The people here in Argentina’s capital are known as Porteños, and they can be both mistrustful and selflessly helpful. When I got to Villa 31, this man warned me to be watchful, by repeating “ojo,” or “eye” in Spanish, because I was a walking target with my big fancy camera. Then he invited me to tour his community radio station, perched above the makeshift buildings of Villa 31′s open marketplace. Not a bad start to my first visit. We were only a street away from the busy Retiro bus terminal, and less than two miles from the Casa Rosada, or Pink House, which is the White House of Argentina.

Even the dogs were giving me the ojo. But at this time of year, it’s summer on this side of the globe, and everyone was dressed comfortably and casually. There were Christmas decorations, but no sleigh bells. I could see I wasn’t going to die here. And instead of making me a mugging statistic, my trusty camera helped me win friends: when I snapped a shot of the dog, young men, mostly shirtless, cheered “Foto! Foto!”

Christmas may be a religious holiday, but it’s also another opportunity to indulge in the great Argentine mania for grilling meat. The intoxicating, smoky aroma of asado, or Argentine-style barbeque, started up a little early even though everyone — children included — would be staying up all night.

Children were everywhere. Some began tearing through the alleys and passageways, some of which were only ten feet wide.

Adults were busy getting ready for the long night ahead. Some of them offered me beer and sparkling wine, which I happily accepted.

I saw one man sweeping his doorway. Others prepared coals for their asado.

Kiki has lived here for thirty years, and he stuffed me with asado. He seemed to know everyone who passed by, exchanging greetings and the traditional Argentine kiss on the right cheek.

Kiki introduced me to his swarms of family, and his son even invited me inside to dance to updated versions of traditional cumbia music. Not only did I feel like family, I had forgotten about my love troubles.

The children carried their own lighters to set off firecrackers, sparklers, and bottle rockets.

At midnight on Christmas Eve, the celebrations reached a crescendo, with toasts, hollering, and children setting off their biggest and noisiest fireworks.

As I sat between two of my new friends, I felt a bit ridiculous for having been wary of visiting Villa 31. I didn’t die. I no longer felt lonely or heart-broken. And I realized I was having the best Christmas of my life.

Ethan G. Salwen is a writer and photographer from the United States with a gift for using his camera as a diplomatic sidekick wherever English isn’t spoken. He currently lives in Buenos Aires, where he continues to improve his Castellano, the Spanish spoken in Argentina.

A sister and her brother watch as their neighborhood is demolished. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

By Sean David Hobbs

(Istanbul) The legendary music clubs and belly dancers were the first to go. There’s no longer a trace of the lively coffeeshops or balcony restaurants. And now, the once-narrow alleyways are strangely opened wide: because of the bulldozers, Sulukule, a gypsy settlement within Istanbul that dated back to before the 15th century, has become nothing more than a memory.

Nearly 1,000 years of history have been unceremoniously demolished over the past six months as the last buildings of this relic of the Ottoman empire have been razed. The roar of bulldozers was unbearable for those within earshot, but barely a sound has reverberated throughout the rest of Istanbul, Turkey and the world, as Europe’s oldest permanent gypsy settlement was torn down.

Sukru Punduk, center, treasures his traditional, close-knit community.

“Now it is gone,” laments Sukru Punduk, close to tears. Punduk, 41, is a Roma musician and native of the district, which traces its history back to Byzantine times. He sits with a few other Roma men in an Istanbul café, angered by the destruction of their homes, businesses and way of life. The demolition—or redevelopment, in the words of the governing authorities—began in 2006. The few remaining buildings next to Istanbul’s centuries-old stone walls were crushed during the past year.

The Roma families who were from this historic neighborhood feel the destruction is also an attack upon their heritage and culture. Once the proud home of nearly 5,000 Roma people, only about five percent are left in the district as bulldozers flatten the mounds of debris.

“Will we continue to exist or will our culture disappear?” Punduk asks.

In 2007, when this shot was taken, the area was still inhabited. (Photo: Sean David Hobbs)

Demolitions began in Sulukule in 2006 as the municipal government started a process billed as urban renewal. However, the national Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported that the municipal government’s Justice and Development Party (known as the AK Party) sold some of the newly-emptied land to family members and friends of AK Party leaders.

Hacer Foggo, whose glasses give her the air of a scholar, is one of the founders of the activist group Sulukule Platform. She called the renewal plan “corrupt gentrification,” and strongly suspects an economic motivation. “The plan is to remove the poor from the city center and build expensive homes in Sulukule,” she said.

But residents were already being moved out in 2007. (Photo: Sean David Hobbs)

The Romani have been present in Istanbul since the middle of the 11th century, when the city was known as Constantinople. Built along the city’s ancient protective walls, Sulukule was Istanbul’s first entertainment district, which included a thriving red light sector. Generations of people from all over Turkey came to Sulukule’s famed music halls.

Punduk explains, “Ours was the culture of music and dance in Istanbul. People came to Sulukule for the music and the beautiful Romani belly dancers. We had fortune tellers and dancing bears.”

Two years ago, there were still kids in the streets. (Photo: Sean David Hobbs)

The exotic strain of Rom music that grew within Sulukule was a mix of traditional Balkan and Middle Eastern music intermingled over generations with the court music of the Byzantines and Ottomans. The result was a unique Istanbul sound.

The beginning of the end came in 1992, when conservative government leaders shut down Sulukule’s music and dance halls. Poverty and poor education—already chronic problems there—became even worse with the loss of the entertainment venues.

By last year, the piles of rubble were growing. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

“Even after 1992, we could all live together at least. We were poor, but rent was cheap,” Punduk says. “We got by economically and preserved our culture.”

Then came the urban renewal plan of 2006, which resettled Roma in the Tasoluk public housing development 40 kilometers outside of central Istanbul. Over the past three years, nearly 700 families from Sulukule took up residence there—but only 20 families remain in the new neighborhood.

Uniformed police kept order for the bulldozers. (Photo: Hacer Foggo.)

High rent in the new development has forced some Roma onto the streets, and many more into cheap apartments throughout Istanbul where, stripped of their community and culture, many say they have suffered alienation and depression.

Watching the demolition of a thousand years of culture. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

All of this has unfolded even though UNESCO listed Sulukule as an endangered World Heritage site. More recently, the U.S. Congress’ Joint Helsinki Commission urged the Turkish government to protect the Sulukule Roma.

The spot to wash your feet before prayers is gone. So is the rickety wooden house in the background. (Photo: Sean David Hobbs)

In April, the commission sent a letter to Turkish Prime Minister and AK Party leader Recep Tayip Erdogan, which noted that the “Roma community in Sulukule is living on the fringes of society and continues to be treated unfairly.” The letter urged Erdogan to implement a program to “preserve this centuries-old neighborhood and allow the Roma there to remain together as a community.”

This man has a portable stove, drinking water, and a coffee pot. But he needs more than a wall to maintain his community. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

Punduk said he and other Romani leaders support music groups that reach out to Roma children, and thus keep the spirit, culture and artistry of Sulukule alive. Still, he is despondent when he considers all that has been lost. Sitting in the café and gazing at his Islamic prayer beads, Punduk has no answers.

“Ours is a very old culture,” he says, “It isn’t just Istanbul or Turkey which lost this special place. The world has lost a piece of its culture.”

Standing guard over rolled-up rugs and some furniture. (Photo: Hacer Foggo)

Sean David Hobbs is a New Orleans-based writer originally from Wisconsin. He lived in Istanbul for three years.

Hello Kitty started life in Japan as an image on a vinyl coin purse.

A Hello Kitty house.

Thirty-five years later, Hello Kitty has developed into a brand character with huge clout but no visible mouth, who lives with her parents and twin sister, and who offers everything from pencils, appliances and credit cards to a Hello Kitty jet and a Hello Kitty-themed maternity hospital near Taipei.

A Hello Kitty plane.
(Photo: Yamaguchi Yoshiaki/Wikimedia Commons)

Until this year, Hello Kitty lacked only one thing: her very own tartan. That’s now been taken care of, as the Scottish Register of Tartans can attest.

Now, there's a Hello Kitty tartan.
Designer Yuko Yamaguchi assists with the announcement.
(Photo: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)

If wearing Kitty’s pink plaid doesn’t appeal to you, you can get a tartan of your own, as long as you can pay for it. Design and registry is $1,500, plus another few hundred dollars for the actual fabric: silk is more than twice the price of wool.

Compare Hello Kitty's tartan, center, with the one for Coca-Cola, left, and whiskey, right. (tartanregister.gov.uk)

There’s no requirement to belong to a Scottish clan. Cities, police and firefighting units have their own tartans. There’s a Jewish tartan, and a Coca-Cola tartan in a rich, chocolate brown, with a bit of classic caramel and a hint of Coke’s signature red. So refreshing.

The Whisky tartan, introduced in 2007, is an example of how the use of color tells how the whiskey is made: the five yellow lines stand for the fields of barley; the black squares, for the peat or coal used to dry it. The blue stands for the natural water; the black lines, the warehouse walls; and the small white lines are for the bottle.

That’s not such a stretch, really. Weaving is a near-universal craft, dating back at least 5,000 years. Colored stripes were incorporated into a plain weave to indicate a wearer’s rank. The more colored stripes, the more status.

Globe-trotting tartan, comfortable on the Masai. (Via kiltmaker.blogspot.com)

Tartan is the globe-trotting cloth, found in 14th century Spain and 18th century Japan. There are tartans in the kingdom of Bhutan and among the Masai of Africa. It is said that tartans originated in the Caucasus Mountains of Southern Russia, and migrated through Europe and central Asia.

Fun with sheep. (Via arbroath.blogspot.com)

Things didn’t really get cooking until sheep herds increased in size. More wool meant the that the fabric which had started as the size of a small rug could now be a long piece of material between 12 and 15 feet long. Highlanders pleated this around their waists in folds. They pulled it over their heads like a hood. They used it for a blanket at night.

Colonel William Gordon of Fyvie, by Pompeo-Batoni.
(The National Trust of Scotland)

By 1730, the linen plain weave had evolved into a sophisticated twill weave, and the patterns had evolved from simple stripes and patterns into recognizable tartans (from the French word tartaine). The sequence laid down by the numbers of colored threads wound on a piece of wood, or sett-sticks, determined the pattern.

Tartan status: Hello, Kitty?
(Holt Renfrew Canada)

You can imagine how a lowly sheepherder would yearn for such magnificence. Certainly we do, or Burberry’s registered tartans wouldn’t induce such high prices.

Naturally, Hello Kitty finally had to have a tartan to call her own.

Tartan gets around. (Photo: LokiVHS)

There are so many myths about South Africa. Here are the three I’ve heard the most:

Myth #1:
Since South Africa is in Africa, wild animals like lions and elephants are therefore walking around in the streets.

The place to find a herd of elephants visiting a watering hole is in the Umfolozi-Hluhluwa Game Park in the Kwa-Zulu Natal province.

No, like most civilizations we managed more than 300 years or so ago to build our first cities and put some walls around ourselves.

Travelers through the savannah and brushlands are more likely to see a gift stand with carved wooden animals.

Like tourists, we have to go to our zoos and parks to see the animals.

Myth #2
Every person in South Africa is black, except for the few white racists that still manage to hang around somehow.

Wearing rarely-seen Zulu ceremonial dress gets these rickshaw drivers in Durban more tips from tourists, who are expecting an exotic African experience.

Actually, South Africa is not called the rainbow nation for nothing. We have a very diverse nation that is made up of many different groups and cultures. This includes everything from black people to caucasians to asians and everything in-between.

In a more relaxed setting, locals aren't nearly so exotic. Here, playing music at an herbal medicine stall at Durban's open-air market.

In fact, we have 11 official languages in South Africa. We believe it’s our diversity that makes us strong.

Myth #3:
South Africa is a third world country.

Yes and no.

Picturesque setting, but this shantytown outside of Capetown has no electricity or running water.

South Africa has a very strong business sector in the formal economy, a sophisticated financial system with great banks, an extended road network, good universities, modern cities and all the other things one might find in any developed country.

Durban, with highrise hotels and condos, is often compared to San Diego.

Unfortunately, as a result of our apartheid past, many of our citizens are still living just on or below the “bread line,” which means South Africa also has a large third world component. This is similar to what one would find in India, Brazil, Russia and many other emerging economies. One of our government’s stated aims is to address this situation to create a better life for all South Africans.

Deon Terblanche is the ninth generation of Terblanches born and raised in Africa, and he considers himself as African as the big five and kwaito music. Lawyer jokes encouraged his departure from the big city, corporate law, and structured finance. He now enjoys a sea view from his office at a real estate group called Terblanche Total Property Solutions. Follow him on Twitter @TerblancheProp.