Guys, I hate to say this, but I think I may have to bow out of most movie nights now.
For one thing, I somehow stopped watching movies altogether while in Turkey. I saw exactly three movies in the theater there, all of which were with super analytical people who enjoyed long post-viewing debrief sessions in which we analyzed the selective portrayals of various cities and critiqued the political ideologies put forward in the movies. Yeah, fun right?
Romantic comedies were out. A couple cheesy musicals were in. Action and sci fi were altogether forgotten. And just like when I stopped drinking soda in college and discovered that it now makes me sick, Hollywood movies are something I no longer handle well.
I simply can't relax and enjoy them at face value anymore. Having sat through a fair number of screenings in foreign countries where I was the only one laughing at jokes, or memorably the only person in a Taiwanese theater who didn't gasp in shock when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at the beginning of National Treasure 2, I now watch every film through the lens of what someone in another country might learn about the United States from it. Trust me, most of it isn't stuff we really want to be advertising, and Hollywood paints a larger-than-life caricature of our country that horrifies anyone lacking the context of reality to highlight the exaggerations.
The last couple action flicks I sat through left me cold for other reasons besides the idea that everyone in the States carries guns. Maybe I'm getting old, but I see an increasing resemblance to video games in the disregard for human life and chaos, the ability to kill without consequence, deaths that draw cheers or laughs.
The thing is, I spent my time abroad intentionally attaching names and faces to statistics, building stories and images behind things that were just footnotes in my readings before. I've intentionally tried to break down my own stereotypes about other groups and learn to see people as individuals with complex backgrounds, motivations, and ideas instead of part of a faceless "other" group. I spent time with marginalized groups trying to understand who they were and train myself not to see people as expendable nobodies.
One pitfall of this is now at church when we pray for the military personnel in harm's way, I secretly add a prayer for the people on the other end of our military's guns. Maybe that's not a character flaw, but certainly not something I bring up often because it leads to political discussions I don't want.
The other downside is that I'm now a total buzzkill at the movies. Last night my brother poked me 2/3 of the way through Red 2 and said, "You aren't enjoying this, are you?" Not one bit. That movie was one of the most inhumane I can recall in recent memory. If there's one thing I can't stand in movies, it's collateral damage, and the movie seemed to have no problem killing off every single extra as the leads delivered one-liners eliciting chuckles from the audience. It galled me. I was still mourning the loss of the first three casualties so easily disposed of, wondering if they had families to support or plans to meet someone for dinner, when another ten were gunned down. A gunshot death was played for laughs when the incompetent heroine fired blindly and hit a guy in the background while another character said, "Of course she gets a gun. This is America!" Get it? Because we...uh...give guns to people who don't know how to use them?
The loss of human life can make people laugh. Seriously. Needless to say, by the time the heroes saved humanity from "terrorists" and blew up a nuclear weapon in the middle of a freaking city [cue happy music and Bruce Willis kissing his girl in celebration as radiation leaks everywhere], I think they'd already killed enough random civilians to be classified as terrorists themselves.
The protagonists tromped through four different countries, destroying hundreds of cars and buildings along the way. After watching them tear up a convenience store in Moscow and then walk away without any consequences, I actually got really sad thinking about the poor guy whose business they just ruined.
"That's what insurance is for!" my brother said afterwards, trying to get me to shut up.
"Maybe not in Russia!" I said.
Cricket chirp.
They probably caused more damage than the scene from Team America parodying how much damage American movie heroes do in the process of killing the bad guy.
I know, I know, I'm not supposed to think about this during a Hollywood blockbuster. But to me, that's exactly the problem. I have to shut off my empathy system and focus on how much fun Bruce Willis and Co. are having, not about all the human beings who lost their lives and property in the process.
And that's not a part of myself I want to shut off anymore. I'm done with action movies.
That'll probably make me a total downer to be around, taking stuff too seriously that's supposed to be mindless, bloody, violent fun.
Oh well. I'll find other ways to have fun.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Friday, July 19, 2013
Subconscious culture shock
Last night I dreamed that a group of Palestinian protesters burned a US flag in a public event, but instead of the national anthem, they played the theme song from the NBC Nightly News. I called Brian Williams to ask him if he'd seen this and if the protesters had the rights to the theme music. Mr. Williams told me that I should call them to ask, and also made me eat a taco.Then President Obama showed up to our choir rehearsal and made us sing Disney songs while he danced around.
This, I suppose, is what my subconscious notices about being back in the USA? Copyright laws, evening news, tacos, Disney, a President who dances...
'MURICA?
Side trivia note: Did you know the NBC Nightly News theme was written by John Williams? It does sound very Williams-esque once you stop and think about it.
This, I suppose, is what my subconscious notices about being back in the USA? Copyright laws, evening news, tacos, Disney, a President who dances...
'MURICA?
Side trivia note: Did you know the NBC Nightly News theme was written by John Williams? It does sound very Williams-esque once you stop and think about it.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
The Simple Life
People keep anticipating that I will have a very hard time readjusting to life in the USA, and for the most part they're right. For this reason it's probably good that one of the first things I did when I got home was pack up and go on a family vacation for a week down in the Ozarks in southern Missouri.
This is a place of rolling green hills, slow clear rivers, and people who will not hesitate to offer you a beer or a sandwich the moment you meet. That's no exaggeration- I seriously went for a walk down to the river one afternoon and encountered a middle-aged couple who were enjoying a picnic by the river with their dog. I stopped to say hello and chat a bit, because in Missouri it's rude not to, and ended up staying for two and a half hours because they insisted that I sit in the river with them and look at rocks. No, seriously, that's how they spend their afternoons. The woman was happier than almost anyone I'd ever seen, and she knew it. "I know everyone needs their computers now. But computers are expensive and I don't want all that Facebook gossip. What do I need that for? I have my dog, and these rocks are great. Ooh, this one could be an ashtray. Do you need an ashtray? Take another beer, sweetie."
It was a far cry from what years abroad looking at my own culture through the lens of Facebook walls and Hollywood movies had led me to expect when I returned. Turkish people tend to view the USA as a place of ultimate capitalism, a place where everyone lives in giant houses in cities of endless skyscrapers, where nobody will lift a finger to help another person unless money is involved, and where corporations reign supreme while the tyrannical government slowly squeezes away everyone's basic rights. Sure, many Americans share this dystopian view, but it totally fails to take into account the variety of life that still exists here.
Maybe I'm sheltered in my little hipster haven of Columbia, but what I have seen since arriving home is a resurgence in living small and supporting the endeavors of the small businesses in the surrounding area. The craft beer renaissance that I keep hearing about is alive and well, with every bar and restaurant I've entered serving a wide variety of local beers. The locally-owned restaurants and shops take pride in stocking their shelves with other local products. Local bands are advertised everywhere, and even in the summer when the college kids are gone, there's live music every night several places in town. Small businesses seem to be thriving, and our downtown area has only one franchised fast-food place. The rest is dominated by locally-owned boutiques and cafes serving food from every corner of Asia from Jordan to Vietnam. The small corner coffee shops still manage to hold their own against Starbucks, and people flock to them.
Of course, there's the suburban side of strip malls and big-box chain stores around, but I've only driven past it so far. At least here it's surprisingly easy to stay away from that and choose to live a smaller, healthier life where people are trying to make quality products and support the people around them who are also trying to make quality products.
I'm also living around people who so far have been able to hold a conversation for an hour or two without reaching for their phone, which is something else that surprised me. Even when I went out with friends last week to a bar, no faces disappeared into screens. People were engaged with those around them, and we had a good time even if the conversations were a bit more simple and focused on gossip than I'm used to for now.
Walking around Columbia, people always smile at you. They hold doors open. If they see you struggling with something, they'll stop to help even if it's not convenient. They ask for nothing in return except a thank you. It feels good, and I can sense the cynicism and paranoia that I'd developed in Turkey starting to melt away. I'm not worried about hidden agendas when people start a conversation. Maybe it's just that I can walk into a store and ask for help without wondering whether my vocabulary will fail me halfway through or fearing the salesperson will talk too fast. Either way, the sense of community is strong here, and it's genuine, something I remember trying to communicate to people overseas who hear only about individualism and don't realize how much Americans do reach out to each other.
So as I prepare to move into a larger city and away from Hipsterland, MO, I have to ask: am I living in a bubble, or is it much easier to live the simple life in the USA than I was led to believe while I was away? Is the niceness really a Midwestern thing?
This is a place of rolling green hills, slow clear rivers, and people who will not hesitate to offer you a beer or a sandwich the moment you meet. That's no exaggeration- I seriously went for a walk down to the river one afternoon and encountered a middle-aged couple who were enjoying a picnic by the river with their dog. I stopped to say hello and chat a bit, because in Missouri it's rude not to, and ended up staying for two and a half hours because they insisted that I sit in the river with them and look at rocks. No, seriously, that's how they spend their afternoons. The woman was happier than almost anyone I'd ever seen, and she knew it. "I know everyone needs their computers now. But computers are expensive and I don't want all that Facebook gossip. What do I need that for? I have my dog, and these rocks are great. Ooh, this one could be an ashtray. Do you need an ashtray? Take another beer, sweetie."
It was a far cry from what years abroad looking at my own culture through the lens of Facebook walls and Hollywood movies had led me to expect when I returned. Turkish people tend to view the USA as a place of ultimate capitalism, a place where everyone lives in giant houses in cities of endless skyscrapers, where nobody will lift a finger to help another person unless money is involved, and where corporations reign supreme while the tyrannical government slowly squeezes away everyone's basic rights. Sure, many Americans share this dystopian view, but it totally fails to take into account the variety of life that still exists here.
Maybe I'm sheltered in my little hipster haven of Columbia, but what I have seen since arriving home is a resurgence in living small and supporting the endeavors of the small businesses in the surrounding area. The craft beer renaissance that I keep hearing about is alive and well, with every bar and restaurant I've entered serving a wide variety of local beers. The locally-owned restaurants and shops take pride in stocking their shelves with other local products. Local bands are advertised everywhere, and even in the summer when the college kids are gone, there's live music every night several places in town. Small businesses seem to be thriving, and our downtown area has only one franchised fast-food place. The rest is dominated by locally-owned boutiques and cafes serving food from every corner of Asia from Jordan to Vietnam. The small corner coffee shops still manage to hold their own against Starbucks, and people flock to them.
Of course, there's the suburban side of strip malls and big-box chain stores around, but I've only driven past it so far. At least here it's surprisingly easy to stay away from that and choose to live a smaller, healthier life where people are trying to make quality products and support the people around them who are also trying to make quality products.
I'm also living around people who so far have been able to hold a conversation for an hour or two without reaching for their phone, which is something else that surprised me. Even when I went out with friends last week to a bar, no faces disappeared into screens. People were engaged with those around them, and we had a good time even if the conversations were a bit more simple and focused on gossip than I'm used to for now.
Walking around Columbia, people always smile at you. They hold doors open. If they see you struggling with something, they'll stop to help even if it's not convenient. They ask for nothing in return except a thank you. It feels good, and I can sense the cynicism and paranoia that I'd developed in Turkey starting to melt away. I'm not worried about hidden agendas when people start a conversation. Maybe it's just that I can walk into a store and ask for help without wondering whether my vocabulary will fail me halfway through or fearing the salesperson will talk too fast. Either way, the sense of community is strong here, and it's genuine, something I remember trying to communicate to people overseas who hear only about individualism and don't realize how much Americans do reach out to each other.
So as I prepare to move into a larger city and away from Hipsterland, MO, I have to ask: am I living in a bubble, or is it much easier to live the simple life in the USA than I was led to believe while I was away? Is the niceness really a Midwestern thing?
Friday, July 5, 2013
How to get engaged, Istanbul style
Step 1: Live here.
Step 2: Take your girlfriend to a romantic historical building.
Step 3: Have your friends prepare a poster saying, "Will you marry me?"
Step 4: Have more friends ready and waiting with a bouquet of flowers.
Step 5: Have even more of your friends set off sparklers in front of the banner.
Step 6: Have yet more friends scatter rose petals as you lead her toward the banner.
Step 7: Live happily ever after as your entourage captures the moment.
Never in a million years would I be okay with a public proposal like this, but this girl seemed giddy with joy. Good for them.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Home in time for the 4th of July
Being abroad so long in a country where anti-Americanism runs rampant does something to your brain after a while. All day long, from all my students and friends, I face questions from people whose knowledge of the USA comes from biased sources, media outlets which pick and choose the negative side of America to teach people about and which demonize the country for its foreign policy and capitalist system. The other main source of knowledge is Hollywood movies or TV shows, a dangerous thing for us to send off as an export to countries where people tend not to think critically about media and assume that what they see is an accurate portrayal of American culture.
This has frustrated me to no end. Ankara is a political city, and for its inhabitants, seeing an American is immediately a chance to talk about US politics. I find it important to have these conversations so I can give them an American perspective and correct a lot of their very wrong assumptions. However, it is exhausting, because unlike the Europeans or Australians I've had the same conversations with, Turkish people's views of politics and culture seem to stem from inaccurate or heavily twisted information. Even more confusing and disappointing is observing how strong prejudices run- the cognitive dissonance of confronting a living, breathing American who tells them the opposite of what they have always heard often leads people to conclude that I'm just a very unusual American and their initial assumptions are still correct.
To take just one example, after the 2012 presidential election there was a news piece saying that a few Southern states were considering secession and a couple petitions had gone around. Somehow this became huge news in Turkey, and even now I am frequently asked about it because people believe this is a serious issue and that the USA is on the brink of separation.
Or people have been very confused when I tell them that charity donation and volunteer work are a huge part of American culture. This assaults their assumption that Americans are all rich and selfish, and I've had students try to explain this away by saying that people must volunteer to keep their image up, so other people will respect them more, not because they just want to help people.
But the weird thing is, after a while this gets into your head. I hear endlessly about racial profiling, about gun violence, conspiracy theories about Zionists assassinating JFK, about how Americans are selfish and only care about money, about how our society is falling apart, and a little part of me had started to become twisted and paranoid and afraid of my own country.
This started to melt away instantly as soon as I got into the country. Even in the stressful environment of an airport, the overwhelming quality of American people is that they're nice. The TSA officer who called me to the check-in desk for a body scan and bag search did so with an apologetic smile, and I was rewarded for the inconvenience with bypassing the boarding line and being one of the first people on the plane. (Side note: yes, I found a loophole to getting free priority boarding!) The flight attendants chatted with passengers about their books and their children. Everyone I ran into at the airport was friendly and helpful, from the guy who helped carry my backpack to the woman who let me borrow her phone to call my sister when we arrived. Yes, Turkish people are usually wrong about this country. I grew up here, I know better than them what it's like. And it's much better than they give it credit for being.
And yes, I arrived. I'm in St. Louis at my sister's house, typing away at 5 am because jet lag woke me up.
Other observations so far, day one when everything is fresh and sunny, and I'm simply happy to be home:
This has frustrated me to no end. Ankara is a political city, and for its inhabitants, seeing an American is immediately a chance to talk about US politics. I find it important to have these conversations so I can give them an American perspective and correct a lot of their very wrong assumptions. However, it is exhausting, because unlike the Europeans or Australians I've had the same conversations with, Turkish people's views of politics and culture seem to stem from inaccurate or heavily twisted information. Even more confusing and disappointing is observing how strong prejudices run- the cognitive dissonance of confronting a living, breathing American who tells them the opposite of what they have always heard often leads people to conclude that I'm just a very unusual American and their initial assumptions are still correct.
To take just one example, after the 2012 presidential election there was a news piece saying that a few Southern states were considering secession and a couple petitions had gone around. Somehow this became huge news in Turkey, and even now I am frequently asked about it because people believe this is a serious issue and that the USA is on the brink of separation.
Or people have been very confused when I tell them that charity donation and volunteer work are a huge part of American culture. This assaults their assumption that Americans are all rich and selfish, and I've had students try to explain this away by saying that people must volunteer to keep their image up, so other people will respect them more, not because they just want to help people.
But the weird thing is, after a while this gets into your head. I hear endlessly about racial profiling, about gun violence, conspiracy theories about Zionists assassinating JFK, about how Americans are selfish and only care about money, about how our society is falling apart, and a little part of me had started to become twisted and paranoid and afraid of my own country.
This started to melt away instantly as soon as I got into the country. Even in the stressful environment of an airport, the overwhelming quality of American people is that they're nice. The TSA officer who called me to the check-in desk for a body scan and bag search did so with an apologetic smile, and I was rewarded for the inconvenience with bypassing the boarding line and being one of the first people on the plane. (Side note: yes, I found a loophole to getting free priority boarding!) The flight attendants chatted with passengers about their books and their children. Everyone I ran into at the airport was friendly and helpful, from the guy who helped carry my backpack to the woman who let me borrow her phone to call my sister when we arrived. Yes, Turkish people are usually wrong about this country. I grew up here, I know better than them what it's like. And it's much better than they give it credit for being.
And yes, I arrived. I'm in St. Louis at my sister's house, typing away at 5 am because jet lag woke me up.
Other observations so far, day one when everything is fresh and sunny, and I'm simply happy to be home:
- St. Louis is great in that unless you're smack in central downtown, the buildings tend to be lower and there's green space and sidewalks that cars don't drive on.
- I had started to wonder if Americans really dress so differently from Europeans after all. Yes, we do, and we don't tend to dress well in comparison. Especially men. Yikes, American men.
- Mexican food is incredibly delicious.
- When I'm abroad, it's much easier to tune out the conversations going on around me because it's generally not my native language. My ears have learned to pay attention whenever they hear English because it's so unusual. With my brain tuned this way, it's disconcerting to suddenly hear English all around.
- At the bag claim in St. Louis, I heard a family speaking Turkish on one side of me, and a family speaking Chinese on the other side. It was incredibly weird to hear both those languages at the same time and be able to eavesdrop on both conversations.
- I really missed coffee shops. Not Starbucks, but the little local corner coffee shop that plays hip music and is full of the sound of coffee beans grinding.
- Istanbul is gorgeous, but Missouri is green, and more importantly it's home. Mmmm.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Random thoughts from under the rock where I live
These bizarre questions keep popping into my head as I get ready to be super socially awkward when I go home. Keeping in mind that I haven't lived in the USA since the Bush Administration, aka my entire adult life, these are the kind of things I wonder about three days before I come home. In some ways, I'm like a foreigner, understanding current American culture through the lens of what I read on my Facebook feed and in the news.
What on earth does "twerk" mean? Do I want to know?
I'm still not clear on who Kim Kardashian is or why she's famous.
I honestly don't know if the heavy electronic sound of pop music got popular in 2010 everywhere, or if it was popular in Europe first, or if it was popular everywhere except for in Taiwan where people are content with their sweet, light Mandopop.
When exactly did smartphones sweep the country, and will I be automatically labeled as an insufferably pretentious minimalist hipster if I don't get one?
Speaking of which, why did the hipster subculture I grew up around in Columbia suddenly become mainstream, and get twisted into something that everyone HATES?
And on a related note, is this weird trend of being late everywhere and cancelling all plans at the last minute a Turkish thing, or does it happen in the U.S. too?
Has texting really replaced dating as the form of getting to know someone you'd like to pursue a relationship with? Do people still go on dates?
And are there even single Christians my age who haven't been relegated to "cat lady" status? It seems everyone I know is married and making babies already. Will I have people to hang out with?
Is the red/blue state divide really as polarized as global media makes it out to be?
How weird is it that I haven't seen a Superbowl commercial, or any TV commercial for that matter, in six years? Do people still reference those in conversation?
Will not liking Starbucks make me really awkward to invite out for an afternoon coffee/chat?
What length are skirts these days? Do people wear skirts on a regular basis? What about scarves? Do Americans wear scarves? I've become obsessed with both in the last few years.
How long will it take before I sink back into a world of Dr. Who and So You Think You Can Dance, and completely give up on having conversations about literature or international affairs? That's annoying, right? Nobody likes that, right?
Do people still read books? Or is it just in Turkey that reading doesn't exist?
I didn't even think about the fact that college sports existed for several years. Missouri is now in the SEC? What? Umm....erm.....what do people even talk about?
Oh geez, how am I going to make friends?
What on earth does "twerk" mean? Do I want to know?
I'm still not clear on who Kim Kardashian is or why she's famous.
I honestly don't know if the heavy electronic sound of pop music got popular in 2010 everywhere, or if it was popular in Europe first, or if it was popular everywhere except for in Taiwan where people are content with their sweet, light Mandopop.
When exactly did smartphones sweep the country, and will I be automatically labeled as an insufferably pretentious minimalist hipster if I don't get one?
Speaking of which, why did the hipster subculture I grew up around in Columbia suddenly become mainstream, and get twisted into something that everyone HATES?
And on a related note, is this weird trend of being late everywhere and cancelling all plans at the last minute a Turkish thing, or does it happen in the U.S. too?
Has texting really replaced dating as the form of getting to know someone you'd like to pursue a relationship with? Do people still go on dates?
And are there even single Christians my age who haven't been relegated to "cat lady" status? It seems everyone I know is married and making babies already. Will I have people to hang out with?
Is the red/blue state divide really as polarized as global media makes it out to be?
How weird is it that I haven't seen a Superbowl commercial, or any TV commercial for that matter, in six years? Do people still reference those in conversation?
Will not liking Starbucks make me really awkward to invite out for an afternoon coffee/chat?
What length are skirts these days? Do people wear skirts on a regular basis? What about scarves? Do Americans wear scarves? I've become obsessed with both in the last few years.
How long will it take before I sink back into a world of Dr. Who and So You Think You Can Dance, and completely give up on having conversations about literature or international affairs? That's annoying, right? Nobody likes that, right?
Do people still read books? Or is it just in Turkey that reading doesn't exist?
I didn't even think about the fact that college sports existed for several years. Missouri is now in the SEC? What? Umm....erm.....what do people even talk about?
Oh geez, how am I going to make friends?
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Follow up on modesty in Turkey
Yesterday I made some generalizations about Turkish culture and its bias against women, but to be fair I wanted to point out that while the attitudes I wrote about yesterday are certainly prevalent, they are by no means universal.
Today a Turkish guy friend posted this on Facebook:
Today a Turkish guy friend posted this on Facebook:
Translation: Rape is never the victim's fault.
"Not asking for it" is written under each of the figures.
"Not asking for it" is written under each of the figures.
I do know a handful of men who don't like the status quo and are putting the pressure on other men to stop blaming women for men's actions and thoughts. They're not even close to a majority, but they're here and they're standing up for women. And I really appreciate those guys.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Thoughts on modesty from a traveling girl
Summertime is upon us, which means the annual discussions of swimwear and modesty are also here. The video of the year is a talk by a fashion designer putting forward her collection of cute one-piece swimsuits. While I love her swimsuit designs and her ideas about what modesty means, I was disappointed by some of the comments my friends made in response, which reinforced the belief that it's entirely the woman's responsibility to stave off male objectification.
Another friend posted a great response to the swimsuit talk by Rachel Held Evans. I loved what Rachel had to say about this, and think it relates directly to everything that bothers me about the challenges women face in Turkey every day. Living here has turned me into a bit of a feminist, if only because it highlights disturbing ways that "sexist and oppressive" treatment of Muslim women is at times merely an amplified version of the logic behind the "Godly" behavior expected of women in evangelical American Christianity. And while I'm all for stable families and helping men to achieve their potential, men's self-esteem shouldn't come at the expense of women's skills, ambitions, or safety.
As I said, this is only an amplification of the logic I heard growing up in a Christian community in the USA. "Boys want just one thing, so it's up to you women not to give it to them." Boys flirting with girls or walking around shirtless flexing their muscles? Natural. Oh how funny they are. Girls flirting with boys or wearing a tight top? She's a "stumbling block" and we need to remind her of what Paul says about modesty. There is a double standard in place, which I think disrespects men and portrays them as mindless troglodytes who can't restrain themselves around women. To be fair, this seems to be less drastic in the USA, where boys at least get similar lectures on the importance of respecting women and controlling themselves, and most of the Christian guys I know are admirably tough on themselves in this regard. However, when self-discipline breaks down, the responsibility does tend to fall on the girl, especially if she was wearing something suggestive, because men are just "hard-wired" to objectify women.
This is a huge lesson I've learned from traveling, as the difference in modesty standards seems to correspond with a marked difference in the way men treat women in the various countries I've been to. When you're a traveling woman, this stands out in a major way and contributes to your feeling of safety in any country. And as I've traveled more, it becomes hugely apparent that while women absolutely should be aware of what they wear and the effect it has on other people, especially when traveling in other countries where standards may differ, it is ultimately up to the men to decide how to treat us.
Modesty does vary greatly from place to place. In Taiwan, bare shoulders are a no-no, but miniskirts are fine, the opposite of what raises Midwestern eyebrows. In India the knees have to be covered while bare midriffs are ok, but of course none of that will stop Indian guys at the Taj Mahal from taking your picture. In Turkey, it seems like anything you wear will earn stares of disapproval from older people and creepy leers from taxi drivers.
Here, I've gotten catcalls while wearing a long skirt and sweater. In Switzerland, a guy from West Africa called me some nasty names for not responding to his advances because in his eyes this particular outfit was screaming for male attention and advertising my availability.
In contrast, last summer I wandered all over Croatia dressed for the beach and hot weather, and had numerous conversations with men along the way- intelligent and interesting conversations about culture, travel and philosophy that never devolved into harassment or flirtation no matter what I was wearing.
I'm fully behind the idea of dressing well and not making things harder for guys, but the way these men treated me had nothing to do with my clothes and much more to do with their own motives for approaching me and their perceptions of what value I could bring to the interaction, things I have no control over. In the end, there's only so much you can do in the way of taking reasonable precautions, and "different cultural standards" isn't an excuse for a man to mistreat a woman who doesn't dress in a way he personally finds appropriate.
And finally,
Another friend told me of how she started wearing trousers at work because any time she wore a skirt, her male coworkers stared at her legs and commented on her appearance, until it got to a point that she felt so ashamed and uncomfortable that she abandoned skirts altogether.
This is actually a very effective technique for "putting women in their place," as nothing makes you want to stay home like a collective effort from men to make you uncomfortable, and I greatly admire the Turkish women who put up with it every day.
It's hard to live your life when people around you keep trying to tell you that you're doing the wrong thing, that your identity as a woman restricts you, that going out into the world means you're trying to be a man or that you're less of a woman, that you're rejecting the position that God created for you in this world and are brazenly becoming something He didn't have in mind.
My own particular church denomination has a similar debate raging about what women should and should not be allowed to do in church. Can we teach adult Bible studies? Read Scripture in church? Distribute Communion? And the women who ask the wrong questions or take steps in the wrong direction are often shut down with harsh words about not respecting God's word or following His design for men and women. I still don't have a firm personal stance on the issue of women's ordination, but Turkey has made me a lot more sensitive to the words and arguments used in the debate, and less sensitive to accusations that entertaining the possibility means I am mocking God's word.
The point is that modesty is a two-way street, and some of the arguments we use in the Christian community to caution women about their clothes are dangerously close to Muslim arguments that create strict rules in society restricting and shaming women for being female while exonerating men from blame. I'm not about to encourage girls to post a thousand pictures of themselves of themselves in bikinis on Facebook, but neither am I going to hop on the "bikinis are evil" bandwagon, because it's a little too close to the reasoning behind the burqa for my comfort.
Let's urge responsibility on both sides, and respect the challenges each gender faces without demonizing either men or women.
Another friend posted a great response to the swimsuit talk by Rachel Held Evans. I loved what Rachel had to say about this, and think it relates directly to everything that bothers me about the challenges women face in Turkey every day. Living here has turned me into a bit of a feminist, if only because it highlights disturbing ways that "sexist and oppressive" treatment of Muslim women is at times merely an amplified version of the logic behind the "Godly" behavior expected of women in evangelical American Christianity. And while I'm all for stable families and helping men to achieve their potential, men's self-esteem shouldn't come at the expense of women's skills, ambitions, or safety.
Evans mentioned some dangerous extremes of putting full responsibility for modesty on women, all of which I have observed in this country far more frequently than I'm comfortable with:
1. Blaming women for the thoughts of men
This is so true here in the chauvinist Middle East, where adultery is common and even accepted to some extent because "boys will be boys" and they have natural urges they can't control. Meanwhile, girls can be buried alive for talking to boys in eastern Turkey, because-- well-- no, I can't even begin to understand the rationale behind that. I guess when teenage boys are attracted to girls, they're just being human, but when teenage girls are attracted to boys it's pure evil seduction." But regardless of whatever synapses involuntarily fire in a man’s brain when he sees a woman’s body, he alone is responsible for the decision to objectify a woman or treat her with respect. Placing that burden upon women is unnecessary and unfair. "
As I said, this is only an amplification of the logic I heard growing up in a Christian community in the USA. "Boys want just one thing, so it's up to you women not to give it to them." Boys flirting with girls or walking around shirtless flexing their muscles? Natural. Oh how funny they are. Girls flirting with boys or wearing a tight top? She's a "stumbling block" and we need to remind her of what Paul says about modesty. There is a double standard in place, which I think disrespects men and portrays them as mindless troglodytes who can't restrain themselves around women. To be fair, this seems to be less drastic in the USA, where boys at least get similar lectures on the importance of respecting women and controlling themselves, and most of the Christian guys I know are admirably tough on themselves in this regard. However, when self-discipline breaks down, the responsibility does tend to fall on the girl, especially if she was wearing something suggestive, because men are just "hard-wired" to objectify women.
The Turkish, and to some extent evangelical Christian, view recalls the story of Adam and Eve. When confronted with his sin, Adam is quick to point out that "the woman" gave him the apple. However, God's wrath falls on both of them, showing that neither is an innocent party: he curses Eve for tempting Adam, but also punishes Adam for listening to her. Just because she gave you the apple doesn't mean you have to eat it. Even if it is perfectly natural and your biological impulses tell you to eat a delicious fruit when you want a snack, you're not off the hook for listening to your impulses when they tell you to do the wrong thing.
If you're on a diet, and someone offers you ice cream, it's your fault if you eat it. Now, if your friend offers you the ice cream knowing full well that you're on a diet, or eats ice cream in front of you talking about how delicious it is, she's being a jerk. And that's kind of my view of modesty: women have a responsibility not to be jerks toward their Christian/Muslim brothers who are genuinely trying to control themselves. But that only goes so far when the guy has decided in his mind that his moment of weakness is the girl's fault because she was eating ice cream. And it would be stupid to tell people they have to stop eating ice cream in public places for fear of causing dieting passers-by to falter. Yet that's essentially what happens in this country: women are to blame for men's objectification because they weren't careful enough about their clothes, while men are just following their instincts. I refuse to believe this is the way God wants us to treat each other.
Which brings us to another pitfall that Evans observed:
2. Assuming there are single standards that apply to all people in all cultures.
"The truth is, a man can choose to objectify a woman whether she’s wearing a bikini or a burqa. We don’t stop lust by covering up the female form; we stop lust by teaching men to treat women as human beings worthy of respect."
This is a huge lesson I've learned from traveling, as the difference in modesty standards seems to correspond with a marked difference in the way men treat women in the various countries I've been to. When you're a traveling woman, this stands out in a major way and contributes to your feeling of safety in any country. And as I've traveled more, it becomes hugely apparent that while women absolutely should be aware of what they wear and the effect it has on other people, especially when traveling in other countries where standards may differ, it is ultimately up to the men to decide how to treat us.
Modesty does vary greatly from place to place. In Taiwan, bare shoulders are a no-no, but miniskirts are fine, the opposite of what raises Midwestern eyebrows. In India the knees have to be covered while bare midriffs are ok, but of course none of that will stop Indian guys at the Taj Mahal from taking your picture. In Turkey, it seems like anything you wear will earn stares of disapproval from older people and creepy leers from taxi drivers.
Here, I've gotten catcalls while wearing a long skirt and sweater. In Switzerland, a guy from West Africa called me some nasty names for not responding to his advances because in his eyes this particular outfit was screaming for male attention and advertising my availability.
"She's just asking to be objectified, that immoral Westerner."
(Also: gross, I had this on in Switzerland and was STILL wearing it when I took this picture in Bosnia the next day. Clearly I was trying to tempt the menfolk with my backpacker hygiene.)
(Also: gross, I had this on in Switzerland and was STILL wearing it when I took this picture in Bosnia the next day. Clearly I was trying to tempt the menfolk with my backpacker hygiene.)
In contrast, last summer I wandered all over Croatia dressed for the beach and hot weather, and had numerous conversations with men along the way- intelligent and interesting conversations about culture, travel and philosophy that never devolved into harassment or flirtation no matter what I was wearing.
I'm fully behind the idea of dressing well and not making things harder for guys, but the way these men treated me had nothing to do with my clothes and much more to do with their own motives for approaching me and their perceptions of what value I could bring to the interaction, things I have no control over. In the end, there's only so much you can do in the way of taking reasonable precautions, and "different cultural standards" isn't an excuse for a man to mistreat a woman who doesn't dress in a way he personally finds appropriate.
And finally,
3. Making women ashamed of their bodies
I might expand this to "making women feel ashamed of being women." While legally women in this country have nearly as many rights as men, in reality it doesn't work out this way. I've frequently seen men cut women drivers off in traffic. A friend casually shrugged this off when it happened as we drove home one night. "They don't think we belong out here, so they try to make it dangerous and hope we'll just stay home next time."Another friend told me of how she started wearing trousers at work because any time she wore a skirt, her male coworkers stared at her legs and commented on her appearance, until it got to a point that she felt so ashamed and uncomfortable that she abandoned skirts altogether.
This is actually a very effective technique for "putting women in their place," as nothing makes you want to stay home like a collective effort from men to make you uncomfortable, and I greatly admire the Turkish women who put up with it every day.
It's hard to live your life when people around you keep trying to tell you that you're doing the wrong thing, that your identity as a woman restricts you, that going out into the world means you're trying to be a man or that you're less of a woman, that you're rejecting the position that God created for you in this world and are brazenly becoming something He didn't have in mind.
My own particular church denomination has a similar debate raging about what women should and should not be allowed to do in church. Can we teach adult Bible studies? Read Scripture in church? Distribute Communion? And the women who ask the wrong questions or take steps in the wrong direction are often shut down with harsh words about not respecting God's word or following His design for men and women. I still don't have a firm personal stance on the issue of women's ordination, but Turkey has made me a lot more sensitive to the words and arguments used in the debate, and less sensitive to accusations that entertaining the possibility means I am mocking God's word.
The point is that modesty is a two-way street, and some of the arguments we use in the Christian community to caution women about their clothes are dangerously close to Muslim arguments that create strict rules in society restricting and shaming women for being female while exonerating men from blame. I'm not about to encourage girls to post a thousand pictures of themselves of themselves in bikinis on Facebook, but neither am I going to hop on the "bikinis are evil" bandwagon, because it's a little too close to the reasoning behind the burqa for my comfort.
Let's urge responsibility on both sides, and respect the challenges each gender faces without demonizing either men or women.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Why I don't even slightly regret living abroad
Back in college we used to dream of this kind of life. We'd go abroad, do volunteer work, visit the great sites of the world and learn its languages so that we could get to know the people who inhabit this planet.
But something happens to Americans, something that tells us that anywhere outside the United States is a sort of black hole, and that if you go over there something bad will happen, you'll die. Or at least you won't experience all the advantages and freedoms you have in the USA (come to find out, other countries have freedom too, and better food). More importantly, if you spend more than a few months overseas, the course of your responsible adult life will be irreversibly screwed up. We've got our five year plans, our ten year plans, and going overseas sets you back because you should be using that time to further your career. To do otherwise marks you as a person unable to grow up. Yikes.
Or at least this is the narrative I remember hearing, and the narrative that I remember being the excuse a lot of people gave for not going abroad. But I guess according to the traditional American sense I was something of a failure. I didn't have a plan or a specific goal. I graduated from college as the perpetual bridesmaid in a university whose dominant culture was to get married young. I didn't long to be a pastor's wife, or a teacher in a small Lutheran school. And that made me feel like a freak. But as it turns out, God creates a lot of different people and doesn't have only one prescribed way of being successful. Not having a specific plan made me highly open to suggestion, and this opened the door for greater adventures than I could ever have planned for myself.
Ten years after graduating high school, all my earthly possessions fit into a few suitcases, my parents have given up hope that I'll ever give them grandchildren, and my career is nothing to boast about. But something else happened that I consider more valuable than buying a house or winning awards. This happened:
Yes, it's one of those cheesy Facebook friend maps that probably makes me look like a "friend collector." But what I see on those dots is memories of randomly showing up in a country for a week or two and meeting people that the internet has allowed me to stay in touch with. I see dots in countries that I never even considered going, but which I now feel a special connection to because of people I've met. I see dots representing people that six years ago I would never have been able to talk to because we didn't speak the same language. Some of them are able to make new friends because my English classes gave them the skills to communicate with foreigners. Some of them have been patient with me while I go through awkward phases of learning their language, and motivated me to keep practicing.
Those dots are the people who eroded my stereotypes and assumptions about other cultures. They are the people with whom I have laughed harder and cried harder than ever before in my life, people who opened up their homes and lives to me even though they had no reason to do so.
Have I also made a difference in their lives? This I cannot say. I like to think there are at least a few people out there whose lives are better for knowing me, but who knows. At any rate, the world really does seem smaller, and I don't have a single regret about coming overseas, potentially screwing over my career at home, and choosing instead to spend six years exploring and sharing.
Nope, everyone has a different path. For a lot of people, staying at home and carving out a space for themselves in the place they've always lived is absolutely the right thing to do, and I don't judge them a bit for it. I just hope and pray they'll extend me the same grace for making a different choice that I believe was right for me.
A week from today I'll be heading to Istanbul for one last visit. Then it's off to home and a new set of adventures.
SDG
But something happens to Americans, something that tells us that anywhere outside the United States is a sort of black hole, and that if you go over there something bad will happen, you'll die. Or at least you won't experience all the advantages and freedoms you have in the USA (come to find out, other countries have freedom too, and better food). More importantly, if you spend more than a few months overseas, the course of your responsible adult life will be irreversibly screwed up. We've got our five year plans, our ten year plans, and going overseas sets you back because you should be using that time to further your career. To do otherwise marks you as a person unable to grow up. Yikes.
Or at least this is the narrative I remember hearing, and the narrative that I remember being the excuse a lot of people gave for not going abroad. But I guess according to the traditional American sense I was something of a failure. I didn't have a plan or a specific goal. I graduated from college as the perpetual bridesmaid in a university whose dominant culture was to get married young. I didn't long to be a pastor's wife, or a teacher in a small Lutheran school. And that made me feel like a freak. But as it turns out, God creates a lot of different people and doesn't have only one prescribed way of being successful. Not having a specific plan made me highly open to suggestion, and this opened the door for greater adventures than I could ever have planned for myself.
Ten years after graduating high school, all my earthly possessions fit into a few suitcases, my parents have given up hope that I'll ever give them grandchildren, and my career is nothing to boast about. But something else happened that I consider more valuable than buying a house or winning awards. This happened:
Yes, it's one of those cheesy Facebook friend maps that probably makes me look like a "friend collector." But what I see on those dots is memories of randomly showing up in a country for a week or two and meeting people that the internet has allowed me to stay in touch with. I see dots in countries that I never even considered going, but which I now feel a special connection to because of people I've met. I see dots representing people that six years ago I would never have been able to talk to because we didn't speak the same language. Some of them are able to make new friends because my English classes gave them the skills to communicate with foreigners. Some of them have been patient with me while I go through awkward phases of learning their language, and motivated me to keep practicing.
Those dots are the people who eroded my stereotypes and assumptions about other cultures. They are the people with whom I have laughed harder and cried harder than ever before in my life, people who opened up their homes and lives to me even though they had no reason to do so.
Have I also made a difference in their lives? This I cannot say. I like to think there are at least a few people out there whose lives are better for knowing me, but who knows. At any rate, the world really does seem smaller, and I don't have a single regret about coming overseas, potentially screwing over my career at home, and choosing instead to spend six years exploring and sharing.
Nope, everyone has a different path. For a lot of people, staying at home and carving out a space for themselves in the place they've always lived is absolutely the right thing to do, and I don't judge them a bit for it. I just hope and pray they'll extend me the same grace for making a different choice that I believe was right for me.
A week from today I'll be heading to Istanbul for one last visit. Then it's off to home and a new set of adventures.
SDG
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
10 things to know about Turkey before I come home
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.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Taize
My first encounter with Taize prayer was in college, when I was contacted by a local church to provide music for a "Taize prayer service" one evening. It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced: a 30-minute prayer service consisting of several short songs that were each repeated seven or eight times, a couple of brief Scripture readings, and most jarring, a 10-minute period of silence for contemplation and prayer. I had never before sat in a group of people during an organized activity with literally nothing happening. It was awkward confronting absolute silence when I was so used to a life always buzzing with activity and stimulation.
But I found myself drawn to the simple beauty of the music. (If you haven't heard any Taize songs, I highly recommend checking it out: some of my favorites are here, here, here, here...ok I'll stop now.) My curiosity had been piqued, and I did some research later to find out that this prayer service was modeled on that of a monastic community in the farmlands of Burgundy, France. Their website explained the ideas behind the format of the prayer: drawing back from our human tendency to complicate life and learning to find God in simplicity. Resting in His presence and giving ourselves a chance to shut off "the turmoil of our thoughts" so that we can hear Him speak. I also learned that people under the age of 30 are invited to spend a week at Taize, participating in the community life and having lots of empty, unscheduled time for prayer and Bible study.
It was a fascinating concept, worlds away from my church experience of flashing Power Point animations, constant background music, and calls from the pulpit to build up my faith by adding more action and Christ-centered activity to my life. Taize was officially on my bucket list of places to visit.
So when I was contemplating summer destinations, facing a tough work schedule and recognizing that spiritual isolation is not a healthy situation, it seemed natural to head to Taize for a week.
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| Lighting candles during evening prayer |
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| The village of Taize |
Taize really is in the middle of nowhere. From Paris I took a high-speed train that dropped me off in the pouring rain at a tiny country station surrounded by other twenty-something Europeans with backpacks who all seemed to be waiting for the same bus as me. A thirty minute bus ride brought us to the Taize community, where we were immediately hustled into the church for evening prayer. About five thousand people crammed into the church, a large open space with no chairs or pews. People of all ages sat or knelt on the floor.
Later that evening the newcomers were given an introduction and led to our accommodations- campsites for those who had brought tents and barracks for the tentless like me. We were given work assignments (I joined the choir) and locations for morning Bible studies.
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| Lessons in minimalism- meals were less than stellar, but we had fun eating on benches together. |
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| Church at a nearby village |
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| Mealtime queues provide an excellent opportunity to make new friends. |
I spent my afternoons having long conversations with new friends, or walking around the countryside to the nearby villages. The community includes a forested area with a lake, where people go to walk, sit and pray, or read. Taize is a popular European youth group destination, so the place was packed with teenagers, many of whom were eager to talk to me when they learned I'm from the United States. Of the five thousand at Taize the week I was there, there were about 15 Americans, so we were a bit of a novelty.
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| The surrounding landscape reminds me somewhat of Missouri- no wonder the French settled around St. Louis! |
Newly refreshed from Taize, I set my sights on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia for the next ten days of my vacation. But that is a story for another time. Cheers for now...
Thursday, August 30, 2012
challenges of teaching
Wow, it has been so long since I've updated my blog that I'm sure it looked abandoned. The reason, quite simply, was that I had run out of things to write about, or at least things that I could put a positive spin on.
Life got a bit hectic in May when one of my British coworkers decided that he couldn't stomach life in Ankara, but eschewed resignation for the easier method of moving out of his school-owned apartment in the middle of the night and never showing his face again. Other teachers, including myself, were forced to take on lots of extra work to cover the classes he left behind. This tactic, sadly, is far from abnormal in the world of English teaching, and is part of a sad cycle. In many parts of the world, teaching English is sort of a backpacker job, seasonal work that you can pick up to make some cash while traveling. Schools invite this mentality by hiring any white face with a passport from an English-speaking country, with the misguided assumption that if you can speak English, you can teach it.
Meanwhile, these unqualified persons get into a classroom where students eager to become proficient in English start asking questions like, "What's the difference between 'a lot' and 'much'?" and then realize that their knowledge of English is so innate that they have no ability to explain it to others. For example, the words "right," "correct," and "true" in Turkish are all covered by the same word (doğru) and so it's common for a student to say, for instance, "Teacher, Americans eat hamburgers for every meal. Is it true?" The teacher will then reply, "Of course it is not true!" The student is asking for feedback on his grammar, while the teacher is refuting the stereotype expressed in the sentence. Try explaining to the student the difference in meaning between these words, especially for a new teacher with know knowledge of the Turkish language and why this particular distinction is incomprehensible to a native Turkish speaker. Yep, it takes a bit of effort, and a lot of backpackers find themselves overwhelmed in a pre-intermediate classroom where the students know only basic vocabulary and can't follow regular English.
In addition, some of these hippie backpackers find themselves unable to cope with such professional requirements as showing up on time to class, preparing for lessons, wearing pants without holes, and grading homework. Eventually, some of the less competent individuals decide to remedy their situation by escaping. The schools are left in a lurch, and develop an attitude that foreign English teachers are a crowd of shiftless bums who cannot be trusted with any sort of responsibility.
This justifiable suspicion makes life more difficult for those of us who take our jobs seriously. Schools are reluctant to go through the hassle of a work permit for someone who might take flight mid-semester, to say nothing of making other investments such as professional development or even basics like allowing access to the office photocopier. Foreign teachers are watched closely, and you get the impression that the administration fears you won't do your job if not hounded about it constantly.
With schools treating teachers this way, those of us leaning toward the more professional side are easily frustrated with the system. I would love nothing more than to be at a school where I could stay for a long time and get involved in helping the school to develop, to collaborate with other teachers, to organize outside activities for students looking for further opportunities to improve their English. But instead I notice that foreign teachers become inward-focused and defensive, avoiding the office as much as possible and never trusting anyone. "They just want to screw you over," a coworker advised me on the first day. "Make sure you get everything they promised in the contract, and don't do anything for them unless they're paying you for it!" Goodhearted teachers quickly lose hope and become cynical. They're quick to distrust schools, and when negotiation fails, they hop on a midnight flight back home without so much as a note to explain their disappearance. And the cycle begins again.
In such an environment, my daily struggle is to look past whatever the job is doing and focus on the students. Regardless of the administration, these good people are paying a lot of money to be in my classes and deserve to have the best lessons that I can provide them.
Working in a school that opens classes on-demand, whatever levels and courses have the number of students, exhausts the teachers. I find myself teaching the same lessons over and over again, but try to use the opportunity to go back and improve them each time. It's a call to constant humility, realizing that in a private school the will of the students triumphs over all and that I can never make everyone happy. It's an exercise in turning the other cheek, recognizing that sometimes a school's mistreatment of me is due to hurt from past teachers, and using my position to do the best job possible, hoping that my diligence can build a small amount of trust. It's a daily challenge to overcome the negativity that surrounds and desires to infest me, and to choose to be the ray of light rather than letting myself slip into cynicism. If any of these small acts makes a difference to my students or to my coworkers, then I'm not wearing myself out in vain.
Teaching English in Ankara is not an easy proposition for anyone, especially qualified teachers from Western countries who come bearing certain expectations for job contracts and work environments. But that's not to say it can't be rewarding. It is, if for no other reason than that once in a while you really help a student, and before you know it that person is off in Germany or Russia, sending you emails in ecstasy that they can be part of the international community and connect with other people thanks to their English lessons. That is what makes it worth it.
But I can only say this with certainty after some distance from a long, hectic summer. To escape, I spent three weeks in France and Croatia, an adventure which I plan to blog about before long. Stay tuned...
Life got a bit hectic in May when one of my British coworkers decided that he couldn't stomach life in Ankara, but eschewed resignation for the easier method of moving out of his school-owned apartment in the middle of the night and never showing his face again. Other teachers, including myself, were forced to take on lots of extra work to cover the classes he left behind. This tactic, sadly, is far from abnormal in the world of English teaching, and is part of a sad cycle. In many parts of the world, teaching English is sort of a backpacker job, seasonal work that you can pick up to make some cash while traveling. Schools invite this mentality by hiring any white face with a passport from an English-speaking country, with the misguided assumption that if you can speak English, you can teach it.
Meanwhile, these unqualified persons get into a classroom where students eager to become proficient in English start asking questions like, "What's the difference between 'a lot' and 'much'?" and then realize that their knowledge of English is so innate that they have no ability to explain it to others. For example, the words "right," "correct," and "true" in Turkish are all covered by the same word (doğru) and so it's common for a student to say, for instance, "Teacher, Americans eat hamburgers for every meal. Is it true?" The teacher will then reply, "Of course it is not true!" The student is asking for feedback on his grammar, while the teacher is refuting the stereotype expressed in the sentence. Try explaining to the student the difference in meaning between these words, especially for a new teacher with know knowledge of the Turkish language and why this particular distinction is incomprehensible to a native Turkish speaker. Yep, it takes a bit of effort, and a lot of backpackers find themselves overwhelmed in a pre-intermediate classroom where the students know only basic vocabulary and can't follow regular English.
In addition, some of these hippie backpackers find themselves unable to cope with such professional requirements as showing up on time to class, preparing for lessons, wearing pants without holes, and grading homework. Eventually, some of the less competent individuals decide to remedy their situation by escaping. The schools are left in a lurch, and develop an attitude that foreign English teachers are a crowd of shiftless bums who cannot be trusted with any sort of responsibility.
This justifiable suspicion makes life more difficult for those of us who take our jobs seriously. Schools are reluctant to go through the hassle of a work permit for someone who might take flight mid-semester, to say nothing of making other investments such as professional development or even basics like allowing access to the office photocopier. Foreign teachers are watched closely, and you get the impression that the administration fears you won't do your job if not hounded about it constantly.
With schools treating teachers this way, those of us leaning toward the more professional side are easily frustrated with the system. I would love nothing more than to be at a school where I could stay for a long time and get involved in helping the school to develop, to collaborate with other teachers, to organize outside activities for students looking for further opportunities to improve their English. But instead I notice that foreign teachers become inward-focused and defensive, avoiding the office as much as possible and never trusting anyone. "They just want to screw you over," a coworker advised me on the first day. "Make sure you get everything they promised in the contract, and don't do anything for them unless they're paying you for it!" Goodhearted teachers quickly lose hope and become cynical. They're quick to distrust schools, and when negotiation fails, they hop on a midnight flight back home without so much as a note to explain their disappearance. And the cycle begins again.
In such an environment, my daily struggle is to look past whatever the job is doing and focus on the students. Regardless of the administration, these good people are paying a lot of money to be in my classes and deserve to have the best lessons that I can provide them.
Working in a school that opens classes on-demand, whatever levels and courses have the number of students, exhausts the teachers. I find myself teaching the same lessons over and over again, but try to use the opportunity to go back and improve them each time. It's a call to constant humility, realizing that in a private school the will of the students triumphs over all and that I can never make everyone happy. It's an exercise in turning the other cheek, recognizing that sometimes a school's mistreatment of me is due to hurt from past teachers, and using my position to do the best job possible, hoping that my diligence can build a small amount of trust. It's a daily challenge to overcome the negativity that surrounds and desires to infest me, and to choose to be the ray of light rather than letting myself slip into cynicism. If any of these small acts makes a difference to my students or to my coworkers, then I'm not wearing myself out in vain.
Teaching English in Ankara is not an easy proposition for anyone, especially qualified teachers from Western countries who come bearing certain expectations for job contracts and work environments. But that's not to say it can't be rewarding. It is, if for no other reason than that once in a while you really help a student, and before you know it that person is off in Germany or Russia, sending you emails in ecstasy that they can be part of the international community and connect with other people thanks to their English lessons. That is what makes it worth it.
But I can only say this with certainty after some distance from a long, hectic summer. To escape, I spent three weeks in France and Croatia, an adventure which I plan to blog about before long. Stay tuned...
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Eggs and Spring
This winter was the worst that Ankara, as well as most of Europe, has experienced in the last ten years. From mid-January until late March, our world looked like this:
Most days had at least a little bit of snow cover, and fresh snow fell on us at least once a week. The world started to feel dark and heavy as collective Seasonal Affective Disorder set in.
Liturgically speaking, Lent could not come at a more perfect time. It is as the darkness of winter finally squeezes our optimism and melancholy rises to the front of our brains that we experience a little bit of humanity's dark wait for rebirth and Christ's coming. But what I love about Lent is that rather than forcing our hibernating souls to be unnaturally cheerful, Christianity encourages us to utilize the winter doldrums as a time to delve deep in to the dark corners of our souls, to the places we feel least comfortable. For it is when we examine those dark corners with their skeletons and monsters that we can reach a recognition of how in need we are of help. And just as we are in the darkest moment, of feeling like the snow will never melt, we'll never see the sun again, and we'll never be free of all these demons that haunt our pasts, Easter and spring come.
Warmth, sun, leaves growing on trees, a renewed sense of hope and optimism...Easter could not be more perfectly timed! For while we were still sinners (before the spring!) Christ died for us, and gave us another chance to start over and live without the burden of sin weighing us down. Spring and rebirth indeed!
Last year, when my other American friends moved, they bequeathed me an Easter egg decorating kit, which has been lying forgotten in a corner of my kitchen for a good nine months. But last night we finally broke it out and I had the privilege of introducing my Turkish, Cuban, and Spanish friends to a new tradition- decorating Easter eggs!
Yes, I naively believed that Easter eggs were common throughout the Christian world, but the tradition seems to have skipped the Spanish-speaking areas of Christendom. When I invited a Turkish friend over to dye eggs, my Spanish and Cuban flatmates seemed just as fascinated by the idea as my Turkish friends.
I make no claims as to my artistic ability. There is, after all, a reason I leaned toward music rather than art in my studies. But my Cuban and Turkish friends took to the decorating immediately, and we spent close to three hours working on our eggs, with a good time had all around.
Yes indeed. Never underestimate how much fun a simple thing can be. These traditions are far from universal, and for those of us who have grown up with the same tradition, it's easy to forget how enjoyable or eye-opening it can be for someone who's never heard the story or painted the eggs before.
Happy Easter, everyone! And happy spring!
Most days had at least a little bit of snow cover, and fresh snow fell on us at least once a week. The world started to feel dark and heavy as collective Seasonal Affective Disorder set in.
Liturgically speaking, Lent could not come at a more perfect time. It is as the darkness of winter finally squeezes our optimism and melancholy rises to the front of our brains that we experience a little bit of humanity's dark wait for rebirth and Christ's coming. But what I love about Lent is that rather than forcing our hibernating souls to be unnaturally cheerful, Christianity encourages us to utilize the winter doldrums as a time to delve deep in to the dark corners of our souls, to the places we feel least comfortable. For it is when we examine those dark corners with their skeletons and monsters that we can reach a recognition of how in need we are of help. And just as we are in the darkest moment, of feeling like the snow will never melt, we'll never see the sun again, and we'll never be free of all these demons that haunt our pasts, Easter and spring come.
Warmth, sun, leaves growing on trees, a renewed sense of hope and optimism...Easter could not be more perfectly timed! For while we were still sinners (before the spring!) Christ died for us, and gave us another chance to start over and live without the burden of sin weighing us down. Spring and rebirth indeed!Last year, when my other American friends moved, they bequeathed me an Easter egg decorating kit, which has been lying forgotten in a corner of my kitchen for a good nine months. But last night we finally broke it out and I had the privilege of introducing my Turkish, Cuban, and Spanish friends to a new tradition- decorating Easter eggs!
Yes, I naively believed that Easter eggs were common throughout the Christian world, but the tradition seems to have skipped the Spanish-speaking areas of Christendom. When I invited a Turkish friend over to dye eggs, my Spanish and Cuban flatmates seemed just as fascinated by the idea as my Turkish friends.
I make no claims as to my artistic ability. There is, after all, a reason I leaned toward music rather than art in my studies. But my Cuban and Turkish friends took to the decorating immediately, and we spent close to three hours working on our eggs, with a good time had all around.
Yes indeed. Never underestimate how much fun a simple thing can be. These traditions are far from universal, and for those of us who have grown up with the same tradition, it's easy to forget how enjoyable or eye-opening it can be for someone who's never heard the story or painted the eggs before.
Happy Easter, everyone! And happy spring!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Unemployment games
Foreign teachers in Ankara have a few job options to choose from.
1. International/foreign schools. These are schools run by embassies, or private schools aimed at a demographic of expat kids. Curriculum is based on the standards of whatever country the school is associated with, and competition for jobs is pretty steep. The downside to teaching in these schools is that it's easy to get sucked into the expat community and then go through life in Turkey without really interacting with local people or culture.
2. English Medium Universities: Ankara has two universities, Bilkent and ODTU/METU, Middle Eastern Technical University, which teach all classes in English and employ native speakers in all departments. These schools also run a one-year preparatory school for students whose English scores aren't high enough to directly enter the university. These jobs are prestigious for foreign teachers, the salary is high, but the working conditions are difficult and there is a high turnover rate. Prep school jobs are ideal for recent college graduates, but you need at least a masters degree to get a job as a lecturer in the university itself.
3. Turkish Medium Universities: Most universities in Ankara have English language departments where English is taught as a foreign language. Most of the instructors are Turkish, but there are foreigners working there as well.
4. Private kolej/high school/primary school: A lot of schools want native speakers in the classroom to assist the Turkish teachers of English, but these jobs aren't as easy to find unless you know someone at the school. Many of these are part time jobs, and I've heard horror stories about discipline and student behavior.
5. Private language schools: This is what I've been doing here all along. Language schools are open to anyone who wants to learn English, and run classes whenever demand allows, usually evenings and weekends, with a few daytime classes. A lot of these are run illegally, and the foreign teachers have to hide in a closet when government inspectors come around. There's usually little job security, as this is the job of choice for the "backpacker" language teachers who come for a few months to a year, and employers know they can always find more teachers to replace those who leave. These are also operated on a business model, meaning profit outweighs education. Pay is decent, but most schools pay teachers on an hourly basis, meaning that you're at the mercy of the enrollment numbers.
6. Tutoring: Native speakers are always in demand, and it's not terribly difficult to pick up some private tutoring on the side of a normal job. However, it's not going to get you that all-important work visa, so doing it full-time isn't an option.
Some jobs, like the international schools, English universities, and some language schools, have extra perks like airfare to/from your home country and free housing. Others won't even provide a work permit, and you find that a lot of teachers are working illegally.
But legal or not, the fact is that in Turkey, demand for qualified native speakers is far greater than the supply, giving teachers the upper hand in contract negotiations. In fact, it's very possible for an American to walk into Turkey on a tourist visa and find a job within a week.
Knowing this, it was much less difficult than I anticipated to walk into my boss's office back in November and inform her that I didn't intend to come back after my trip to the United States. I had grown tired of fluctuating work hours which made my monthly income unpredictable. I was tired of working seven days a week, particularly Sunday mornings. Since my arrival in Turkey I had gone to church maybe three times, and after June attending weekly house meetings for Bible study and worship was no longer an option. I was spiritually exhausted, mentally stressed, and frustrated with the job.
But all the same, hopping on a plane back to Turkey in December with not the slightest whiff of a job wasn't as crazy as it sounded. For a month I held on to my pride and started hunting jobs at universities while living off the few liras I made from tutoring. The prospects seemed good at first: I had two universities interested in me, but one rejected me after the dean decided I was too young to be a teacher. I continued to hold out for the other university, but by the end of January, my savings dried up from two trips to the USA and my wallet forcing me into a poverty diet, I realized that the time had come.
I didn't want to resort to the language schools again, now that I was rediscovering the social possibilities of free weekends and evenings, but I didn't have much of a choice. But like I said, they're desperate, and after perusing the internet, I sent an email to the school I thought would offer the best salary and benefits, and they called me for a job interview the next morning. I started teaching last week, back to the weekend lessons, but at least I was able to finagle more morning and less evening work. It does feel nice to get up in the morning and go to work, rather than sit around the house all day with no reason to brave the icy sidewalks.
So it wasn't the ideal solution, but the grand experiment wasn't a failure. The month of unemployment gave me time to do a lot of reading and spend some time with friends. I also was able to visit a local church a few times, where I got connected to some other expats who invited me to join a choir, so I'm doing something musical again for the first time since I got here. And having a musical activity to look forward to, even once a week, makes me feel more alive.
As for the job, it's a step up from where I was before, if not where I really want to be. Life is uncertain, with no path for the future, but at least today and tomorrow are taken care of. And for now, I am praying for enough strength to be content with that until a next step is possible.
1. International/foreign schools. These are schools run by embassies, or private schools aimed at a demographic of expat kids. Curriculum is based on the standards of whatever country the school is associated with, and competition for jobs is pretty steep. The downside to teaching in these schools is that it's easy to get sucked into the expat community and then go through life in Turkey without really interacting with local people or culture.
2. English Medium Universities: Ankara has two universities, Bilkent and ODTU/METU, Middle Eastern Technical University, which teach all classes in English and employ native speakers in all departments. These schools also run a one-year preparatory school for students whose English scores aren't high enough to directly enter the university. These jobs are prestigious for foreign teachers, the salary is high, but the working conditions are difficult and there is a high turnover rate. Prep school jobs are ideal for recent college graduates, but you need at least a masters degree to get a job as a lecturer in the university itself.
3. Turkish Medium Universities: Most universities in Ankara have English language departments where English is taught as a foreign language. Most of the instructors are Turkish, but there are foreigners working there as well.
4. Private kolej/high school/primary school: A lot of schools want native speakers in the classroom to assist the Turkish teachers of English, but these jobs aren't as easy to find unless you know someone at the school. Many of these are part time jobs, and I've heard horror stories about discipline and student behavior.
5. Private language schools: This is what I've been doing here all along. Language schools are open to anyone who wants to learn English, and run classes whenever demand allows, usually evenings and weekends, with a few daytime classes. A lot of these are run illegally, and the foreign teachers have to hide in a closet when government inspectors come around. There's usually little job security, as this is the job of choice for the "backpacker" language teachers who come for a few months to a year, and employers know they can always find more teachers to replace those who leave. These are also operated on a business model, meaning profit outweighs education. Pay is decent, but most schools pay teachers on an hourly basis, meaning that you're at the mercy of the enrollment numbers.
6. Tutoring: Native speakers are always in demand, and it's not terribly difficult to pick up some private tutoring on the side of a normal job. However, it's not going to get you that all-important work visa, so doing it full-time isn't an option.
Some jobs, like the international schools, English universities, and some language schools, have extra perks like airfare to/from your home country and free housing. Others won't even provide a work permit, and you find that a lot of teachers are working illegally.
But legal or not, the fact is that in Turkey, demand for qualified native speakers is far greater than the supply, giving teachers the upper hand in contract negotiations. In fact, it's very possible for an American to walk into Turkey on a tourist visa and find a job within a week.
Knowing this, it was much less difficult than I anticipated to walk into my boss's office back in November and inform her that I didn't intend to come back after my trip to the United States. I had grown tired of fluctuating work hours which made my monthly income unpredictable. I was tired of working seven days a week, particularly Sunday mornings. Since my arrival in Turkey I had gone to church maybe three times, and after June attending weekly house meetings for Bible study and worship was no longer an option. I was spiritually exhausted, mentally stressed, and frustrated with the job.
But all the same, hopping on a plane back to Turkey in December with not the slightest whiff of a job wasn't as crazy as it sounded. For a month I held on to my pride and started hunting jobs at universities while living off the few liras I made from tutoring. The prospects seemed good at first: I had two universities interested in me, but one rejected me after the dean decided I was too young to be a teacher. I continued to hold out for the other university, but by the end of January, my savings dried up from two trips to the USA and my wallet forcing me into a poverty diet, I realized that the time had come.
I didn't want to resort to the language schools again, now that I was rediscovering the social possibilities of free weekends and evenings, but I didn't have much of a choice. But like I said, they're desperate, and after perusing the internet, I sent an email to the school I thought would offer the best salary and benefits, and they called me for a job interview the next morning. I started teaching last week, back to the weekend lessons, but at least I was able to finagle more morning and less evening work. It does feel nice to get up in the morning and go to work, rather than sit around the house all day with no reason to brave the icy sidewalks.
So it wasn't the ideal solution, but the grand experiment wasn't a failure. The month of unemployment gave me time to do a lot of reading and spend some time with friends. I also was able to visit a local church a few times, where I got connected to some other expats who invited me to join a choir, so I'm doing something musical again for the first time since I got here. And having a musical activity to look forward to, even once a week, makes me feel more alive.
As for the job, it's a step up from where I was before, if not where I really want to be. Life is uncertain, with no path for the future, but at least today and tomorrow are taken care of. And for now, I am praying for enough strength to be content with that until a next step is possible.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Snow Bus
If there is one thing that that I have learned during my time in Turkey, it is that Turkish people are intelligent, generous, hardworking, and brilliant in many ways. However, driving in the snow is one area I cannot count among their strengths. Ever since our most recent snow-laden cold snap swept in from Siberia, our street has echoed with an eternal chorus of tires spinning fruitlessly and engines screaming, "I think I can, I think I can!" as they battle the hill in front of my house. This is often followed with petulant drivers leaning on their car horns further down the hill, as if the stuck driver were blocking up the street out of spite.
It's an ongoing battle. Some drivers put chains on their tires for extra traction. Other idiots go joyriding in the middle of the street, building up speed and then hitting the brakes to send the car spinning. Most just hunker down and pray that they reach their destination alive.
I was stir-crazy enough from several days stuck at home in the snow to ignore the horrible driving conditions today and escape to a mall with some friends. Yes, laugh all you want at our teenage-ness; there isn't much else to do in this city on a cold afternoon. But the mall is far enough away that I had to take a bus to get there.
Wrong day to do such a thing! Getting there was fine, but I hit rush hour on the way back. I hopped on a bus in the center of town that was so sardine-packed I barely squeezed in, and spent the ride crushed up against the door, falling off every time it opened. Once I ended up pressed in a position with my left arm twisted behind my back, my rib cage contorted so that I couldn't breathe, and one foot hovering in space as I teetered on a stair. I tried pushing myself up onto the step next to a very large woman who glared at me for violating her personal space, but at that moment the door opened at the woman said, "I'm getting off here!" and pushed me back down the stair, off the bus, and into the snow.
But our poor bus driver was facing an obstacle course of his own, even more intense than Ankara rush hour on a normal day. Not once, but twice, he was forced to find a different route because someone had decided to abandon their car halfway up a hill on a major street. The first time this happened, the bus driver promptly shifted gears and drove backward down the hill for probably 200 feet to the previous intersection. A general rebellion rose up among the passengers when they noticed that we were now off-course, and several people got off the bus and insisted they'd find taxis instead. I thought this a silly idea, seeing as there were no taxis anywhere to be seen, but of course I'm a foreigner so my perception is often misguided.
The rest of the passengers were stoic, holding to the Muslim culture of fatalism and acceptance of the cards that God deals us in life without complaint. There were even smiles and bets of how long it would take us to get back to where we needed to be. It seemed a simple matter of zig-zagging a block around, except that we were impeded again at the next turn, where another car sat parked in the middle of the intersection, hazard lights warning us that no one was inside to move it from our path. The bus driver tried to get around him, but of course buses make wide turns and it was simply impossible. Being smushed in the front corner of the bus, I had the best view of how very few centimeters stood between me and the side of this car. We were not making this turn. At this point a guy hopped off the bus to direct the driver as he maneuvered back and forth and around, finally managing to round the corner. But victory was short again because 100 feet ahead a school bus was stopped in the middle of the street.
No fear! The bus driver, his friend, and about five other guys decided this was the perfect time to attach snow chains to the tires, so they all jumped off and two guys applied the chains while the others smoked cigarettes and watched. They jumped back on shortly, with gleams of NASCAR pit crew pride in their eyes as they congratulated each other on accomplishing this in under two minutes.
By now, we were completely off-course and I gave up all hope of any plans but going home to a hot shower, dry clothes, and a bowl of soup. The bus trekked uphill more steadily with the chains, but since the traffic had us stopping every ten seconds it was mostly irrelevant. Twenty minutes later we were finally back on a road I recognized, and the rest of the passengers began to relax a little more. I decided to bail on the bus and walk forty minutes home, figuring it would be faster and more comfortable than being stuck in traffic crammed into a space significantly smaller than what I normally occupy.
This was the right choice, despite the cold and wet. Streets everywhere were closed off due to accidents, cars were slip-sliding everywhere, and the city was generally a mess. So, the lesson learned today is that snowy days in Ankara are meant to be enjoyed from inside, where I can simply laugh at the poor automobile owners in their futile attempts to scale hills instead of falling victim to their folly.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
It's an ongoing battle. Some drivers put chains on their tires for extra traction. Other idiots go joyriding in the middle of the street, building up speed and then hitting the brakes to send the car spinning. Most just hunker down and pray that they reach their destination alive.
I was stir-crazy enough from several days stuck at home in the snow to ignore the horrible driving conditions today and escape to a mall with some friends. Yes, laugh all you want at our teenage-ness; there isn't much else to do in this city on a cold afternoon. But the mall is far enough away that I had to take a bus to get there.
Wrong day to do such a thing! Getting there was fine, but I hit rush hour on the way back. I hopped on a bus in the center of town that was so sardine-packed I barely squeezed in, and spent the ride crushed up against the door, falling off every time it opened. Once I ended up pressed in a position with my left arm twisted behind my back, my rib cage contorted so that I couldn't breathe, and one foot hovering in space as I teetered on a stair. I tried pushing myself up onto the step next to a very large woman who glared at me for violating her personal space, but at that moment the door opened at the woman said, "I'm getting off here!" and pushed me back down the stair, off the bus, and into the snow.
But our poor bus driver was facing an obstacle course of his own, even more intense than Ankara rush hour on a normal day. Not once, but twice, he was forced to find a different route because someone had decided to abandon their car halfway up a hill on a major street. The first time this happened, the bus driver promptly shifted gears and drove backward down the hill for probably 200 feet to the previous intersection. A general rebellion rose up among the passengers when they noticed that we were now off-course, and several people got off the bus and insisted they'd find taxis instead. I thought this a silly idea, seeing as there were no taxis anywhere to be seen, but of course I'm a foreigner so my perception is often misguided.
The rest of the passengers were stoic, holding to the Muslim culture of fatalism and acceptance of the cards that God deals us in life without complaint. There were even smiles and bets of how long it would take us to get back to where we needed to be. It seemed a simple matter of zig-zagging a block around, except that we were impeded again at the next turn, where another car sat parked in the middle of the intersection, hazard lights warning us that no one was inside to move it from our path. The bus driver tried to get around him, but of course buses make wide turns and it was simply impossible. Being smushed in the front corner of the bus, I had the best view of how very few centimeters stood between me and the side of this car. We were not making this turn. At this point a guy hopped off the bus to direct the driver as he maneuvered back and forth and around, finally managing to round the corner. But victory was short again because 100 feet ahead a school bus was stopped in the middle of the street.
No fear! The bus driver, his friend, and about five other guys decided this was the perfect time to attach snow chains to the tires, so they all jumped off and two guys applied the chains while the others smoked cigarettes and watched. They jumped back on shortly, with gleams of NASCAR pit crew pride in their eyes as they congratulated each other on accomplishing this in under two minutes.
By now, we were completely off-course and I gave up all hope of any plans but going home to a hot shower, dry clothes, and a bowl of soup. The bus trekked uphill more steadily with the chains, but since the traffic had us stopping every ten seconds it was mostly irrelevant. Twenty minutes later we were finally back on a road I recognized, and the rest of the passengers began to relax a little more. I decided to bail on the bus and walk forty minutes home, figuring it would be faster and more comfortable than being stuck in traffic crammed into a space significantly smaller than what I normally occupy.
This was the right choice, despite the cold and wet. Streets everywhere were closed off due to accidents, cars were slip-sliding everywhere, and the city was generally a mess. So, the lesson learned today is that snowy days in Ankara are meant to be enjoyed from inside, where I can simply laugh at the poor automobile owners in their futile attempts to scale hills instead of falling victim to their folly.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Sledding
Traffic and social life tend to come to a halt whenever it snows in Ankara. There is no municipal snowplow system, so it's up to determined citizens to clear paths through the streets and open up the roadways again. But until that time, buses and taxis alike find their paths impeded, and pedestrians like me tire quickly of arriving places soaked to the knee and splattered with blackened slush.
The past two weeks of intermittent snow have left the streets resembling what an optimist might describe as a rich chocolate cake dusted with coconut, and what I might call a disgusting sludge that does no good for my shoes.
Yesterday the snow started again mid-afternoon, and fell steadily all night. Around 11 pm my flatmate suggested we go out for a walk to enjoy the winter wonderland while it was still fresh. So we bundled up and went out to explore the neighborhood. (Photo credits to my flatmate. I was too busy slipping and sliding to take pictures.)
The odd thing is that we were far from the only street prowlers out. The local park was crowded at midnight with camera-wielding families, couples with dogs, and sledders. To be clear, only about five people in Ankara own actual sleds. But as I've mentioned before, there is no flat space in the whole city, which means that a blanket of snowfall creates a sledders' fantasy land of abundant slopes. The temptation is great enough that a mass improvisation occurs, with the population rushing to their kitchens to fetch spare plastic bags, which are surprisingly slick little sleds.
My Cuban flatmate, being from a tropical island, had never gone sledding in her life, and was equal parts curious and terrified of the activity. Her fear was amplified by the sight of Turkish college guys racing their plastic shopping bags down the steepest, longest hill in the park at maximum speed, surrounded by a laughing gang of about twenty friends who were drinking beer and cheering them on. Several of them ended their runs sprawled out in a snowbank after a final bump sent them flying.
Thankfully we had lots of options for a bunny slope, and managed to find a hill that wasn't too steep for her first adventure. She screamed the whole way down, but then immediately ran back up the hill to try it again. I'm sure in time she'll be up on the big hills with the Turkish guys, skidding gleefully into piles of kicked-up snow.
And for the rest of the time, I am making full use of the armchairs which sit in front of the large front window in our living room, reading classic novels, sipping hot tea, and watching the snowfall. Bliss, indeed.
The past two weeks of intermittent snow have left the streets resembling what an optimist might describe as a rich chocolate cake dusted with coconut, and what I might call a disgusting sludge that does no good for my shoes.
Yesterday the snow started again mid-afternoon, and fell steadily all night. Around 11 pm my flatmate suggested we go out for a walk to enjoy the winter wonderland while it was still fresh. So we bundled up and went out to explore the neighborhood. (Photo credits to my flatmate. I was too busy slipping and sliding to take pictures.)
The odd thing is that we were far from the only street prowlers out. The local park was crowded at midnight with camera-wielding families, couples with dogs, and sledders. To be clear, only about five people in Ankara own actual sleds. But as I've mentioned before, there is no flat space in the whole city, which means that a blanket of snowfall creates a sledders' fantasy land of abundant slopes. The temptation is great enough that a mass improvisation occurs, with the population rushing to their kitchens to fetch spare plastic bags, which are surprisingly slick little sleds.
My Cuban flatmate, being from a tropical island, had never gone sledding in her life, and was equal parts curious and terrified of the activity. Her fear was amplified by the sight of Turkish college guys racing their plastic shopping bags down the steepest, longest hill in the park at maximum speed, surrounded by a laughing gang of about twenty friends who were drinking beer and cheering them on. Several of them ended their runs sprawled out in a snowbank after a final bump sent them flying. Thankfully we had lots of options for a bunny slope, and managed to find a hill that wasn't too steep for her first adventure. She screamed the whole way down, but then immediately ran back up the hill to try it again. I'm sure in time she'll be up on the big hills with the Turkish guys, skidding gleefully into piles of kicked-up snow.
And for the rest of the time, I am making full use of the armchairs which sit in front of the large front window in our living room, reading classic novels, sipping hot tea, and watching the snowfall. Bliss, indeed.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Which planet are we on?
If you're anything like me, there are certain Bible passages where your eyes glaze over a bit, such as interminable genealogies or records of ancient civilizations you never learned about in school. I also tend to ignore geographical names I don't recognize, so a lot of the New Testament reads something like, "And next Paul traveled to blah blah blah, passing by blah blah, blah blah, and the city of blah blah, where he met up with So-And-So, and then went to Blah Blah island."
Well, it turns out that "Blah Blah," in the New Testament, particularly in Acts and the epistles, is usually located in Turkey, which back in the day was the Roman province of Asia Minor and where a lot of early Christian missionary activity was located and some of the earliest Christian communities began to grow.
One of these exotic and meaningless names is Cappadocia, a region in south central Asia Minor mentioned twice in the Bible, first at Pentecost when Luke states that some residents of Cappadocia were treated to what must have looked like a flash mob when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples; and again by Peter, who addressed his first letter in part to the Christians in Cappadocia.
So when my students started insisting that I put Cappadocia on the top of my list of travel destinations, the name registered as one of the Biblical "blah blahs" that I'd never paid much attention to. What I didn't realize is that St. Peter wrote a letter to hobbits. Because, you see, the people of Cappadocia, both in antiquity and to a certain extent today, live in houses like this:
0r this
which make up neighborhoods like this
and then cities like this
set against a landscape which stretches out like this for 250 miles east-west and 120 miles north-south, much of it looking like this.
Cappadocia's landscape is characterized by the bizarre rock formations created by a series of volcanic eruptions and erosion which left the area punctuated with tall towers known as "fairy chimneys."
Local people figured out as early as the Bronze Age that the soft volcanic rock was perfect for carving out cave dwellings that provided shelter from not only harsh natural elements, but also marauding enemies who were put off by the mountains. The ubiquitous fairy chimneys are great for hiding behind when your nemesis is trying to spot you from a lookout in the mountains. But the locals also had the advantage of a natural castle at the highest point in Cappadocia, just waiting for someone to carve a palace out of it.
Perhaps it isn't the Shire, but it's hard to walk through Cappadocia without imagining some sort of fantasy creatures as its residents. And yet, somehow the only Hollywood film to make use of this place is the upcoming "Ghost Rider 2"with Nicolas Cage, which is certain to disappoint in every way except its filming location.
Well, it turns out that "Blah Blah," in the New Testament, particularly in Acts and the epistles, is usually located in Turkey, which back in the day was the Roman province of Asia Minor and where a lot of early Christian missionary activity was located and some of the earliest Christian communities began to grow.
One of these exotic and meaningless names is Cappadocia, a region in south central Asia Minor mentioned twice in the Bible, first at Pentecost when Luke states that some residents of Cappadocia were treated to what must have looked like a flash mob when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples; and again by Peter, who addressed his first letter in part to the Christians in Cappadocia.
So when my students started insisting that I put Cappadocia on the top of my list of travel destinations, the name registered as one of the Biblical "blah blahs" that I'd never paid much attention to. What I didn't realize is that St. Peter wrote a letter to hobbits. Because, you see, the people of Cappadocia, both in antiquity and to a certain extent today, live in houses like this:
0r this
which make up neighborhoods like this
and then cities like this
set against a landscape which stretches out like this for 250 miles east-west and 120 miles north-south, much of it looking like this.
Cappadocia's landscape is characterized by the bizarre rock formations created by a series of volcanic eruptions and erosion which left the area punctuated with tall towers known as "fairy chimneys."
Local people figured out as early as the Bronze Age that the soft volcanic rock was perfect for carving out cave dwellings that provided shelter from not only harsh natural elements, but also marauding enemies who were put off by the mountains. The ubiquitous fairy chimneys are great for hiding behind when your nemesis is trying to spot you from a lookout in the mountains. But the locals also had the advantage of a natural castle at the highest point in Cappadocia, just waiting for someone to carve a palace out of it.
Perhaps it isn't the Shire, but it's hard to walk through Cappadocia without imagining some sort of fantasy creatures as its residents. And yet, somehow the only Hollywood film to make use of this place is the upcoming "Ghost Rider 2"with Nicolas Cage, which is certain to disappoint in every way except its filming location.
It's no surprise that Cappadocia is always on the "must-see" list for travelers coming to Turkey. It's got something for everyone, whether you're into geology, history, delicious food, or simply climbing around on rocks. Or, for people like me who love all of those things, you might call it paradise. At any rate, next time I encounter 1 Peter, I will certainly have a mental image of hobbit Christians huddled together in a cave reading the words of St. Peter.
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