TEACHING SUMMER SCHOOL
IN TURKEY SUMMER
2000
In the summer of 2000 I
taught summer school in Istanbul. I
had been invited to do so by an alumna of Whittier College who had married an
international student from Turkey, and they had gone to teach in Turkey after
obtaining their doctoral degrees in the US. My wife and son came with me, and my
daughter joined us later. This
journal is very long, since it covers most of the summer. It was written in a series of emails
about our experiences in Istanbul and our side trips to Ephesus and Cappadocia. When summer school ended, we flew to
Bulgaria then went to Hungary for a music festival with our daughter, before
returning to LA, but that is described in another journal.
MONDAY
JUNE 19 - GREETINGS FROM ISTANBUL!
In
the past, I've been a little anxious whenever I've set off on a new
adventure. But Saturday it felt
perfectly normal to be flying to the other side of the world on a German
airline. We changed planes the next morning in Frankfurt, and then arrived in
Istanbul at 5 PM on Sunday, where we were met by a graduate student in
psychology.
We
changed money and became instant millionaires! The exchange rate is 620,000 Turkish
Lira to the dollar, so each dollar is worth 1.6 million lira. At the tourist center
we picked up a map of Istanbul, which was only available in French, and a map
of Turkey, which was only available in German. But then Istanbul is an
international city!
Geographically,
Istanbul straddles two continents, Europe and Asia. And since it is a secular
Muslim society, I expected it to straddle Europe and the Middle East culturally
as well. As we rode across town on
the freeway, the city looked like a modern European city, with two important
exceptions. Instead of cathedral
spires there were the minarets of mosques, and there were remnants of 14th
century Byzantine city walls and fortresses. I felt totally at home.
I
came here to teach summer school at Bogazici
University (Bogazici is Bosporus in Turkish). I was invited to do so by a colleague
who was an alumna of Whittier College, and who taught one year at Whittier
while she was on sabbatical from here.
I will be teaching Social Psychology and also Multiple Identities. On the flight from Frankfurt we met a
young woman who will also be teaching summer school here; she is a graduate of Bogazici who is doing graduate work in sociology at
ULCA. From her business card I learned that she is living in the same small
apartment building in West LA as my daughter who is also a graduate student at
UCLA!
We
are staying in a guesthouse on the campus. It has three flats (apartments), and
we have the flat on the main floor. It has a living room, a kitchen, two large
bedrooms and two bathrooms. It's a
huge old house with hardwood floors and lots of windows, but the bathrooms have
modern fixtures. It is surrounded
by beautiful trees and shrubs -- it feels like we are living in a forest hideway instead of in a city of ten million.
The
campus is set on a steep hillside with spectacular views of the Bosphorus, one of the series of waterways which separate
Europe from Asia and which run from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. The campus is just north of the second
bridge on the European side. It was founded in 1860 by Americans from New
England, and most campus buildings are made of stone or brick just like
colleges in New England. It is now
a state university, but the classes are still taught in English.
After
unloading our luggage, the grad student gave us a brief tour of campus, and
then we walked half a mile up the hill to the entrance. We found street vendors selling shish kabobs,
and a small grocery store where we bought some food for breakfast.
When
we went to bed at midnight, my body thought it was 2 PM after being up all
night, since Istanbul time is 10 hours later than LA time. But in spite of the
jet lag I slept well until 6 AM without waking up in the middle of the night!
This
morning we went to the psychology building and met my colleague and the
department chair, who took us to lunch.
They gave me an office with a computer which has Internet access,
although the keyboard is laid out with Turkish letters. Where I expect the small letter "i" to be, there is an undotted
"I" which is pronounced more like "uh" instead of like
"ee"!
Across
campus we found the two classrooms where I will be teaching, and an ATM machine
which accepted my ATM card and dispensed Turkish Lira. Only certain banks will accept
Traveler's Checks, and none of the stores will, so having ATM machines is
great! We also went to the computer
center and requested an account so I can dial up the Internet from our flat; I
brought along a laptop. We then walked up the hill and another half a mile to
the North Campus, where the library and bookstore are located. We found three books to buy in the
bookstore and three books to check out of the library!!
This
evening I revised the syllabi for my courses incorporating what I had learned
today about campus resources. So we are settled in and ready for an interesting and
delightful summer!
WEDNESDAY
JUNE 21 - MONEY MATTERS
Turkish
Lira has the following bills which are worth about the following amounts:
10,000,000 = $16 5,000,000
= $8 1,000,000 =
$1.60 500,000 =
$0.80 100,000 = $0.16
Needless
to say, it is very easy to confuse these bills. To help distinguish them, the last three
zeros are a faded color on some but not all of the bills. Even so, it's still
easy to give someone a bill that is either too large or too small. So I keep the 10 million and 5 million bills along with my
passport hidden away, and keep the smaller bills in a wallet in my pocket. That makes it easier to access small
bills, and if my pocket is picked I only lose a few dollars.
The coins have the following
denominations, where bin=1000: 100 bin =$0.16 50 bin = $0.08 25 bin =$0.04 10 bin =$0.016
It
would be nice if the bills had bin on them too,
instead of so many zeroes. But the
coins are confusing too, since the 100 bin coin is
smaller than the 50 bin and 25 bin coins since it is made of a different metal
(just as an American dime is smaller than a nickel or a penny). So you learn to pay attention to the color of the
metal.
To
add to the confusion, prices are often marked with the last three zeroes
missing, sometimes replaced by a dash and sometimes not. While you are figuring
all that out, you are confused even more if you have to convert the price to
American dollars. So it's best to learn what is reasonable in Lira, and forget
what it is in dollars.
There
is a shopping area at the top of the hill across from the entrance to the
campus. There are several small
grocery stores (where we shop everyday), a bakery, a hardware store (where we
had keys duplicated), a telephone store (where we found a cable for our modem),
several other kinds of small shops, and many small cafes.
Yesterday
I met some college-age Americans on campus from Atlanta who were here for an
International Sportfest next weekend. They invited me to join them for
dinner. We rode a bus about 15
minutes to a mall called Akmerkez. It had very expensive shops, and the
largest food court I had ever seen, including many American fast food chains.
While they had hamburgers and pizza, I ate Turkish food.
We
then the rode the bus another 15 minutes to Taksim. It has a huge square which also serves a
bus terminal. A Turkish student
with them showed me how to buy an Akbil, which means
"smart ticket." It has a
computer chip which keeps track of how much money you've paid and deducts one
fare each time you push it against a device upon boarding a bus! Very convenient and cool!
While
the others walked to their hotel, the Turkish student showed me a walking
street heading off from the square.
There were record shops, bookstores, clothing stores, sidewalk cafes,
and nightclubs extending about a mile.
A side alley had a farmer's market, with stalls selling beautiful fresh
vegetables, fruit, nuts, or fish.
Interspersed between the stalls were small sidewalk cafes. At the end of the alley was another
street which was filled with tables for sidewalk cafes extending three blocks long
plus a block to the left and a block to the right at the end. The student showed me which bus to take
back to campus, while he took another bus to commute home.
This
morning after revising my syllabi again and having them xeroxed,
I walked with my wife and son down the hill to the shore of the Bosphorus.
Along the way, we passed huge single family homes with beautiful views
in an area known as Bebek. Most people in Istanbul live in
apartments. After eating lunch in a
small cafe, we walked along the water and saw a fishing boat with a grill on
board and a long line of people waiting to buy fresh fish cooked right on the
fishing boat! My wife and son then
explored the Rumeli Hisan,
a huge fortress built in 1452, while I walked back up the hill to campus to
hear a couple of psychology students present their master's thesis.
This
evening my wife showed me a park at the top of the hill which she and our son
had discovered last night. It has a
beautiful view of the second bridge across the Bosphorous,
which is just north of the campus.
We then loaded our backpacks with groceries, and walked back down to our
flat. This time I was able to give the cashier the correct amount of lira
immediately!
On
the way back, my wife and and I remarked that we will
certainly stay in shape this summer, walking up and down the hill!!
SATURDAY
JUNE 24 - OLD ISTANBUL AND CAMPUS LIFE
According
to the guidebook Let's Go Turkey 2000,
people have lived in Anatolia (central Turkey) since the 8th millennium
BC. The area has been invaded by
various groups, including the Hittites, the Phrygians, and the Greeks. The latter established city states along
the coast including Byzantium. After the area became part of the Roman Empire,
Constantine (the emperor who converted to Christianity) established
Constantinople on the site of Byzantium in 324.
In
the 11th century, tribes of Turks came from central Asia, bringing the Muslim
religion. In the 13th century the
Mongols occupied Anatolia. The
northwestern area was claimed by a Turkish general named Osman, whose
successors were called Ottomans. In
1453, Mehmet the Conqueror captured Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul. The
Ottoman Empire grew, especially under Sulleyman the
Magnificent in the 16th century.
The empire disintegrated during the 19th century. After World War I, Ataturk established
the Republic of Turkey, and instituted reforms to make the government secular,
abolishing the religious courts.
The
battle over religion continues today.
Although 90% of the population is Muslim, the Muslim religious party was
banned. The latter formed a new
party, which elected the mayor of Istanbul. The mayor was sent to prison for reading
a poem which stated that minarets are our bayonets. The government has tried to ban the
wearing of head scarves in the universities. Muslim beliefs require that a woman be
covered from head to toe. Showing
any flesh besides the face is assumed to arouse men, who are believed to be
unable to control their sexual urges.
My
classes started on Thursday. My
morning class, Multiple Identities, is a senior-level class and all of the
students are psychology majors. All
12 of them are also women. (Among
the graduate students in psychology, only one is male). In contrast, the math class meeting in
the room next door has only men.
One of the women in my class was wearing a headscarf and a long
dress. One other woman was wearing
a long dress, but it was made of denim.
The other 10 women were all wearing pants, either blue jeans or black
slacks. When we talked about
various identities and which were most important to them, most said that
religion was not very important.
The
students are very bright. The university
accepts only the top 1% of all high school students. They appear to understand English very
well, although some speak with an accent.
They are willing to participate in class discussion, and they are knowledgeable
about psychology, which is ideal for teaching a senior-level class.
My
afternoon class, Social Psychology, is a sophomore-level class. It has 28
students, with a variety of majors. About two-thirds are women. I suspect that
the engineering majors are men, but I can't tell gender from the Turkish
names! These students also are
willing to speak up, so both classes should be fun to teach. I expect to learn as much about Turkish
culture from them as they learn psychology from me.
My
son is sitting in on my Social Psychology class. Since he is not taking it for a grade, I
don't need to worry about the ethics of grading my son! My wife is sitting in on a beginning
class in Turkish for foreigners.
She brought along a statistics book to study too, and both are reading
for pleasure as well.
After
class I attended a lecture on consciousness by an American philosopher. I was pleased that he was knowledgeable
about research in cognitive psychology.
But his talk made me realize that even the specialists in the field have
difficulty explaining what consciousness is.
In
the evening, a giant screen was set up in the middle of campus. A cable TV company showed the film The
Matrix on DVD. Several hundred
students sat on the lawn watching the movie and drinking beer. Since I had already seen the film, I
decided not to stay up late to watch it.
Friday
morning we decided to do some sightseeing, since my
classes meet on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We took the bus to Taksim
Square, and then another bus to Sultan Ahmet in Old Istanbul. On the way I
discovered that my camera had quit working, and putting in a new battery didn't
solve the problem. I was
frustrated, but found a souvenir stand which had instant cameras. He was asking
8 million lira ($12); I offered him 4 million, and he
accepted 6. At $10 per instant
camera, it is cheaper than buying a new regular camera!
We
visited the Aya Sophia. It was a huge Byzantine Church built in
532. Twenty years later an
earthquake caused the dome to collapse.
It was rebuilt, with huge buttresses sticking out, and has survived the
last 20 earthquakes. The church was
plundered by Catholic Crusaders in the 13th century who ridiculed the Eastern
church. When the Ottomans conquered
Constantinople, the church was converted to a mosque. The mosaics of Christ and
others were plastered over, since the Muslims consider images of people in
mosques to be idolatry. When
Ataturk created the Republic, he made the mosque a museum. For centuries, it
was the largest building in the world.
Nearby
we saw the Blue Mosque. It was
built in 1617 and has blue tile inside. It is still used as a mosque. We had to
enter before noon because it is closed to tourists during Friday (holy day)
afternoon prayers. Men wearing
shorts and women wearing short dresses were required to wrap a piece of cloth
around their legs like a skirt before entering. Everyone had to take off their
shoes; we carried them in plastic bags.
After
lunch we went to the Topkapi
Palace, where the Sultans lived who ruled the Ottoman Empire. The Palace is huge, with four
courtyards. Most interesting was
the Harem. Muslim beliefs allowed a
man to have four wives. The sultan
had four wives and 400 concubines, guarded by 70 eunuchs brought from Africa.
The concubines were selected when they were preadolescents, and most were
servants. The most beautiful ones
became the Sultan's favorites; he had eight. They were selected by the Sultan's
mother, who controlled the Sultan's wives, concubines, and everyone else in the
Harem.
The
Palace also contained dormitories for preadolescent Christian boys who were
brought there from all over the Empire.
They were converted to Islam, and educated to be military leaders and
civil servants. Like Jews, Muslim
boys are circumcised, and there was a special room for doing that. Both Jews and Muslims claim Abraham as
the father of their religion, believing that they are descended from each of
his two sons. Genetic studies
confirm that the two groups are related.
It
was hot riding the bus back. The temperature was in the high 80s, and the
windows didn't let in the cool breezes from the water. As we passed a small fountain, there
were a couple of young boys swimming in the fountain. One was in his underwear and one was
naked; we were surprised due to the modesty of Muslim culture. I had read that
romantic kissing is not supposed to be done in public, but I've seen several
couples kissing on campus. Modern
Turkey is a mixture of old and new customs.
We
stopped in Taksim Square and I showed my wife and son
the walking street and the farmers' stalls. We had dinner on the side streets that
were full of outdoor cafes. I tried some Turkish white wine, which was similar
to Italian white wine. We had some
fresh fish, and the food was delicious.
I thought how cool it is to be in Istanbul, something I had not imagined
until I was invited to come here.
When
we got back to campus I went to a dance that was part of the International Sportfest. It
was on a large parking lot above the campus. It was supposed to start at 9, but
students were just arriving when I got there at 10:15. I had a beer while waiting for people to
start dancing. In dance clubs in
America, people don't dance until they've had a drink or two, and men usually
won't dance unless women are on the dance floor, even if they are not dancing
with them; the exceptions are few men who are showing off their fancy
steps. Usually three women or one
couple will start, then others will follow. Here no one danced until 10:45 when a
wave of about 200 people came onto the dance area together -- I think it was
the song that attracted them. As at
home, people danced in couples, in groups of women, groups of men, and
mixed-sex groups, with lots of mixing around.
Soon
there were about a thousand people dancing and another
thousand milling around nearby. The
dancing was the same as in America, China, and other places where young people
are dancing to the same modern music.
It was fun! But the music
stopped soon after midnight, and the crowd was surprised and unhappy about
that. I had heard from students
that dance clubs in Istanbul opened at midnight and closed at 4 AM; due to jet
lag and teaching I hadn't explored them yet.
Before
the dancing started a student asked me where I was from (the question everyone
asks in Istanbul, from students to carpet salesmen). He was from Kosovo and his friend was
from Bosnia. After the music
stopped I saw a student who looked Japanese and so I greeted him in
Japanese. But he was from
Turkistan, one of the republics of the former USSR in central Asia. He introduced me to four of his friends
from central Asia who looked Russian. They considered themselves Russians, even
though they weren't from the Russian republic. One of them told me that some of the
dance clubs open at 9 or 10, including a Russian disco!
In
spite of being initially frustrated about my camera, Friday ended up being a
very interesting day, and I was even more pleased than before that I was in
Istanbul. This morning, it occurred
to me that the film might be jammed in my camera, so I rewound it, and the
camera started working again! That
will save me the trouble and expense of buying another camera! Yea!!
JUNE
26 - DANCING ON THE WATER
Saturday
morning we relaxed a little. We managed to figure out
how to start the washing machine!
In the afternoon we walked down the hill and
south along the Bosphorus to Bebek.
It's on a bay, which is full of yachts.
You can rent one for the day, but instead we paid 80 cents to ride a
ferry. We rode across to a town on
the Asian side, then north to two other towns. Along the way
we saw many large mansions on the waterfront, some new and some very old.
At
the last stop we explored the town of Kanlica, where
my wife found a pair of used pants that fit for 2 million lire (about 3
dollars)! For lunch
I had a sandwich made of deep fried mussels. We've been eating food from street
vendors and haven't become sick yet.
At first we ate only cooked food, but we've
slowly added fresh fruits and vegetables after giving our systems time to
adjust to different bacteria that might be here. Food is generally cheap, about 80 cents
to $1.60 for a sandwich, and it's very good! But we've been drinking only bottled
water or water that we've boiled, even though we've seen some locals drinking
the tap water.
The
Sportsfest had advertised a boat party for Saturday
evening. When I walked to the
campus quad, I saw a hundred guys sitting on steps watching soccer on a small
TV. I was greeted by a group of
wrestlers from Istanbul who recognized me from the dance the night before. They invited me to go with them to the
boat party, so I rode with them on the bus for athletes. On the way, one of the
wrestlers who didn't speak English taught me a song in Turkish, and as I sang
each line, the others laughed. I
asked someone else if the words were bad; the answer was no, just bad
teaching!!
We
rode for an hour to the ferry terminal in Eminonu, by
the Galata Bridge. This is at the opening of the Golden Horn, a finger of the Bophorus that separates Old Istanbul from newer sections on
the European side. We boarded a
huge car ferry, which had counters selling beer and scotch as well as doner (others call it schwarma
--meat on a vertical spit) sandwiches.
There was a DJ playing American and Turkish popular music.
It
took about 45 minutes to load the ferry, since there were about a thousand
people on board. We then sailed up
the Bosphorus and out into the Black Sea. Near the shore there were beautiful
views of the mosques and other buildings with lights. When the lights became distant it didn't
matter since I was dancing by then anyway! Besides the wrestlers, I also
talked with the students from Turkistan that I had met the night before, and
two pilots from the Turkish Air Force Academy.
The
cruise lasted three hours and was a blast. As the bus was coming down the hill
to the campus, we met two other buses coming back up the hill, but there wasn't
room to pass! So
we walked the rest of the way down and left the drivers to sort out who was
going to back up. When I walked
through the central quad, I noticed that there were foam mats scattered about
for visiting athletes to sleep upon.
Some were sleeping, but others were talking and drinking beer even
though it was 3:15 AM!!
I
slept in Sunday morning, and then my wife and son and I took two buses and a
tram to Old Istanbul to see the Archeology Museum next to the Topkapi Palace.
It had some beautiful sarcophagi (stone tombs) with carved figures, as
well as statues from many ancient historical periods. From there we walked to the Grand
Bazaar, which has 400 shops. We
were surprised not to see any other tourists walking there, and then discovered
why - it is closed on Sundays!
We
took the bus to Eminonu and walked along the shore by
the ferry terminals where I had been the night before. There were many sidewalk stalls selling
food, shoes, clothing, and trinkets.
We had to walk through a tunnel under the highway to get from the bus
stop to the shore, and on the way a guy in front of me was pushed back into me
by another guy. At first I thought they were angry, then I realized that it is
a pickpocketing ploy. I had read
about a similar ploy in which a woman backs into a man, and while he is
startled a guy behind picks his pocket.
Fortunately my valuables were hidden and my backpack had a
small padlock holding the zippers closed.
The two guys in front of me plus a third were still hanging near me, so
I quickly moved away from them.
This was the first time that I had felt uncomfortable in Istanbul. My guidebook had warned about
pickpockets and about going to a bar with a stranger where you could be drugged
or stuck with a huge bar tab.
Back
home I cooled off for two hours, then went to the third dance of Sportsfest, which was in the parking lot like Friday night.
On the way to the parking lot I saw a group doing a folk dance on the quad. A
coach from Romania asked me in German where the group was from, and I asked
them in English and found out that they were from Lebanon.
When
I arrived at the parking lot at 10:30 there already a couple thousand people
inside and a long line outside. I
walked past the line to another entry gate and they let me right in since I was
a professor. The big attraction was
a popular Turkish band, which played some great dance music.
Most
of the crowd left when the band stopped playing at midnight, but some of us
danced another half-hour to recorded music. I again saw some students from
Turkistan, and met others from Istanbul.
I'm tall and older, and have some fast dance moves, so I attract
attention when I dance. As I passed
the quad on the way home, I was greeted by a group of students who complimented
me on my dancing. They were from
Paris, Zurich, central Turkey, and Rhode Island!
Fortunately I'm over my jetlag so I was able to sleep well
enough this weekend to make it to class this morning, in spite of the dog that
barks at 1 AM and the rooster that crows at 6:30 AM!
THURSDAY JUNE 29 - LEARNING FROM STUDENTS
On
Monday in my Multiple Identities class we talked about religious conversion and
characteristics of utopian communities in America. Most of these groups had renounced
family relationships, practicing either celibacy or "free love," but
they had not lasted more than a generation. Only groups that emphasized the family
(like the Mormons) survived.
My
students told me that there were many religious sects in Turkey, practicing
variations of the Muslim faith, such as the Nurcular,
Suleymancilar, and Fethullahailar. The latter is known for its prep
schools. These groups emphasize the
family and have survived for a long time.
But there was one group about ten years ago, the Adnancilar,
led by Adan Hoca, who recruited rich women, models,
high school students, and people at discos. He was arrested for being a bad
influence on minors and is now in prison.
In
my Social Psychology class we talked about nonverbal
behavior and emotional expression.
As in America, men in Turkey can show anger, but not fear. However, unlike American men who are
told that Big Boys Don't Cry, Turkish men are allowed to cry in beer
halls. There is a tradition of
crying songs about misfortune that dates back to the 12th century. Since these
singers sometimes injure themselves, the government has tried to counter this
tradition by encouraging happy songs. Some Country Western songs in America are
about misfortune, but crying doesn't accompany the singing.
We
also discussed cross-cultural differences in the use of time and space. For
example, dinner is typically at 6 in Germany, 10 in Spain, and midnight in
Egypt. In Turkey, dinner is usually at 8, but dinner guests arrive at 7:30
instead of being 5-10 minutes fashionably late! Turks are used to standing
closer together than are Americans.
I
also learned from a graduate student after class that traditional families
resist modernization, but that they allow their sons to go to college to have
more job opportunities. They want their daughters to find a husband at college,
but not to work. They want both sons and daughters to live at home while in
college and also after marriage.
Monday
evening the psychology department had a reception for two graduate students who
are leaving the college. That allowed us to meet two faculty members that we
had not met before. Everyone is
friendly, helpful, and interesting to talk with. After wine, cheese, fruit, sweets, and
homemade muffins we didn't need to cook dinner!
I
had no classes on Tuesday, and spent the day reading. I am the chair of a committee of the
Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues that gives an annual award
to a recent Ph.D. who has made a major contribution to our understanding of
social issues. I spent all morning reading the materials of the persons who had
been nominated this year. In the process I learned
about some new research relevant to my own research and teaching. I spent part of the afternoon writing an
abstract for a conference I'd like to attend next spring, and the rest of the
afternoon and evening reading more about Istanbul in Let's Go Turkey so I could decide what sightseeing I want to do
this weekend. So
we cooked dinner at home for a change!
On
Wednesday in my Multiple Identities class I learned that it is easy to buy
forged documents in Turkey, so it's hard to rely on documentary
information. Everyone is required
to carry a national id card, which has his or her name, address, gender,
religion, and marital status. It is
needed for governmental and financial transactions. Police can ask you for it,
and can arrest you if you don't have it or if you are loitering.
In
my Social Psychology class I learned that there is still a strong Double
Standard in Turkey. Premarital sex
is very stigmatizing for women, but not for men. Living together without marriage is
strongly disapproved of. A man
needs the approval of the woman's parents to marry, but sometimes they elope if
her parents don't approve.
Government
offices and many businesses have strict dress codes. At some, only black, gray, or dark blue
clothing is allowed. At many
offices green is not allowed, since green is interpreted as being Muslim and
the government is strictly secular.
To get a job, a man must not have long hair or a beard or wear
earrings. A woman must not wear red
nail polish to work because that is considered provocative, or black nail
polish because that is Satanist. While men wear shorts on campus, you rarely
see shorts elsewhere in Istanbul. When I wore shorts to the archeology museum
on Sunday, I had many more stares than I usually do for being tall. Shorts make you stand out more as a
tourist, so it is better to avoid wearing them.
Turkish
friends kiss each other on the cheek, as do the French, including men and their
male friends. Men will put an arm
around the shoulders of a male friend as they walk down the street, but they do
not hold hands as they do in Egypt.
One of my students had been an exchange student in DC last year, and
when he kissed a male friend on the cheek, he got quite a reaction!
After
class one of my students mentioned that the students are politicized on campus.
There is one cafeteria where the leftists eat and another cafeteria where the
bourgeois students eat. The
swimming pool is considered a bourgeois scene, so the leftists won't go there!
I
ran into one of my students in front of the psychology building and I asked him
how he thought the Social Psych class was going. He said that the students liked the fact
that I wanted to learn from them.
My
wife wanted to see the fancy Akmerkez mall, so we
took the bus there for dinner. We
avoided the American fast food, and ate Turkish food instead. The clothing prices were very expensive
-- reminiscent of Rodeo drive. But
we found a bookstore that had many books in English, including a rack of used
books. So instead of paying $20 for
a new science fiction paperback for my son, we paid only $3 for a used one!
SUNDAY
JULY 7 - CONTACTS
Several
friends emailed comments in response to my last report. One, a political scientist who has lived
in Turkey, noted that back In the 1980s men did hold
hands as they walked down the street, while it was rare for couples to kiss in
public. She wondered if that was
still true in the villages. Another
friend, who has done extensive anthropological research in Turkey, noted that
urbanites have stereotypes about villagers, even if they haven't traveled out
of the city. It's clear that things that I read, hear from students, or observe
may not apply to other times, places, or social classes. I'm living on the most
westernized campus of the most westernized city in Turkey.
Another
friend was surprised at how conservative the analysis of utopian communities
was, since the sociologists he knew were generally leftists. Actually, there are several traditions
in sociology. One group draws on
Marxist theories to analyze society. Another group tries to strengthen family
relationships; this tradition has included many ministers' sons. Often the various traditions are in
conflict with each other, resulting in stormy departmental relationships and
disagreements on hiring new faculty.
On
Thursday my Multiple Identities class talked about
gender identity theories but ran out of time before we could discuss gender in
Turkey. My Social Psychology class
talked about avoiding and dealing with embarrassing moments -- I have some
great examples like the time a guy spilled a drink on my wife at a party at the
Harvard Business School and didn't apologize, so my friend took a glass of red
wine and "accidentally" spilled it on him and then apologized
profusely! Thursday evening I couldn't keep my eyes open while reading, so I
went to bed early.
When
we had eaten dinner at the sidewalk cafe in Taksim
last week a man came around the tables selling what looked like rosary
beads. I had emailed a friend who
is a religion professor to ask about them.
He said that strings of 99 beads are used in Muslim prayers, and strings
of 33 beads are used as worry beads but may also be used in prayer. I saw two men fingering the smaller sets
of beads on the bus Friday on our way back to Sultan Ahmet (Old Istanbul).
This
trip we visited the Yerebatan Cistern, an underground
water reservoir built by the Emperor Justinian in 542 AD. It's also called the
Basilica Cistern since there previously was a basilica at that site that burned
down. The water came by viaducts from 19 km away (we had seen one of the
viaducts from a bus last week). The cistern has 336 Ionic columns which are 9
meters tall spaced 4.8 meters apart.
Each set of four columns has a domed roof made of bricks. The water level now is about one foot
deep, but the moss on the wall indicates that the water level used to be at the
top of the columns. There were colored lights which caused the columns and
domes to be reflected in the water, and there was classical music, which made
it cool to wander around the rows of columns on wooden walkways.
We
also went to the Museum of Turkish and Islamic art. It had many old carpets, which didn't
interest me very much, except for the fact that they were able to date the
various carpet patterns from European paintings (e.g., by Holbein) that
included carpets as table coverings which was fashionable at the time. More
interesting to me were the beautiful brass lanterns and candlesticks, the
inlaid wooden Koran boxes and stands, and the Arabic calligraphy. There also
was a great ethnographic exhibit which had a yurt (a round tent like the one I
slept in in Inner Mongolia) and a goat-hair black tent used by some Turkish
nomadic tribes.
This
time the Grand Bazaar was open. The
central part is covered, but the surrounding alleys form a maze extending at
least a kilometer in each direction.
We entered near Istanbul University so we could find the antique
booksellers. I saw a book that I
wanted, called The Last Caravan on the Spice Route, but they were asking
$225!
I
found a Turkish vest with embroidery for only $8, a dress shirt for $3, and
t-shirts for $3-5. It was fun because the hawkers were friendly without being
as pushy as the carpet salesmen near Aya Sophia. I
enjoyed the bargaining -- for example there was a small oil lamp for which the
asking price was 8.5 million lira ($14); I offered 4
mil; he came down to 7.5 and I said 4 again. He complained that I already had
said 4, but came down to 5.5. I offered him 5 and he accepted. He asked where I had learned to bargain,
and I said in Egypt!
We
took the tram to Eminonu to visit the Egyptian Spice
bazaar. Inside there were stalls
selling all kinds of spices as well as Turkish Delight (candy) and other
things. There was a stall selling stereos labeled "Panasaonic"
and "Sunny," not quite imitating the brand names. Everywhere there are sports jerseys with
brand names, as well as some music and film CDs, which are copies, just like I
saw in China. Outside the spice
bazaar I found a pair of pants of some interest but the asking price was $13.5
mil ($20), so I walked away.
The salesman ran after me for half a block and asked what I was willing
to pay. When I said 5 mil, he said okay!
When
we got back to campus I stopped in my office to read my email, and heard some
graduate students laughing in the hall.
They had just returned from a cocktail party after graduation. They invited me to go with them to a
disco. There were two female
psychology students and two male friends from other departments. We took the bus to Taksim
and first had something to eat -- they wanted to go to Burger King! The disco was about three blocks from
the square. It was small, with a
crowd of about a hundred which was just right for the space. The music was great for dancing. We
danced until 12:30 and then we dispersed and I took a taxi back to campus. The cover was $5 and the taxi was $8,
which was reasonable since the cover is usually $10 in LA. However
in LA I usually become acquainted with the promoters and they let me in free!
On
Saturday, my wife, son, and I took a bus south along the Bosphorus
to Katabas, where we caught a ferry to Adalar (which means Islands). South of downtown the Bosphorus (Bogazici in Turkish,
which means strait or throat) opens up into the Sea of Marmara. We rode along the east coast of the
Marmara past suburbs of Istanbul crammed full of apartment buildings which go
on for miles. We stopped at Heybeliada island which has a military academy. Some high
school students wearing white naval uniforms got on. They asked me where I was
from, and I learned that they were on their way home for a two-month vacation. They said they would like to go to
Annapolis, and asked if America had any ships with airplanes on them. Turkey
will get such a ship next year, and they were very excited about that.
The
next stop was Buyukada, the largest of the nine
Prince's Islands. The street leading from the ferry terminal was lined with ice
cream stands, with many wonderful flavors.
Their ice cream is thicker than ours, with less air whipped in. One of the vendors told me how much he
liked America -- he had been to Orlando and had enjoyed my favorite disco
there, Mannequins! We walked west
along the north shore, which was lined with huge mansions. Originally the island was inhabited by
Greeks, but now the mansions are owned by politicians and the rich. We walked
for an hour and a half and eventually the road turned inland uphill into a pine
forest. We stopped at a cafe for soda,
then took a horse-drawn carriage back to the ferry terminal.
There
are no cars on the island except for police cars, so horse-drawn carts are used
to carry both tourists and merchandise.
We saw water bottles and boxes of food being unloaded from boats onto
carts along the shore. East of the
ferry terminal there are many outdoor cafes. Beyond them, we saw jellyfish in the
water, and then swimmers. One of
the swimmers told me that it was much nicer to swim in Bodrum
(along the Mediterranean) where there was sand. Here there were only large rocks. But my wife was fascinated by the rocks
trying to figure out how they were formed!
It
was a long trip by ferry and by bus back home, but at least it wasn't hot. The first week we were here the
temperature was in the low 70s which was perfect. The next Sunday was hot when we were
sightseeing. But a cold front moved in Tuesday and it has been in the 70s again
ever since.
On
the way from the ferry terminal to the bus stop we passed a square where young
people were playing hockey on roller blades. The six guys had on knee pads, while the
girl playing with them had on shorts! During the game a couple of middle-aged
women, one wearing a headscarf, walked straight across the square ignoring the
possibility of being hit by a hockey puck or colliding with a fast-moving
player. One of the players stopped mid-game to answer a cell phone. I've seen
people carrying cell phones everywhere -- even more than in the US or China.
One guy on the tram was carrying two phones; while talking on one, the other
rang, and he answered it too! There
also are many Internet cafes, as well as some billboards including websites. This is definitely new!
WEDNESDAY
JULY 5 - BRIDGING CULTURES
Sunday
morning we relaxed and enjoyed the cool breeze swaying
the tree branches outside the windows.
My wife and son figured out how to string ropes criss-crossed
on the balcony so they could hang up our wet laundry. We still haven't figured out why the
washer stops mid-cycle and waits for you to advance it! I spent time revising my Multiple
Identities Questionnaire so it would be more appropriate for students in Turkey
- changing ethnicities, religions, regions, etc. In the late afternoon
we walked up the hill to do some grocery shopping, and my wife had a chance to
practice the Turkish she has been studying. She was pleased to be able to buy
some cherries using Turkish!
Sunday
evening my wife and I decided to go to a music festival in Besiktas. We had seen it advertised on banners
across the road on Saturday. But we
had no clue where it was located in the town. On the bus to Besiktas
I found a passenger who spoke English, and he asked other passengers in Turkish
where the music festival was, and then told me in English. It was three blocks from a bus stop in a
parking lot by the Bosphorus.
We
watched several groups performing traditional folk dances dressed in various
traditional costumes. Most were
university students but one group was elementary students. Then a series of soloists, male and
female, sang popular Turkish songs.
After each dance group or singer performed the emcee presented flowers
and the mayor gave a short speech.
There were three rows of chairs for dignitaries and three rows of chairs
for the public, while the rest of the crowd (which totaled about a thousand)
stood behind and on the sides. The
show was being videotaped professionally, I presume for Turkish TV.
The
popular music was lively and so I started moving to the music as I stood behind
the chairs. A Turkish student
standing in the center aisle noticed me and signaled me to join his group which
was also moving to the music. So I joined a group of students from a university in Besiktas and we danced the rest of the evening. I was concerned that we might be
distracting from the singers, but the audience nearby encouraged us to keep
dancing. At one point the TV camera focused on us. Most of the time we were dancing like we
would in a dance club, but we also did a Turkish dance in which we hooked
little fingers, held up our hands, and danced in a circle. Dancing is an easy
way to form an instant rapport with people anywhere in the world! At the end of
the 3.5 hour concert there was a fireworks display, so
we saw fireworks two days earlier than in the US! Since it was midnight my wife and I took
a taxi home.
In
my Multiple Identities class on Monday we talked about gender in Turkey. As
before, their comments reflect their perspective and may not be representative
of others. The students said that there were two traditional patterns. In one, the men work and the women stay
home and raise children. In the
other pattern, the men "supervise" the farm but take no responsibility
for work, while the women do the farmwork and raise
the children. They said that the
latter pattern was in the Black Sea region. Today there are many different
lifestyles in Istanbul. Many women
have to work for economic reasons. The middle class is small in Turkey, with
most people being either wealthy or poor.
Traditionally
it was felt that there was no need to educate women since they were expected to
marry and not work. They would invest in sons, who stayed in the family, but
not in daughters, who moved in with their husband's family. Now married couples in Istanbul live separate
from their families but usually live nearby, and daughters are valued as much
as sons.
With
the founding of the Republic in 1923, men and women are officially equal. Both
are required to go to school. However, the number of years required was just raised
from only 5 to 8. Most of those older than 40 have not gone to high school
while those younger have. Out of a total population of 70 million, 1.5 million
take the university entrance exams each year, but only 10% of those enter
college. About half of the university students are women. Since it is difficult
to gain admission to Bogazici University, the women
students here are planning careers.
However, some women attend college to escape from home where they would
be expected to marry young to someone selected by their parents.
Men
and women are employed in similar jobs, but the men often have higher pay and
higher positions. Childcare is expensive, unless grandma babysits. Companies with more than 300 employees
are supposed to provide daycare, but it usually is not intended to be
educational.
Traditionally
men are expected to be strong and tough.
They have to prove their masculinity by being aggressive (often to
wives) and having sex. They should
not be sentimental -- no weeping, except that when they are drunk they can cry
about girlfriends. Women are
supposed to be sensitive, loving, respectful, quiet (not speak out), obedient,
not strong, and bear sons. But since the 1980s, feminist ideology has led to a
variety of models for women.
Some
female students continue to wear a headscarf, and some male students and
professors still wear beards, even though the government had banned both at
universities on the grounds that they were too religious. But last week for the
first time the government allowed women with headscarves to take the university
entrance exams. In the past, some
women took off their headscarves for the exams but then put them on again on
campus.
We
also talked about various dimensions on which cultures vary. Some cultures
(like the US) emphasize individualism, while other cultures (like Japan) are
collectivist. The latter emphasize identification with groups, and tend to make
stronger distinctions between ingroups and
outgroups. The students said that
Turkey is in between, with more individualism in the cities and more
collectivism in rural areas. Turkey
is also high on power distance, which means that differences in power and
status are emphasized. Police
control is very high, and the military has intervened in the government several
times in order to "prevent chaos."
American
fast food, films, and music are very popular in Turkey (as elsewhere in the
world). Young people want to be
modern, educated, and have freedom (as do young people elsewhere in the world). But they don't want to be American, they
want to be modern Turkish (just as Western Europeans want to be European not
American). Young people in Turkey,
like older people in Turkey, are very patriotic.
Monday
night I had a miserable head cold, so I went to bed early, while my wife stayed
up to study for an exam in her Turkish class. Tuesday morning
I showed the movie Mrs. Doubtfire outside of class to my Multiple Identities
students and asked them to write a one-page reaction paper to the gender issues
raised by the movie. It was one of only four films relevant to identities that
were available in the university library media center. Tuesday afternoon I
checked on flights to Budapest and took time to read some international news on
the Internet. I had only seen one
newspaper in the past two weeks!
Tuesday
evening we decided to have dinner along the
waterfront, so we walked down the hill and took the bus to Ortakoy
(Middletown) in the northern part of Besiktas. We explored a square on the waterfront
with outdoor cafes and sidewalk stands.
Instead of shish kabobs (skewered meat) or donner (vertical spit)
sandwiches, we had baked potatoes piled high with many toppings. While we were there the police roped off
an area in the middle of the square, and two folk dance groups performed.
One
of the groups had performed at the music festival on Sunday night. They wore red woolen socks and had
high-stepping fast dance steps. Their musicians played two accordions, two
clarinets, and a drum. I talked to
them later and learned that they were university students from Macedonia here 5
days for the music festival. They said that the other group was from Slovakia.
The latter group's dances were more like polkas. Their musicians played 4
fiddles, a bass, an accordion, and a clarinet. The men wore black derby hats
with an ostrich feather! The buses were still running when the dancers stopped
at 10:30 so we spent $1.20 for busfare instead of $8
for a taxi, but then we had to walk up the hill to get home.
It
is wonderful that students all over the world are studying a common second
language (which is English). That
allows them to communicate with one other, both in person and using the
Internet, bridging cultures in a way that was not possible a generation ago.
They've grown up watching the same American movies (good or bad) and they dance
to the same music, making it easier to relate to each other, even as they
retain their national identities.
The cost is some loss of their own cultures (.e.g, Japanese art museums showcasing Japanese
imitations of western art while relegating to the back rooms exquisite
traditional Japanese art). Our
diverse cultures still need to be appreciated by everyone as mass communication
globalizes the world.
SUNDAY JULY 9 - SENSITIVE TOPICS
On
Wednesday my Multiple Identities class talked about
ethnicity. My students said that
the largest minority groups in Turkey are the Kurds, Jews, Armenians, and
Turkish-born Greeks. However, the
government does not recognize them as separate ethnicities; there is only one
ethnicity Turkish. But the
government does recognize separate religions. The Armenians and Greeks are generally
Eastern Orthodox Christian, while the Kurds are Muslim.
Kurdish
separatists have been fighting for independence in southeast Turkey for some
time. Their leader, Ocalan, was
captured a year ago. At that time I read in the Los Angeles Times that he was sentenced
to death, but his execution was postponed.
All executions in Turkey must be approved by the Parliament. Turkey has applied for membership in the
European Union, and the European Union has banned the death penalty. Ocalan
told his troops to stop fighting, in hopes of avoiding execution, so there have
been fewer acts of terrorism.
I
read in the Turkish Daily News yesterday that 67 prisoners are on death row in
Turkey. In order to join the EU,
Turkey must bring its laws into agreement with EU laws and make certain
economic reforms (e.g., greater privatization of industry). Turkey's application for
membership and compliance with EU requirements will be reviewed in 2003. Instead of patchwork changes to
Turkey's constitution, some politicians and journalists are calling for a new
constitution.
The
Istanbul Bar Association has called for a "constitution that does not
restrict basic democratic rights and freedoms." Several leaders quoted in the Turkish
Daily News have called for repeal of Article 312 of the Turkish Penal Code. Article 312 makes it a crime to incite
hatred based on ethnicity or religious differences. It has been used to arrest persons
critical of government policies concerning minority groups. The former prime
minister of Turkey, Necmettin Erbakan, was arrested for making a statement supportive
of Kurds. He was the head of the Welfare Party which has been made illegal
because it supports Islam. The
government is secular and wants to avoid being taken over by Muslim
fundamentalists. So
these issues are very complex.
Wednesday
and Thursday it was hotter than usual. In fact, the Turkish Daily News said
that it was the hottest July in Turkey in 60 years! Fortunately
there are many trees on campus, and there usually is a cool breeze from the Bosphorus. To compound it, when I woke up Thursday morning
I had some bug which made for a quick trip to the bathroom. I took some Lomatil
which enabled me to get through my classes okay, but the bug was back in the
evening. So
I took some Cipro antibiotic, and the next morning my digestive system was
okay, although I was still feeling lightheaded.
Turkish
bathrooms have either eastern toilets or western toilets. Eastern toilets are either a hole in the
ground or a ceramic basin set into the floor, so you have to squat. Instead of toilet paper, you usually
splash water on yourself either from a running faucet or a container of
water. (In Arab cultures
you always do this with your left hand, so you never touch food or a person
with your left hand; the Turks are not Arab and I don't know what they or East
Asians do!). I saw similar facilities
in Japan and China, although in China there often is a trough with running
water to squat over.
The
western toilets often have a faucet which you can turn on to splash yourself.
In Egypt the spigot was aimed up, but here the spigot
is not so you have to use your hand. In many parts of the world, the sewer
system becomes clogged if you flush toilet paper. So
if you use toilet paper, you are supposed to put it in a wastebasket. Our bathrooms here have a small
wastebasket with a lid for that purpose.
I saw wastebaskets being used that way in the large Asian Mall in
Westminster, CA, a suburb of LA which has a large Vietnamese community.
Thursday
morning while I was in class my wife did some laundry using some soap we had
bought in a larger container. It
was the same brand, but we didn't notice that it didn't have the word Automat
on it -- it was for boiling clothes not for an automatic
washer. So
it created suds that would have spilled all over the bathroom if she and our son
hadn't caught them in time in a bucket!
Thursday
evening I listened to the radio. I
found that about half the music was in English and half was in Turkish. I really like Turkish popular music. It has Turkish melodies and
instrumentation, but with a strong dance beat like western music. I have bought several CDs of Turkish
music from street vendors. One CD
has a Turkish version of the theme from the old film Shaft; the melody is the
same, but the lyrics and the ornamentation are Turkish!
Friday
morning we were awakened at 3:15 AM by an
earthquake. It felt like it was
about 4.0. We learned later that it
was 4.2, and was centered near the Adalar (islands)
that we had visited last week. Some
people were injured jumping out of windows, apparently fearing that the
building might collapse. Last year
there were two major earthquakes in central Turkey that killed thousands. Our house here is made of wood, which is
the best kind of structure for earthquakes; it bends instead of crumbling like
masonry.
After
feeling lightheaded and relaxing Friday morning, that evening I felt well
enough to go to a boat party which was organized by the Bogazici
University Electrotechnology Club. They had chartered
a large two-story harbor cruise boat for $1000, and charged $8 cover which
included the first beer. There were
about 200 people which should have covered their expenses. There was a DJ upstairs playing American
and Turkish dance music, and a guitar player downstairs who attracted few
listeners. We cruised up and down
the Bosphorus from 9 PM until 1:30 AM. It was fun.
At
the beginning of the cruise, an American exchange student introduced himself to
me. He was from South Carolina and
had been studying history and religious studies at Bogazici
for a year. He also introduced his
Turkish girlfriend and her Turkish friend who had been an exchange student in
the US for a year. We talked about
differences between Turkey and the US in regard to dating and friendship. They said that dating must be discrete
in most neighborhoods of Istanbul.
Couples are not supposed to kiss or even hold hands. The kissing I've seen on campus is very
unusual. Couples often do not tell
their parents that they are dating for fear of parental disapproval. But parents differ in their attitudes.
They
said that it is harder to make friends in Turkey than in the US. But once Turks become friends, they
usually are in more frequent contact.
Friends get upset if you do not call them or see them often. That is consistent with my observation
that young people here are constantly talking on their cell phones, both men
and women. Turkish men are more
affectionate with their friends than American men. Not only do they kiss on the cheek
(which often is just touching cheeks), they also put their arms on each other
often. At the same time, they are
supposed to be macho, so they often are aggressive or take an aggressive
stance.
I
asked them what the guarded compound was that is on the right as you walk down
the hill from campus to the Asiyan Muzesi (Asian Museum) bus stop. It has a high metal fence, armed guard,
and guard dogs. They said that it
was the Turkish CIA! There are
armed guards all over Istanbul. Many banks, department stores, and other
buildings have them. The Akmerkez shopping mall and
the Topkapi museum also have metal detectors, and
when we went to the music festival in Besitkas the
police were inspecting bags.
When
I first arrived and was walking around the
neighborhood north of campus, I was surprised to see a man in uniform carrying
a machine gun. Then I noticed that
he was standing in front of a police station. I'm used to police and armed guards with
pistols in their holsters not machine guns or rifles in their hands.
There
are guards at all the entrances to campus, who must lift a barrier for cars to
enter. But they are not carrying
rifles. They are not stopping pedestrians this summer, but I was told that
during the school year they usually ask for ID to enter the campus.
My
wife wanted to see the Black Sea, so on Saturday she, our son, and I took an
hour and a half ferry ride from Katabas to Anadolu Kavagi. There are many sidewalk cafes there
selling freshly grilled fish, which was very good. After exploring the main part of town we took a taxi up a long hill to see the ruins of an
old castle. From the castle walls
on the cliff there was a spectacular view of the entrance to the Black
Sea. We saw many cargo ships going
up and down the Bosporus, with long wakes streaming behind them.
We
walked down the hill, being careful where we stepped. Then we saw why -- there were some cows
grazing along the side of the road.
We passed some nice houses and also some shanties pieced together from
pieces of wood and metal, with TV satellite dishes on both! We also passed a naval base with armed
guards, and saw several sailors in town.
On the ferry back we passed three navy ships.
Since
it was hot we got off the ferry in Ortakoy to have a
shorter bus ride home. Normally
traffic is congested, but the bus driver was able to drive fast and so there
was a breeze in the bus. When we
got off the bus below campus we watched the fishermen and swimmers along the
shore. There were families
picnicking, and old men playing cards and drinking raki
(clear anise-flavored liquor which becomes cloudy when you mix it with water,
so it is easy to recognize!). Back
home we took showers to cool off. I listened to Turkish CDs as the breeze came in
the windows, while my wife and son went to sleep early. She was fighting a bug and he had a bad
cold, so we relaxed at home this morning.
THURSDAY JULY 13 - WHIRLING DERVISHES
On
Sunday I went to see the Whirling Dervishes. My wife wanted to go, but she was
still not feeling well. I took the
bus to Taksim, then rode the trolley down the walking
street (Istiklal Caddesi)
to the end of the line. I wandered
down Gallip Dede Caddesi,
which is lined with musical instrument shops, to Galat
Mevilhane. This is a former monastery of the Mevlevi
Order, but is now a museum since Ataturk closed all the monasteries.
The
Persian poet Celeddin-i-Rumi,
born in Afghanistan, moved to Konya (in central Turkey) in 1228, where he was
called Mevlana, the master. There he came in contact
with Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, and established the Mevlevi Order
known for its Whirling Dervishes (devotees). His poetry about love and peace was
written in Farsi (Persian) but has been translated into Turkish and English,
and provides the lyrics for many Turkish songs.
The
Contemporary Lovers of Mevlana Society was formed in
1989. Its musicians have composed
new Mevlevi ceremonial pieces and hymns.
They have permission from the Ministry of Culture to perform concerts
and the Sema ceremony in order to preserve Turkish
Culture.
After
a 45-minute concert of hymns with soloists and choral singing, they performed
the Sema ceremony. Their brochure describes the ceremony as
a "means for humans to reach Divine Reality! It is an intoxication of the soul!" First a devotee brought in a red sheepskin,
which the sheik sat upon representing Mevlevi the master. Twelve additional
devotees entered wearing floor-length black cotton capes and foot-high brown
felt hats, which are like cones with the top half cut off.
As
they stood still, a chanter recited praise for Mohammed. A flute improvisation represented Allah
(God) blowing life into humans, giving soul to the universe. The dervishes then
slowly walked in a circle three times, each time bowing at the sheik as they
passed. The first cycle represented God's creation of the sun, the moon, the
stars, and all inanimate creation.
The second cycle signified the creation of the vegetable world, and the
third the animal world.
The
costumes of the dervishes represent the death of the ego. They removed their black capes, which
signify tombs, to reveal a full-skirted long cotton gown depicting the shroud
in which a body is wrapped. Originally only men twirled, wearing white gowns.
In this group half were men wearing white, while the other half were women
wearing different colors representing a rose garden (which has generated some
controversy).
As
they entered the circle, their arms were crossed, resembling a one to signify
the Unity of God. After they bowed
to the sheik, they began twirling.
They extended their arms, with their right hand up to receive from God
and their left hand down to give to man. They then twirled for about five
minutes, with their skirts flowing out in a full circle. They then stopped,
bowed to the sheik, and then repeated the cycle three more times.
The
first cycle represents viewing all the worlds and seeing the majesty of God. In
the second cycle their whole existence is dissolved within Divine Unity. During
the third cycle, the lovers cleanse themselves. In the fourth cycle, they
arrive at the junction of non-existence within Divine Existence. The sheik entered the Sema during the last cycle, opening one edge of his cloak
to show that he has opened his heart to all people. The flute played again, and
then the ceremony ended with a reading from the Koran.
The
ideology reminded me of the Shakers, whose museums I had visited when I lived
in New England. The Shakers would
line up with men on one side and women on the other side, and dance to merge
with God. However, the celibate
Shakers danced together rather vigorously, while the dervishes twirled
independently with their eyes closed in a very graceful manner. When I dance I often feel like I'm in a
euphoric state, and I usually feel an emotional rapport with the other dancers
as we move in synchrony with the music. I don't describe the experience in
mystical language, but I can understand how others might.
On
Monday, the students in my Social Psychology class handed in their first paper
in which they described a personal experience and analyzed it using concepts
from the course. The most
interesting paper was by a woman who chose to wear a headscarf to the
university. She said she did this
for several reasons. It would be
true to her religion and would communicate her true self, instead of trying to
be someone she is not. She wanted
to be valued for her thoughts, behavior, and intelligence, not for her physical
appearance, sexual appeal, and looking "cool." But she found that others stereotyped
her as unintelligent, uncreative, and close minded. They misinterpreted her answers to
questions in a manner consistent with their expectations. Men were reluctant to talk to her, and
considered her withdrawn and uncommunicative. (This was in spite of the fact that she
must have been very bright to pass the university entrance exams).
Another
paper talked about aggression in Turkish society. A guy was whistling on the bus, and
another man told him to stop whistling.
He replied that he could whistle in public if he wanted to. When he went to get off the bus, a
second man pushed him, he pushed back, and both the first and second men
started hitting him. He pulled one man by the arm to a policeman at the bus
stop. When he explained
what happened, the other man tried to claim that he was whistling at women
(which would be offensive) but no one believed that because he was with his
girlfriend. When the policeman wanted to take the man to the police station,
the student decided not to press charges. The man apologized and was released,
although the people around were angry that the student didn't let the police
take the man away.
A
third paper talked about stereotypes that Turks have, and stereotypes that
other people have about Turks. He
mentioned the film "Midnight Express" as creating the image that
Turkey is dangerous. I would add
that foreigners think Istanbul is exotic as the terminus of the Orient
Express. Wherever we go here, people
think that we are northern Europeans (from Germany, England, or the
Netherlands): they are surprised that we are Americans. I read in the Turkish
Daily News that only 5.7% of the tourists are from America. The largest percentages are from Germany
(21.1%) and Great Britain (12.5%).
Students told me that working class Europeans come to Turkey who can't
afford to go to Western European resorts (Turkey has resorts along the Aegean
Sea and the Mediterranean). I read
in Let's Go that a prison in Istanbul
has been converted into a luxury hotel where you can pay big money to stay in a
former cell! But I also read in the Turkish Daily News about rioting by inmates
at Bayrampasa Prison and protests of a crackdown by
authorities in Burdur Prison.
On
Monday afternoon my wife visited the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Prediction Center. She had called to obtain information,
explaining that she was a graduate student in geology. The director offered to
take her there, since he had to go to the Bogazici
University library anyway. She met
the geophysicists there who are conducting seismology research and toured their
labs, on a beautiful campus on the Asian side. On Wednesday afternoon, one of the psychology
professors introduced my wife to a friend of his who was a geochemist at
Istanbul University.
Tuesday
morning I showed the film "The Joy Luck
Club" to students in my Multiple Identities class. It depicts the cultural conflicts
between four women who came from China and their daughters who grew up in America. In class on Wednesday I asked if the
conflicts in the film were similar to the conflicts between traditional mothers
and modern daughters when Turkish families move from rural areas to big
cities. They said that when
families migrate to the city in Turkey, they try to preserve their own culture
and language; they do not want their children to be like city people. In America, immigrants usually want
their children to learn English to be successful.
Tuesday
afternoon and Wednesday afternoon, I met individually with two professors and
two students to discuss wording in my Multiple Identities Questionnaire. I'm trying to adapt the categories to be
more appropriate for Turkish students.
But people in Turkey think about identities differently than in the
US. They generally do not think in
terms of racial categories (there are few Africans, East Asians, or South
Asians; but many different central Asians, eastern Europeans, and western
Europeans). The minority groups are
socially defined in terms of culture, origin, and religion, although the government
recognizes only different religions not different ethnicities. Attitudes toward the groups are strongly
influenced by social class which is often true in the US as well.
Due
to an expected heat wave today, the government closed all government offices
and universities. So there are no classes today (or on Friday). Everyone has a four-day weekend, but
it's too hot to go anywhere!
However, my wife and I need to go to the airport today to pick up our
daughter.
MONDAY JULY 17 - DERVISHES WITH MY DAUGHTER
On Thursday afternoon
it was 100 degrees as we waited for the bus. After 10 minutes
we were about to take a taxi to get out of the sun when the bus came. In Taksim we boarded the Havas airport shuttle, which was an
air-conditioned tour bus! Juniper's
plane was an hour late, but we didn't mind waiting in the airport because it
was cool. After she arrived she took a quick nap at the flat before I took her
to a musical treat that she was excited about.
When
I went to see the Whirling Dervishes perform last
Sunday, I had arrived early and met one of the dervishes. I asked her if they were performing
again the following Sunday and she said no, not until the end of the
month. I explained that my daughter
was studying world music, so she invited me to bring my daughter to a non-public
practice session on Thursday in Uskudar. We took the
ferry there across the Bosphorus from Besiktas. My
wife and son came too.
The
Sema ceremony was similar to that on Sunday, but was
less formal. The dervishes wore
street clothes instead of costumes. The men wore jeans or khakis while the
women wore floor-length skirts and put on headscarves. Due the small space available only five
danced during the Sema, but afterward the musicians
played for another hour, and the sheik invited others to dance too. They danced in groups of three at a time
for about five minutes per group. I
really enjoyed the music, and was swaying to it as was the sheik and others. But I resisted the urge to get up and
dance -- I would have gotten dizzy twirling and would have used a different
dance style that would not have been appropriate!
I
commented to my daughter that I had heard about the Dervishes years ago, but
never imagined that I would be in Istanbul and meeting them! After the music stopped we were
introduced to the sheik and he invited us to come to the musicians' rehearsal
on Monday. The group was warm and
welcoming.
When
we left the temperature had dropped, and there was a
wonderful cool breeze as we rode the ferry across the Bosphorus. The lights were on the minarets, and it
was delightful to be in Istanbul!
Friday
morning I edited my Multiple Identities Questionnaire
while my daughter slept in. In the afternoon my wife and I took her to SDC travel in Sultan
Ahmet to get a student air ticket to Budapest next Friday for a music
camp. I bought tickets for the rest
of us to fly to Izmir on Friday so we can visit Ephesus.
It
was partly overcast, so it was much cooler than the day before. We showed our
daughter the underground Basilica Cistern, then wandered around the Grand
Bazaar. When we exited the maze of shops I had no idea where we were, but I
knew that if we walked downhill we'd end up in Eminomu. When we walked by the Egyptian spice
bazaar, there were old army cots in the street loaded with dress shirts and
jeans for sale.
We
stopped to eat donner sandwiches in the park just west of the spice
bazaar. Our daughter found an
elderly musician playing a 7-string instrument called a saz,
which she described as a long-necked fretted lute. She stopped to listen and a
crowd gathered to listen too. He
showed her how to strum the lute. We explored a side street nearby which had a
stand with a dozen kinds of olives, several stands selling cheese, as well as stands
for spices and fresh produce. We took the bus back via Taksim
instead of Bebek so we could walk down the hill
instead of up the hill to get home!
Our
daughter was still fighting jetlag so she didn't sleep until 4 AM and then
slept until noon on Saturday. In the afternoon all
four of us went back to Sultan Ahmet to show her the Aya
Sophia and the Blue Mosque. When
the Aya Sophia was converted from a Christian basicila to a Mosque, the mosaics of Christian icons were
plastered over and Muslim calligraphy was added. When Ataturk made it a museum, some of
the plaster was removed to reveal some of the mosaics. So now there is a mosaic
of Jesus above Arabic names of Allah!
The
Blue Mosque is called that because it has blue and white tiles on the walls.
But it also has beautiful stained glass windows with colored flowers and blue
backgrounds. Muslims believe that
images of people are like idols and hence are not allowed in mosques, so
instead they use floral and geometric designs and Arabic calligraphy of some of
the 99 names of Allah. Normally you
don't take pictures inside mosques or churches anywhere. But I saw families with women in
headscarves taking family photos! As their parents prayed, a few small children
ran around inside the mosque and wrestled on the rug.
Outside
the mosque we saw three boys wearing circumcision
outfits. Muslim boys are
circumcised around age 8. During
the week before they are treated like kings. They are dressed in outfits with a royal
robe (usually white with gold trim) and carry a scepter! While traditional mom and older sister wear a floor-length coat covering a long-sleeve blouse and
long skirt (even when it's hot), dad and older brother wear jeans and a
short-sleeved shirt.
I
read a journal article by a colleague here, which explained more about the
Double Standard in Turkey. A man is
supposed to protect the chastity of his female relatives, and if any of them
have sex before or outside of marriage it dishonors him and he is supposed to
punish the offenders, both the man and his female relative. This redeems his
honor but not the honor of his female relative, even if she was raped. But
there is little consequence to a man if he has sex before or outside of
marriage (except possible revenge from her male relatives). Although the Muslim
religion considers it a sin, and therefore it should be done discretely, it
affirms his masculinity. This has led to widespread prostitution, which is
quietly legal in state-inspected brothels. Any woman who is unprotected, i.e.,
not accompanied by a man, is considered fair game. Hence women traveling alone
are hassled, especially tourists who do not dress conservatively.
My
daughter was wearing a sleeveless blouse on the bus home from Taksim the day before. A man sitting behind her tried to
touch her. Before I realized what had happened, she slugged him on the side of
his head and moved up next to me. She knows how to defend herself! Others on the bus were startled by the
commotion but apparently saw no need to intervene.
After
leaving the Blue Mosque, we took the tram from Sultan Ahmet to Eminomu and explored inside the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. We bought a variety of spices -- up
until now everything we cooked at the flat was flavored with curry! My son spotted a video game system that
looked like Nintendo but had a Turkish brand name. Back on campus, I took my daughter to my
office to access her email, and she discovered the challenge of typing English
on a Turkish keyboard, with an undotted I where the
dotted I should be! Last Tuesday
the Internet was down all afternoon, and for the first time I felt far away
from family and friends. With email I feel that I am in close contact even
though I am on the other side of the world!
On
Sunday my daughter wanted to see the Black Sea, so all
four of us took the bus to Ortakoy. While waiting for the ferry, a guy
approached me and called me by name. He recognized me from the photo on my
webpage! I'm not anonymous even in
Istanbul! He explained that he was
a junior in psychology at Bogazici University and had
heard about me from students in my Multiple Identities class.
When
the ticket seller arrived, he said that the ferry wouldn't be stopping there
due to a boat race, but we could catch it at Besiktas
in 15 minutes. So
I raised my arm to signal for a cab, and a cab driver coming the other
direction signaled back. He drove a block and made an illegal U-turn. His
sudden stop caused a motorcyclist behind him to fall off his bike. He got up, apparently okay, and the cab
sped away. We took another cab and
made it to the ferry in time. On the ferry I saw a guy
wearing a t-shirt with Danish writing, and I asked him in Danish if he was from
Denmark. He didn't understand, so I asked in English, and he replied that he
was French but had visited Denmark!
After
eating grilled fish sandwiches and looking at the view of the Black Sea from
the castle on the hill in Anadolu Kavagi,
we took the ferry back. My daughter
discovered that there were three musicians playing inside on the upper
deck. They were playing classical
Turkish music on a clarinet, an hourglass-shaped metal drum, and a fretted
dulcimer. The passengers were
singing along and clapping their hands.
Some began to do some traditional Turkish folk dances. My was tired so
he and my wife got off the ferry at Ortakoy, but my
daughter and I stayed on until Eminomu so we could
listed to the music for another half-hour.
The enthusiastic participation of the audience made the performance
special, and I really liked the music.
We
took a bus to Taksim looking for a bar with live
music there. We found several bars
and discos on Iman Adnan Sokagi, a side street off of
Istiklal Caddesi, and liked
the music best at Mektup Cafe-bar so we ate dinner there. They served Tuborg
beer which I had missed since living in Denmark! There was a saz (lute), a guitar, and a keyboard accompanying a
singer. I showed my daughter more
of the walking street and we found two more groups of musicians playing in the
sidewalk cafes.
She
was impressed by the architecture of the old buildings along the walking
street, and how alive the city was - she described it as pulsing with
energy. After we took a taxi back
to campus at midnight, we walked down the hill and she appreciated the
beautiful view of the lights on the boats and shore of the Bosphorus. I was so wired from the stimulation of
the day that I had trouble going to sleep.
WEDNESDAY JULY 19 - WHY THEY BECOME DERVISHES
On
Monday after class my daughter and I took the ferry from Basiktas
to Uskadar.
We explored the market area across from the large traffic circle
surrounding a park. In the park I saw a small boy pretending to talk on a toy cell
phone. One of my students had told
me that Turkey has the highest usage of cell phones of any country in the
world! Whether true or not, it is consistent with what I've observed. The
market area had many stands selling fresh produce and fish.
We
went to the Mevlevi center to listen to the musicians rehearse. First there was a question and answer
period. An American woman translated my questions and the sheik's answers. I asked how he had studied to be a
religious leader, and he said that he had studied with his sheik for 25
years. After 5 years, his sheik told
him that he had the spirit of Mevlevi in him. I asked how the musicians had trained,
and he said that they had studied secular music, then were able to play the
spiritual music. He said that music nourishes the spirit, not only of humans
but also of animals and plants as well. In response to another question he said
that humans were the most important of God's creation, and that they are
created through love. We should
love one another.
I
was reminded of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. They consider Jesus to be a prophet,
although not the Son of God, and they call him the smiling prophet. To them the
most important prophets are Mohammed (which all Muslims follow) and his
son-in-law Ali (which only some branches of Muslim follow such as Shiite in
Iran, Alevi in Turkey, and Sufis like the Mevlevi). The sheik preached for
another half-hour in Turkish while I sat and observed the group.
While
tea and cookies were being served and the musicians were setting up, I spoke
with some of the musicians. I learned that they were all students at the
conservatory of music at Istanbul Technical University. Then while they rehearsed, everyone else
chatted, the men on one side of the room and the women on the other side.
I
spoke with some men that I had observed whirling on previous visits. One was 35
and had been in the group 4 years. Another was 24 and had been introduced to
the group 3 years ago by a friend who is now his fiancŽe. He called her over,
and she explained that since joining the group her relationships with other
people were much more meaningful. Two high school students had been in the
group only 6 months and 2 months. One explained that as a Muslim he had learned
about Sufism, and found it very interesting so he sought out the group.
Whirling
appears very exotic, but the dervishes themselves are warm, sensitive people
searching for spiritual meaning in their lives. I could understand why they
might join this group. It appears
consistent with research on religious conversion that I lecture on in my Social
Psychology class. Some people are
looking for religious answers to questions about life. But most important is the development of
emotional ties to the group, along with a lack of ties to competing
groups. As one identifies with the
group members, one uses them as a reference group, and takes on their
perspective about life and their definition of oneself.
The
same process occurs more generally in what is erroneously called
brainwashing. People are
intentionally or already cut off from old reference groups (through walls,
distance, or rules). Their old identity is criticized or simply not recognized.
They develop ties to a new reference group, and take on that group's
perspective, developing a new identity.
When communists or cults do this we call it
brainwashing, but when we do it in military training, residential colleges, and
churches, we call it education!
Often
there aren't old and new reference groups, but simply the reference groups in
which we grow up. We accept the
identities we have been assigned -- unless we later encounter others who treat
us differently which causes us to question our identity (e.g., encountering
discrimination at a school or outside our neighborhood). These identity conflicts are issues that
I talk about in my Diverse Identities class.
When
my daughter was talking with the women, she met another American visitor who is
a graduate student in Anthropology and who shares her interest in
ethnomusicology! She is studying
Turkish in summer school at Bogazici University. She
rode back to campus with us on the ferry and the bus. Also on the bus was a guy from Azerbaigian (a Republic east of Turkey) whom I had
previously met at a Sportsfest dance!
Tuesday morning my daughter and I worked on
travel arrangements for this weekend. In the afternoon
we went to SDC travel in Sultan Ahmet where I bought air tickets to visit
Cappadocia the following weekend. I wanted to show her the Topkapi
Palace, but it was closed on Tuesdays. So we went to Taksim and took the trolley to Galata where we explored the
musical instrument shops. Juniper
wanted to buy a Turkish clarinet, so she played several in different shops. She
found a metal one that she liked and bought it. It is in the key of G so it is
longer than western clarinets, and the tone intervals are different so the
fingering is slightly different too. Across from the music shop we found some
pillow covers for sale on the sidewalk that we both liked and that I knew my
wife would like as well. They have crescent moons, stars, and sunbursts. In the
next block I spoke with a man from Nigeria who was
trying to sell watches on the street. When I asked how he liked living in
Istanbul, he said that it was more difficult to find jobs here than he had
expected when he came 4 months ago.
We walked a couple more blocks downhill to the
Galata Tower. When I saw how old it was (it was built in 1348), I wondered how
many steps we'd have to climb! It reminded me of the old tower in Copenhagen.
But fortunately it had an elevator up to a restaurant
so we only had to climb 2 flights instead of 9. From the narrow observation ledge there was a spectacular view of the city. The Aya Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and other mosques with their
domes and minarets were like crown jewels on the skyline. We walked back along Istiklal Caddesi and stoped to eat at a cafeteria. It was great to be able to point to
various dishes without having to translate a menu! We passed a church with a cross on top,
so we looked inside hoping to see some beautiful Eastern Orthodox icon mosaics
like we had seen in churches in Moscow. But there were only two small
mosaics. The statues inside were
Roman Catholic!
Outside
the church we were approached by two young boys who
were begging (my students told me that the beggars are Gypsies). But I have seen fewer people begging in
Istanbul than in Los Angeles. It is
more common for men and young boys to shine shoes, or to have a scale to weigh
you on the street, or to sell bottled water. Young boys lug a bucket of ice and
water bottles to the bus terminals and tourist spots and stand in the hot sun
all day. I appreciate their hard
work and the cold water on a hot day!
When
we got home and showed my wife the pillow covers, she wanted more of them! I had bought only one and my daughter
had bought four to put in her apartment at UCLA this fall.
MONDAY
JULY 24 - EPHESUS AND THE AEGEAN SEA
On
Wednesday I gave midterms in both of my classes. After class, I took my wife and son to
the Galata Tower, and a cafeteria on the walking street. During that time
my daughter met with the graduate student in anthropology that she had met at
the Mevlevi music rehearsal Monday night.
After
classes on Thursday, we had dinner in one of the cafes on the top of the hill
across from the Etiler entrance to the campus. We
spent the rest of the evening packing and getting ready for our three-day
weekend.
Friday
morning we took at taxi to the airport at 6 AM. The shuttle bus from Taxsim
wasn't running yet. We put our
daughter on a plane to Budapest. She was originally planning to attend two
different week-long music camps in areas of Romania populated by Hungarians,
but was feeling uncomfortable with the arrangements to the first camp as a
young woman traveling alone. Since she already had her plane ticket, she
decided to spend a week in Budapest meeting other students at a youth hostel,
and then go to the second music camp. She later emailed that she was having a
great time in Budapest.
The
other three of us took a very nice flight on Turkish Airways to Izmir, on the
Aegean coast. It's a big industrial
city, with jumbles of houses on the hills. After taking the airport shuttle
downtown, we took a taxi to the intercity bus terminal. There we found dozens of bus companies
to cities all over Turkey -- buses are much faster and more reliable than the
trains in Turkey. For $3 each we
had a comfortable 1-hour ride in an air-conditioned bus with beverage service
to Selcuk, the small town closest to Ephesus. As we
neared Selcuk, we passed a family living in a black
tent like we had seen in the Ethnographic museum near the Topkapi
Palace in Istanbul! There was a
herd of sheep or goats nearby.
Because
we expected it to be hot, we had reserved a room in an inexpensive hotel with
air-conditioning that I had read about in The
Lonely Planet guidebook for Turkey. In addition to budget pensions (rooming
houses) listed by both guides, The Lonely
Planet lists mid-range hotels that are not in Let's Go, while omitting the
youth hostels, bars, and discos that the latter lists since it is written by
and for college students. The Hotel Kalehan (fortress
place) turned out to be a delightful old inn with some antiques, private baths,
and a modern swimming pool in a beautiful courtyard, with a spectacular view of
the old fortress on the hill behind it.
And it was only $40 per night for all three of us!
My
wife's digestive system was upset, so she took a nap in the cool room while my
son and I set off to explore the town in the heat. We went to the archeology museum which
had some artifacts from Ephesus.
While the artifacts were nicely displayed, the statues appeared to be
the broken leftovers which hadn't been taken to Vienna by Austrian researchers years ago.
It reminded me of the many ancient artifacts from all over the world
(including the marbles from the Parthenon in Athens) which are in the British
Museum. On the one hand, these
things were stolen from other places (some of which, like Athens, want them
back), but on the other hand they were preserved and are now on display for the
entire public not just rich private collectors. In one museum in London you can
tour the entire ancient world!
On
the way back to the hotel we saw the ruins of an
underground water cistern, much smaller than the one in Istanbul, with columns
but missing the roof. Behind it we
explored the extensive ruins of the Basilica of St. John, built on the site
where the Apostle John was supposed to be buried. He wrote the Gospel of John, which is
the most philosophical of the four Christian gospels, and the book of
Revelations which people have repeatedly used to predict that the end of the
world was drawing near.
The
ruins overlooked the graceful Isa Bey Camil (mosque) with a double dome. When we entered the mosque, the iman (religious leader) was very welcoming. Instead of charging tourists an
admission fee, he had books available for sale if you wish. He had a great book
about the Whirling Dervishes which included the life of Rumi and some of his
quotes and poetry, which I bought.
He invited us to sit on the carpet and listen to a ney
(Turkish wooden flute) player who happened to enter the mosque while we were
there. The carpets were small and
had varied patterns -- I could appreciate them without being hassled by carpet
salesmen! It was delightful.
Across
from the mosque was a restaurant selling local wine. I decided to return later,
after seeing if my wife was feeling better. She wasn't and my son was hot and tired,
so I went back to the Karamese restaurant alone. It had large gazebos, with low tables,
and pillows to sit upon. With the
wooden railings around, and the lush greenery, it felt like I was in Robinson
Crusoe's tree house in the jungle!
They even had a small zoo in the back. I was feeling mellow sipping the cool white
wine and eating dinner. The shish
kabob was served with fresh warm flat bread cooked by women on a hearth nearby.
I
walked along a street with streetlamps in the shape of lions standing erect,
and discovered the market area with a walking street and outdoor cafes with
people of all ages. There were at
least half a dozen barber shops, so I stopped in one for a haircut and a brief
back massage. There was an Internet cafe, but I couldn't telnet to my account
so I sent my daughter a brief message from her account. On the way back to the hotel, the main
street was lined with outdoor cafes where middle-aged men were drinking chay (tea) and playing backgammon or watching TV. They were
amused by the fact that I had a wine bottle in my pocket -- I hadn't drunk all
of it at the restaurant so I would be able to walk back to the hotel!
Saturday
morning all three of us took a taxi two miles to Ephesus. It is the largest and best preserved
classical city outside of Rome and Athens.
While it is older than the 7th century BC, its greatest period of
building was during Roman times.
The bay filled in with silt from the river in the 3rd century AD, and so
the people eventually moved away. St. Paul was there for three years, which is
described in the New Testament book of Acts, and the Virgin Mary is reported to
have lived there with John the Apostle after Jesus' crucifixtion,
so it is a pilgrimage site for many Christian tourists. We heard French,
Spanish, German, Turkish, and even Danish.
There are two dozen major attractions highlighted on the tourist map of
the city, but there are ruins of many more buildings.
Most
impressive were the two-story facade of the library of Celsus,
and the 24,000-seat amphitheater built by the Greeks but used by the Romans for
gladiator fights. Most amusing was the latrine, where about two dozen holes
were cut into marble slabs over a trough with running water, with no partitions
between them. Next door was the brothel, where the statue of Bes (or Priapus)
was found, a six-inch figure with a four-inch erect phallus. It is now on display in the museum in Selcuk, but you have to push a button to turn on the light
to see it!
A
short distance down the marble road toward the amphitheater is what is claimed
to be the world's oldest advertisement.
There is a marble slab on the side of the road with a foot, a heart, and
a woman engraved, which has been interpreted to say that the brothel is a short
walk down the road!
After
four hours of looking at gates, fountains, temples, baths, houses on the
hillside, and other ruins, we took a taxi to the Cave of the Seven Sleepers on
the other side of the mountain. In
250 AD seven Christian youths fled the city to avoid persecution, and
supposedly slept there only to awaken 200 years later. When they died they were buried there. Actually it looks like there had been many tombs there, with
Roman brick arches over burial chambers in the walls.
We
took the taxi back to Selcuk where we caught a Dolmus (minivan) for the half-hour ride to Kusadasi, a resort city on the coast. The word Dolmus means stuffed, and is the same word used for stuffed
grape leaves. The minivan follows a fixed route, but the time of departure is
determined by when it is full! It
costs twice what a bus costs, but much less than a taxi.
On
the way we passed water parks and seaside resort
hotels. When we arrived in Kusadsai, we were hot and
tired, but found the Sun Garden Hotel recommended by The Lonely Planet. It didn't have air-conditioning but there was a
cool breeze coming in from the balcony overlooking a swimming pool. I swam while my wifea
napped, and then she and I walked along the waterfront and out to the island in
the harbor which has an old fortress. The name of the city Kusadasi
means Bird Island and is named after the many birds on the island. However, we saw only one dove as we
walked along the outer walls of the fortress; the castle tower was locked.
We
picked up our son and ate a Turkish pizza a for dinner. It had sliced Vienna sausage and salami
instead of pepperoni! We found a
street called Barla (meaning street of bars) which
had several discos and Irish bars near our hotel, and a labyrinth of narrow
streets with discos and bars behind the post office. On Barbaros,
the main street to the waterfront, a jewelry store salesman approached me on
the street and asked for information about applying to graduate schools; he
attends a university in Izmir. I
never did figure out why he thought I might know!
My
wife and son went to bed early, and I went back to Barla.
I listened to the music and looked in the windows, and found a disco that
looked interesting called The Happy Center next door to the Log Cabin Irish
Pub. In most discos, everyone waits for someone else to start dancing, but at
this disco the young waiters were dancing and inviting women to dance when they
weren't serving beer! One of the
guys at the door encouraging customers to enter was a student at UCLA at home
for the summer! I met several Turks
and three students from Germany. I had a blast! I left at 2 AM soaked with
sweat from 3 1/2 hours of dancing. The manager wanted me to come back the next
night, and I would like to have, but I had to teach a class Monday morning in
Istanbul!
On
Sunday morning, at the breakfast provided by the hotel, I saw a couple that was
at the disco the night before! She
was from Scotland and he was Turkish.
She complimented me on my dancing and was amazed at my energy level. We
checked out of the hotel and took a dolmus two miles
south to the Ladies Beach, which had people of both sexes and all ages. There were rows of beach chairs with
umbrellas, and young men calling out to rent them. One of them and his friends recognized
me from the disco! After walking up
and down the beach, we did rent chairs near the only shower on the beach. We
took turns watching our backpacks and swimming in the Aegean. It was fun riding the waves while
floating on my back.
We
then made the long trek back to Istanbul, riding a dolmus,
intercity bus, taxi, airplane, shuttle bus, and city bus to campus. On the last bus, there was an
altercation between a Turk and an African.
The African wanted a policeman, so the bus driver flagged one down, and
the police took both of them away.
We never did find out what was the cause, but two Turks in the back of
the bus got into an argument about it and had to be pulled apart by their
friends.
THURSDAY JULY 27 - BETWEEN TRIPS
Monday
morning my digestive system was unhappy. My stomach had started hurting after I
drank an orange slurpy Sunday afternoon -- I wonder
if it had been mixed with tap water.
In the middle of my afternoon Social Psychology class I felt
lightheaded, and sat on a table while I lectured instead of standing at the
blackboard. I didn't want to stop
my lecture because I was talking about my research on dating couples!
In
my morning Diverse Identities class we discussed
social class, poverty, and homelessness in America, then I asked my students
about Turkey. They said that the
government does not have any welfare programs, except that some people can get
a green card for free healthcare and medicine but it is very difficult to
get. However, people find ways to
survive (such as shining shoes, etc.). There is little homelessness because
people put together shanties on the outskirts of the city. Healthcare is expensive. Employers are
supposed to provide health insurance, but they deduct the cost from your
paycheck.
The
minimum one can earn in a full-time job is about 100 million Turkish Lira
($160) a month. Government workers
earn about 300 million TL, while full professors at state universities earn 450
million TL (about $750) per month.
At private universities professors are paid 1000-2000 million TL per
month. So
some professors at state universities teach part-time at private universities.
Rent
in Etiler (an expensive area near the campus) is
about $1000 per month, while a nice house on the Asian side of the Bosphorus is about 300 million TL ($480). The cheapest
undesirable apartment on the European side costs 100 million TL, while a more
desirable apartment costs 250 million TL.
I haven't seen official statistics so I don't know how accurate these
estimates are.
Most
students live at home and commute.
Those who live in dormitories pay only 8 million TL (about $14) per
month for rent. They pay for each
meal separately (but food on campus is inexpensive -- about 80 cents for a deli
sandwich). However, there also is a
luxury Super Dorm which costs about 300 per month. Tuition at state universities is 60
million TL ($100) per semester. At
private universities tuition is about $6000 per year.
After
my afternoon class I went to the swimming pool with a student from Azerbaigian. I had originally met him at the Sportfest boat party and happened to see him again on the
bus last week. A friend of his from Azerbaigian and a
friend from Palestine (whom I also had met at the boat party) joined us
too. Since I wasn't feeling very
well I did more talking than swimming.
Azerbaigian is a former republic of the USSR
which is just east of Turkey. The language is similar to Turkish, and the
religion is primarily Muslim. The
student from Palestine lives in the Gaza strip. At the pool I
also met two Turkish friends of theirs, one of whom plays the ney (Turkish wooden flute which is important to the
Whirling Dervishes).
After
swimming we went to the Palestinian's apartment for
some watermelon. The apartment had a small kitchen like I had seen in China and
in efficiency apartments in the US. We then walked up to the North Campus so I
could see what the men's dormitory was like. Each dorm room is about the size of a
two-person dorm room in the US. But
in the room are 3 sets of bunkbeds and a small table,
so six guys share a room. It
reminded me of the dormitory rooms I had seen in China, where there were 4 sets
of bunkbeds for 8 men to share a room.
Out in the hall were everyone's shoes of all kinds, like in Japan!
Tuesday
morning I showed the film "American History
X" to the students in my Multiple Identities class. It is a film about a white supremacist
which depicts the brutal effects of hatred. In the afternoon
I met my wife at the library so I could return the video and check out another
geology book for her. While there I
overheard someone whose accent sounded American, which
is unusual away from Sultan Ahmet. I learned that he was a student from MIT who
was invited here for the summer by a fraternity brother at MIT who is from
here. The latter is in my Social Psychology class! My wife had worked at MIT
when I was a PhD student at Harvard.
We
are all connected to each other through chains of people we know, as Stanley Milgram
demonstrated in his research on the Small World. He found that on the average
there were seven people in a chain linking someone selected at random on one
coast of the US with someone on the other coast! One of my professors at Harvard has been
instrumental in setting up the Middle East peace talks, and through him I am
chained to all the world leaders!
In
the evening I planned our itinerary for visiting
Cappadocia this weekend and made telephone calls to central Turkey to make
hotel reservations. By coincidence my cousin just emailed that she had read an
article about Cappadocia in the Sunday travel section of the Seattle
Times!
Wednesday
morning my stomach felt normal again after having taken Cipro antibiotic for
two days. After class, three students came by my office to talk about applying
to graduate schools in the US, including the student who had recognized me from
my website. I spoke with colleagues
about final revisions to my Multiple Identities Questionnaire, edited the
corrections, took the printout to a copy center up the hill, then lugged a box
of 160 questionnaires back to my flat.
A
colleague had invited us to her apartment for some dessert, so we took a taxi
there in the evening. We had
several flavors of ice cream, plus an unusual thick pudding made from chicken
breasts! I also tried
some raki, the national liquor of Turkey. It is flavored with anise (licorice), and
served with water (which turns it from clear to cloudy), and ice. I liked it,
but it is something you sip not drink like beer!
This
morning we packed our backpacks so we could take off for the airport after my
afternoon class.
MONDAY JULY 31 - LIVING IN CAVES IN
CAPPADOCIA
Cappadocia
is in central Turkey about four-hours drive south of
the capital city Ankara. The name
means land of beautiful horses.
Persians raised horses in the region 2500 years ago. Today it is famous for its rock
formations, caused by water and wind erosion of tuff (dried liquefied ash) from
three volcanoes ten million years ago. From the 4th to the 11th century it was
a hiding place for Christians, who carved churches, houses, and 120 underground
cities out of the rock.
Thursday
evening we flew from Istanbul to Kayseri, which is the
closest airport to the area. We took the airport shuttle into town, arriving
about 10 PM. We checked into the Hotel Yat (which
means both yacht and go to bed, so the hotel had pictures of boats), and then
explored the streets nearby. Most tourists travel by bus, or fly to Ankara, so
foreign visitors are unusual in Kayseri. As a result, we were a novelty and
attracted even more attention than usual. Shopkeepers (where we bought ice
cream and water), men in produce stalls (selling melons), and street vendors
(selling nuts) wanted to know where we were from, and others on the street
wanted to practice their English.
Around
the corner from the hotel we found a park where some musicians were playing (2 saz and a metal drum) at an outdoor cafe. I took their picture, and later they
gave me their address so I could mail them a copy. I also took a picture of two middle-age
men who danced to one of the songs, so one of them stopped to chat too. He
spoke in German and said that he had been a guest worker in Germany for seven
years.
Friday
morning we walked along the park on our way toward the
center of town, and I took a picture of some men sitting in the park. More than two dozen men gathered around
me wanting me to take their picture too!
I've seen males of all ages on the streets everywhere I've been in
Turkey, but very few women, and the women are usually accompanied by men unless
they are with other women and children.
We
took a taxi to the otogar (short for otobus garaj = autobus garage =
bus station), and took a bus to Goreme. The trip was one and a half hours, and
the terrain reminded me of central Oregon or the Owens Valley east of the
Sierras in California. We passed wheat fields, potato crops, and sunflowers
(the seeds are very popular here).
We saw farmers using machines to separate the wheat from the chaff, men
moving sprinkler pipes in the potato fields (like I had done in the mint fields
of Oregon one summer as a teenager), a few herds of sheep, and several herds of
cattle. We passed donkey carts
carrying families in traditional clothing, and many tractors on the road
pulling wagons. From the horn honking and dirty looks, I think that the farmers
and the tour bus drivers each felt that the other was in the way.
We
also passed a field with several yurts (round tents), and saw other kinds of
tents and lean-tos in fields either for sleeping or to provide relief from the
heat. People were working in the fields
even though the temperature was over 105 degrees (40 Celsius). I was glad that
I was in a comfortable air-conditioned bus instead of hanging onto a tractor or
a donkey cart! It was the hottest
time of the year and the hottest year in recent times.
In
Goreme we saw cone shaped rock formations on the
hillside into which houses had been cut.
We stopped at the Nese tour agency and made
reservations for a day-long tour the next day. We checked into the Ufuk
Motel, which is next to the Paradise Hotel! Ufuk is
pronounced oo-fook and means horizon. Our room was a cave carved out of the
rock! It was square in shape, with
a small bathroom by the door. There were no windows, except for the translucent
glass in the upper half of the door. There were rugs on the floor, three beds,
and a nightstand. And the temperature was wonderfully cool even though it was
mid-day!
We
relaxed in the room for awhile before walking a
kilometer (3/5 mile) down the road and up a hill to the Goreme
Open Air Museum. There were seven Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox Christian)
churches containing colorful frescoes that had been carved into the rocks more
than a thousand years ago. The
churches were cool inside, even though it was very hot outside. There also was
a seven-story nunnery with tunnels inside to reach the upper levels, although
only the lower two levels were open since the upper levels had been damaged by
earthquakes.
When
we visited the last church, it had guards since it was outside the entrance to
the main area. My wife spoke to them in Turkish, and they invited us to sit and
have tea with them! She was
delighted to be able to communicate with them, after spending so much time
studying the language. Since there
aren't many cognates (words similar to English) it is much harder for Americans
to learn than most European languages. Phrases are formed by adding word
endings -- for example in the word universitesi, the
"si" means "of".
We
ate lunch under an awning, then walked back to the hotel, took showers, and
relaxed for two hours in our cool cave.
Then my wife and I went for a walk to explore the town. I wanted to find
the location of the bars and discos!
We also found an outdoor cafe that looked like a good place to have
dinner. On the way
back to the hotel to get our son, we stopped at an Internet cafe to send our
daughter a message; she had found a couple to travel with to a music festival
in a village in Hungary.
As
my wife went on ahead, I stopped at the Flintstones Bar to ask if they had
dancing that night. People were
sitting on cushions outside on the sidewalk. I chatted with a guy who was a tour
operator and his girlfriend; he had asked me how tall I was.
The
dinner was a four-course special, but we had to wait a long time between
courses. I didn't mind because the
sun had set and it had cooled to 80 degrees. My wife and son went to bed, but after
an hour cooling off in the cave, I set off for the bars and discos. The
Flintstones Bar and the Pasha Bar were quiet, but I heard live music at the Goreme Restaurant.
There was a saz player and a guy playing
wooden spoons. I drank a beer and chatted with two couples from Spain who were
smoking a waterpipe. One guy was a marketing
professor, the woman with him was finishing her PhD in chemistry, and the other
two worked in computers.
I
then went to the Ecstasy Disco which opened at midnight. There I saw the tour operator and his
girlfriend whom I had met outside the Flintstones Bar, and he introduced me to
several of his friends. Then a
belly dancer came out to perform. After 10 minutes dancing alone, she invited
me to dance with her. She
unbuttoned my shirt and took it off, and I belly danced with her for 10
minutes! After she left, the DJ
played American and Turkish pop music. The dancing was both American style and
Turkish style. The latter was swaying the hips with both arms raised, or
joining little fingers and dancing in a circle. The crowd was friendly and it
was fun.
Although
the disco was open until 4 AM, I left at 2 AM so I could get up for our 9:30 AM
tour. A cave would seem to be an
ideal place to sleep, since it was pitch black and there were no sounds of
traffic or anything else. Actually it was a little
claustrophobic without the light coming in the door. I wondered if the cave
might collapse in an earthquake as some of the churches had done. But the devastating earthquakes in
Turkey last year were 200 miles west and weren't felt here.
Saturday
morning our tour group was combined with another group. There are many touring
companies, and they often combine tours when they have small numbers. That
meant that we got three additional stops that had been promised the other
group! We boarded a 24-seat bus
that had an air-conditioning unit, but it wasn't working; I noticed that all
but one of the several tour buses at our first stop had their windows open too,
meaning their air-conditioning wasn't working either. I was dreading the heat,
but there was air flowing on me from a roof vent when we were moving. The tour
lasted 11 hours and covered 100 miles with many stops, making a clockwise loop
south and west of Goreme. I drank lots of water, and
kept pouring water into my baseball hat so my head would stay wet and cool.
Sitting
near me on the bus were a young couple from Montreal who spoke French and a
couple from Belgium who spoke Flemish. Our first stop was at an overlook in Uchisar where we could see Pigeon Valley. Rooms had been
carved into the rocks, with holes for pigeons to roost. Once a year the pigeon droppings would
be gathered to use as fertilizer on the fields!
Our
next stop was Derinkuyu, which had the deepest of the
underground cities. It had 8 stories, which included levels for stables,
kitchens, storage, sleeping, schools, churches, and temporary graves. I was
apprehensive about going that far underground, but I told myself that if I
could crawl inside the pyramids of Egypt I could do this too! Actually I felt comfortable inside -- I kept space between
myself and the person ahead so I wouldn't feel crowded, and the narrow tunnels
opened up into huge rooms at each level. It was a fascinating place and I was
very glad that I had gone.
According
to Let's Go Turkey, the underground
cities began as Hellenic cave dwellings in the 4th century BC. They were used
later used by Hittites for storage and ambushes. Between the 5th and 10th centuries AD,
they were expanded into full cities by the Byzantines to defend against raids
by other groups. During attacks, thousands of people lived underground. During
safe periods, the dead would be moved to cemeteries farther away, so enemies
would not know that people were living there. In modern times, the cities were unknown
until 1962 when a farmer in Derinkuyu stumbled upon
one in his field while searching for a chicken!
No
privies were ever found in any of the cities. Human waste had to have been carried out
-- I'd guess either to avoid the smell or to use as fertilizer as was done in
China. There were air shafts to provide ventilation. Even though the tuff is
softer than other rocks, it still would have been an incredible amount of work
to dig out the tunnels, rooms, and airshafts, and haul out all of that
rock. And this was just one of 120
underground cities!
Our
next stop was Ihlara, where we hiked inside a deep
gorge. There were many churches
carved inside the canyon walls, but we only visited one, where I ran into the
two couples I had met from Spain!
There was a stream shaded by trees, but the path was mostly outside the
trees in the hot mid-day sun. After
2 kilometers, I insisted that we have a rest stop to cool off. I waded in the
stream, and drenched my head with water. We then walked the last kilometer to a
shaded outdoor cafe where we had lunch.
We
rode the bus to place overlooking Selime, where we
could see cone-shaped rock houses in the distance which were used in the early
scenes of the first Star Wars film!
On the other side of town we scrambled over
rocks and through tunnels up to a monastery carved high on the hillside. It had beautiful views of the valley but
steep drop-offs at the edge of the church.
The dining hall had a long low table and benches carved out of the rock.
After
that was the Agzikarahan caravanserai. This was an
inn for camel caravans on the spice route!
The caravanserai were located 40 kilometers (24
miles) apart. It was built like a fortress with stables for camels and rooms
for sleeping. In the center was a
very small mosque.
We
drove on to Nevsehir, and I think it was near there
that we stopped at a winery. It had
a beautiful view overlooking the many valleys around Goreme.
The rock formations between the valleys had varying colors including white,
yellow, and pink. The white wine
was good, similar to Italian Soave, but the red wine was a little thin.
We
drove back to Goreme where we stopped at a hotel with
a swimming pool for a swim. It was
a chance to cool off and rinse off the sticky sweat. We then went north of Goreme to Cavusin. We stopped at a pottery factory, where a
teenager deftly make a sugar bowl on a foot-powered wheel. We then explored the
display rooms with various kinds of ceramics -- all for sale. My wife was offended at having this
shopping stop (which is common on commercial tours), but I didn't mind seeing
the various kinds of pottery. I don't think anyone in our group bought
anything. They were mostly
twenty-something backpackers, not middle aged rich tourists!
My
guidebook had warned about tours with two-hour stops at carpet factories. I usually avoid tours, since I prefer to
explore sights cheaply at my own pace without paying high prices to be herded
in a large group. But I liked this
tour. The guide was friendly and
informative, and we covered many sites in a huge area all in one day. I would not have enjoyed waiting for a
local bus or dolmus in the heat!
Our
final stop was to see the Fairy Chimneys east of Cavusin
at sunset. These were formed when a
hard rock on top prevented the soft rock underneath from being eroded away like
the surrounding area. Some looked
like mushrooms while others were phallic in shape.
After
a late dinner, my wife and son read in bed. I took a shower and relaxed in our cave
to cool off, feeling glad that I hadn't become sick from the heat. At midnight they
went to sleep, while I went back to the Ecstasy disco. The tour operator I knew was there
again, and we chatted while the bellydancer
performed, but the rest of the crowd was new. Three Turkish couples invited me to
drink beer with them. They didn't
know any English, and I only knew a few words of Turkish, but it didn't
matter. We toasted each other,
laughed a lot, swayed to the music, then got up and danced.
I
again left at 2 AM. As I walked down the street I chatted with a guy from New
Zealand and two girls from Korea who happened to leave the disco at the same
time. When I walked by the Flintstones Bar, an Australian who had been at the
disco Friday night greeted me and told his friends sitting outside that I knew
how to shake my booty!
Sunday
morning we took our time getting up and had a
leisurely breakfast. As we slowly walked to the bus station, I felt that I
already knew half of the people in this small town. When we stopped to buy
water at a small grocery store, the clerk was a guy I had seen at the disco on
Friday. When I passed one of the
tour agencies, a man who had seen me at the disco Saturday night greeted me
told me that I had the best dancing technique. When I went to the ATM machine,
a guy sitting at an outdoor cafe nearby greeted me -- he had been introduced to
me by the tour operator on Friday. And we knew the teenager who was running the
Internet cafe since we had been there the day before -- he attends a Muslim
high school in Avanos.
When
you meet people on the other side of the world, you usually expect never to see
them again. But now that we have
the Internet, you can exchange email addresses and easily stay in contact, as I
am with friends in Denmark, China, Japan, Thailand, and other places. I was reluctant to leave Goreme, just as I was reluctant to leave cities in China
and other places I've visited.
We
took an air-conditioned bus back to Kayseri. Our plane didn't leave until 9 PM so we
had all afternoon for sightseeing. Normally we would have walked around town,
but we took taxis (for $2 per ride) to save time and stay out of the stifling
heat.
First we went to the Archaeological Museum, where we saw
treasures from Kultepe, a 6000 year old settlement
that peaked as an Assyrian trading center in 2500-1700 BC. There were small clay tablets with the
oldest cuneiform writing in Turkey.
There was beautiful pottery that included a variety of 4000 year old teapots.
Then
we saw the world's oldest medical school. The Gevher Nesibe Tibbiyesi opened in 1206
with a hospital and medical school in adjoining walled-in courtyards. The rooms
were mostly empty, but a map showed the location of the operating room,
classroom, pharmacy, etc. Most
interesting was the insane asylum, which consisted of a long hallway with 9
cells on each side. Each cell was about 7 feet by 8 feet with a low door and no
windows.
Next
was the Gurupoglu Konagi
and an ethnographic museum. The former is a 15th century Ottoman mansion,
containing mannequins in costume depicting daily life. It was much more impressive than I
expected it to be. The museum
contained coins, weapons, costumes, household items, and a yurt.
Nearby
was a Carvanserai and the oldest mosque in town, the
Ulu Camil built in 1134. It was prayer time and we were wearing
shorts, so we didn't enter. But I
liked the old minaret which looked like a narrow tower. Our last stop was the
kale, a huge fortress built in 1497.
Inside was a bazaar where we ate dinner.
We
were hot, tired, and annoyed at being hassled by a carpet salesman when we walked
to the Turkish Airlines office to catch a shuttle to the airport. The shuttle
didn't leave for another hour, but we were content to sit in the
air-conditioned office and relax. The staff was very friendly. One agent was a college student who
worked there part-time. I could
hardly keep my eyes open as we flew back to Istanbul, arriving on campus at
midnight. The trip was a densely packed experience!
FRIDAY AUGUST 4 - FINAL WHIRL IN ISTANBUL
On
Monday I realized that this would be our last week in Istanbul, except for two
nights when we return from Eastern Europe to catch our flight to LA. I wondered what I would miss most. The view of the Bosphorus
from campus. Riding the ferries.
The view of the skyline from the water with lights on the minarets. The trees outside the windows of our
flat. The boat parties, dances, and
discos. The people I have met both
in Istanbul and in other towns. The
Whirling Dervishes and Turkish music.
I already miss the town of Goreme and the
people that I met there. But I was delighted to receive emails from three
people that I had met in Kusadasi the previous
weekend!
My
classes had their last lecture sessions.
I had covered less material than usual in my Multiple Identities class
but more than usual in my Social Psychology class. I spent Monday evening writing up my
many experiences in Cappadocia, and went to bed early.
Tuesday
morning it rained. The air was cool
and crisp. The rain droplets
glistened on the leaves of the trees outside the windows. I spent the day preparing finals and
grading papers. In the evening my wife and I went to a cocktail party for
faculty teaching summer school. I
met an American professor who was as tall as I am. I often forget how very tall I am until
I see someone my own height! We
talked about Turkish politics, and he told me that a recent issue of The
Economist had an article about issues in Turkey. I also met a professor who has lived
here many years and written books about the history of Istanbul and its
neighborhoods, including Strolling
Through Istanbul and Istanbul: The
Imperial City.
On
Wednesday I had review sessions in both of my classes, and then graded papers
all afternoon and evening. Students in my Multiple Identities class had written
autobiographies in which they discussed each of their identities. These women had especially interesting
things to say about gender, commenting on having had more restrictions than
men. One had grown up in Germany, another in Kosovo, and one was Armenian so
they had to deal with bicultural issues as well.
Thursday
morning I gave the final exam in the Multiple
Identities course. I spent the rest of the day grading another set of papers.
Students in my Social Psychology course had analyzed their experiences in
groups. Some wrote about sports
clubs or friendship cliques while others talked about the restrictions they
experienced in boarding schools.
Thursday
evening all three of us went to Taksim to eat dinner
at one of the cafeterias, where we could sample other Turkish dishes. On the
bus going there I met another Nigerian.
He was pleased to find someone who could speak English. He is here to
learn Turkish, since his country has extensive trade with Turkey. On the way back from Taksim, my wife and
son went on to campus while I got off the bus in Besiktas
to catch the ferry to Uskadar. I wanted to see the Whirling Dervishes
one more time before we left.
With
the sheik's permission I tape recorded the Sema
ceremony and the concert afterward.
The Sema music is fairly solemn, while the
music afterward is lively and joyous. During the latter, the group joined in
singing while the sheik invited additional groups to whirl. There was one middle-aged man who burst
out with emotional expressions, which reminded me of shouts of Amen at an
African American church. The others found this amusing since it is not usually
done. At the end, I was reluctant
to leave as I said good-bye to the people I knew. Now these people are my friends.
I
have developed a deep appreciation of Turkish people and their culture, as I
have of other people and cultures around the world. I have a greater
understanding of Islam, having met many kinds of Muslims in Egypt, Inner
Mongolia, and now Turkey. Minarets
are normal now, not mysterious, but they still remain beautiful as they have
become familiar features of the skyline, especially at night.
SUNDAY AUGUST 6 - LEAVING FOR EASTERN EUROPE
Friday
morning I attended a lecture sponsored by the
psychology department. The speaker
was an American psychoanalyst named Alan Roland. He had conducted therapy in India and
also treated clients from India, Japan, and China in New York City. He has written about the Eastern Self. He observed that for his Asian clients
their self-esteem is tied to family reputation. This is consistent with research by
cross-cultural psychologists on Individualistic versus Collectivistic
cultures.
But
he made an additional distinction between the inner boundaries and outer
boundaries of the self. In
comparison with westerners, Asians have looser outer boundaries -- there is
greater identification and less physical privacy with family members. But they have tighter inner boundaries
-- they are much more private about their own thoughts and feelings. He used
the term Familial Self to refer to the "we self" that Asians have, in
contrast to the autonomous "I self" that westerners have.
He
noted that Asian cultures emphasize hierarchical relationships, which has also
been found in cross-cultural research.
But he added that in exchange for deference shown to superordinates,
subordinates expect nurturing in return.
This is true not only in families, but in work relationships as well. I
was surprised that they would expect nurturing from male bosses since he
described family relationships in terms of mothers being nurturing but fathers
being emotionally distant. He
explained that they expect bosses to be mentors. This is consistent with my
observations in Japan, but I'm not sure how true it is in general in Asia.
These
differences result in culture conflict among Asian Americans who are caught
between the two sets of expectations.
This is captured well in the film The Joy Luck Club, which we watched in
my Multiple Identities class.
Friday
afternoon I went swimming again with my friend from Azerbaigian.
I taught him how to do the back stroke which he had never done before! His other friends were studying for
finals. I spent the evening
calculating grades for my Multiple Identities class.
Saturday
morning I went to the give my Social Psychology final
exam, but the building was locked.
The power was off, and the lock was electronic. We had to wait 20
minutes for security men to come and open the doors!
Saturday
afternoon I went to SDC travel in Sultan Ahmet to buy airline tickets for
Eastern Europe. I bought a large
suitcase on the street behind the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. We had new Turkish
clothing, postcards, books, and questionnaires to pack! We spent the evening
packing everything in the apartment.
This
morning I calculated grades for my Social Psychology class. I then looked at the course evaluation
forms, and found that they were extremely positive for both courses. The
Multiple Identities class helped them to think about their identities from new
perspectives, and the Social Psychology class helped them understand
interactions in daily life.
We
will take all of our suitcases to my office in the psychology building, and
carry only backpacks on our further travels. This afternoon we are flying to Budapest
in Hungary. We will spend three
days there. We didn't have time to go there the last time we traveled around
Europe, getting as close as Prague.
On
August 9 we will fly to Sofia in Bulgaria, then take a
train the next day to Koprivshtitsa, where we will
meet our daughter and spend four days at a music festival. After that we will
spend more time in Sofia and also visit Plovdiv. About two dozen international
students at Whittier College are from Bulgaria and I hope to see one of them
there (most of the others are in the US this summer).
On
August 18 we will fly from Sofia to Istanbul, then on
August 20 we will fly back to LA. I
will write a separate journal about Hungary and Bulgari based on reports sent
from Internet cafes in Eastern Europe.