The Woman Traveler's Essential: a White Scarf

I set out tonight onto the streets of Bangkok dressed in black – the color of night. Noises of motorcycles and taxis grumbled behind me. Suddenly a roar of sound and a silver car swept by. I sidestepped just in time. Next stop, a scarf shop run by a talkative and friendly Indian family. “I am looking for a white scarf,” I said, as they piled scarves of many colors on to the huge display table. They dug deeper and found one of purest white in the softest wool – a large Pashmina.

Why a white scarf? Through years of traveling, I have found a white scarf to be the one necessary travel accessory. In Thailand, it is considered hi-so (high sophistication) to turn up the air conditioning to freezing in taxis, on buses and trains. In the first class cabin on an overnight train ride north to Nong Khai (and on to Vientiane in Laos PDR), I shivered sleeplessly. Tightly gathering the white scarf around my shoulders, I made it through until dawn when the conductor allowed me once more to open the door.

Need to single out a taxi from the rush in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur? Wave a white scarf. That might work in New York as well. Waiting for a friend at the entry to a subway on a rainy night when hundreds huddle beneath a small overhang? Wear a white scarf and they will find you. Crossing a crowded train station in Canton (Guangzhou), China, you stick out like the proverbial sore thumb but people scatter to let you through – and no one dares to touch you. Need to command attention teaching in a classroom or need a moment to remember the next thing you will discuss when lecturing, take your time adjusting your scarf. Look up and you may see eyes following your movements with fascination.

In a backwater town in Egypt, I dressed carefully in layers to cover nearly every inch of skin before heading out to buy bread in the daily souk market. Married women in the town of Edfu dressed head-to-toe in stark black shifts with colorful headscarves wrapped to disguise their too dangerous hair. Before leaving the housing block, I covered my blondeness with the white scarf, then wrapped the ends around my neck. There is something delicate and feminine about the way a scarf drapes about the neck that turn the ordinary women into beauties. As I age and droop, scarves endow an artificial youthfulness.

I like the colors, textures and patterns of scarves. Picking through a rack of jewel colored cloths is a sensuous pleasure. Simple souvenirs, they make wonderful gifts and nothing is lighter to pack and carry away than a silk scarf. There is always room for another scarf in a suitcase.


I was initiated to the mysteries of scarves in Bali at the Elephant Caves. To enter, you must wear a scarf banded about the waist. Other tourists came bare-shouldered which was also considered inappropriate. A second scarf on the shoulders masked the offending skin. In Japan, I learned a Kabuki buyo dance involving manipulating a white scarf, folding it in origami shapes and tossing it coquettishly. In the Gobi desert of China, I was welcomed by sequined dancers with the presentation of a white scarf.

Now when I wander down into the mostly Muslim town where I currently live, I try to combine comfort and cosmetics by wearing a scarf and changing its angle to suit the situation. On the street, thrown over the shoulder of a thin-strapped dress seems to suit the Chinese and Tamil merchants. Entering a clothing shop owned by a Malay couple, I picked over the batik sarongs from elsewhere in Malaysia and Indonesia, and the brilliantly colored scarves in chiffons, linens, cottons and silks. I was wearing a pink top that day and the shoplady picked out a finely patterned pink scarf and draped it over my head. I laughed delightedly. She then proceeded to take off her own tiny jeweled pins and pin me the veil to my dress at the shoulders in front and back. Graceful glass butterflies, tiny gold dragonflies, sturdier silver and gold balls for scarf pins, earrings, cuff links, and more now offer their intrigues.

A scarf speaks of exotic places you’ve been or dream of visiting: the authority given by the checkered men’s scarves worn in the Middle East with a band to hold them on the head, the casual elan of the Indian woman who tosses a scarf in front of her neck, its ends wafting behind her as she walks. Nothing else has quite the aura as an ornately woven scarf made in some rarely visited village somewhere in northern Laos. Scarves can be items that museums put on pedestals, millionaires on their walls. Lay one lengthwise on a dining table and you have a feast. Arrange a chest of drawers or sideboard with a scarf as background to perfume bottles, tiny figurines, perhaps a candle or incense holder. Instantly, a pedestrian furnishing becomes an altar or shrine to the gods of the world.

Combining both function and form, a scarf clasped to my mouth has rescued me from the tubercular coughs of fellow travelers on planes and trains. Rounding a corner to come across a burning pile of trash – along the Appalachian Trail or on the soi sidestreets of Chiangmai – a scarf has given extra seconds to cross through the smoke before choking. Scattering sparks have charred holes in prized scarves but neither my hair or skin suffered.

There are dangers of course to the wearing of scarves and one must be careful. The “mother of modern dance,” Isadora Duncan affected long trailing scarves until the day one dangled too far behind, wrapped itself about the wheel of her car, viciously ending her bright life. Less dramatically, you may have a painful tug on your earlobe when they tangle in your earrings or difficulty breathing if wrapped too tightly. You may find fringe stuck in suitcase zippers or the back of your dress. Children in mufflers on snowy days resist their tight wrappings, throwing them off on to the floor, leaving them for you to trip over as you come in from the cold.

Yet, all in all, a scarf is the kind of accessory you can take or leave. I choose to collect them and wear them precisely because they can be both collected and discarded if circumstances call. No one scarf is the perfect accessory for every garment – though the white scarf comes close to suiting every attire. It can become everything from a towel to emergency clothing. It’s very handy to have when you split your pants or your shoes come apart or you skin your knee. You can tie it around a gift as in Korea and Japan, or you can tie it to a pole and wave it as a distress signal. You can even wave it in surrender.

In Mongolia and northern China, welcome is given to honored visitors with the presentation of a white silk scarf. Held draped across two hands, a small cup is filled with the intense alcoholic drink of the region. Manipulating scarf and cup is a trick. White and other multi-colored scarves wave in the wind at Mongol and Tibetan shrines. In Thailand, thousands of trees are wrapped in colorful chiffon scarves in honor of the spirits that inhabit and make the place sacred.

I am forever grateful to my students who have gifted me with scarves in many colors and designs. Wearing a scarf has become a kind of signature style for me when teaching -- emulating the bowties and neckerchiefs worn by some of my favorite eccentric teachers.  I feel more dressed up, more formal -- and there's always something available to wipe my perspiring brow.

Throughout Asia, white symbolizes death and a white scarf hanging to the waist has a melancholy look. Catholic priests throughout the West wear white vestments with scarves hanging from their shoulders , especially  at Easter. White in both New  and Olde England is a spring or summer color -- the white linen suit, the clean white sneakers, the white  flowers poking up through the melting white winter snows.  

There is a universality though divergent sets of meaning to the white scarf. For me, it symbolizes both a way to separate and protect myself from the crowd – and  wearing a white scarf seems to free me to travel through the many cultures that make up our many colored world.

Copyright 2010, TF (teviothome@gmail.com)