Turkey is not Egypt (posted by Mona, Ayah's mom)

Turkey is so much like Egypt too, but yet different. I think the Eastern and Muslim/partly Muslim cultures share common features and yet are distinct from each other.

Izmir & Istanbul remind me of Cairo so much. Either the Ottomans left permanent marks on Egypt's culture or they absorbed Egyptian culture & brought it back to their homeland. Probably a little bit of both. And the Turks I met so far are not at all like the ones we see in the series. More like the Egyptians i met in Cairo. They are very friendly and simple and down to earth. And they mostly have dark hair and eyes. Most look kinda like dad (your dad). Lots of poverty and homelessness around here too, although probably a little less than Egypt. They even have 3shwa2ee neighborhoods in Istanbul. They call them “gecekonde” which means overnight i.e. they were erected overnight without much planning and so they lack sewage & proper infrastructure..The men don't hassle women on the streets but they do stare and there are hardly any females on the streets after dark in Izmir. A lot more women wear scarves than i expected to see, but the mosques in Izmir are practically empty at prayer times and there are hardly any Ramazan festivities in Izmir. Although i saw ads for coca cola and ice cream on TV that referred to Ramazan. I have yet to go inside a mosque at prayer time in Istanbul, although around Friday prayer time they seemed inhabited from what I could tell from my tram window. At Iftar time they offer free food for those who want in Istanbul. There is a big tent right by the Bosphorus and a huge line of people waiting to get in to eat Iftar for free. Nice touch.

I don't know how but the air smells like Egypt and the stray dogs barking in the streets and the cars honking their horns and the little coffee houses in alleys with men smoking shisha & playing backgammon all remind me of Egypt. (by the way shisha is a turkish word that means “bottle” as in “shisha su” for “bottle of water”and is not used to refer to the smoking pipe here). Also, no street names on most streets, people don't know where things are on the map & don't know street names & give you wrong directions. I feel so at home. The hotel in Izmir even had the pitch black staircase that we are so used to from living in teta's house. Good thing I brought a tiny key-chain type flashlight ;) They do have light in it, but it is motion sensitive & it is set to turn on only when you are directly below the bulb, and for only one second. There are so many energy-saving practices here. I love it. The room's lights and air conditioning are also set to turn off if you leave the room & take your key out of its holder. There is little or no parking on most streets and around most buildings, so people just ride public transportation instead of polluting the environment driving their individual cars. The soap and shampoo in bathrooms are in dispensers so there is no waste of half used little plastic bottles. The paper napkins are tiny and thin and simple, just enough for what you will use them for. No fancy frills. The elevators and waste baskets are tiny, inviting people to use the stairs and to not throw away stuff.

Here are some surreal experiences I had in Izmir & Istanbul:
The Turkish audience at my presentation in Izmir (which went well & attracted lots of discussion from the Turkish people) were all excited about watching season 2 of Kivanc's new series (Ask i Memnu or AIM as the fans call it) that night at 8 on Turkish TV. Here the episodes are aired once per week. There was a conference-organized social gathering at the same time but the Turkish participants said they were not coming because they want to stay home and watch Kıvanc. They are all crazy about his looks. They said they don't care about Songul (the female lead in Gumus) because she does not have blond hair or blue eyes and she is older than Kıvo....interesting how open they are about their euro-centric biases. I got back to my hotel at around 10:30 that night and found AIM still airing on TV. It was kind of surreal to watch it live in Turkey. And i actually understood a lot of the dialogue. It is amazing how fast language is acquired with immersion especially here because Turks don't know any English and even those working in hotels and airports have very little English (although in Instanbul there is a little bit more English used than Izmir). So i found myself just using all the vocabulary i thought i don't have that i picked up from watching Kivo's series and from my Beginner's Turkish book.

And here is the second odd experience: I met with a travel agent yesterday to plan the turkey trip for the summer course and when i told her about what i came to turkey for she literally jumped out of her chair. She is a big fan of kivo and thinks he is the best looking guy in Turkey. And she just met him last month in Konya where she was visiting a friend. She showed me a picture she took of the friend's 10 yr old daughter with kivo. And...she knows a writer of Gumus. A guy who wrote the first 10 episodes or so then quit to work on other projects. He writes for the theater and does magic shows. She said that if there had been enough time she would have had him contact the Gumus main writers and arrange a meeting for me with them. She also said Kivanc played basketball on the same team as her cousin and went to school with her sister in law's husband. I can't believe how small the world is.

Istanbul is a dream city. I am totally and completely in love. So beautiful. So much character. And it is so alive, not like the dead ancient sites of Paris. Here in SultanAhmet area people live on and in and under and around history. They don't even bother to learn the name of the ancient site they are living or working next to, because every meter has ancient history in it. It is a magical area. Truly enchanting! Just like old Cairo and Azhar area in Egypt, or the big Medina in Tunisia & Morocco, or the hilly old town in Greece where we had our beloved Crepe....but Istanbul combines the best features of all these places: It is clean, picturesque, well maintained, lively with endless crowds of locals & visitors, safe, and well served with orderly public trams and buses.

I attended a dervish dance/prayer performed at an old restored mosque. Awesome. I walked/rode by all the historical sites in the old city (SultanAhmet) but did not stop to visit any yet. Istanbul can easily take a whole month to see. I am frustrated by how little time i have here. I'll just have to come again...