These are just some common misconceptions that I find myself combating in conversations with people at home, so to ward off further awkwardness, here are a few things to know.
1) Turkey is not an Arab country, and they don't like being lumped in with Arab people. People here don't speak Arabic, and neither do I. They speak Turkish, which is related to Central Asian languages like Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, etc.
2) Yes, Istanbul WAS Constantinople, but when you reference this song in conversation, my smile is secretly saying, "I'm so sick of hearing this. Please stop."
3) Even amid the recent political unrest, the biggest danger in this country to my personal safety is, and always has been, the traffic and crazy driving. If I've ever been targeted as an American, it's by vendors trying to sell me expensive stuff at tourist places, or by students desperate to practice English with a native speaker.
4) Ankara is a city of 5 million people, with all the amenities and shops you'd expect of a city that size. We have IKEA and Starbucks. Like any city, it's got incredibly rich people, incredibly poor people, and everything in between.
5) Turkish people are Muslim. All but the most conservative of them drink alcohol. Most of them don't have a problem with this.
6) Turkey is a very large country with a giant gap between the urban and rural areas. Anything you read about terrorism, honor killings, child brides, etc. happens way out east in places that even Turks in the cities find appalling and foreign. I've never come close to any of this.
7) Most Muslims view Christians the way that Christians tend to view Jews: people coming from the same background and worshiping the same God, but missing the most important part of the message. When in doubt, they tend toward syncretism and emphasize that our religions are essentially the same and differ only in which prophet we follow. This is allowable in Islamic thought because in the Qur'an, Jesus is a prophet from God whose message was corrupted by his followers. Christians are just misguided future Muslims who haven't yet realized the truth of God's final revelation to Mohammad, and they're taught that Christians will be overcome by this truth and immediately convert when we hear it. They tend to be surprised when this doesn't happen in real life.
8) That being said, Turkish people also view religion as inherently tied to nationality, so while it's natural and acceptable for Americans and Greeks to be Christians and eventually convert to the superior religion of Islam, Turks are Muslim, period. There's no tolerance for Turkish Christians, atheists, Buddhists, whatever.
9) If I wore a headscarf here, people would laugh at me and I probably wouldn't have any friends.
10) Turkish delight is a sticky confection that comes in a variety of flavors, and which most Americans don't like.
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