Tonight on the bus, the fellow next to me struggled to speak English, and said, "America...beautiful!" Then, "Obama....beautiful." He reached in his bag and gave me an apple. "This is for Obama winning the peace prize!" he exclaimed.
"No more English," he said. Then, another phrase popped into his mind. "I love you," he said, waved, and stepped off the bus.
The fellow next to him was also struggling to speak English. "Obama very good," he said. I nodded. "Better than Bush," I said, and turned my thumbs down. "Bush never listened," he said. "He an autocrat!"
Before Lucia and I moved to Kayseri, Turkey, we were warned by a number of Americans familiar with the city that "it's so conservative." We'd find few people speaking English, we were told, and most women would be dressed in head scarves, unwilling to speak to or sit near American men. In my mind's eye, I imagined Kayseri citizens dressed in black-and-white, walking with their head downs, in a city reminiscent of America in the 1930s. I imagined I'd see men in long beards and black gowns, wearing fezes and eating yogurt. I suspected the citizens of Kayseri would be fearful of foreigners, especially Americans, and that we as a family could be quite isolated, except within the university community we are affiliated with.
My imaginings were way off the mark. It has been a delight to discover such a modern, bustling, friendly boom town as Kayseri, the metro area of which has grown to more than one million people. The shopping districts appear to be thriving. You can get some great bargains. The public transportation system -- buses and above-ground metro trains -- is cheap, efficient, modern and even high-tech. Here's a picture of Alex and Courtney (a fellow American teacher) on the metro train, which is probably cleaner and more high-tech than Washington's.
We've run into such friendly people so generous and eager to help, and to speak English. Yes, their English is limited, but our Turkish is far more limited. I seriously doubt Americans in general extend themselves to foreigners who don't speak English the way the Turks in this so-called "conservative" city have extended themselves to us.
Turks seem to have less need for physical distance from each other compared to Americans. Men will often stand very close to other men when they are eager to know more about you. Men routinely touch Alex, 12, on the head, pat him on the back and tussle his hair.
On first meeting, Turks will ask us for our email address or phone number, with a desire to keep in touch, and even invite us over for dinner. A Turkish professor declared, "My son will become your son's best friend." On second meeting, a 30-year-old and his girl friend in our apartment complex invited Alex to go out to dinner with them because they wanted to practice English with him and they love kids.
At a restaurant near our home, the nephew of the owner, who spent three weeks in Los Angeles and is studying for the TOEFL exam, immediately took us under his wing. We told him we were looking for a dry cleaner, so he offered to drive us to his dry cleaner in his car. He also offered to take Alex to play soccer. "If you teach me English, I will teach you Turkish," he said.
I don't call that reserved or "conservative."
I guess "conservative" means that people are religious, observant Muslims, and maybe the nightlife is limited. It is true that men aren't supposed to share seats with women on the bus (men give up their seats to women, and are supposed to stand up rather than sit next to women.) However, I have seen friendly, smiling women dressed to the nines and not wearing head scarves, and I have met women in head scarfs who were very friendly with us as a family, laughing with us about our struggles to communicate. Women at the university do not generally wear head scarfs. Only a few do.
Turks here appear to be fascinated by Americans -- not suspicious or afraid of us at all. Yes, they do stare at us, but more out of curiosity because they see so few Americans. And if you say you're a teacher, that is a passport to instant respect.
Tut. Tut. There exist friendly, open, yes politically-conservative, but lovely people. Think of some of our friends in the States...
Posted by: Lucia Holliday | 10/13/2009 at 02:47 PM