agnostic.
I just moved from Istanbul to San Francisco, and I got rid of almost everything I owned so I’m seeing what basics I can live with. Because to me, basics that do a wonderful, multifaceted job are the definition of luxury. You’ve got to figure out what those basics are for you.
Oh, and when I am in Paris, I buy perfume. Loved this tiny place in Le Marais that created scents from the plants on the island of Sardinia. And wouldn’t you know it, the second time I went they’d gone out of business. Crushing.
My favorite perfume maker in Paris at the moment — very intriguing perspective, lots of peppery notes and almost nicotiney pungencies — is L’Artisan Parfumeur. I’ve got my eye on their Fou d’Absinthe.
In another life, past or present, I know I was involved with perfume…
BEAUTY TREATMENTS
Believe Cleopatra would drink them dissolved in vinegar? In Malaysia I used to get capsules of crushed pearls from a Chinese herbalist down the street from my house — apparently they’re good for a creamy-textured skin.
I’ll take a facial in any country. I like Balinese aromatic oil massages when I can get them, too, and will take a bath filled with flowers if I’ve got a view of the jungle. Haven’t yet had my chance to do a buttermilk bath. I also do mud baths and hot springs where ever they’re offered, in volcanic areas of the world.
Another indispensable: the Turkish hamam. It’s really great for detoxification, relaxation and exfoliation. When living in Istanbul, I’d go at least once a season, and more often in the summer. It’s great to do with a clutch of friends. You draw out the poaching experience by socializing in the steamy room on heated marble benches, and take turns having your kese (scrub down) with a rough goat-hair mitt. You hire a woman who specializes in these scrubs, and then she massages you with a soapy air-filled cotton bag, and rinses you off like a mother cat washes her kitten.
Soap gets in the eyes, yes.
I own all the implements now, including hand-crocheted washcloths made with silverized cotton, knitted mitts, oil and laurel oil soaps, copper hamam bowls (for rinsing), linen pestemal (wraps or towels), and round pumice stones. (For haman supplies, try Dervis.com.)
DENTAL CARE
I’ve had dental work done in Malaysia and Turkey and was very satisfied with the level of care and the quality and modernity of the equipment and techniques. I got used to state-of-the-science under-the-gum-line laser cleanings in Malaysia (where my Taiwanese dentist was also an acupuncturist) and worry now that I am back to regular old ineffective cleanings. I’ve had horrific experiences in New York, by the way, so don’t see the USA as a place with better oral care standards.
In general, I like overkill when it comes to my teeth. I’ll see oral surgeons rather than dentists, and have my cleanings from dentists rather than oral hygienists.
ENHANCEMENTS
Turkey apparently has a lot of plastic surgery, as well as Lasik eye surgery. One thing to consider about cosmetic procedures is the local aesthetic and if it’s right for you. I didn’t appreciate the robot-like style of eyebrow shaping in Istanbul (with a squared-off center edge) — so I’d be extra wary of anything permanent!
HAIR
I’ve dyed my hair many colors — from black cherry in Asia to red to blonde in Turkey — and had it styled into ringlets and piled up like a princess and blown straight like an Afghan hound. That last one doesn’t work with my fine hair, and doing this style before an event on the Bosphorus would make it spring into a cotton candy-like formation before I’d had my first hors d’oeuvre.
I’ve had my hair cut by people who don’t know at all how to handle curly hair. That’s pretty daring.
I looked like a fluff ball for most of my time in Asia, because I tried to solve the heat and humidity problem with short hair and got tired of loading it up with products meant for thick straight Asian hair.
Now that I’ve relocated to San Francisco (which, even though it’s close to my hometown of Berkeley where I haven’t lived in 30 years, I still consider “a foreign country”), I’m having my hair cut by a gardener, who trims it dry, like a hedge. Having my hair cut by an untrained person with whatever scissors he can find is also pretty daring!
FASHION
On the fashion front, I have an addiction to pashmina-like shawls from Koza Han, the silk market in Bursa, the old capital of the Ottoman empire and a Silk Road stop. I can keep wearing them for years.
I also have a small collection of custom-made silk kebayas from Malaysia, the long, fitted jacket over a long sarong skirt on brightly hand-drawn and printed batik, which I pull out when I have to go to a State dinner and the dress code is formal/national dress. (It’s only happened once, at Malacañan Palace, in Manila!)
I have one very tightly fitting kebaya jacket that is laser-cut velvet in a midnight blue which I do not wear enough. Thanks for reminding me. I may have to take out the too-stiff shoulder pads.
LINGERIE
I like state-of-the-art stuff that does more than one thing at once and find most places sell very backward underthings that are more about how they look than how they fit, feel, or perform. Nonsense padded bras, bumpy lace, and stuff that is low on performance and high on things I don’t care about.
I got an exercise racerback bra at a Turkish shop and had to throw it away it was so scratchy and poorly performing. No wicking of sweat, no staying put, no motion control. But it had silver glittery thread — and (unnecessary) padding!
JEWELRY
I like most of the jewelry I’ve acquired abroad and am grateful to receive it as gifts, too. All of my pieces have some kind of story — and some attitude, too.
From Turkey: Evil-eye nazar boncuğu pieces in glass and porcelain; silk-stuffed caftan pendants from the Istanbul designer Shibu; Ottoman-style enameled pieces; and an opalized Hand of Fatima on an impossibly fine gold chain. This last piece is what all the stylish women in Istanbul are wearing at the moment.
From China: White pearls from Beijing, pink from Shanghai and purple from Shenyang.
From Malaysia: I got an tiny tin ingot in the shape of a turtle in Malacca, which I was told once served as currency in the Chinese community. I had it mounted in a gold setting and wear it from a thick satin choker.
From Holland: A recent acquisition from Amsterdam are gold and silver leather Lapland bracelets with hand-twinned pewter and silver thread and reindeer horn closures. They’re exquisite and rugged at the same time.
WEARING RIGHT NOW
Today’s a rainy day of errands so I’m wearing a fluffy, black cowl-necked sweater with exaggerated sleeves, brown heathered slacks, and black ankle boots. They’re all from New York, which is where I’ve done the most shopping in recent years.
My earrings are diamond and platinum pendants from Chicago in the 1940s, a gift from my grandmother.
I’ve also got on my platinum wedding and engagement rings. They’re from Mimi So in New York.
DAILY FASHION FIXES
I liked FashionTV in Turkey, which was owned by Demet Sabanci Cetindogan, the businesswoman who sponsored my Expat Harem book tour across America in 2006.
The segment of Turkish society interested in fashion is very fashion forward. I enjoyed being able to watch the runway shows and catch interviews with the designers.
If I could draw and sew I’d make all my own clothes but I am weak in these areas. In another life, when I get a thicker skin for the fashion world’s unpleasantries, I’ll devote myself to learning these things and have a career in fashion design.
STREET STYLE
In Istanbul, Nişantaşi is somewhere you’d see some real fashion victims limping along in their heels on the cobblestones and Istiklal Caddesi, the pedestrian boulevard in Beyoğlu, would be a place to see a million different looks from grungy college kids to young men on the prowl, with their too-long, pointy-toed shoes.
TOP BEAUTY/STYLE LESSONS FROM TRAVELS
In fact, I’m still assimilating everything — and everywhere — I’ve experienced in terms of fashion and beauty, but here are a few thoughts:
1) Layering: I learned from Turkish women to layer your jewelry and wear a ton of things at the same time. Coco Chanel would have a heart attack! But the idea is not to wear earrings, necklace, bracelet and rings all at once, but lots of necklaces or lots of bracelets or lots of rings at the same time.
2) Jewelry as beach accessory: During the summer Turkish wear lots of ropy beaded things on their wrists during a day at the beach — nothing too valuable (it’s the beach!) but attractive nonetheless. Jewelry stands feeding this seasonal obsession crop up at all the fashionable beach spots. Dangly charms and evil eyes and little golden figures on leather and paper ropes.
3) A little bling never hurts: I’ve also been influenced by the flashiness of Turkish culture, and actually own a BCBG track suit with sequined logos on it. This is the kind of thing my Turkish family and I would all wear on a plane or road trip. Comfortable and sporty, but not entirely unaware of being in public (and not at the gym). Coming from dressed-down Northern California, it was difficult to get used to being surrounded by glitzy branded tennis shoes and people wearing watches as jewelry, but I hope I’ve been able to take some of the better innovations away with me. I know I’m more likely to wear a glittery eye shadow now that I’ve lived in the Near East.
4) The need for sun protection: It was a shock to go from bronzed Los Angeles to can’t-get-any-paler Asia and then to the bronzed Mediterranean. In Asia I arrived with sun damage and then had lots of people helping me to fix it — I even used a parasol there. Then in Turkey everyone thought I was inexplicably pale and I let my sun protection regimen slip a bit. I’m back on the daily sunblock.
5) What colors to wear: I also used to get whiplash from trips back and forth between California and Southeast Asia in terms of color in clothing. In Malaysia the colors were vivid jewel tones — for the Malays and the Tamils especially. The louder the print, the better. Around the same time I was living in that part of the world, I witnessed a scuffle between shoppers at C.P. Shades in my hometown Berkeley, fighting over velvet granny skirts in moss, and mildew and wet cement colors. That kind of disconnect wreaks havoc on your wardrobe, and your sense of what looks good. Right now I’m trying to incorporate bright colors into my neutral urges. I’m still working it out.
My Interview With Asian Geographic Passport Magazine
This Singapore-based magazine with a worldwide distribution approached me for an interview about being an expat in Turkey for the February 2012 issue. Here are my answers:
Where are you from? What's your job? Could you tell me a bit about your background?
I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area in California, and have lived abroad for almost 15 years.
I was in Kuala Lumpur for five years in the ‘90s, where I learned some good lessons about what it takes to survive and thrive as an expat.
I drew on those realizations a lot during my time in Istanbul, and they inform much of the work I now do as the founder of GlobalNiche.net, a work-life initiative for cultural creatives, mobile progressives and other global souls.
When did you move to Turkey? What brought you to Turkey?
I moved with my Turkish-born husband in 2003 (and we relocated to San Francisco at the end of 2011.) But even before that, we chose an Ottoman palace in Istanbul as the site of our 2001 wedding. So maybe a stint living there was fated?
Could you speak a bit Turkish after living there for almost 10 years?
Yes. I took a month-long course at a language school when I first arrived, and then employed a private tutor a couple of years later to consolidate what I’d held on to and work on advancing my conversational skills.
I get along just fine with transport and shopping but since my work is English-language based and I’m not a linguist (I’ve studied 8 languages and am proficient in none!) my Turkish has never allowed me to express complex thoughts. I no longer agree to Turkish-only business meetings, and swore off Turkish language television appearances after it became clear that they didn’t work well for me.
I have been surrounded by only-Turkish conversation for untold hours, zoning in and out. Sometimes understanding perfectly, responding in English. Other times, lost!
It’s an agglutinative language -- meaning you keep adding endings and some words have 20 letters in them -- and the word order in a sentence is backwards to what I’m used to with English. You have to back into a sentence -- sometimes you never make it to the end. The funny thing is, people either say “Turkish is really easy, isn’t it?” or “Turkish is really hard, right?” and both groups are correct. Most Turks love to hear you try. There are conventional things to say which you can use a lot on a visit. Pick those up.
Which part of Turkey do you think remain pretty much untouched by mass tourism?
Anywhere off the beaten path.
You can even find this in Istanbul, where massive cruise ships dock and zillions of people get off and go to one or two spots.
I suggest you go down a back street, don’t stay in a tourist neighborhood if you can help it, don’t eat at restaurants with menus in English or other non-Turkish languages (or menus at all -- Turks don’t order from the menu, they ask what’s fresh, in season, special).
Try Beyoglu, or the Asian side of town. Try some walking tours to explore areas you might not find otherwise.
Head the opposite direction of crowds, you will find something. If you want to see a mosque choose one by master architect Mimar Sinan, not the one with the big line in front of it.
How would you spend your weekend in Turkey?
Walking along the Bosphorus Strait, eating and drinking with friends at all the cafes and restaurants and bars and clubs along Istiklal, the pedestrian street in the European quarter of Beyoglu. Museums, film festivals, nargile establishments, tea houses. For glitzier occasions, events at a multitude of ancient and antique locations that are now nightclubs and restaurants, concert venues and other hangouts.
How about your food experience? Apart from the traditional dishes like kebab, baklava, what is your favourite and where to try it?
Neither of those are favorites of mine -- in fact, there’s so much more depth in traditional Turkish cuisine than kebab and baklava.
Turkish food is the cuisine of a vast empire, after all. Lots of taste and ingredient influences, and many dishes perfected for the sultan. Try the stewed homestyle dishes made with olive oil (called “zeytinyagli”), the roasted lamb on a bed of eggplant pureed with cheese (“hunkar beyendi”), or a tangy okra stew.
With four different seacoastlines (Black Sea, Sea of Marmara, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean), Turks do great fish and seafood dishes. A spicy shrimp sauteed in butter and red pepper flakes...grilled octopus. Dreamy! If you visit during the turbot season in winter it’s worth going to a place that specializes in this huge, flat and spiky Black Sea fish.
Desserts:
I’ve been partial to the chewy lokum (what you may know as “Turkish delight”) since I was a child in California, with my recent favorite being the pomegranate lokum studded with pistachios. Malatya Pazari is a national chain that sells it.
Try the different milky puddings at Saray or other traditional restaurants, one even has chicken breast in it.
Basically I could talk about Turkish food all day and not mention kebab or baklava.
If you’re staying in the old town, go to Beyoglu to eat. Greasy bland tourist food is an awful waste of your palate. If you’re after a spicy kebab though, ask for the ground lamb Adana kebab from the Southeast of the country.
What are your favourite nooks and crannies or hidden retreats in Turkey?
I like the private waterside setting of Assk Cafe in Kurucesme, the wild surf around red-roofed Amasra, the archaeology museum in the grounds of the Topkapi Palace and the overlooked mosaic museum under the Arasta Bazaar -- which is where you can see the decor of Emperor Constantine’s palace. He’s the Roman who founded the Eastern Roman empire, and why the city became known as Constantinople.
Hidden retreats are everywhere but most recently I enjoyed a hotel at the top of Assos on the Aegean. If you stay there you can visit the Temple of Athena at sunset, when it’s deserted and the Doric columns are bathed in an orange light. Great for portrait photography.
Do you know anything about the working culture in Turkey?
Yes. I worked fulltime as a cultural writer and producer which means I worked solo but in collaboration with many individuals and organizations. I pitched, sold, edited and published two books with a major Turkish publisher. That’s the anthology Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey, and its Turkish translation, both in 2005.
I also wrote for Cornucopia, a magazine for international connoisseurs of Turkish culture published in Istanbul, as well as web consulting for Turkish companies. The work culture differs from my own personal work culture -- closely tracking along cultural differences, as you can imagine.
I suggest you learn as much as you can about Turkish culture if you’re interested in working in Turkey or with a Turkish company. It affects what people expect around deadlines and goals and standards and other basics like that.
It’s good to know what people mean when they say “yes”. Turkey is a Eurasian culture so it’s got a bit of the west and a lot of the east in it.
Is there any particular myths you heard most about Turkey? How much of it you found to be true?
All the cliches.
Wolfish rug dealers. Men in mustaches and tweed suit jackets. Coffee shops with no women present.
That’s all there, but that’s not all there is.
In fact, the reason those things are cliche is because the details in between the lines are missing. Who those people are, why they behave that way, where the women really are.
There’s a huge spectrum of Turkish society from the most rural and conservative to the most urban and secular, and a very young, forward-looking population. There are also deep traditions, an interdependent culture, and a multiethnic population. It’s an ancient place and a modern republic, its contradictions and tensions spring from the ground itself.
Overall, what do you think about Turkey in terms of a place for expats to work and live?
I think there are opportunities -- the Turkish economy is strong and has been only minorly affected by the worldwide economic crisis -- and the lifestyle can be really good.
However, like any foreign country it’s best if you do your homework. Come visit a few times before you try living here.
Make some contacts in both the expat and Turkish communities, and preferably in communities that contain both expats and Turks.
You want to be able to live in a bridged way, not in a bubble.
You’ll also want to know what kind of work you want to do, and where in the country you want to live. Even what neighborhood. The more you know before you commit the better off you’re going to be. Try poking around at an active online forum like TurkeyTravelPlanner.com.
That’s where you’ll pick up some useful lessons of cultural awareness like how to walk through the Grand Bazaar area without being harrassed (hint: it’s things like body language, and appropriate dress).
I have also written a lot about life in Turkey which you can find at my neoculture discussion site expat+HAREM (www.expatharem.com).
Speaking At The Commonwealth Club
I'm pleased to be speaking on a panel on The Rise of Turkey for the San Francisco Commonwealth Club's Middle East Forum, along with scholars, a diplomat and a Pulitzer Prize-wining journalist.
I'm joined on the panel by professor of cross-cultural communication Steven West, honorary consul Bonnie Joy Kaslan, and Stanford journalism professor Joe Brinkley.
It'll be recorded and posted on the Commonwealth Club website afterwards. (Listen to the full podcast here.)
TurkishWIN Dinner At Pera Palace With TED Curator June Cohen
After tonight's Turkish Women's International Network dinner with TED curator June Cohen, at Pera Palace Hotel, Istanbul.
With Berin Galatalı Aksoy, Nilufer Durak, Managing Director of Endeavor Turkey Didem Altop, lady in silver (and to-die-for shoes) is Sandrine Ramboux, June Cohen, founder of Turkish WIN and TEDx Gotham curator Melek Pulatkonak, Semiha Ünal and Işık Aydın Deliorman.
Earlier in the evening we'd been joined by Turkish parliamentarian and my fellow TurkishWIN speaker Safak Pavey.
I'm pleased to be a member of the advisory board of this network of women with professional, cultural and global ties to Turkey since 2010.
Suspended Between Multiple Worlds -- Challenged By Culture, Geography, Language or Time Zone? What I Did About It.
Do you ever feel suspended between multiple worlds -- challenged in your pursuits and interests by culture, geography, language or time zone? Welcome to the club. In fact, after fourteen years of expatriatism and through my cultural identity work as a writer/producer I’ve come to see this psychic limbo state about who we are and where we belong -- familiar to people with transglobal lives and culturally hybrid lifestyles -- as our secret weapon.
To start at the beginning, we’re all born global citizens even if that knowledge gets trained out of us. As we mature, a global identity seems nebulous, and ungrounded. Better to bond with the more concrete: family, culture, nation. Our schoolmates, colleagues, neighbors.
There’s a problem with concrete, though. It cracks over time and in quickly changing conditions, and sometimes even under its own weight.
I’d even venture to say that ‘our people’ today are not who they used to be. We’re unbounded by the communities in our physical midst. Now we can find inspiring new kinship in interest and outlook.
Expats and international types have more reasons than most to find a way to operate independently of where we happen to be physically.
With today's economic uncertainties no matter who or where we are, we all have to embrace an enterprising view of ourselves -- a way to operate unlimited by the options directly surrounding us.
With recent advances in virtual technologies like mobile devices and the social web, we have tools at our disposal to help us live a globally unbounded life.
Now we don’t have to be a tech expert or social media guru to build a micro-yet-global base of operations with a professional web platform and virtual network for continuing education, professional development, and a close-knit but world-flung set of friends. We can be digital world citizens and achieve a cutting-edge state of being -- that is, what I call ‘psychic location independence’.
I coined the concept of a global niche -- defined as a ‘psychic solution to your global identity crisis’-- at expat+HAREM, the online community of global citizens, identity adventurers and intentional travelers I founded in 2009. The group blog was inspired by the global community that gathered around Tales from the Expat Harem, an anthology by foreign women about their lives in modern Turkey that I coedited in 2005 with fellow Istanbul resident Jennifer Gokmen.
Expatharem.com was also informed by the idea of an ‘expat harem’ itself, where all the writers in the book and the readers drawn to them are cultural peers in a virtual realm.
My partner Tara Agacayak, a creative enterprise consultant from Silicon Valley who’s spent the past 10 years in Turkey, and I launched this new work-life initiative here at GlobalNiche.net. We’re applying the innovations we've been exploring in the past few years in our professional communities of creative entrepreneurs and social media proponents along with our expat experiences. We've realized that a robust online presence that helps us reach our offline goals is the most important independent survival skill of international people.
Talking Broadway With The Book Of Mormon Director
Dining at Bebek's Poseidon with visiting Broadway musical director Casey Nicholaw (he won the Tony for the satirical Book of Mormon!) and Josh Market (he does actress Jane Krakowski's hair on 30 Rock).
We had plenty of entertainment world issues to talk about since I used to work for Broadway & Grammy Awards producer Pierre Cossette when I lived in LA.
Thanks to former Discovery Networks president and founder of Akoo (that's social media television to you) Billy Campbell for the introduction!
My Global Niche: An Interview With Today's Zaman Newspaper
American reporter in Turkey Brooks Emerson asked me about the foreign edge, and the challenges of finding my niche in Turkey for his series on expat success stories in national English-language newspaper Today's Zaman. In the far-ranging interview, Emerson asks me what the initial impetus for my success as an expat was, and how I've evolved.
No surprise to those who know me, foreign language adoption has not played much of a role -- once I realized that taking business meetings and doing live television interviews in Turkish literally was rendering me mute! But mentoring in all realms of my personal and professional life has been a "secret weapon" in the creative entrepreneurship of self that I aim to practice.
Emerson asks me how the environment affects the outcome of an expat's endeavors. I tell him how sense of place can inspire a sense of self.
"Anastasia says that she has always been attracted to places with an amalgamation of people and cultures. However, the biggest pull is “the idea of crossroads … like Rome, where [she] studied in college … and now here on the Bosporus,” where she senses a positive energy and vibration for self-discovery and reinvention.
"Anastasia believes that working and living abroad is an excellent way to discover new self-potential."
Read Emerson's entire July 2011 interview "The global niche of Anastasia Ashman" online.
Introducing Turkish Women's International Network At The TEDGlobal Simulcast Held At TURKCELL Headquarters, Istanbul
As a member of the advisory board, I was happy to introduce Melek Pulatkonak's Turkish Women's International Network to the audience at the TEDGlobal simulcast hosted by TURKCELL headquarters in Istanbul. Melek and I met in Oxford while attending TEDGlobal 2010!
In these images, TED curator Chris Anderson opens the dark side session -- with cybercrime journalist Misha Glenny.
With attendees including TurkishWIN members including creative director Muzaffer Tan and foreign professional women in Istanbul Karen Van Drie and Catherine Bayar.
We had our cocktail hour between 3rd and 4th session of TEDGlobal simulcast from the UK, in which business economist, development professional and policy adviser Anja Koenig makes a point.
Interviewed For The Istanbul Project By Foreign Correspondent Students
Interviewed today by American college student Willa Hine for an ieiMedia anthology about people in the city as part of a one-month international journalism program by Mary D'Ambrosio. Read the resulting FACES OF ISTANBUL ebook by foreign correspondents in-training at ieiMedia's Istanbul Project.
I also spoke to the entire Istanbul Project class of American journalism students about being a foreign correspondent in Turkey and the special cultural considerations that come from being a foreign woman.
On The Advisory Board For Turkish Women International Network
I'm pleased to be on the advisory board of Turkish WIN, a global networking platform for women with family, cultural or professional ties to Turkey with regular speaking events -- a cross between TED and A SMALL WORLD.
Featured here with founder Melek Pulatkonak and my fellow TRWIN speakers at KAGIDER (Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey) headquarters, Istanbul, June 2011, AKTUEL magazine. Nakiye Boyaciller next to me is the dean of Sabanci University's business school, and Sedef Koktenturk on the far right is a Turkish Olympian in the sport of sailing.
Being Global Gives Writers Unique Voices
The writer and cultural curator Rose Deniz asked us what happens to our writing when worlds and languages collide.
Our language choice and vernacular will never be the same.
Even if I don't use Turkish words, the syntax is bound to slip in... like "make shopping" instead of "go shopping", and "arrive to" instead of "arrive at or in".
I know my adoption of the Malaysian "air-con" replaced the American "A/C" and remains hard to shake more than a decade since I lived there.
For globalist writers, like Rose and me and so many of the Expat Harem bloggers, I can only think it adds to the unique definition of our voice.
Location As Identity. Skin Deep Culture. Global Critical Thinking.
- Writers abroad now have a spot to gather on Expat Saturdays for writing and publishing tips at repat Kristin Bair O'Keeffe's Writerhead, and expat publisher Jo Parfitt is hosting the Writers Abroad radio program for Women's International Network.
- Inspired by a 17th century Ottoman traveler Evliya Celebi, The Book of Travels is a virtual exhibit that aims to highlight the "sharing of ideas between Muslim and European individuals and societies."
- Brooklyn-based jewelry designer Sara Pfau's work aims to explain why "marking, separating, naming plays into a primal urge for self definition according to location." (See illustration for this post, it's Pfau's work.)
- When you're strange: author Paul Theroux muses at the New York Review of Books about how otherness is viewed as an affliction in most cultures around the world -- and throughout history. Check out this intriguing excerpt from his new book The Tao of Travel: Enlightenment from Lives on the Road.
- On a related note, we wonder, is culture only skin deep? Even if we think that culture is like clothing -- when we take off our costume we're all the same underneath, right? -- a new study reveals that cultural differences are detected deep in the brain.
- What does it mean to think globally? Educational psychologist Linda Elder stresses the need for a critical thinking revolution in order for us to survive, and sustain the planet. "Our lives our interwoven in ways we don't even understand." It's no longer enough to be skilled at thinking about our own vested interests -- "sociocentric thinking". We need global critical thinking, to ask "what's in this for everyone relevant to the situation?"
- Luckily for people like us, having cultural intelligence is a way to increase our creativity, but also a way to innovate long term impacts.
Theory Into Practice
Hope you're enjoying the nature in your part of the world, and as you make your mid-year plans, you're using the playful travel buzzwords bursting out all over: (palidays! set-jetting! buddymoons! frightseeing!) +++++ AT expat+HAREM
Those April showers have us blooming too. We've got a new video section at the site, with some golden oldies like the Expat Harem editors on NBC's Today Show with Matt Lauer, a steamy talk with Martin Anthony on The Crossroads, and recent material like my "Evolution of a global niche" slideshow (about how to use an identity crisis to your advantage!) and a talk at Microsoft Turkey for Turkish Women's International Network last month.*
Hybrid life coach Amna Ahmad shows us how to "decolonize your inner world" with a simple writing exercise, while Rose Deniz grapples with a unique lingo as she leaves her native tongue behind. Sezin Koehler calls for essays about Third Culture retirement issues -- a pressing concern for Baby Boomers and adult-onset Third Culture types like many of us.
+++++ AROUND THE WORLD & AROUND THE WEB
We're intrigued by the concept of Trunk, a global culture magazine "in the spirit of a Hemingway novel" which proclaims "there are no foreign lands", but we can really use the real-life logistics of expat women packed into a just-released book from ExpatWomen.com (download a sample here). Check out author Andrea Martin's $5,000 launch lottery too.
+++++ *BTW, these fresh videos offer a sneak peek into expat+HAREM's newest initiative -- Globalniche.net -- a private and practical membership community to learn exactly how to operate professionally and personally independent of traditional limitations. Putting theory into practice. Join us on Facebook and Twitter!
+++++ YOUR THOUGHTS
What would you want to learn in our new educational community? Which expert do you want to hear from? Your votes will determine the topic of our first (complimentary) webinar...coming soon!
Click here to share your most burning question.
+++++
Perennially yours,
+++++
MISS LAST MONTH?
Check out April's Upheavals
+++++
Speaking About Global Niche At Turkish Women's International Network, Microsoft
Spoke today at Turkish WIN about the evolution of a global niche (my own, and the educational community I'm now developing). Microsoft headquarters, Istanbul. View my slideshow "The Evolution Of A Global Niche" here.
I joined four other "accomplished dreamers" speaking at this inaugural Istanbul event produced by Melek Pulatkonak, the founder of Turkish WIN.
How To Use An Identity Crisis To Your Advantage
What comes after cultural disenfranchisement?
What comes after Expat Harem, the book?
What comes after expat+HAREM, the community site?
This slideshow charts the evolution of Globalniche.net (or, how to use an identity crisis to your advantage). Below is the script of my accompanying talk The Evolution of A GlobalNiche, delivered at Turkish Women's International Network, Microsoft Headquarters, Istanbul
EVOLUTION
DREAM of belonging how PLAYING with cultural identity has helped me ACHIEVE new sense of myself, personally and pro
CONCEPT & COMMUNITY we can all can use to be successful.
MAP
FB contacts. Where in the world do I belong?
Dream of belonging. Not just fitting in. But being in the right place with the right people. Place to lead your ideal lifestyle, chosen livelihood? Work you love to do so much it’s play?
For ppl who dream of life/community beyond what surrounds u now.
Story begins. Southeast Asia. Disenfranchised experience. lost my voice. Writer but I could not make myself understood. I didn’t understand what was going on around me.
What saved me: play. Pasttimes that put me into context. Taught me about the place. Historical travelogue. Acting in a period film. Drawn to crossroads, places where time meshes, opposites collide and cultures fuse.
EXPAT HAREM
Turkey 2003. Asian complaint travelogue. Snake infested island! Pirate-filled waters! No metaphors, really happened.
Turkey kidnapped me instead - metaphor. Theoretical home with the Expat Harem anthology. Inspired by the foreign women in sultan harem, liminal state of TR.
Showed how we can be embedded in a place, yet forever alien. Survive, but thrive in limbo. Also my character, like working alone at home, in collab with others. Found historical counterparts, also cultural peers. 100 women in 14 nations answered call for subs. 100s more on book tours. No longer alone in my limbo, even if American publishers suspected I was. worried book’s nonexistent audience, 15 New York publishing houses passed before sold. proved wrong. Thanks to Turks Turkophiles, expats, travelers, women writers, Near Eastern studies types -- people like you.
EXPANDING
EH called together virtual community but nowhere to meet. 2yrs ago: group blog to address readers and see what was beyond the book.
Expand circle. not just woman expat writer in Turkey. Expats everywhere. Global nomads, multicultural types. Immigrants, intentional travelers. Men, even! Anyone in cultural limbo.
New social order, most meaningful bonds not family, culture, nation. School. Work. social web connect us on interest, experience and world view. we can find each other, learn.
HYBRIDS
EH community started teaching me. Podcast roundtable discussion, realized all using creativity to manage hybrid, multifaceted lives. Flex skills/perspectives cd bring to all endeavors. Our life trajectory not a liability! Cd be asset.
AUTHOR PLATFORM
While launching EH online, also working on 2nd book, about my friendship with a multiple personality. Problem. After success/acceptance of EH book -- 5 yrs -- committing career suicide? lose my audience, or transition them to new topic? to prepare my author platform for 2nd book, began explaining why cultural writer shifting to psychological topic. Emphasizing identity, how formed thru culture -- getting away from travel focus. Also apparent expat and hybrid life writing more concerned with personality and psyche issues than travel often is.
MULTIPLE CULTURAL IDENTITIES
there WAS a link between past work, new book. have multiple CULTURAL personalities -- like a multiple personality, honor/care for each key to health/happiness. Career 'problem' both addressed personal issue and paved new pro growth! We have fusion!
GLOBAL NICHE DEFINED
called expat+HAREM site global niche, meant niche for globalists, home in world. 6 mos definition emerged. Looking at lifestyle design, location independent movements pioneering gate-jumping new paradigms, digital nomadic practices we require when geographically or culturally disadvantaged.
Detected my community's distinctly different need. Our question not Generation-Y: "how can i live on a beach in Thailand by running a blog."
PSYCHIC LOCATION INDEPENDENCE
Instead, PLU looking for in a GN is answer to: "how can I live the life I want wherever it is I happen to be?" To live/ work to our abilities independent of location and whatever its limitations.
Maybe still in hometown, or everyone speaks language we're not good at -- whether language of tongue, some other kind. best customers 10 time zones away?.
This addresses more universal issue. How to be okay with where we are, plenty reasons why we are where we are. Don't always live in optimal setting for our dreams. Doesn't mean we have to defer. We can get started, right now.
GLOBAL NICHE WORKGROUP
Past yr: cofounded creative entrepreneurship workgroup, mastermind how building life/livelihoods around strengths and interests. What we UNIQUELY bring. Belonging into own hands, playing with possibilities to find ourselves, audience, peers. Focus on web platforms reflect our place in the world, connect to relevant ppl, communities, integrate into offline activities.
Love fusion. NOW combining workgroup with expat+HAREM mission to make our psychic limbo a productive state. A global niche workgroup.
Developing private edu community -- GLOBALNICHE.net -- to equip psychically location independent PLU -- transglobal, multicultural, dreamer in a situation mismatch -- with skills/ tools need to achieve dreams.
Please visit so we can keep u posted about upcoming launch. Thank you TurkishWIN, good night.
How Can We Maintain Our Web Presence & Data When Social Services Are In Flux?
In our GlobalNiche LinkedIn group, Tara Agacayak asked what we're doing to protect our content. Her blog on Blogger was blocked by court order in Turkey. "Not as in legal protection - but how to you make sure your data doesn't disappear? We've seen what happens when companies like Delicious get acquired and we lose our bookmarks or when Turkish courts ban sites like YouTube and Blogger. What are some things we can do to maintain our web presence when it is constantly in a state of flux?"
Here's my answer:
Redundancy, back-up. And trying out new services to capture your feeds...
Even microblogging sites like Tumblr -- you can set it up to capture your blog posts, your tweets, your bookmarks (at least for Delicious it worked).
Content aggregators -- I'm trying out the beta MemoLane to build a social media timeline with FB, Flickr, Twitter, RSS, vimeo.
Here's an example: