An Unorthodox Thanksgiving

November 25, 2007

This year, for the first time ever, I did not celebrate Thanksgiving, though in my defense there were a couple of good reasons for my not participating. First, I in a foreign country where very few people know that the holiday exists, much less celebrates it. That said, I still celebrated with my classmates while I was studying abroad in London for a semester a couple of years ago. This brings me to my second reason for not partaking in Turkey Day, numbers. In London there were at least fifteen of us to get a dinner together, but here in the entire Kyzylorda region there are three Americans, and none of us is a very good cook. Still, just because we did not participate in the traditional feast does not mean that we did not sit down and take time to reflect on our past few months and give thanks. We just did it over beer instead of turkey. Chris and I went out last night with his host sister to a café and then the local nightclub Edem to hang out and go dancing. The early t part of the evening at the café was rather typical of my Saturday nights in Kazakh, relaxing, talking, and having a few cold beers. Even the club was what I expected at first, guys and girls dancing at least three feet apart, doing the offbeat shuffle that one often sees at high school dances. Later on though, things took a strange turn. After we had been at the club for about an hour, the DJ says something in Russian that neither Chris nor I understand, and everyone clears the dance floor. At first I thought that maybe the song they were playing was really unpopular, but what actually was happening was that it was time for a series of three striptease performances. Furthermore, while two of the dancers were female, the third was male, I guess so the ladies in the audience would not feel so left out. At first I was shocked, this was definitely the last thing I expected to see in Southern Kazakstan, where Folk Islam is a very important part of the social fabric of the community. Of course, the dancers were Russians, not Kazaks, but it definitely strange to see such a performance in a pretty sleepy and conservative city. The best part of the whole thing was looking around at the audience reaction. Rather than look as if they were being excited, everyone had the same detached expression, as if they were watching the ballet and not pole dancing. Granted, the dancers were certainly more talented and skilled than the typical stateside stripper, but my studies of Pop Art aside, I never thought to consider a striptease even close to high art, nor watch it the same way as I do an opera. I guess Kyzylorda really does have it all, friendly people, modern conveniences, and even a bit of Western debauchery when you need your fix.