Saturday, December 13, 2008
That didn't take too long...
New blog, new style. Hard-hitting news with a healthy sense of distrust for all those whom surround me. Welcome to Gazistan!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
They say home is where the hate is.
Well, 26 hours of transit later, I'm in my new little corner of Cleveland, Ohio to call home. Certainly no complains, even though the whole setup is pretty weird. I keep on walking into closets during the day and walking into walls at night. I'd say "I'll get used to it" but I won't. I'll be here for around 2 weeks before heading back to Maryland for 18 months. And who knows after that.
Istanbul was home. Maryland isn't really home. Pepper Pike certainly isn't. I lay no more claim to Highland Park or Chicago. I guess that Stalin may have had a point back then. Either that, or I have to begin making giant strides to set up a home somewhere. I'm leaning towards San Antonio. But of course, there's business to attend to for a long time before that.
I'm sorry if you want a big gaudy recap of my time in Istanbul. It's over. I'm still not in any sort of position to write well about it, not that I ever had the ability to write well about it before. Even when I talk about my few months there (or my couple of months in, well, other places) I tend to use my hands and make faces a lot. It's a bit like describing clouds to a blind man; I can't just sum up a few months of my life in a couple paragraphs.
I learned a lot. In school, in the streets, from people I met, all of that good stuff. I learned some good life lessons and hopefully I won't forget them now that I'm back in the states. And believe you me, I am happy I am back in the states. I miss freedom of the press and the unyielding (or, well, somewhat unyielding) rule of law. But I'm gonna miss kunefe a lot too. It's a toss-up.
But to paraphrase some Early Republican Turkish Haci that I remember reading about; it is time to move on. His whole bit was like, "When my father died, I cried. I went home and I sat down and I cried. But he is dead, so I buried him and I moved on." And its not like the last few months of my life have "died" but I certainly do have to move on. Just wishing that I was somewhere else while being really unrealistic and flighty is not going to do me any good. So what does the future hold?
There are some ideas being brewed up. Sorry to be vague, but none of these ideas are all that interesting. One thing for sure; this blog will survive, though in a different guise. I am now CERTAINLY not an Istanbullu (or any other citizenship, for that matter). So this blog will, with any luck, look towards the future.
Basically, I'm going to be in this funky program that may/may not be the rare thing UMd has going for it. I don't know yet, because I haven't gotten involved yet, because, in case you haven't been paying attention, I've been 7 time zones away for the past few months. But regardless, part of this program involves me writing some sort of very involved thesis on terrorism and some research I have to do with it. I'm going to be trying to include my interests outside of terrorism (why terrorism? What 20-year-old isn't intrigued by blowing stuff up for a cause?) like: geography and journalism primarily, wikipedia and delicious food secondarily, and running up mountains tertiarilly. We'll see how that works out. If this blog doesn't go in that direction, it may just be a depot for recipes and general cookeration. I think that Plan 1 may be a better use of your time. Feel free to disagree.
Either way, it'll be dead for a bit. I have a lot of reacclimation to do. I may come back with a brief story or two about Istanbul, but I sincerely doubt it. We're always looking to the future here.
Istanbul was home. Maryland isn't really home. Pepper Pike certainly isn't. I lay no more claim to Highland Park or Chicago. I guess that Stalin may have had a point back then. Either that, or I have to begin making giant strides to set up a home somewhere. I'm leaning towards San Antonio. But of course, there's business to attend to for a long time before that.
I'm sorry if you want a big gaudy recap of my time in Istanbul. It's over. I'm still not in any sort of position to write well about it, not that I ever had the ability to write well about it before. Even when I talk about my few months there (or my couple of months in, well, other places) I tend to use my hands and make faces a lot. It's a bit like describing clouds to a blind man; I can't just sum up a few months of my life in a couple paragraphs.
I learned a lot. In school, in the streets, from people I met, all of that good stuff. I learned some good life lessons and hopefully I won't forget them now that I'm back in the states. And believe you me, I am happy I am back in the states. I miss freedom of the press and the unyielding (or, well, somewhat unyielding) rule of law. But I'm gonna miss kunefe a lot too. It's a toss-up.
But to paraphrase some Early Republican Turkish Haci that I remember reading about; it is time to move on. His whole bit was like, "When my father died, I cried. I went home and I sat down and I cried. But he is dead, so I buried him and I moved on." And its not like the last few months of my life have "died" but I certainly do have to move on. Just wishing that I was somewhere else while being really unrealistic and flighty is not going to do me any good. So what does the future hold?
There are some ideas being brewed up. Sorry to be vague, but none of these ideas are all that interesting. One thing for sure; this blog will survive, though in a different guise. I am now CERTAINLY not an Istanbullu (or any other citizenship, for that matter). So this blog will, with any luck, look towards the future.
Basically, I'm going to be in this funky program that may/may not be the rare thing UMd has going for it. I don't know yet, because I haven't gotten involved yet, because, in case you haven't been paying attention, I've been 7 time zones away for the past few months. But regardless, part of this program involves me writing some sort of very involved thesis on terrorism and some research I have to do with it. I'm going to be trying to include my interests outside of terrorism (why terrorism? What 20-year-old isn't intrigued by blowing stuff up for a cause?) like: geography and journalism primarily, wikipedia and delicious food secondarily, and running up mountains tertiarilly. We'll see how that works out. If this blog doesn't go in that direction, it may just be a depot for recipes and general cookeration. I think that Plan 1 may be a better use of your time. Feel free to disagree.
Either way, it'll be dead for a bit. I have a lot of reacclimation to do. I may come back with a brief story or two about Istanbul, but I sincerely doubt it. We're always looking to the future here.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Fare the well, miss carousel
If someone could find me a copy of my favorite Townes Van Zandt song someday, I'd be overwhelmingly grateful. I can never find it online or anything else. Either way, like the man says, the time has come for leavin'. In 6 days, to be exact.
But there is still time, of course. Not that I'll be doing a lot (mostly working on finals/papers), but there'll at least be some capping moment to this whole thing. And a lot of things have happened since last time I posted. It's time to discuss a few.
But there is still time, of course. Not that I'll be doing a lot (mostly working on finals/papers), but there'll at least be some capping moment to this whole thing. And a lot of things have happened since last time I posted. It's time to discuss a few.
I figure if you're the sort of person who is reading this, you're the sort of person who knows about the death of Benazir Bhutto. So I don't have to do any linkage. And it's not like I have anything to add to any media coverage, only my personal feelings of the reactions to said coverage. It's weird receiving Big Earth-Shaking News while disconnected from everything (or most things) taken for granted in everyday life. I realized that ok, someone important was killed. But I couldn't just watch CNN and figure out what was going on. I couldn't read WSJ or anything to get a sort of informed opinion. I just tried to assemble what I could from Turkish newspapers (I can't believe this is the first shout-out I've given to Zaman on this blog...its the best reporting (in my opinion, of course) in Turkey...and with an English version too!) and talk to people. It's pretty interesting to hear a whole lot of people's whole varied views on Bhutto and what her death means to them. She seemed to symbolize a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I'm not remotely knowledgable enough to get into details, though.
On the note of "hearing what people say," I think the two most important lessons I've taken from this semester are:
Nothing too much else exciting to report. There's been a bit of mosque-hopping. General tourism. Turkish Culture Night, which did a good job representing the Package-Tour industry of Turkey (read that however you want to). I discovered Zara. It ain't shabby. Neither's Mado, but we already knew that.
So 6 more days. I don't know how many more stories I'll have to share. Nor what mask this blog will wear come February. But I've thought a lot about being a bit more journalist-y. Maybe. But then again, this may just be shut down as I study for LSATs. Or maybe some incredible internship (now that I'm starting to look at the options there) will re-kindle my thoughts on blogging. It is too soon to tell what this will become.
And, of course, Happy New Year to you and yours.
On the note of "hearing what people say," I think the two most important lessons I've taken from this semester are:
- Humility. I don't know a lot. I don't hardly know anything. And just reading about a place or a person doesn't teach you half as much as you really need to know in order to begin processing information. The only difference between an amateur and an expert, I guess, is that an expert knows that he is but standing on the shoulders of giants. And still can't see nearly far enough. I guess that I am reaching this "expert" phase, then, in that I know that I am not as impressive as I thought I was this time last year.
- People say really interesting things if you let them talk. You can learn a lot, or be incredibly entertained, by anyone. Everyone loves to talk about themselves to some extent. And once people let their guards down, the most peculiar things come out of their mouths. Anything from "Kumpir is really just the Dada movement as it applies to culinary arts." to "How can I believe anything I read in the Turkish newpapers?" to "Why am I supposed to feel bad for 9/11 when Muslims are killed every day?" to "Ataturk Allah'a degil." No man is an island. Not everything I've heard (or quoted above from others) or, lord knows, said myself, is correct, justified, or interesting. But some things make me and made me think, and appreciate the speaker. That's worth something.
Nothing too much else exciting to report. There's been a bit of mosque-hopping. General tourism. Turkish Culture Night, which did a good job representing the Package-Tour industry of Turkey (read that however you want to). I discovered Zara. It ain't shabby. Neither's Mado, but we already knew that.
So 6 more days. I don't know how many more stories I'll have to share. Nor what mask this blog will wear come February. But I've thought a lot about being a bit more journalist-y. Maybe. But then again, this may just be shut down as I study for LSATs. Or maybe some incredible internship (now that I'm starting to look at the options there) will re-kindle my thoughts on blogging. It is too soon to tell what this will become.
And, of course, Happy New Year to you and yours.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The saddest words of tongue or pen,
are these, my dear, "Southeast European historiography"
Sorry to destroy one of the most beautiful quotes of all time there, but I can't help myself. Just got back from Greece (a day or so later than planned...who would've guessed that the weekend between Kurban Bayram and Christmas is a bad weekend to travel?) and I'm more than a bit excited to be back in Turkey. I practically kissed the Ataturk poster(s) at the Istanbul airport.
It wasn't as if there was a One Thing that made me lose it...though it might have been the middle-aged man in a miniskirt walking down our hotel's street. Or the drunk and bruised Irish sailor pontificating on the American education sailor. But it wasn't about the people, who were generally incredibly friendly (and spoke a whole lot more English than I do Greek). More just the way that all of those beloved ruins are represented in Thessaloniki and Athens (I can't speak for the rest of Greece, which I realize is really petty and it isn't fair to say "I've been to Greece" when I've been to two cities and a port...but oh well).
Basically, wrap your head around this concept. History is not always fact. Fact can be twisted into any which way you want. And in a country like Greece that was founded on the premise of having an Ancient and Illustrious past, the present conflicts seem to be a bit more confusing. "Who are we?" is never as strongly represent as "Who were we?" I don't think, so when the country is trying to fit its way into the contemporary world order, things can get nasty.
And also, the past can be explained away using anything. Ethnicity is fluid, of course. Are Modern Greeks related to Ancient Greeks? This is debatable (this article has one of my more favorite wikipedia quotes, "The star of Vergina applies to the 3rd century BC northern Greece - a very different situation, not related to the 21st century AD. I think it's modern politics, and we're witnessing the use of an archaeological symbol for history that it's really not related to.") And hey, the Ancient Greeks even somehow got claimed by the Nazi Party...at least they were more acceptable than Slavs or Jews, as a whole lot of the latter found out in 1942.
By the way, don't try and swing that last bit into "Greeks are Nazis", ok? Thanks.
So the Acropolis? Covered in concrete casts and scaffolding. It reminded me a lot of The City of Fallen Angels, about the burning down of a famous opera house in Venice. It was rebuilt in the name of "As it was, where it was," but HOW was it? Something like the Acropolis has been around for millenia...which version of it do you accept as the True version? Sure, "The Ancient Greek" version seems to make sense, but the Acropolis, like Rome, wasn't built in a day. And should millenia of Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Italian, and everyone else's history just be erased? Can one do that in good conscience? These are not questions to be glossed over, right? I mean, a lot of different folks happened to be in Greece at a lot of different times. What does it say about us, as a people, to ignore the contributions of our coinhabitants? Isn't this, like, bad?
Maybe this is just the American in me. Bigger, Faster Stronger and all. But embracing innovation has to be a good thing. Despite what Walter Sobchak might have you believe, it is not a good thing to be living in the past (Greeks may disagree, however, with the theory that at least National Socialism is an ethos). But in that book about the Venice Opera House, there's a pretty rad quote in it. Dino Vallatico (I don't know who he is either, don't worry) said that, "the city should have had the nerve to build a completely new theater; Venice betrayed its innovative past by ignoring it."
Anybody who has seen Athens would agree with this. The Greek Orthodox Cathedral is incredibly unattractive (since they couldn't fit it into the Classical Greece motif...and I can't find it on wiki, sorry) and the modern city is, well, smoggy, claustrophobic, and full of depressing poverty. Sometimes, I think, the best way to celebrate the past is by looking into the future. Think of it this way: Turks don't celebrate Sultanahmet, they celebrate Taksim square. English folks don't look at the Tower of London the same way they look at the London Eye. This is why the Freedom Tower is the center of so much debate; it represents the first Big Step Foward in American Symbolic Architecture...what are we going to do with it?
The past is gone. Embrace it, but move on. I realize this isn't the greatest thing a history major should say in order to gain better job prospects, but hey. I think of history as a reference to the future. As one of my best professors said, the past is studied in order to explain what the future should look like. This is true, and it explains one of the things I am most fascinated with; bad history. Using any combination of sources, analysis, and big words, any sort of current event or future desire can be explained as completely, 100%, logical. We all have seen this, whether or not we know it. It's why archaeology is so fraught with problems (and why, ostensibly, countries don't allow you to take stuff out from their borders).
We all have been lied to by history before. It's ok. We all tend to perpetuate these lies. We don't know any better. How we interpret the past isn't worth getting worked up about, unless you're going to do it for a living, I guess. But what we all do with it, I think, is really important. We can't afford to live in the past and not look at what the future will think of US. We really ought to be continually getting better, right? The one thing that caught me comparing Greece to Turkey is that Turkey is optimistic, Turks are looking foward to a better future for them and their kids. Greeks seem to be in more of a "woohoo! We're in the EU! now what?" sort of mode. Not that I'm at all accomplished or learned enough to make this sort of generalisation. But yeah, let's look towards the future, and learn from our history (or histories) to create a better future. That sounds nice, right?
I started with a quote, I might as well end with one. Even if it is Nietsche. I didn't spell his name right, and I don't care.
“I love the great despisers. Man is something that hath to be surpassed."
Sorry to destroy one of the most beautiful quotes of all time there, but I can't help myself. Just got back from Greece (a day or so later than planned...who would've guessed that the weekend between Kurban Bayram and Christmas is a bad weekend to travel?) and I'm more than a bit excited to be back in Turkey. I practically kissed the Ataturk poster(s) at the Istanbul airport.
It wasn't as if there was a One Thing that made me lose it...though it might have been the middle-aged man in a miniskirt walking down our hotel's street. Or the drunk and bruised Irish sailor pontificating on the American education sailor. But it wasn't about the people, who were generally incredibly friendly (and spoke a whole lot more English than I do Greek). More just the way that all of those beloved ruins are represented in Thessaloniki and Athens (I can't speak for the rest of Greece, which I realize is really petty and it isn't fair to say "I've been to Greece" when I've been to two cities and a port...but oh well).
Basically, wrap your head around this concept. History is not always fact. Fact can be twisted into any which way you want. And in a country like Greece that was founded on the premise of having an Ancient and Illustrious past, the present conflicts seem to be a bit more confusing. "Who are we?" is never as strongly represent as "Who were we?" I don't think, so when the country is trying to fit its way into the contemporary world order, things can get nasty.
And also, the past can be explained away using anything. Ethnicity is fluid, of course. Are Modern Greeks related to Ancient Greeks? This is debatable (this article has one of my more favorite wikipedia quotes, "The star of Vergina applies to the 3rd century BC northern Greece - a very different situation, not related to the 21st century AD. I think it's modern politics, and we're witnessing the use of an archaeological symbol for history that it's really not related to.") And hey, the Ancient Greeks even somehow got claimed by the Nazi Party...at least they were more acceptable than Slavs or Jews, as a whole lot of the latter found out in 1942.
By the way, don't try and swing that last bit into "Greeks are Nazis", ok? Thanks.
So the Acropolis? Covered in concrete casts and scaffolding. It reminded me a lot of The City of Fallen Angels, about the burning down of a famous opera house in Venice. It was rebuilt in the name of "As it was, where it was," but HOW was it? Something like the Acropolis has been around for millenia...which version of it do you accept as the True version? Sure, "The Ancient Greek" version seems to make sense, but the Acropolis, like Rome, wasn't built in a day. And should millenia of Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Italian, and everyone else's history just be erased? Can one do that in good conscience? These are not questions to be glossed over, right? I mean, a lot of different folks happened to be in Greece at a lot of different times. What does it say about us, as a people, to ignore the contributions of our coinhabitants? Isn't this, like, bad?
Maybe this is just the American in me. Bigger, Faster Stronger and all. But embracing innovation has to be a good thing. Despite what Walter Sobchak might have you believe, it is not a good thing to be living in the past (Greeks may disagree, however, with the theory that at least National Socialism is an ethos). But in that book about the Venice Opera House, there's a pretty rad quote in it. Dino Vallatico (I don't know who he is either, don't worry) said that, "the city should have had the nerve to build a completely new theater; Venice betrayed its innovative past by ignoring it."
Anybody who has seen Athens would agree with this. The Greek Orthodox Cathedral is incredibly unattractive (since they couldn't fit it into the Classical Greece motif...and I can't find it on wiki, sorry) and the modern city is, well, smoggy, claustrophobic, and full of depressing poverty. Sometimes, I think, the best way to celebrate the past is by looking into the future. Think of it this way: Turks don't celebrate Sultanahmet, they celebrate Taksim square. English folks don't look at the Tower of London the same way they look at the London Eye. This is why the Freedom Tower is the center of so much debate; it represents the first Big Step Foward in American Symbolic Architecture...what are we going to do with it?
The past is gone. Embrace it, but move on. I realize this isn't the greatest thing a history major should say in order to gain better job prospects, but hey. I think of history as a reference to the future. As one of my best professors said, the past is studied in order to explain what the future should look like. This is true, and it explains one of the things I am most fascinated with; bad history. Using any combination of sources, analysis, and big words, any sort of current event or future desire can be explained as completely, 100%, logical. We all have seen this, whether or not we know it. It's why archaeology is so fraught with problems (and why, ostensibly, countries don't allow you to take stuff out from their borders).
We all have been lied to by history before. It's ok. We all tend to perpetuate these lies. We don't know any better. How we interpret the past isn't worth getting worked up about, unless you're going to do it for a living, I guess. But what we all do with it, I think, is really important. We can't afford to live in the past and not look at what the future will think of US. We really ought to be continually getting better, right? The one thing that caught me comparing Greece to Turkey is that Turkey is optimistic, Turks are looking foward to a better future for them and their kids. Greeks seem to be in more of a "woohoo! We're in the EU! now what?" sort of mode. Not that I'm at all accomplished or learned enough to make this sort of generalisation. But yeah, let's look towards the future, and learn from our history (or histories) to create a better future. That sounds nice, right?
I started with a quote, I might as well end with one. Even if it is Nietsche. I didn't spell his name right, and I don't care.
“I love the great despisers. Man is something that hath to be surpassed."
Friday, December 14, 2007
The tick tock of the clock is painful
Wow...so after all of this, I'm only in Istanbul for 3 more weeks (plus a weekend spent working on a presentation). I'm pretty accustomed to Istanbul; the traffic, the Bogaz, the Akbils, the random 400-year-old ruins peeking their heads out, so I'm not sure what to expect when I return. It's almost like I have to run through the whole "don't go to America expecting anything...just embrace whatever you find there," thing that I had to do before coming to Istanbul (or Ashgabat).
Which is a funny thing, because no matter how hard I try, I'm always setting out goals and expectations to fit the stereotype of what I'm planning to experience. Even if I consciously try not to. And don't shake your head at me, you do it to. At least Marco Polo famously went East expecting to see Unicorns...and ended up explaining how ugly unicorns are. Our preconceptions form out worldview, no matter how hard we try to run from them.
I think I did a decent job, though, coming to Turkey on blank slate. I've learned a lot here without just confirming what I always thought (I'm not even sure what I always thought, to be honest. But it wasn't this). I could go into detail here, but I'm trying to segue into my plans for the next week but doing a really bad job.
I'm going to Greece on Tuesday. How about that for a transition. Its Kurban Bayram and everybody is going somewhere...so I figured I ought to head out as well. This all sounds really shallow, I realize...and I am awfully torn about choosing Greece over Bursa/Ephesus/Gallipoli, but there is a method to my madness. Basically, there is a whole lot to stress over recently. I have a whole lot of work I've been trying to get done, and after I return, I'm going to have 2 weeks to wrap up every single loose end I have before heading back stateside. So a nice vacation to take my mind off of things will certainly be a good thing. And hopefully, well-earned (time will tell until after my presentation this here Monday).
I swear I'm not just shooting off on tangents here. There is a relationship here. I, like many people in the Western World, have heard an awful lot about the Awesomeness of Greece and how we all carry with us this Glorious Heritage. So needless to say, I'll be coming in with these visions of amazing Hellenic culture in my head. But then again, there's all the drama left over from 2000 Olympics coverage and everybody who I know who's been telling me that Athens is really an urban hellhole without any redeeming qualities. Yikes. Plus, I'm writing my whole "food culture" paper and it sort of turns out that Greek food is pretty much Turkic and Slavic.
So I'm coming in with a fairly dim view of this country as a tourist experience. Which is not the same thing as this country as, well, a country, so don't attack me there. But some of the best stories can come out of at-best-awkward tourist experiences, so there is potential here. This is also my first time that I can remeber doing Real Tourist Experience, so it should be interesting to see how I feel about it.
I have my preconceptions. Here's to the hope that they will be obliterated.
But first; a nice long relaxing weekend, a presentation, and a Christmas party. I don't think I'll get back to hear before I head out though. So I'll let you know how Greece went.
Which is a funny thing, because no matter how hard I try, I'm always setting out goals and expectations to fit the stereotype of what I'm planning to experience. Even if I consciously try not to. And don't shake your head at me, you do it to. At least Marco Polo famously went East expecting to see Unicorns...and ended up explaining how ugly unicorns are. Our preconceptions form out worldview, no matter how hard we try to run from them.
I think I did a decent job, though, coming to Turkey on blank slate. I've learned a lot here without just confirming what I always thought (I'm not even sure what I always thought, to be honest. But it wasn't this). I could go into detail here, but I'm trying to segue into my plans for the next week but doing a really bad job.
I'm going to Greece on Tuesday. How about that for a transition. Its Kurban Bayram and everybody is going somewhere...so I figured I ought to head out as well. This all sounds really shallow, I realize...and I am awfully torn about choosing Greece over Bursa/Ephesus/Gallipoli, but there is a method to my madness. Basically, there is a whole lot to stress over recently. I have a whole lot of work I've been trying to get done, and after I return, I'm going to have 2 weeks to wrap up every single loose end I have before heading back stateside. So a nice vacation to take my mind off of things will certainly be a good thing. And hopefully, well-earned (time will tell until after my presentation this here Monday).
I swear I'm not just shooting off on tangents here. There is a relationship here. I, like many people in the Western World, have heard an awful lot about the Awesomeness of Greece and how we all carry with us this Glorious Heritage. So needless to say, I'll be coming in with these visions of amazing Hellenic culture in my head. But then again, there's all the drama left over from 2000 Olympics coverage and everybody who I know who's been telling me that Athens is really an urban hellhole without any redeeming qualities. Yikes. Plus, I'm writing my whole "food culture" paper and it sort of turns out that Greek food is pretty much Turkic and Slavic.
So I'm coming in with a fairly dim view of this country as a tourist experience. Which is not the same thing as this country as, well, a country, so don't attack me there. But some of the best stories can come out of at-best-awkward tourist experiences, so there is potential here. This is also my first time that I can remeber doing Real Tourist Experience, so it should be interesting to see how I feel about it.
I have my preconceptions. Here's to the hope that they will be obliterated.
But first; a nice long relaxing weekend, a presentation, and a Christmas party. I don't think I'll get back to hear before I head out though. So I'll let you know how Greece went.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Bombs over Bağdat
Yeah...so this whole "writing in every week" isn't going over so well. Just know that it's because I've been pretty buzy keeping up with friends and all of that good stuff. Being a social butterfly and all. That combined with still-stupendous amounts of schoolwork and a paper angrily glaring at me has led to the marginalization of all of the littler things. Like blogging. I really don't think I have a readership anymore anyways, but what the heck; might as well keep on going. Only four more weeks (!?!?) here in the 'bul. And who knows if this blog will exist after that. Even if it does, it will certainly be in a different style. I can guarantee that much.
Went to Ankara last weekend. In the words of a man I met today, "Imagine spending 10 years there!" One day was enough. No good stories even, short of nearly falling from Anitkabir (Ataturk's Mausoleum) to my death. It was slippery that day.
That was followed by a week of schoolwork. Nothing really noteworthy there, except that research into economic history is much less interesting than one might think. And I don't think you think its all that interesting. But things picked up this weekend, for sure. Thursday night spent at a "Georgian restaurant" (quotes are used because it was more Russian/Crimean than Georgian, but one would have to be researching food culture of the Ottoman Empire to care about these things) where the food was, well, alright. But that's ok when the ambiance includes historical and architectural lectures on the area from a leading architect/professor/guy running the place and singing, piano playing, and general merriment from the chef/musician/wife of guy running the place. All taking place within the old British Prison (here's a shout-out to the Capitulations system, keeping mercantilism alive in time for the US to over take it and become an economic superpower!) And this prison is restored into looking like a nice late-19th-century house...though they kept the prison graffiti on the walls. So yeah, all in all it beats the Veggie Sandwich while reading Slate.com that is my usual dinner procedure.
Friday is the Efes Pilsen Blues Festival. Good times...listening to the blues is a lot less self-conscious when you get to transform from "I'm the only white guy here" to "I'm the only American here"...I get to go from the outsider to the insider, strangely enough. Even if I have no real reason to embrace the blues. But I love blues music, the sort that just hurts to listen to. Pain is, in its musical form (and to me at least), beautiful. I don't ask why and I don't try to analyze it. But I love the stuff from Townes Van Zandt. And I love his quote, "Well, many of my songs, they aren't sad, they're hopeless." And I love being able to belt out Sweet Home Chicago and really feel along with it (even if a real blues singer would punch me in the face for missing my suburban life to move to another suburban life, an out of state college, and studying abroad, but oh well).
Today in Bagdat Caddesi with the rich and illustrious of Istanbul (following around this man, a sort of big-business fixer-cum-family friend of family friend like a lost dog). Lots of big stores, lots of interesting stories. It is completely mind-blowing to think that 30 years or so ago, Istanbul had a million people in it. That number is somewhere between 15-20 now. The man would show me an apartment complex and talk about how it was a home with a front yard 20 years ago...its hard to understand city growth and urbanization without someone to explain the past, I guess.
I'm too lazy and have too much to do to write a Big Lesson that leans on Wikipedia. I guess I just learned today how fascinating the business world is. Lots of Chinese companies shipping sugar from Brazil, turning it into something entirely different in Ghana, then shipping it to Iran through the Netherlands under the aegis of a US corporation. That sentence was so confusing, you didn't even notice that "aegis" was used in a completely wrong context. Journalistic standards are being damned here, I tell ya.
Went to Ankara last weekend. In the words of a man I met today, "Imagine spending 10 years there!" One day was enough. No good stories even, short of nearly falling from Anitkabir (Ataturk's Mausoleum) to my death. It was slippery that day.
That was followed by a week of schoolwork. Nothing really noteworthy there, except that research into economic history is much less interesting than one might think. And I don't think you think its all that interesting. But things picked up this weekend, for sure. Thursday night spent at a "Georgian restaurant" (quotes are used because it was more Russian/Crimean than Georgian, but one would have to be researching food culture of the Ottoman Empire to care about these things) where the food was, well, alright. But that's ok when the ambiance includes historical and architectural lectures on the area from a leading architect/professor/guy running the place and singing, piano playing, and general merriment from the chef/musician/wife of guy running the place. All taking place within the old British Prison (here's a shout-out to the Capitulations system, keeping mercantilism alive in time for the US to over take it and become an economic superpower!) And this prison is restored into looking like a nice late-19th-century house...though they kept the prison graffiti on the walls. So yeah, all in all it beats the Veggie Sandwich while reading Slate.com that is my usual dinner procedure.
Friday is the Efes Pilsen Blues Festival. Good times...listening to the blues is a lot less self-conscious when you get to transform from "I'm the only white guy here" to "I'm the only American here"...I get to go from the outsider to the insider, strangely enough. Even if I have no real reason to embrace the blues. But I love blues music, the sort that just hurts to listen to. Pain is, in its musical form (and to me at least), beautiful. I don't ask why and I don't try to analyze it. But I love the stuff from Townes Van Zandt. And I love his quote, "Well, many of my songs, they aren't sad, they're hopeless." And I love being able to belt out Sweet Home Chicago and really feel along with it (even if a real blues singer would punch me in the face for missing my suburban life to move to another suburban life, an out of state college, and studying abroad, but oh well).
Today in Bagdat Caddesi with the rich and illustrious of Istanbul (following around this man, a sort of big-business fixer-cum-family friend of family friend like a lost dog). Lots of big stores, lots of interesting stories. It is completely mind-blowing to think that 30 years or so ago, Istanbul had a million people in it. That number is somewhere between 15-20 now. The man would show me an apartment complex and talk about how it was a home with a front yard 20 years ago...its hard to understand city growth and urbanization without someone to explain the past, I guess.
I'm too lazy and have too much to do to write a Big Lesson that leans on Wikipedia. I guess I just learned today how fascinating the business world is. Lots of Chinese companies shipping sugar from Brazil, turning it into something entirely different in Ghana, then shipping it to Iran through the Netherlands under the aegis of a US corporation. That sentence was so confusing, you didn't even notice that "aegis" was used in a completely wrong context. Journalistic standards are being damned here, I tell ya.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Old men with gold watch fobs will thump their chests...
...and talk about what a brave charge it was.
Sorry I'm taking so long to finally write something this week. Not that I think that there is an audience out there hanging on my every word, but more because I'm just trying to keep this updated for my own good/curiosity. This is also going to be a fairly weak post, you have to realize. I simply don't have the vocabulary nor the journalistic nor the literary skill to describe this past weekend. So I'm just going to go over the bare bones.
I went with a friend, we rented a car, and we drove around Southeast Turkey. We drove to a few cities, saw a few things...it was all pretty incredible. Look, I'm the sort of person that believes that taking a trip far outside of one's comfort zone is the best thing one can do. Much like one of the random side characters in My Side of the Mountain, I think the best thing a young man can do is run away from home for a little while. See what he's made of and all that. Since I found a kid who agree with me, we decided to do it together. Which is good, because I don't know how to drive stick.
I'm not going to write a place-by-place summary. Or even talk about my favorite stories from the trip. there is simply too much to write about and too little time. So I'll just tell you that it was worth it. 100-fold it was worth it. I'm darn proud to have a story I can tell for the rest of my days, and I'm darn proud to have really done something when I was in Turkey, not just hit up all the tourist bars and go to a bunch of old churches. I was able to do things that precious few people can do. I ought to embrace that. And I do. It was really a unique, awesome, superlative thing to do.
And what's the main thing I took back from this trip? Don't trust the news. Listen, I realize that there's lots of journalists out there who are fighting the good fight and making sure the little stories out there are being told. I've written about them before. I'm making sure to hit up the Newseum when I get back stateside. But still, just as many journalists are just doing a job and getting stories in by the deadline, you know? Lazy reporting from places they know their readers aren't going to get a chance to go to. I still am not sure what's going on in Georgia. And at least in the states, the media is in an antagonistic relationship with the government. Here...not so much. Thanks to somewhat dubious censorship laws and an incredibly creepy extra-governmental organization that is winked at by everybody in the country, things are a wee bit different. Just ask Hrant Dink. Once you stop giggling at his name, I guess.
But seriously here...when we told people we were going to Diyarbakir, we were met with a lot of "Are you crazy?", "Nice knowing you", or "I hope you come back alive". Not just from Americans, but from Istanbullu Turks too. We were seriously considering writing out letters to leave behind in case we were kidnapped, stabbed, sold into slavery...whatever. Not because we truly thought that things like that would happen, but just from what we've been told. All of the news reporting from Southeastern Turkey makes it sound like the Wild West mixed with Belgium c. 1914. But still, we wanted to see history in the making, obviously. And the Turks who had been to the area told us that we should practically drop everything and leave immediately. And we were pretty sure that they liked us. So irregardless, we went.
I didn't see any Jandarma out in the streets. A few military convoys, but nothing I haven't seen living next to a military base for 10 years. People were in the streets, not hiding behind sandbags in their houses. Really, it wasn't that much different from life in any small town I've ever been to. Sure, things got quiet and shut down relatively early (5 pm or so) but this wasn't because of some silly curfew, but just because it was dark and people in this neck of the woods (or mountains) tend to want to go home to the wife and kids. I can't blame them for that.
I really felt safe the entire time. Well, except for climbing mountains and driving down dirt trails praying that a tire wouldn't blow out. And everyone we talked to complained about the lack of tourism; that people just didn't want to come to the Southeast. And why don't they want to come to the Southeast? Because the media tells people that the Southeast is frightening, that they won't come out of it alive, and all sorts of terrifying things. That aren't remotely true.
It is no question that what you read affects what you do. We assume the news we read is absolutely invioably true. I'm not so sure if it is. It seems, to me at least, too reliant on individuals with agendas. Or organizations with things to hide. The dailies everywhere seem full of stories that don't always make sense. And not to get all conspiracy-theory here, but maybe they don't. People make up stories all the time, right?
So that's about it for the trip, I guess. You'll have to bug me personally for more stories. Unfortunately (or fortunatlely, depending on your point of view) I caught a plane back to the 'bul Sunday morning, so I have nothing to report on this whole thing. The whole "do they really want peace?" question is a bit too confusing for me. It's possible to want peace and also want to kill the oppressors. Not that that is what the Kurds, as a people, are doing, of course. Just that the whole thing is a continuum, not a polar extreme, yeah?
Man, remember when these blog posts used to be fun and lighthearted? Not that I'm not having a good time and all; I am. Just busy and looking for the Reason Why under every corner, I guess. I'm headed to Ankara for a daytrip tonight. It's the capital and all. And I only have like, 5 or 6 weeks left here. So I'll let you know how those go.
Sorry I'm taking so long to finally write something this week. Not that I think that there is an audience out there hanging on my every word, but more because I'm just trying to keep this updated for my own good/curiosity. This is also going to be a fairly weak post, you have to realize. I simply don't have the vocabulary nor the journalistic nor the literary skill to describe this past weekend. So I'm just going to go over the bare bones.
I went with a friend, we rented a car, and we drove around Southeast Turkey. We drove to a few cities, saw a few things...it was all pretty incredible. Look, I'm the sort of person that believes that taking a trip far outside of one's comfort zone is the best thing one can do. Much like one of the random side characters in My Side of the Mountain, I think the best thing a young man can do is run away from home for a little while. See what he's made of and all that. Since I found a kid who agree with me, we decided to do it together. Which is good, because I don't know how to drive stick.
I'm not going to write a place-by-place summary. Or even talk about my favorite stories from the trip. there is simply too much to write about and too little time. So I'll just tell you that it was worth it. 100-fold it was worth it. I'm darn proud to have a story I can tell for the rest of my days, and I'm darn proud to have really done something when I was in Turkey, not just hit up all the tourist bars and go to a bunch of old churches. I was able to do things that precious few people can do. I ought to embrace that. And I do. It was really a unique, awesome, superlative thing to do.
And what's the main thing I took back from this trip? Don't trust the news. Listen, I realize that there's lots of journalists out there who are fighting the good fight and making sure the little stories out there are being told. I've written about them before. I'm making sure to hit up the Newseum when I get back stateside. But still, just as many journalists are just doing a job and getting stories in by the deadline, you know? Lazy reporting from places they know their readers aren't going to get a chance to go to. I still am not sure what's going on in Georgia. And at least in the states, the media is in an antagonistic relationship with the government. Here...not so much. Thanks to somewhat dubious censorship laws and an incredibly creepy extra-governmental organization that is winked at by everybody in the country, things are a wee bit different. Just ask Hrant Dink. Once you stop giggling at his name, I guess.
But seriously here...when we told people we were going to Diyarbakir, we were met with a lot of "Are you crazy?", "Nice knowing you", or "I hope you come back alive". Not just from Americans, but from Istanbullu Turks too. We were seriously considering writing out letters to leave behind in case we were kidnapped, stabbed, sold into slavery...whatever. Not because we truly thought that things like that would happen, but just from what we've been told. All of the news reporting from Southeastern Turkey makes it sound like the Wild West mixed with Belgium c. 1914. But still, we wanted to see history in the making, obviously. And the Turks who had been to the area told us that we should practically drop everything and leave immediately. And we were pretty sure that they liked us. So irregardless, we went.
I didn't see any Jandarma out in the streets. A few military convoys, but nothing I haven't seen living next to a military base for 10 years. People were in the streets, not hiding behind sandbags in their houses. Really, it wasn't that much different from life in any small town I've ever been to. Sure, things got quiet and shut down relatively early (5 pm or so) but this wasn't because of some silly curfew, but just because it was dark and people in this neck of the woods (or mountains) tend to want to go home to the wife and kids. I can't blame them for that.
I really felt safe the entire time. Well, except for climbing mountains and driving down dirt trails praying that a tire wouldn't blow out. And everyone we talked to complained about the lack of tourism; that people just didn't want to come to the Southeast. And why don't they want to come to the Southeast? Because the media tells people that the Southeast is frightening, that they won't come out of it alive, and all sorts of terrifying things. That aren't remotely true.
It is no question that what you read affects what you do. We assume the news we read is absolutely invioably true. I'm not so sure if it is. It seems, to me at least, too reliant on individuals with agendas. Or organizations with things to hide. The dailies everywhere seem full of stories that don't always make sense. And not to get all conspiracy-theory here, but maybe they don't. People make up stories all the time, right?
So that's about it for the trip, I guess. You'll have to bug me personally for more stories. Unfortunately (or fortunatlely, depending on your point of view) I caught a plane back to the 'bul Sunday morning, so I have nothing to report on this whole thing. The whole "do they really want peace?" question is a bit too confusing for me. It's possible to want peace and also want to kill the oppressors. Not that that is what the Kurds, as a people, are doing, of course. Just that the whole thing is a continuum, not a polar extreme, yeah?
Man, remember when these blog posts used to be fun and lighthearted? Not that I'm not having a good time and all; I am. Just busy and looking for the Reason Why under every corner, I guess. I'm headed to Ankara for a daytrip tonight. It's the capital and all. And I only have like, 5 or 6 weeks left here. So I'll let you know how those go.
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