Turkish hospitality strikes again

Over and over I have heard people speak of Turkish hospitality and the cultural value of welcoming guests as "God's guests" and doing everything possible to make guests comfortable. After seven months of living here, I can state with absolute conviction that this is not a myth. Turkish people genuinely love guests, and from the moment you step into a Turkish home until the moment you leave, you can expect to be pampered, stuffed full of delicious food and all the tea you can handle, and treated to delightful conversation and laughter.

Language and cultural barriers cannot get in the way of this incessant desire to show hospitality. Smiles and "Tarzanca," as my Turkish teacher likes to call the language of gestures, are considered perfectly acceptable means of extending the arm of friendship to anyone who walks through the door. It is a very warm feeling for a foreigner alone in a strange country to have families so graciously bring you in and treat you with such kindness for no particular reason other than hospitality.

And while I greatly appreciate the warmth and hospitality of the Turkish people, there is a dark side to this cultural value. Being a perpetual guest can induce a state of exhaustion as you realize that people are never going to let you pay for dinner, and that an evening with friends is always going to be centered on you, the guest. My stubborn American notion of equality refuses to bend, and it's sometimes difficult for me to graciously accept such generosity, since I feel like I have done nothing to deserve the special treatment.

Tonight was the same as usual: some Turkish friends had invited my flatmate and I out to celebrate the fact that we hadn't seen each other in a long time, and I sat helplessly as they refused to let us pay for our own dinner, but smiled broadly while snatching the bill away to cover the whole thing. We only managed to pay for coffee later by distracting the guys long enough to surreptitiously slip the cashier some bills.

But something weird happened after dinner when we were discussing where to go for the next stop of the evening. We were faced with a choice between hookah bar and coffee shop, and one guy said, "Well, I don't like hookah, but we'll go wherever the girls like. They're the guests." Our other friend looked at him and said, "No! These girls aren't guests anymore. They are just friends. If we want coffee, we can get coffee." And it may sound strange, but this moment made me feel more at home here than all the hospitality Turks have offered up so far. Finally, we've broken through to a point that at least one person doesn't feel the need to extend us the royal treatment anymore because we're no longer visiting "outsiders." Being "just a friend" puts me at a whole new level of comfort with these people who have been so willing to share their country and their culture with us. And that is a wonderful feeling.

Springtime and holidays

It's been a long, nasty transition from winter into spring, with March both entering and exiting with lion's fury, and April being a soggy, spastic mess. It's almost like being back in the Midwest, to tell the truth. One day it'll be sunny and 80 degrees, and the next it's back down to 40 degrees and the sky fills with ominous clouds. The past couple of weeks it's been generally warm, but even on the sunniest morning it's foolish to leave home without an umbrella because a downpour will probably start an hour later.

However, there was one glorious, glorious day last week that was warm and sunny for an entire afternoon. And not only was it sunny and gorgeous, it was also a public holiday so I had a Saturday without my normal six hours of classes!

And as with all national holidays, the flags came out and were proudly displayed everywhere.

April 23 is Children's Day in Turkey. This is a holiday established by Ataturk in 1921 to mark the date that Parliament first opened. Turks tell me that this is an international children's day, given to all the children in the world.

Last Saturday there were no classes, but schoolkids all over Turkey went to their schools for special ceremonies, with dance performances, poetry readings, singing, and other exhibitions. The other neat thing about Children's Day is that Ankara hosts an international children's sports festival in which kids from all over the world come to show off their national sports.

These posters are hanging all over the city to advertise the games, which are going on all week. The city is also celebrating by decorating the streets with some new friends.

Ankara (or Angora, as it was known in ancient times) is famous for its special breed of white angora cats. And it is these cats that have become the mascot for this year's Children's Games. These cats are all over the street corner. This is one of the smaller ones.

I did not make it to the games, but the day off was definitely a productive one in which I got my first taste of Turkish theater! It was certainly an interesting experience, considering that by a generous estimate I could understand a third of what was going on, but the magic of live theater is the same in any language and it felt good to be in an auditorium watching actors perform their craft.

And the best holiday is yet to come. May 1 is Labor Day in Turkey, and that means we get a Sunday off. I can go to church for the first time since Christmas! Hurray! I am praying that tomorrow will be another sunny day in which church can be followed by an afternoon in the park, but we'll see how it goes. I do not trust this Ankara weather.

Nasrettin Hoca

A few weeks ago a conversation class tried to introduce me to the wit of a medieval Turkish jokester named Nasrettin Hoca. A dominant figure in folklore, Nasrettin Hoca is known for his short comical anecdotes, and everyone in Turkey knows these jokes.

The story the class told me, which I saw later again in my Turkish textbook, is one of the more famous ones, and goes like this:

One day Nasrettin Hoca bought 3 kilos of liver at the market and had it sent home to his wife so she could cook dinner with it. However, his wife gave the meat to a neighbor. When Nasrettin Hoca came home, he asked his wife where the meat was and she replied that the cat had eaten it. Nasrettin Hoca promptly got out a scale and weighed the cat. "The cat is 3 kilos," he said, "and I bought 3 kilos of meat. So if this is the cat, where is the meat?"

One of the students later brought me a whole file of Nasrettin Hoca jokes. Here are some other cute ones.

One day Nasrettin Hoca was standing at the edge of a river. His friend waved to him from the opposite bank. "Nasrettin Hoca, how do I get back to the other side of the river?" he called. Nasrettin Hoca called back, "You're already on the other side of the river!"
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Once Nasrettin was invited to deliver a sermon. When he got on the pulpit, he asked, Do you know what I am going to say? The audience replied "no", so he announced, "I have no desire to speak to people who don't even know what I will be talking about!" and left.

The people felt embarrassed and called him back again the next day. This time, when he asked the same question, the people replied yes. So Nasrettin said, "Well, since you already know what I am going to say, I won't waste any more of your time!" and left.

Now the people were really perplexed. They decided to try one more time and once again invited the Hoca to speak the following week. Once again he asked the same question - "Do you know what I am going to say?" Now the people were prepared and so half of them answered "yes" while the other half replied "no". So Nasrettin said "Let the half who know what I am going to say, tell it to the half who don't," and left.

*******
In the village a woman was giving birth to her child and as it was a difficult birth the relatives waited for many hours. So they sent for the Hoca.
He came, listened to their story and went away. He returned in a few moments with a toy that made a squeaking sound. They asked him why and he said:
“Because the child will hear the “voice” of the toy and will very quickly come out to play.”
*******
One day the Hoca bought a piece of liver, and on his way home he met a friend who gave him a recipe for a delicious new liver dish. While he was walking, a crow swooped by, grabbed the piece of liver from the Hoca's hands, and flew away with it. Nasrettin Hoca watched the bird fly off, and then called after him, "Your dinner won't be as delicious as mine was going to be, because I have the recipe!"
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Nasrettin Hoca borrowed a cauldron from his neighbor, and returned it a few days later with a smaller bowl inside. "What's this?" the friend asked. "Your cauldron gave birth!" Nasrettin Hoca replied. The friend was very pleased. He thanked Nasrettin Hoca and took the cauldron and bowl. A few weeks later the Hoca borrowed the cauldron but this time he didn't return it. Finally the neighbor went to him and said, "Where is my cauldron?" "It died," said the hoca. "Oh come on," said the neighbor. "A cauldron can't die." Nasrettin Hoca snapped back, "What? You believed that it gave birth, why can't you believe that it died?"