“Only 21 more days!” Andreas told me earlier.
“But you work into October, don’t you?”
He gestured his hands at the beach chairs around him.
“Twenty one days until calm and smooth sailing!”
“Ah….you mean 21 days until it’s not insane….”
Without a doubt, Andreas is the hardest working man in the beach business. At any of the other organized beaches, the proprietors are more like toll booth operators who take your money and hope never to hear from you again. At Petra, they still kinda’ want you to buy from their now very reduced snack menu, but no problem if you don’t…
Andreas, on the other hand, for 2.5 euros a chair less than Petra, spends his days patrolling the beach, adjusting umbrellas throughout the day to maximize everyone’s shade. He greets people, talks to their kids, hugs regulars, manages rentals of paddle boards and the like and flags Vangellis when someone is looking for the one waiter serving 230 beach chairs (there are food runners too). Last year I watched Andreas explain to an incredulous Greek family why they couldn’t have five adults on two beach chairs and, since they hadn’t even paid for the two beach chairs they were using, a solution was needed. While I didn’t understand the word-for-word of the Greek conversation, I understood its nature – and it was insane.
On a day like today with strong winds, Agriolivadi and Kampos – both on the less windy east side of the island and extra sheltered in deep coves – become the two most popular beaches, meaning Andreas is going to have a good day financially, but he’ll be getting in his steps and having crazy conversations.
In the summer, Patmos has two worlds – one which eclipses the other: the conservative, religious traditional Greek life as it exists in towns and especially in relation to the monastery and Cave of the Apocalypse, and the vacationer beach and dining life. While priests traverse town, older ladies in traditional black outfits and orthopedic shoes head to church and services take place each morning in a church inside a cave that is one of Greece’s holiest sites – others wake at 10 am, get some coffee and a light breakfast and make it to the beach somewhere between 1 and 3 pm – in time to have a long, lazy lunch at a taverna like the one at Agriolivadi.
At the moment, I would guess at least half of beachgoers are Greek. Despite having one of the highest rates of religious affiliation in Europe at roughly 90 percent, church attendance and actual participation are low – with at most 17 percent attending church weekly. Many researchers believe being Greek Orthodox is core to the Greek cultural and national identity, while actual practice has become decreasingly popular. Thus, there’s little need to go with the devoted yayas (grandmas) to church each morning – or maybe any morning.
There’s nothing like a beach with mixed international tourists to learn about cultural norms and outlooks. The beach is inherently a revealing place and one which not everyone shares a common concept of usage. For example, while Greek, American and French people tend to swim or at least paddle around in the water, German women often walk up and down the length of the beach up to their wastes in water – as some kind of water exercise. It’s fairly common to see groups of Italians and Turks standing in waist-level water chatting and not fully swimming. Culturally, the French tend to keep a lower decibel level than Italians, Americans or Greeks. In fact, Italians do a lot of socializing and smoking at the beach.
Thailand has a history of modesty at the beach and while times and norms are changing to be more accepting of Western swimsuits and bikinis, there are still plenty of women – and even men – who swim with shirts and shorts. This is furthered by the culture bias towards light skin – with Thai women using tools like whitening creams, parasols and dressing more conservatively at the beach to avoid tanning.
Meanwhile, both on Thai islands and here on Patmos, German and Northern European women in general often tan topless and even swim and walk around topless – at seemingly any age.
For that matter, tanning itself doesn’t seem to be embraced universally. My casual observation, for years across numerous countries is that citizens of what Lee Kuan Yew referred to as the Great White Countries (America, Canada, Australia, Britain and by association New Zealand) tend to be more sunscreen-oriented and less likely to sun worship. Meanwhile, I’ve seen plenty of Austrian, German, French and Scandinavians working on a leather brown – with skin that often texturizes to match as they reach or pass their forties.
Frequently olive-skinned Greeks seem a little less sunscreen focused as their American/Anglo guests, but don’t usually dedicate themselves to sunning the way some of their continental European friends do. I guess when it’s easy to catch a tan, you don’t have to work so hard. My beach-working friends Andreas and Vangellis actually wear a lot of sun protection including SPF rated rash guards and sun hats in addition to zinc and sunscreen.
Perhaps the most interesting thing – to me – is how modesty seems to be one of the most varied elements among international beachgoers. Men from the Great White Countries crowd almost invariably longer swim shorts even going down to the knee like board shorts. Like a concurring opinion on the Supreme Court, Greek men also invariably wear shorts – though they will don both the more Anglo-American longer versions and the European, just-slightly-shorter-than-a-typical-straight-American-guy-would-wear length. Then there’s the rest of European men who generally go to the beach in shorts that would be considered by American standards anywhere between possibly/kind of gay to no-straight-man-would-ever-wear-that.
Perhaps like men’s swimwear and apart from the topless issue, European women often show a lot more comfort with their bodies than I’m used to among American women. I have been surprised over the past few years – and especially this one – how many European women including Greeks will don a two-piece into their seventies. Neither age nor weight seem to deter at least a substantial number of European women from wearing less swimsuit and getting more tan. Yes, some seem to counterbalance this with the avid use of cover-ups when they aren’t in the water or sunning.
In the back of my mind I remember a female former boss of mine talking about finding a dress for an event and telling me how after fifty, no one would ever see her bare arms again. While nothing is universal, I believe American women in general are more likely to stick to a one-piece after having kids and even more so after fifty.
What does all of this say about our perceptions of bodies, aging, sex, self-confidence?
It seems like there are many layers and perhaps different answers based on which culture. Like a concurring judicial opinion, people can come to the same answer by very different means with some substantially different implications.
For example, Greek culture promotes a more rugged masculine image of a man – often bearded/stubbled and more muscled. I interpret that whether they wear longer or short swim shorts, they feel pretty comfortable in their masculine identity. Interestingly, Greek men also seem to be generally mushy for children. The highly collectivist, family-oriented culture seems to include a liberal dose of warmth and nurturing within its well-defined conception of masculinity.
Meanwhile, French male sensibilities are far less rugged, typically – like everything in France – emphasizing elegance and slighter build. Smoothness, civility, elegance, intelligence are more typical to French masculinity.
What does it say that an older, overweight German or Greek woman is likely to wear a two-piece swimsuit while their American or British woman would likely sooner die? I have to conclude they’re just more comfortable with aging and body image. To me, it says they may not hold up youthful beauty as the standard by which a woman is judged so when they no longer look as they did at 25, they don’t need to cover themselves up. Maybe.
I have often noticed in France that women do far less than Americans to make themselves appear younger and focus on a beauty corresponding with their age. It have seen a lot of 80 year-old women who dress to the nines and go about looking elegant and fantastic for their age. Glamour has many faces and presentations. I love the idea that one moment in life doesn’t have to be a pinnacle of beauty.
However, more than anything, I’m struck with the ubiquity of tattoos. People range from having some attractive and/or elegant ones to some that leave me hardly able to imagine what they were thinking.
In fairness. I’m not a big fan of tattoos in general. I often don’t find them interesting or attractive and I believe in most cases people’s older selves will not like their younger selves’ choices so much. Bodies change a lot through the years and decades. Besides I struggle to choose a sofa or a shirt – the idea of such a decision on a mode of personal expression as permanent as a tattoo scares me stiff. Anyone need only at photos of themselves in middle or high school to get my point.
My tattoo shock may also coincide with my age. When I was born in 1977, 1 percent or less of the populations all of the nationalities represented on the beaches of Patmos had tattoos. Today 48 percent of Italians, 32-46 percent (depending on which research you go with) of Americans, 18 percent of French and 35 percent of Greeks have tattoos. Apparently, Gen Z is responsible for a lot of this growth and among them, 56 percent of woman have tattoos while only 29 percent of men do. I suppose that is all playing out on the beach – especially with more Italians having recently arrived.
I suppose this blog goes about as deep as the recurring thematic lines from the second and third Matrix movies “Some things in this world never change… and some things do.” Yeah.
To that end, a beach is just a beach and so are the people vacationing on it. Mostly, an assortment of NATO populations come to Patmos and go in and out of the water – eating, playing, talking, sunning, reading and unwinding. We’re far more similar than different and one of my peeves is when people – especially Europeans – look for all the little differences to divide the groups.
How wonderful we’re all here appreciating the same things even if our lives and tastes vary How interesting everyone is getting more tattoos and how great that everyone is using at least some amount of sunscreen.
In some ways, we are all literally laying it all as bare as it gets in public (I hope) and letting down our guard. If nothing else there’s a lot of food for thought and things to learn to a subtle beach observer – like my Ailyn (who will hopefully NEVER get a tattoo).
