Culture, anyone?

What do you think of when you think of Turkey, my friends? Perhaps you think of faded aged, rugs, kebabs, the sweet licorice-like scent of nargile smoke, the sharp minarets of mosques abruptly interrupting the skyline and their azans tiredly punctuating daily life. Perhaps you think of the paradox of bearded, turbaned men and headscarved women contrasted by the seductive oriental fables of sultans' gluttony and harem fantasies. Perhaps, like myself before I came here, you don't really know what to think about Turkey at all, on second thought.

It's one of the most profound, and deeply irritating, questions of the postmodern era, namely because no one can come to an agreement on it: what is culture, and what is identity? Thousands have passed their lives buggered by the question, and once you think you've got it, someone comes along and says, ''No, no! Wrong! It's more like.....'' It is further complicated by the multiplicity of cultures in the modern world and, even further by subcultures and identities......my what a mess liberal thought has made of soceities. The silliest thing about it all is that people actually have time to concern themselves with matters such as these. Imagine if people put the same amount of time and thought into things such as ''How can we get water to that village over there?'' or ''Well, how can we get those swindlers on Wall Street to stop buggering up everyone's lives?'' But now I'm rambling, excuse me.

Regardless, it is natural for a product of the Western education system to ponder matters such as these, no matter how ultimately unimportant they may be. Of course,as an American doint a stint in İstanbul, I have of course been asking the culture question - of Turks and myself:

What is Turkish culture? What is culture?

Good question, and naturally everyone has something to say about it. I try to be as open minded as I can, especially when I travel. Not an easy task, but I think I can score some points for trying. When I came here, I honestly admit I didn't know that much about Turkey. It's easy enough to imagine American culture - gunslinging cowboys, Coke, Hollywood and such - but what about Turkey? Well, I know they are muslim there. They eat a lot of grilled meat, and I hear they like to drink tea. It's probably hot, a lot of sun. And I'm pretty damn sure they don't speak Arabic there. So when I got here, I was pleasantly surprised by many things - the people are friendly, and the food is good. Everyone is clean, not too conservatively religious, and the language is pretty simple. Anti-American sentiment isn't too strong, and surprisingly, a lot of the time I feel like I'm living in the middle of Europe, sans stuffiness of course. But wait a second - isn't this a muslim country? Indeed it is, and the paradoxes are quotidian; stare at the big-breasted sunglasses advertisement while waiting for the ancient bus and hear the azan drill your eardrums out. Watch the headscarved girls wearing Converse high tops and Gucci bags walk by.
Arabesque music from one car blasting by, Rhianna from the next. So which is it, you ask yourself, what's the culture here?

I'm sure I'm not the first idiot to ask that question, and I sure as hell won't be the last. To be honest, I really don't think I'm in any kind of position to make an educated guess about it seeing as how I have only been here for a few months, anyway. So I ask my freinds and students: does Turkey have its own culture?

Surprisingly, most of them say no, no it doesn't. Why not? Well, think about the history here chummy: first, there were the shamanistic Turkic tribes. The the Greeks came with their polytheism, followed not too long after by the Romans. Soon they evolved into the Christian Byzantines, who were ousted by the Ottoman Turks, the warriors of Islam. They had a good run at it, but eventually even they were done away with by Atatürk, who founded the modern Turkish republic based on the western model because of a personal distaste for all things Ottoman - the old Arabic abjad was replaced by the Latin alphabet, suits replaced traditional garb, and in general everything European was forced into fashion. So you see, how can we have our own culture since the cultures of others have been battling for supremacy here for the past 2500 years? A valid point indeed, especially when you think about it; can't the images of dim brass lanterns and carpets and harems be traced back to the near east, and those of flashy sneakers and cell phones be traced to the West? The sole unique thing about it just may be the language - it's completely unrelated to any European or Semitic language which surrounds it (despite having acquired a great deal of loan words from Arabic). Perhaps it is not so much that they don't have their own culture as they haven't had the chance to create one.

Well, be that as it may, most Turkish people are proud of their culture and identity, and they should be. Even if it is a product of historical mish-mash, it is rich and colorful. Recently, I had a discussion about this with a more advanced student. Turkey may not have its own culture, but it has strong traditions, and isn't that a good part of culture? American culture is weak in comparison, he claimed. I certainly begged to differ on that point, but regardless in the end, I was left pondering: which is worse? To have a weak culture, or to have yours borrowed from another?

I'm sorry. I suppose by now I could have gotten water to that lone village.

The Busy Rhythym

Again dear followers of this blog, I am sorry for not keeping it up as I should. I know many of you check here often to no avail. But I have good reason! I hadn't had the time because I had been so busy, what with my time slpit between work and spending time with Christine since she was here. She stayed here for the better part of a month and we had a wonderful time, cooking, exploring, loafing, smoking nargile, enjoying the city.





I explored a lot of İstanbul with her that I hadn't seen for the time that I had been here. I played tour guide for a little while while I lived in Sultanahmet: the Blue Mosque, Eminönü, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, the nargileci tucked behind mosques that felt like stepping back into the Ottoman days of the 1600s when you went inside. She explored a lot of the museums and such herself though while I was working in order to keep busy, so I am apparantly still missing out on a lot of good stuff. We did make it to the Archaeological Museum together, but I wish it had been another museum we had gone to; let's just say this prospective visitors - don't come here just to see the archaeology museum. At times it was like the Greek section of the Met.


One day, when the weather was halfway decent, we went up in the Galata Tower, which is across the Golden Horn from where I live. It is a stone tower built in the 7th century by the Byzantines that functioned as a lighthouse, a fire tower, and a prison at various times, but nowadays it houses a restaurant/nightclub and a narrow balcony where tourists can go out and view the cityscape and the Bosphorous. Since it is on a hill it does indeed provide an excellent view of the city and you are actually higher up than you think you really are. Legend has it that around the 14th century, one man fashioned some wings made from fabric, jumped off the tower, and glided to the other side of the Bosphorous while the sultan and thousands of people looked on. At first, the sultan was pleased, but on second thought he had the man put to death because he feared he may have been some sort of magician or sorcerer.



The view from the top really is breathtaking; on the day we went up you could see clear for fifteen or twenty miles, and apart from the sea and the mountains across it, all there was to see to the horizon was city. İstanbul. You don't really know how big the city truly is until you go up in the tower and see it stretching to the horizon. New York built up, but İstanbul built out. Indeed, you could say that İstanbul is no more than a collection of villages. Many parts of the city actually still retain their village names: Bakırköy (Copper Village), Karaköy (Black Village), Arnavutköy (Albanian Village), Yeşilköy (Green Village), and so on. You really get a sense that İstanbul really is too big for one continent when you are up on the balcony of the tower, looking over the terra cotta roofs with the salty wind blowing in your face and the sound of ships' horns belching in the distance.


Another day we took the ferry to Kadıköy, on the Asian side. The ferry boat is the same fare as riding the bus or the metro, so it is an inexpensive activity for the student or budget traveler. Like the Staten Island ferry, everyone waits in the terminal until the arriving passengers get off the boat, and then once the doors open everyone throngs toward the entrance and you get squeezed like a tube of toothpaste. On the boat we clambered across the rickety wooden gangplank and climbed over the massive piles of ropes and got a seat along the rear starboard gunwale toward the stern. On the way over a thick salty haze over the water made it difficult to see to far, but the deep, cold water was a brilliant blue green color, and sparkled in the weak sunshine.

The Asian side of İstanbul was pointedly less crowded, more laid back and relaxed. People didn't have the urgent hustle of the European side, and the energy was much more easygoing and welcoming. Since we went in the late afternoon, we didn't stay long, just long enough to get a feel for ''The Other Side'' and to catch a few cups of tea, a nargile, and a balık ekmek (fresh mackerel sandwich). On the way back, the setting sun bathed the city in an orange glow, and as the temperature dropped rapidly as we crossed the Bosphorous our puffs of breath mixed with the salty haze over the water. The other side was nice, but I was glad to be back in Europe - back in the busy rhythym. As the boat moved in place to dock, people began climbing over the rails and leaping onto the dock before the boat was even close to being tied up. I laughed and enjoyed the romance of it - it was quite the contrast to back home, where insurance and safety regulations take the fun out of everything. People do still live in some places.


Aside from exploring and running around, going to the gym and hanging out in parks and exploring mosques and cooking and olive-tasting at bazaars, Chrissy made some friends as well. Well, more like she stole my friends from me (wink). Her abundant free time allowed her to spend more time with my friends than I could, and she was well liked by all of them, probably more than I. They gave her countless cups of tea and great conversations and stories, and they were all sad when she left. My friends Kürşad and Üskan had a particularly fun time with her, jocularly joking her with and trying to get her to go home with a carpet, a small Afghan horse-hair carpet that I actually really liked and kind of wish she bought (wink again).

A man's woman

The 15 lira dinner

We did so much and had the best time together, and it was too soon for her to leave; there was still so much to be done. It felt like she had been here with me all along, and now after she has gone my new house, which she moved into with me, is emptier and lonlier, because she made it homey with me. In many ways, it isn't, and won't be, the same.

Nontheless, changes at work coincided with her leaving. One teacher, who went on vacation, decided not to come back, and with another teacher being fired, things have been hectic around the school trying to get the teacherless classes covered. So now I am very busy covering classes, and I don't have much time for anything else - forty hour weeks with Wednesdays off for the time being. It's good because it is keeping me busy, and the exhaustion will be worth it in the end.

But the busy rhythym has been lightened by one thing: I bought a new typewriter for my collection. I haggled with the old keymaker and got it down to 65 lira ($50), and what conditioın it is in. A Turkish Typewriter!!

Mom, make some more room in the attic!!

Quite the keyboard indeed