Anastasia M Ashman's Blog

• Is that a pain cry?

  October 28, 2009

  • I don’t see death every day, but I hear it.From where I sit, in my home office overlooking a little Bosphorus bay, the day is punctuated by recess at a large school below. Sometimes through the din I think I hear a high-pitched pain cry echoing in the valley. An intermittent wail. Out on the balcony I listen, some primitive hackle raised. Rarely can I locate its exact source but it comes from ...
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• Spirit of the season(ing)

  October 20, 2009

  • Blood and marriage draw families together but often whole worlds continue to separate us as individuals. Lifestyle choices. Generations. In-laws. Siblings. Achieving – and maintaining -- harmony is a challenge we all seem to face.Some clans need more help than others. Around our holiday table in 1979, my fractious relatives were gifted with a sudden ability to perceive each other as the ...
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• Expat Harem: Blooming behind closed doors

  October 17, 2009

  • Expat Harem has a new global niche.The Expat Harem — a concept I coined in 2004 with Jennifer Eaton Gokmen and brought to life in 2005 and 2006 in the foreign women in Turkey anthology Tales from the Expat Harem – has always been about a modern and virtual community of cultural peers.Now the (softly) relaunched ExpatHarem.com aims to bring its community to life online as a neoculture hub ...
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