Ankara, city of dreams

Ankara has a huge inferiority complex. From the beginning of my knowing anything about Turkey at all, I’ve known that Istanbul is Where It’s At, and basically everyone I’ve met has confirmed this. Even at the program orientation in Washington people were knocking Ankara - the woman who came from the Turkish Embassy, the program alumni panel, teachers on the program. Ankara is boring, Ankara is nothing but the capital, Ankara is ugly and new, blah blah blah. A lot of Ankarans seem to have the same opinion. Often the first question I’m asked (once it’s been established that I can sort of speak Turkish) is whether I’ve been to Istanbul, and my host mom insists that once I go to Istanbul I will probably never even bother to come back to Ankara.

I can sort of understand. If you’re comparing to Istanbul, can you expect Ankara to really compete? I’ve been told even New York can’t compete with Istanbul (but that’s apples and oranges, maybe?). Plus there are lots of other amazing places in Turkey - the group studying in Alanya lives in some kind of Ottoman villa on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean, or something like that. I think they all get personal servants to feed them grapes and kebap, too. Ankara just doesn’t have a wow factor about it, unless angora goats are your thing. (We were not issued personal angora goats upon arrival, alas.)

But as it turns out, Ankara is actually pretty nice. I mean, I wouldn’t plan a vacation here, but it’s a livable city, pretty easy to get around, has a happening downtown district, and is situated on the rolling hills of the Anatolian plateau, so you can get nice panoramas from many spots in the city. The big-city issues Istanbul faces, like pickpockets, stray dogs and massive traffic congestion, aren’t a problem here. Overall, I’m finding it to be a very pleasant place to study, made even better by the fact that I get to live with a family.

Plus, there are actually some interesting things to see in Ankara. The second day I was here, as I mentioned, my host siblings took me to Ankara Kalesi, and one day last week all of us Americans went to Anitkabir, Ataturk’s massive mausoleum-cum-Independence War Museum. It was architecturally pretty neat and (of course) Ataturk-tastic, and when I manage to borrow someone‘s camera cord and upload pictures again, I will post some. On the same day, we went to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, which houses tons of old pre-Turkic (Neolithic, Phrygian, Hittite, Assyrian, etc.) stuff in a restored 16th-century covered market. There’s apparently a zoo here, too. And, you know, Parliament and stuff. And by my school there is a very nice park with fountains and swans.

Also, the weather is great. A little hot, but almost always dry. It turns out that “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” thing is totally true. When it’s 90 degrees in Washington I want to die anytime I step outside of the air conditioning, but in Ankara I pretty much only want to die when I’m riding a crowded city bus, even though there isn’t much air conditioning to be found here.

AND on Thursday we’re going to Cappadocia and Konya! Underground cities and whirling dervishes, yes please!

More on Islam, plus a life update

I got a triple dose of Turkey’s Muslim culture all at once yesterday, as within 15 minutes after arriving at Ankara Kalesi (Ankara Castle, the 9th-century Byzantine walled section of the city) I asked Bengü about head scarves, heard my first call to prayer, and saw my first circumcision party. Fortunately, the last of these did not involve actually seeing a child being circumcised. Muslims (or at least the Turkish ones? I’ll do my best not to pretend to know anything more about Islam than I really do, here) circumcise their boys at around age seven or eight, and the process involves dressing the poor child up like a little prince in a sparkly cape and feathered hat, parading him around (this was the part I saw) and giving him lots of presents. Actually, as I write this, I am looking at a framed studio portrait of my host brother Hazar in just such an outfit, complete with silver cane. (I got Hazar’s bedroom.)

As for the head scarf question, Bengü explained that many Turkish women wear head scarves, and the number is increasing because the current government looks on it favorably. Then last night we were sitting on the balcony having tea (I’ve had more tea in the past two days than in the whole six months before that, all out of ince belli bardaklar, Turkish hourglass-shaped glass teacups) and a woman in a head scarf walked up the path to our apartment building. Nursen Hanim made a scoffing noise and Bengü explained that her mother doesn’t like women like this, because they wear their head scarves as a political statement, not a religious one. Their family, it turns out, are secularists (I learned the word for secularism, layiklik). There are a lot of interesting things that could be said here about Turkish politics and religious/secular identity, but I think I will save it for when I know more.

And as for the call to prayer, if I sleep with my window open (a good idea, as there is no air conditioning), the 4 a.m. one wakes me up. I sort of don’t really mind, because it’s actually quite beautiful sounding, even though it is blared from loudspeakers. I wonder if it’s really a muezzin (is that what they’re called? I‘m sorry if I‘m totally wrong) calling it, or a recording? Probably a real person, right?

Life update: My Turkish continues to be terrible but gets less terrible almost hourly. Yesterday I saw a lot of Ankara with Bengü and some of her friends (and Hazar, who was our driver), which was pretty fun. And most important, Turkish food is really amazing. Seriously, come to Turkey and eat. Breakfast is assorted cheeses, bread, olives, tomatoes, honeys and jams with tea. I was told that’s how it would be before I came, but I somehow didn’t believe it til I tasted. It’s the best breakfast possible (except maybe, maybe grits with bacon. Maybe). For dinner tonight Nursen Hanim made red lentil soup, bulgur pilaf, a salad of snap peas in olive oil, stuffed grape leaves, homemade pickles, and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. And then when I was doing my homework she brought me cherries. I’m glad the heat suppresses my appetite, otherwise they’d have to roll me onto the plane at the end of the summer (although all this food is pretty healthy, I guess).

Speaking of Nursen Hanim, almost every conversation with her is like a mini train wreck, as I continuously fail to understand her or convey my thoughts eloquently in Turkish. During dinner I may or may not have accidentally led her to believe that not only do I have a fiance, but he has cold feet. (Yeah, don‘t ask. It started off as an innocent conversation about Bengü‘s engagement and then all of a sudden I was the one who was engaged and trying to explain to her why I didn‘t know when my wedding would be.) Her response: “Afraid to marry a beautiful girl like you?! Dump him!”

Turkolog FAQ, or a belated jet lag post

I wrote this when I woke up at 2 a.m. on Saturday/Sunday, but you’re not getting it til now. Sorry!

1. Is Turkey a Muslim country?

As the Turkish Embassy representative who spoke at our orientation in DC explained no fewer than three times, Turkey is not a Muslim state. It is a secular state with a predominantly Muslim population. (I get the feeling embassy representatives have to explain this to Americans a lot.) This is (she explained) what differentiates it from the other countries of the Middle East; secularism was one of the founding values of the Turkish Republic and is still highly prized by the government and the ruling elite. There do exist Islamist political parties, but I confess that I don’t presently understand/remember enough about the political system and situation to explain their current status and role in the government. As for the practice of Islam, it varies widely and depends partly on social class and location (village vs. city, etc.). The only outward marker of religious faith I thought to look for on the plane from Munich was head scarves on women. Some women had them, but the majority - probably at least two-thirds - didn’t. No one in my host family covers her head.

2. The real FAQ - what’s your host family like?

Well! I’ve been here for about ten hours (it’s 2 a.m. here - yay jet lag) and they seem really nice so far. The mother, Nursen Hanim (Hanim means “Ms.”) pronounces my name like “Lessee” and has already called me kizim (“my girl/daughter”), canim (“my soul”), tatli (“sweet”), and said I had a very happy, smiling face. I’m not sure if she works, but she makes amazing lentil borek and stuffed grape leaves (borek is savory pastry). The daughter, Bengü, is 23 and just graduated from university with a degree in economics. She speaks some English, which is good for me because with the stress and exhaustion of traveling yesterday my already weak Turkish was further damaged by ridiculous lexical access problems. (That is, I couldn’t remember how to say ANYTHING. It took me 5-10 seconds to even say “no” in response to a question at one point.) She plays guitar and loves music. The son, Hazar, is 19 and huge (maybe six feet tall), but I didn’t see him for very long before he ducked out to meet friends for the evening. The dad, Özcan Bey, (Bey means “Mr.“) came home after I had met everyone else. He is bald and friendly and a professor of modern history (everything from the French revolution onward, he explained).

Ankara!

I made it to Ankara! Unfortunately we cannot make my host familys internet work on my computer, so the post I wrote late last night in the throes of jet lag will have to wait to be posted, and I will have to make do with a keyboard on which I cannot for the life of me locate the apostrophe key. (That is why there are no contractions in this post.) My host family is super nice so far, although very unimpressed with my level of Turkish (they keep asking if I am sure that I will be taking intermediate Turkish and not beginner... but that is understandable, since speaking and oral comprehension are my worst skills, and the jet lag made me forget how to say pretty much everything I knew). But they seem to like me, especially the mom, who calls me tatlım, kızım, and canım (my sweet, my girl, my soul).

I have not seen much of Ankara yet, but it seems hot, dry, and hilly, and also very new-looking. My dichotomy for foreign cities seems to be "looks like Western Europe" vs "looks like Russia," and so far Ankara is much more on the Western Europe side of things. I am definitely ok with that.

Washington - Munich - Ankara

Hello, everyone!

I am leaving for Ankara today. FINALLY.

I'm trying not to be very nervous. But I'm pretty nervous.

My next post will come to you from Turkey! Yay!

Summer Reading List

I’ll trust my mom to keep her silence on how much of my summer reading list so far has consisted of various types of romance novels and just tell you about the Turkey-related books I’m working on. (The links in this post are just to Amazon pages.)

1. The novel Snow by Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature. I’ll write up an entry about this when I finish it; for now, I’ll just say that the slog through Snow has made me understand why I’ve heard such mixed reviews of Pamuk’s work, but it has been an interesting primer on the issues that concern contemporary Turkish intellectuals, such as Islam and secularism, Turkey’s political and cultural relationship with Europe, and authoritarianism versus democracy. If anyone’s interested in Pamuk, I’ve heard great things about his non-fiction Istanbul: Memories and the City.

2. The Turkish Language Reform: a Catastrophic Success by Geoffrey Lewis for the Oxford Linguistics series. On the reforms that de-Arabicized the Turkish language in the 1920’s and ’30’s and created a sharp enough divide between Ottoman Turkish and Modern Turkish that I’ll probably never be able to read the former without special training (step one: learn Arabic alphabet). Swoon. My Turkish professor recommended this back in November or so, and I’m shocked and slightly embarrassed that it’s taken me this long to get around to it.

3. Crescent and Star (could be a Yale secret society?) by Stephen Kinzer, or, “even better,” Turkey: a Modern History by Erik Zurcher. Both recommended by my classmate Dave, who’s spending his summer in scenic Baku, Azerbaijan (like Turkey, but post-Soviet). I chose the former for now, since it’s shorter and I’m on a schedule (one week til departure!).

Mail Call!

My, that's a lovely refrigerator you've got there! But you know what would make it look even better? A postcard from Turkey!

Email me your postal address (ljr84@mail.ru if you don't have my primary email address on hand), or just leave a comment on this entry if I'm likely to already have your address. And assuming the Turkish postal system is not nearly as inscrutable as the Russian one, you'll get a postcard from me sometime this summer!