i didn't think i'd be relearning English here. at first i had to find out how to understand Turkish English, the woman on the plane saying "sandviç" three times before i understood, me thinking it was a Turkish word i didn't know (it is a loanword, but phonetically the same).
now, after my first day of classes, i'm clearly speaking a new English. i've been told that students have little or no experience with native speakers, affirmed by a student visiting my office today. he told me to slow down and repeat myself when i said "is-ben-goo-meding-you"- the words melting together, different from his reading literacy.
in my second class of the day, speaking and listening to pre-first-year students, someone remarked that i was not speaking american english.
"yes. i have had to- slow down- my english. because i need- everyone to hear- me. and to understand- what i- am saying to them."
it's interesting what slowing down and changing breathing patterns does to my thought process. i wonder if it helps students to slow down so much and to speak such an unnatural English.
what i have found out today is that teaching here, to about 300 foreign language learners, will be much different than teaching experiences i've had in the past.
made this post cause i was tired of looking at the beard.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
countdown to beardless?
i need a residence permit before my first 30 days in Turkey run downDeadline: October 9th
today, my friend and colleague said i'll need a photo, and for that photo i must shave as part of receiving a government issued id
history of a beard: full beard for a year and a half, before that scruff+ for at least 4 and a half years--some of these skin bits haven't seen sun in the good part of a decade
updates as the events unfold
October 9th:
my friend and collegue says i can probably keep the beard, i think because it is not a religous beard (how would he know?) and so i went to have a photo taken.
at the teknofoto, i narrowly escaped the photographer adding a long dark beard and robe in post production. it is possible that every photographer in the city thinks an american needs a photo disguise for Iran. and, with limited Turkish, one could imagine how difficult it would be to convince them otherwise. (nothing more to explain here, i'm as confused as you are).
so after some confusion, the beard is still here, but the outcome is yet to be determined. i am one document away from convincing local authorities that my residence is legit, but they have not seen my photographs yet. they have seen my beard and failed to mention it as a problem. but who knows if the spiritual signifigance of facial hair is determined after the paperwork?
October 11th:
yes, still bearded. no, no residence pass.
simple tasks need translators, complex tasks too. need residence pass to have a bank. need a bank to get paid. Fortis practically went under, money will be coming there.
October 13:
beard, yes, residence pass no. my friend got yelled at in the rector's office, where everyone wears a different suit (it's cute really, in the states, walk into any bureaucratic building and you'll see black suits styled the same way. here, the brown pinstripe with lavender tie doesn't always work, but at least he's trying something different), and he wants to find my papers through happier means (who could blame him). so, we're waiting. i'm waiting to be paid, owed 1,800 dollars right now.
Things Take Time in Turkey (a little alliteration we've been taught [not one of my favorites]).
my friend and collegue says i can probably keep the beard, i think because it is not a religous beard (how would he know?) and so i went to have a photo taken.
at the teknofoto, i narrowly escaped the photographer adding a long dark beard and robe in post production. it is possible that every photographer in the city thinks an american needs a photo disguise for Iran. and, with limited Turkish, one could imagine how difficult it would be to convince them otherwise. (nothing more to explain here, i'm as confused as you are).
so after some confusion, the beard is still here, but the outcome is yet to be determined. i am one document away from convincing local authorities that my residence is legit, but they have not seen my photographs yet. they have seen my beard and failed to mention it as a problem. but who knows if the spiritual signifigance of facial hair is determined after the paperwork?
October 11th:
yes, still bearded. no, no residence pass.
simple tasks need translators, complex tasks too. need residence pass to have a bank. need a bank to get paid. Fortis practically went under, money will be coming there.
October 13:
beard, yes, residence pass no. my friend got yelled at in the rector's office, where everyone wears a different suit (it's cute really, in the states, walk into any bureaucratic building and you'll see black suits styled the same way. here, the brown pinstripe with lavender tie doesn't always work, but at least he's trying something different), and he wants to find my papers through happier means (who could blame him). so, we're waiting. i'm waiting to be paid, owed 1,800 dollars right now.
Things Take Time in Turkey (a little alliteration we've been taught [not one of my favorites]).
plagiarized and editorialized
i've been trying while away to have some source of influence in political debates and political media back home, particularly when i found out about the anti-Islamic documentary Obsession inserted as a paid advertisement in 28 million swing-state newspapers (the documentary and the fear-mongering tactic has been used before. Fox "news" ran the film 9 times in 2 weeks just before the 2006 mid-term elections). the DVD's mass distribution, which has been denounced by leaders from all major religious, was paid for by Clarion Fund, an organization backing John McCain.
i first wrote a review of the documentary (see no. 2 kuebribd) on the New York Times website shortly after the film's mass distribution.*
then, The Dayton Daily News distributed the DVD and just a week later Muslim visitors of a Dayton mosque were attacked with a chemical spray while praying. this prompted me, with the pushing of a good friend, to write a more extensive letter to The Miami Student and The Dayton Daily News.
The Miami Student, perhaps the most conservative student newspaper in the world (and i'm not trying to exaggerate), published my letter in full but changed the title from "Documentary Advertisement Spreads Religious Hatred" to "Anti-West aggression should not be overlooked." if you read the letter, you will see that the new title is almost contradictory to the message.
i'm not sure whether the editorial board at The Miami Student has poor comprehension skills or if they editorialized my title, something they have done with my letters before, in an attempt to distort the message. perhaps they meant to write, Anti-West aggression should be reconsidered, or examined thoroughly and rationally. or that Anti-Islamic aggression should not be overlooked, choices which would come closer to the intended message of the letter. but with their new title, one might infer that the attack against a Dayton mosque was carried out by a Muslim instead of two impressionable teenagers who just watched the racist DVD they got with their Dayton Daily newspaper, a DVD that filled them with irrational fear and hatred against Muslims before encouraging them to "take a stand" (my inference on the catalyst of the attack).
Dore Procopio of Dayton "wrote":
"What a horrible fear-mongering, brainless, guns-waving approach to the Middle East and Islam. It is being distributed in swing states as part of an anti-Islamic and pro-Republican ad campaign. Too bad the DDN couldn't resist the payoff.
If we wanted to get at the heart of the terrorist threat, we could start by looking at the oppression of the people in the Middle East. It's no coincidence that the poorest countries with histories of colonization and intervention lash out against the West."
Dore found my New York Times review, switched out "DDN" for "nytimes" and modified the opening phrase, but left the rest untouched. i was a bit shocked, as an English teacher seeing my writing plagiarized, but am actually flattered that someone thought my message was worth copying and distributing (my actual letter to the editor was a bit more thoughtful, but i guess the DDN disagreed). i also found out that, despite her challenges with originality, i kind of like Dore, who is a librarian (of all people you should know better!) and also an activist (here holding a "shame" sign for Ann Coulter). the NYtimes comments also showed up on a blog about conservative media bias, this time without someone stealing authorship.
i also don't intend to be self promoting, here or in other posts (it's hard because the medium pushes me there), but i wanted to give a glimpse of how 15 minutes of bad writing spread to a few outlets in the U.S. media, even if it had to be plagiarized and distorted to make it there.
*Final note: i don't know exactly what i meant by "would have caused popular uprising in a just society," as i wrote the nytimes review quickly not thinking it would show up elsewhere. i think that another letter to the DDN said what i was thinking best: "I wonder if the DDN would also tout the First Amendment to allow a paying advertiser to distribute a [hate-filled]DVD about other groups such as Jews, blacks, etc.? I find it highly unlikely that the DDN would be waving the First Amendment banner in those cases" (Miller. "DDN should have looked into sources of information." Dayton Daily News, Oct. 2, 2008). or maybe this is what i think i wanted to write: our recent history and socialization has made it difficult for us to treat racist and prejudiced misrepresentations of Islam in the way we would treat the same misrepresentation of other ethnic or religious groups, even in such extreme examples as Obsession.
i first wrote a review of the documentary (see no. 2 kuebribd) on the New York Times website shortly after the film's mass distribution.*
then, The Dayton Daily News distributed the DVD and just a week later Muslim visitors of a Dayton mosque were attacked with a chemical spray while praying. this prompted me, with the pushing of a good friend, to write a more extensive letter to The Miami Student and The Dayton Daily News.
The Miami Student, perhaps the most conservative student newspaper in the world (and i'm not trying to exaggerate), published my letter in full but changed the title from "Documentary Advertisement Spreads Religious Hatred" to "Anti-West aggression should not be overlooked." if you read the letter, you will see that the new title is almost contradictory to the message.
i'm not sure whether the editorial board at The Miami Student has poor comprehension skills or if they editorialized my title, something they have done with my letters before, in an attempt to distort the message. perhaps they meant to write, Anti-West aggression should be reconsidered, or examined thoroughly and rationally. or that Anti-Islamic aggression should not be overlooked, choices which would come closer to the intended message of the letter. but with their new title, one might infer that the attack against a Dayton mosque was carried out by a Muslim instead of two impressionable teenagers who just watched the racist DVD they got with their Dayton Daily newspaper, a DVD that filled them with irrational fear and hatred against Muslims before encouraging them to "take a stand" (my inference on the catalyst of the attack).
-----
technically, my letter to the Dayton Daily News was not published, but when reading what was published on the editorial page, i found two paragraphs i recognized.Dore Procopio of Dayton "wrote":
"What a horrible fear-mongering, brainless, guns-waving approach to the Middle East and Islam. It is being distributed in swing states as part of an anti-Islamic and pro-Republican ad campaign. Too bad the DDN couldn't resist the payoff.
If we wanted to get at the heart of the terrorist threat, we could start by looking at the oppression of the people in the Middle East. It's no coincidence that the poorest countries with histories of colonization and intervention lash out against the West."
Dore found my New York Times review, switched out "DDN" for "nytimes" and modified the opening phrase, but left the rest untouched. i was a bit shocked, as an English teacher seeing my writing plagiarized, but am actually flattered that someone thought my message was worth copying and distributing (my actual letter to the editor was a bit more thoughtful, but i guess the DDN disagreed). i also found out that, despite her challenges with originality, i kind of like Dore, who is a librarian (of all people you should know better!) and also an activist (here holding a "shame" sign for Ann Coulter). the NYtimes comments also showed up on a blog about conservative media bias, this time without someone stealing authorship.
-----
apologies for the long post with its links and bifurcations and which may seem to have little to do with Turkey. but the issue i was writing about hit home (my new home) as i owe my comfort and safety here to the many Muslims who have been warm, understanding, and hospitable, despite the many abuses to their religion, culture, and people from my country's government and media.i also don't intend to be self promoting, here or in other posts (it's hard because the medium pushes me there), but i wanted to give a glimpse of how 15 minutes of bad writing spread to a few outlets in the U.S. media, even if it had to be plagiarized and distorted to make it there.
*Final note: i don't know exactly what i meant by "would have caused popular uprising in a just society," as i wrote the nytimes review quickly not thinking it would show up elsewhere. i think that another letter to the DDN said what i was thinking best: "I wonder if the DDN would also tout the First Amendment to allow a paying advertiser to distribute a [hate-filled]DVD about other groups such as Jews, blacks, etc.? I find it highly unlikely that the DDN would be waving the First Amendment banner in those cases" (Miller. "DDN should have looked into sources of information." Dayton Daily News, Oct. 2, 2008). or maybe this is what i think i wanted to write: our recent history and socialization has made it difficult for us to treat racist and prejudiced misrepresentations of Islam in the way we would treat the same misrepresentation of other ethnic or religious groups, even in such extreme examples as Obsession.
Mac Turko
My brother asked me to try out the McTurco and report back, so here it is with full visual documentation.
The McTurco is 2 patties, lettuce, tomato, carrot, sweet and tangy turko sauce in a sesame seed, sesame-seed oil pita bread. The McDonald's also features the double köfte burger (köfte translates to meatball but normally it is a flat spicy patty of beef or lamb), a double meat Big Mac, onion rings as a side order, and a smoking section that was in full effect. My McTurco meal took place the day after Ramadan, meaning that it was the first lunch in a month for many of Turks feasting with me (in Ramadan the religious population takes no food or water while the sun is up).
To counter this ridiculous McDonalds promotion, click on the unseemly gluttony below.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Generic Update
at this time i've been in Turkey for about 3 weeks. i came during Ramadan, which just ended a few days ago and has affected my visit in interesting ways (image of women in headscarfs hollering while they play air-hockey in the park). i will be living in Erzurum, in the mountains only about 200 miles from Tehran, and i have already visited and set up my apartment and office there (i feel extremely comfortable because of the hospitality of everyone). for the moment i am in Konya, about 150 miles south of Ankara, with a gracious friend for the Bayram holiday. i've also spent 3 days each in Ankara and Istanbul, mostly visiting tourist sites and eating good food. i have posts drafted about religion and public education, driving in Turkey, McDonalds, and being the only American in Erzurum (a subjective reality that has recently changed). in the coming months i'll be teaching english and american studies at Atatürk University, fearing God and -40 weather, and traveling as much as possible.
The Phenomenology of Eating Testicles
walking down a strip in Istanbul, my friend turned to me and asked if i'd like to eat lamb colon, which made me think of my dad and the travel show fetishism of strange meats.
why is it that travel becomes linked with eating strange foods, especially strange meats? especially in über-choice, globalized u.s. food markets we can probably eat testicle right at home, anytime we want. doubtless i could seek a local butcher in the u.s. serving a variety of strange meaty portions, but i never have.
so why are travel shows so often about eating testicles and why did i commit to eating lamb colon because i was walking down the street in a foreign country? my guess is that the act of eating strange meats becomes sound-bite exoticism. i'll call this the “you'll meet an acquaintance at a bar theory of travel.”
a bar somewhere in northern Illinois:
Acquaintance: “Hey man, i heard you went to Turkey, how was it?”
Me: “Turkey was nuts! they eat lamb colon over there!”
A: “did you try it?”
Me: “Hell Yes I did, and it was Awesome!”
the shock value of the food represents both the foreignness of my travels and my immersion into them. if i travel around Turkey without eating all the strange intestinal and sexual organs available then folks at home will think i haven't engaged with the culture. so i found myself eating lamb colon in Istanbul because it validates my travel experience.
(by the way, the dish is named kokoreç, and the lamb colon is ground up with spices, cooked on a skewer, and then finely chopped with vegetables and placed on submarine sandwich bread. it is really spicy and my Turkish friends say it is healthy and good to eat after a night of drinking.)
smooth slow record Konya
i'm working with a sony dcr-sr300 handycam which has a "smooth slow record" function that takes about 4 seconds of video and slows it into 12 seconds. when the audio is on it records-weird-in real time, so i take the films in silence. i'm only just begining to see what is interesting in this format and have gladly passed the filming water drip from a fountain stage (no promises i won't regress).
unstable movements, as a rule, seem to be the most interesting to take. the balance of a motorcycle and the slow change of facial expressions and body movements attracted me in my last outing with the camera.
the videos below were all taken on the first day of the post-Ramadan holiday. the streets in Konya were more active than in the last 3 days of my stay as people moved across town to visit with family and eat their first lunch in a month (more on my McDonalds experience with them later). the day was uncharacteristically cold and overcast.
Faces Konya from tüpbebek on Vimeo.
unstable movements, as a rule, seem to be the most interesting to take. the balance of a motorcycle and the slow change of facial expressions and body movements attracted me in my last outing with the camera.
the videos below were all taken on the first day of the post-Ramadan holiday. the streets in Konya were more active than in the last 3 days of my stay as people moved across town to visit with family and eat their first lunch in a month (more on my McDonalds experience with them later). the day was uncharacteristically cold and overcast.
Faces Konya from tüpbebek on Vimeo.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
kedi
probably the most endearing surprise in my 3 days in Istanbul were the cats. i've heard you can tell a lot about a culture by the way they treat their animals. in chiapas mexico, poverty violated everyone and it wasn't suprising to see an elderly man in the market taking out some frustration by whacking a stray, starving dog with his cane.
in istanbul cats and dogs have few official owners but they have become surrogate pets for tourists and shopkeepers. streetcats find friends who feed them and provide temporary shelter. in alleys restaurant workers happily offer their scraps to waiting cats and dogs who moan in joy over the meals. i walked around practicing "kedi" and wondering if i could find a part-time pet in Erzurum.
kedi and/or crotch shots from tüpbebek on Vimeo.
in istanbul cats and dogs have few official owners but they have become surrogate pets for tourists and shopkeepers. streetcats find friends who feed them and provide temporary shelter. in alleys restaurant workers happily offer their scraps to waiting cats and dogs who moan in joy over the meals. i walked around practicing "kedi" and wondering if i could find a part-time pet in Erzurum.
kedi and/or crotch shots from tüpbebek on Vimeo.
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