Aphrodite’s home is a cruel place - Cyprus Mail (The confessions of a traveller)

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MY FIRST Greek lesson started with a proud explanation of the famous Cypriot hospitality as my teacher showed slide after slide of honey-drenched delicacies and sunny villages on carob tree-dotted slopes. I smiled in agreement, knowingly. I had just arrived in Limassol from the United States on a research fellowship the previous week and had already experienced the famous Cypriot hospitality. My landlady and landlord are the loving grandparents of the Cypriot family house I had moved into, and they had declared me a part of the family over freshly baked Cypriot fish during family lunch on Sunday. I resolved to learn all about the culture of this pretty little island during my nine months’ stay.

I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, having immigrated from China with my family at age nine. In Atlanta we pride ourselves on Southern hospitality, and I was determined to show Cypriots the famous Southern warmth from the other side of the world. As I walked to my office on one of my first mornings in the morning, I smiled and said “Kalimera” to neighbours and shop owners I met in the streets, proud of my newly learned Greek greetings. Most people looked surprised at first, and I thought to myself that perhaps they are not used to seeing an American here. A car drove by with a back seat full of children, and the driver yelled out “Nihao Chingchong!” I turned and stared in bewilderment, and a smiling grandfatherly figure came up to me and asked “Are you OK?” I smiled and greeted him, and he grabbed my shoulder and said “Come with me, I pay! Twenty euros one hour, two hours, we look, together!” “Excuse me?” I stared at him in confusion, and my eyes widened in shock as I realised his meaning. I flung his hand away from my shoulder and ran across the street. I was outraged as I had never encountered anything like this, and my hands trembled as I crossed the next intersection, where a car swung by to block my path. The driver waved for me to get into the car. In my panicked state, I thought that he was my landlord, with his white hair and grandfatherly face, because I could not imagine why any stranger would stop his car for me. As I ran to the car for protection, the grandfatherly face turned into an ugly grin as he threw open the car door from the driver’s seat. I stared in nightmarish disbelief, slammed the car door in his face, and ran all the way to my office.

By three weeks after arriving in Cyprus, I no longer raised my head when walking outside. When anyone called to me on the streets, it was no longer a friendly greeting but a painful reminder of the complex ills of society. I had learned to avoid being outside during the hour of 1pm to 2pm on weekdays, because the actions of school children are magnified projections of the opinions of the society. My heart broke when a grandfather propositioned me when picking up his grandson from school. On my daily 15 minute walk to and from my office, I was propositioned about once every five minutes, with chilling regularity. With my eyes glued to the sidewalk for fear of making any eye contact with the men lounging around the streets, the sound of each approaching car made my heart beat faster with fear that this will be the one to honk, slow down, and follow me down the road in an attempt to bargain a price, which inevitably happened. I armoured myself with large sunglasses which covered half of my face and a large hat whenever I went outside, not for protection against the blinding sun, but against the humanity on the street.

By six weeks after my arrival in Cyprus, I was no longer using any of my Greek greetings I was so proud of. I had discovered that my perfect American English was now my only identification as anything except a Chinese street worker. Curious but good natured inquiries into which Madam I work for at the neighbourhood vegetable market made it painfully obvious how concretely I was defined by my Chinese face in Cyprus. I felt stripped bare of my country, denied by society, and my heritage, forced to hide under sunglasses and hats. My attempts to meld into and experience Cypriot society had run into intangible walls, and I felt loneliness like never before under the burning Mediterranean sun. My eyes met the kindly face of the grandfather of the neighbouring house at the neighborhood vegetable market, and I gave him a rare smile and nod in a moment of yearning for human kindness. He waved me aside and said, “You want to come with me? To my bed?” My landlady is disappointed in my slow progress in Greek, but how can I explain to her this lesson of Cypriot hospitality?

Now it has been almost six months since I arrived in Cyprus. I have taken to riding in taxis to and from my office everyday even though it’s less than a five minute drive. The taxi drivers have assumed that I must be a very important American since I require taxi pickup every day for such a short distance. I am addressed as “Madam” when the driver bows and opens the taxi door for me. As I looked out the taxi window at the beautiful Limassol seaside and the society I can only watch through glass, I wondered where I can find:

O Cyprus, set in the sea,
Aphrodite’s home
In the soft sea-foam,
Would I could wend to thee;
Where the wings of the Loves are furled,
And faint the heart of the world.

n Alice Wang attends the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and is currently in Cyprus as part of a research programme