The End/A New Beginning

This is important: please check out http://www.24hoursfordarfur.org/ and learn more about Darfur, maybe make a video, or support the effort to end the genocide there.

I'm back home in California enjoying my family and garden once again! I managed to bring back a bottle of Cappadocian wine for George, but not without being stopped multiple times by airport security. I left Ohio in a thunderstorm, as you can see in this first photo. But at 35,000 feet above Indiana the sky became splendid. And as I approached the West Coast the scenery became even more interesting; you could see all those mountain ridges; they looked like one of those fake plastic three-dimensional maps.
Then the massive mountains became even clearer; I kept thinking about Lewis and Clark as they explored. By the time we approached Salt Lake City, Utah, the sun began to set, and after a long lay-over it was too dark to take pictures out the plane window. I'm happy to be home, especially because while in Ohio I realized that I felt a bit melancholic, which is expected after such an intense time abroad. But then as Yuko and I drove around, it occurred to me that it was the same sort of melancholy I felt among the ruins in Turkey, the same kind that Orhan Pamuk describes in his memoir, Istanbul: Memories and the City. In Turkey, Pamuk writes, it's easy to feel hürzün, because the physical remains of decay and destruction are clearly visible everywhere; broken remnants of grandeur loom. In central Ohio there's the same kind of permeating low-grade sadness, because, I think, you're surrounded by so many old houses, the majority disheveled, and beautiful yet abandoned brick buildings that had once been used for all sorts of industry--so much seems to be in need of repair; so much seems to be at its sunset. And in the summer heat and humidity, as in the bitter cold and snow of winder, the streets are deserted; everyone seems esconced in their airconditioned corners of the world. Of course, like in Turkey, if you look closely, if you delve beneath the surface, you'll see much newness, excitement and pulsating change everywhere too (just look at some of my favorite pictures), but because of the overwhelming decay it's easy to feel melancholy, hürzün.

Orhan Pamuk explains that there are two different Muslim traditions that help to define and clarify hürzün: one derives from the Koran and likens hürzün to deep spiritual loss (such as the one the Prophet Muhammad experienced the year he lost both his wife Hatice and his uncle Ebu Talip), and to agony and grief at having invested too much in the transitory material things that can and will be lost.

The other tradition is rooted in Sufi mysticism: it likens hürzün with the gnawing awareness of our inadequacies, of how, for example, we can never fully understand or be close enough to God. Symbiotically, though, if we don’t experience hürzün we feel empty and derisory. Pamuk writes that in Sufism it is “the failure to experience hürzün” that leads you to feel it; you suffer because you haven’t suffered enough. He writes that it is by following this logic that Islamic culture has come to hold hürzün in “high esteen.”
Hürzün is produced by living in and with decomposing fragments—by living in and with the ruins that constantly and concretely remind you that once there was a great Ottoman Empire, and that perhaps such grandeur can never again be reconstructed. Hürzün in Turkey, Pamuk says, has evolved into a cultural concept that equates to an attuned awareness of worldly failure, listlessness and spiritual suffering and that it is often associated not just with the loss or death of a loved one, but also with other spiritual afflictions like anger, love, rancor, defeat and groundless fear. So... the symbiosis in that concept is surely worth further consideration, don't you think?
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In the Muslim writing tradition travelers keep a Rihla, a journal that documents a trip taken precisely to learn (as in the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca)--to learn about yourself, about a country, another culture, its people, habits, quirks, sorrows and delights; in other words, to learn by entering and immersing yourself in that new setting, which, of course, if done right, requires that you dispel preconceived notions. That kind of stripping of yourself is very difficult, but surely beneficial. I started to learn to step out of my own tiny box a very long time ago, when my family emigrated (and when, perhaps consequently, I began to yearn to travel) and then when I started to read travel narratives like those by Ibn Battuta. Ibn Battuta started traveling in the year 1325 when he was 20. His aim was to partake of the Hajj, as all Muslims do, if they can. And the purpose of the Hajj is not just to pay homage; it is also to seek knowledge, to learn and then DO something worthy with that newly gathered information. But the Hajj to Mecca wasn't enough for Ibn Battuta; he continued to wander for about 29 years through 75,000 miles and visited what was then the Muslim World, Dar al-Islam, through (what today would be considered) 44 modern countries (e.g., Turkey, Morocco, India, China). And through it all he kept a Rihla, which today allows us to understand him, and the people and places he met and visited. Without his Rihla, we'd have a more limited view of him and that world such a long time ago. (There are many books about Ibn Battuta; a good starting one is The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century by Ross E. Dunn.)
Today the connotation of the word "rihla" is different than it was when Ibn Battuta traveled. Back then, the word was more directly linked to the Prophet Muhammad's traditional injunction to "seek knowledge," which legitimated the need to travel beyond doing the Hajj, and probably fed wanderlust. That injunction gave rise, in the Islamic middle ages, to the concept of al-rihla fi talab al-'ilm, travel in search of knowledge. Then, in Islamic North Africa in the 12th to 14th centuries, as paper became increasingly available, educated men began to write and distribute their first-hand descriptions of their pilgrimages to holy cities and beyond. Such an account was called a rihla, or "travelogue" (which was both a memoir and most definitely a work of spiritual devotion), and it combined the writer's observations and responses to the Hajj with geographical and cultural information about the places and people he met along the way. (And I say "he" because in the Middle Ages very few women traveled and wrote about their experiences.) Today, Rihla is most often directly equated with "travel journal."
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I won't catalogue what I've learned, since that'd take pages and pages, besides, I need time to truly reflect and understand before I can describe those lessons. But, I can say for sure that I am changed, changed because I have learned about myself and about others. And that change is good, good because it produces valuable insights about how to continue to navigate my life in productive and engaging ways.
I've enjoyed keeping this blog. It provides a fun record of the highlights of my adventures during summer 2007. That's important to me; I'm an archivist (since, I believe, that too is the essence of history and of what, consequently, constitutes individual and collective identity). I'm used to writing compulsively in my journal, but this blog has required different skills from me. It's caused me to exercise different writing muscles. Simply, writing specifically for you (and for those readers I don't know personally who might happen upon this blog) has required that I think directly about my audience. That is more about omission than it is about inclusion, more about what I leave out than what I choose to reveal to you.

Thank you for reading my blog, for being curious and interested in my adventure. I hope that you walk away with some thing, some idea, some feeling--however tiny--that will grow in you and maybe even provide you joy, gratification and impetus to live a fuller life.

Americana: Ohio

Hello from Ohio where I'm spending time with Yuko! I was ready to leave Turkey, but I must admit that it was indeed a little sad to depart. I'm glad to be back in the States, though. This is my second to last blog posting; when I get to California I will compose a final reflection on this summer's learning experiences. In the meantime, I thought I'd share more "Americana," since that's how this blog begins; I thought you'd like to see a couple of the things I've seen these past few days here in Ohio, starting with a beautiful thistle that we encountered on the way to the farmer's market near Yuko's house. Doesn't it look just like the one in Turkey? I photographed it on a cloudy rainy day (it's been pouring pouring every afternoon!), so the color is not as vibrant as the one in Turkey. And then there are all these beautiful red berries blooming everywhere.
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The other day, Yuko and I went to see the memorial near her office at Kent State University. No matter how many times I visit, it's a moving site, but now, given what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, and given the lack of true activism in the States, this memorial is particularly relevant. Aside from the four marked actual spaces where the students where shot dead, a short distance up the hill there are four granite casket-like sculptures (reminiscent of the Vietnam Memorial in DC), and an Ohio Historical Society plaque with these words:

May 4, 1970
In 1968, Richard Nixon won the presidency partly based on a promise to end the Vietnam War. Though the war seemed to be winding down, on April 30, 1970, Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia, triggering protests across college campuses. On Friday, May 1, an anti-war rally was held on the Commons at Kent State University. Protestors called for another rally to be held on Monday, May 4. Disturbances in downtown Kent that night caused city officials to ask Governor James Rhodes to send the Ohio National Guard to maintain order. Troops put on alert Saturday afternoon were called to campus Saturday evening after an ROTC building was set on fire. Sunday morning in a press conference that was broadcast to the troops on campus, Rhodes vowed to "eradicate the problem" of protests at Kent State. On May 4, 1970, Kent State students protested on the Commons against the invasion of Cambodia and the presence of the Ohio National Guard called to campus to quell demonstrations. Guardsmen advanced, driving students past Taylor Hall. A small group of protesters taunted the Guard from the Prentice Hall parking lot. The Guard marched back to the Pagoda, where members of Company A, 145th Infantry, and Troop G, 107th Armored Cavalry, turned and fired 67 shots during thirteen seconds. Four students were killed--Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. Nine students were wounded--Alan Canfora, John Cleary, Thomas Grace, Dean Kahler, Joseph Lewish, D. Scott MacKenzie, James Russell, Robert Stamps, and Douglas Wrentmore. Those shot were 20 to 245 yards from the Guard. The Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest concluded that the shootings were "unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable."

I will add that none of the Guard who shot the students were prosecuted or penalized in any way whatsoever.

Another day, Yuko and I went to the world's largest Amish community in Holmes County in the middle of Ohio, mainly the towns called Millersburg, Berlin, and Walnut Creek. There we enjoyed the beautiful pastoral scenery, drove by many farms with corn and soy beans growing lushly, ate a hearty homemade lunch, shopped for hand-made quilts and furniture, and actually drove after one of the many buggies that clip-clop along at snail's pace while cars zoom by them. Once we caught up with the unsuspecting buggy, I got out of the car to ask if I could take a picture. The only "driver," a woman, said sure--as long as I left her out of it. I did; the picture is above.
Of the 267,000 acres in Holmes County, 172,000 are farmed. What amazes me (and the reason I ran after buggies so I could capture their image) is the fact that since the 1900s the Amish community has fought so hard to stay the same and still be relevant. That's a huge challenge! But they've managed to retain their values, lifestyle and identity and yet remain economically viable; most no longer farm and have opted to become furniture manufacturers.
And... having just returned from Turkey, a Muslim country where very few women cover their heads, and living in the States where stereotypes about Muslim women's scarves are wild and rampant, it's fascinating to me to walk among Amish women. They never cut their hair, and typically wear it in a braid or a bun on the back of their heads. Like the Jewish Orthodox women I have met in Brooklyn and in the Catskills of New York, Amish women must always conceal their hair with a small white cap called a "Covering." An Amish woman can never be seen outside her home without her Covering.
The Amish in the United States are direct descendents of a 16th century European religious sect called Anabaptists. They challenged the reforms made by Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation, mainly rejecting baptism early in infancy and favoring baptism in adulthood once able to make a conscious decision to be Christian. They were one of the first groups to insist on separating church and state. One of their first leaders was the Dutch Anabaptist Menno Simons (who lived between 1496 and 1561), and that is why the community also became known as Mennonite. When their religion began to be persecuted, the the Amish/Mennonites fled to Switzerland and other remote parts of Europe. In the 1600s a large sub-group led by Jakob Ammann broke from the larger Swiss community, because they disagreed over the strict enforcement of Meidung (which means shunning, that is, excommunicating members who don't follow rules), the practice of foot washing and the wearing of particular dress. That group that broke away is the group that then fled to the United States and settled mostly in Ohio.

The first sizeable group of Amish arrived in America around 1730 and settled near Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They also settled throughout twenty-four other states, in Canada and in Central America, but about 80% located in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. The greatest concentration of Amish people is in Holmes and adjoining counties in northeast Ohio. Next in size is a group of Amish people in Elkhart and surrounding counties in northeastern Indiana. Then comes the Amish settlement in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Today, the Amish population in the United States is more than 150,000 and it is still growing; they have large families, seven children on average. Up until the early 1900s the Amish were no different from others, but in an effort to follow their founder, Jacob Amman, they began to resist change. To me, the Amish are indeed fascinating because they're clearly a reminder of how Americans used to be, and of how "minorities" can be successful--albeit marginal--components in American society.


I will end this blog entry on a happy note by showing you my dear friend's watercolors. Yuko shares my need to learn and my wanderlust; those are two of the many reasons we've been close friends for over 20 years. In this first watercolor she's depicted Dragor in Denmark, which she visited just last year. And in the second watercolor she's shown Fredericksberg Park in Copenhagen.

Cappadocia

I started this entry almost a week ago, but I did not finish it because I've been traveling through Cappadocia and was staying at a hotel without wi-fi. I want to share these pictures with you, so I'll write little and simply post them.
During the first part of the week I was in Göreme, a town not far from Ortahisar. Göreme is bigger and a bit more touristy. It seems to be a backpacker's haven. During the two nights I was there the hotel was packed with several groups of Spanish trekkers. I stayed in a Cave Hotel, that is, a structure that had been originally carved out of one of the soft rock hills that dot this area, like the dwellings that early Christians carved for themselves in order to flee invading Arabs. I visited one such cave city and the Open Air Museum. In the immediate area of these two towns alone there are over 100 churches; the one at the Open Air Museum has gorgeous frescos (better preserved, of course, because they're in caves).
The Fortress in Ortahisar: This is what I saw from my cave room. It's an impressive huge rock rising out of a rubbled-filled valley with radiating winding roads. The carved dwellings in each of the visible openings have been long abandoned; today you can climb the Fortress up a series of long stairs and from the top you can see a panoramic view of the town of Ortahisar and beyond. In the center of the village there are many coffee houses; once a week there's a local produce market that is very colorful.
All of Cappadocia is extremely beautiful and surreal. The rock formations and colors are indeed uniquely exquisite. Above you see two of the Three Beauties (called "chimney" or "mushroom" rocks), the iconic symbol of Turkey that appears in the 50 lira bill. Together, the three represent a family. The smaller of the three, the one you can't see clearly in this picture, is the child.

These next several pictures are from the Outdoor Museum and surrounding area. I find it joyful to see that in a very parched land colorful flowers still grow. (Well, because this is volcanic rock the area is in fact very fecund: fruit threes and vineyards are plentiful.) I will write more later.

My last day in Istanbul

I spent most of it on a ferry going up and down the Bosphorus once again. In this photo journal I give you a glimpse of what I saw.
This is the map that IDO, the company that owns the ferry, gives out.
I walked from my hotel to the Eminönü ferry pier (see the bottom of the map), a bustling place!
Off I went on the churning water.

Houses (called yalis) from the 19th century are particularly beautiful because of all the gingerbread embellishments. Some of them are in uninhabitable condition. The European side of the Bosphorus, especially, is lined with palaces and modern houses. On both sides you can also see tiny beaches, makeshift sunbathing spots, ancient ruins and mosques. Two major bridges expand across the water. Of course, there are swimmers and numerous ships and sailboats everywhere.


The last ferry stop is at Rumeli, near the mouth of the Black Sea, then it turns around.




Each of the ferry stops has an architecturally and historically interesting building.












There are many images that I did not photograph but that are still very vivid in my mind, for instance:

On the roof terrace of the Sultan Hill Hotel, between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia. Twilight. Only the calls to prayer can be heard, not in unison, but as if in a methodically choreographed sensual dance to call and response rhythms. The Sea of Marmara shimmering and its warm winds caressing me.

Driving around trendy Ortokoy. Midday in the worst of a gripping heat wave, trudging ever so slowly in thick traffic, but talking happily with a colleague in the comfort of her airconditioned car. Sudden silence. Out the window... a middle aged woman, dirty, wild hair, languid eyes staring in our direction, her bare breasts hanging, hanging long toward her belly.

The park in Uskudar. I am seated on a bench eating a simit. A man, his wife and their baby sit on the edge encircling a glorious fountain. The sound of splashing water synchronizes with the laughter of children. The wife picks up her baby, takes off his booties, lifts him way up high, then lets his toes touch the water's surface. He giggles. His father laughs boldy, the lines around his eyes gathering upward as his large hand extends to caress his baby's head. His wife smiles.

Walking back from the pier at Eminönü. Noisy. Congested. End of a long hot day. My feet are heavy. I am hungry. Ahead, up against the wall, there is a small brown bundle inside some sort of semi-clear green plastic. It moves. I'm startled aside. A young blackened face peers out and wimpers. I walk faster but in a block I am compelled to return to buy a simit and a bottle of water, which I offer to him, but he simply weakly shakes his head. Much much later, I eat the simit.

On Kennedy Boulevard, far from Sultan Hammet. I don't realize I've dropped my small package; when I do, I turn and see a woman, her head scarf blowing as she walks briskly toward me. "Thank you" isn't enough. Without thinking, I place my right hand over my heart and lower my eyes. Without thinking, she places her right hand over her heart and lowers her eyes.

At the entrance of the mosque in Bursa. An old man, wearing an uncomfortably smelly and worn caftan sits at the entrance, his hand extended, three fingers missing. His shriveled face contorted, deeply sunken eye lids revealing he has no eyes.

Mall / Food / Universities

Today I left the usual tourist spots and took the subway to Cevahir Shopping Center, the world’s second largest mall located in Şişli, an affluent neighborhood. (The largest mall in the world is in West Edmonton, Canada; the third largest is the Mall of America in the States.) American architect Munoru Yamasaki designed Cevahir in 1987; it opened on October 15, 2005. I read that on November 14, 2006 St. Martin’s, the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), and Pradera Asset Management bought the mall for about $750 million. I don’t frequent malls often, but today I spent several hours exploring it. I especially liked Koç Taş, which is a comparatively more aesthetically organized sort of upscale Home Depot. (Well… maybe two hundred years from now someone will think of this mall as today’s Blue Mosque… not!) It’s like walking through Pentagon Mall near DC, or the Valley Fair Mall in Silicon Valley: the architecture, the set up, the stores, the food… they’re all the same (globalization indeed!), except that there’s a bit more glitter at Cevahir. The ceilings are way higher, there’s a lot of marble, steel and glass everywhere, and the floors are shinier; even the columns are shiny.
Oh yes, and the glass ceiling is a huge clock, the largest of its kind in the world; you can see the 12 in the picture below. (I couldn’t take too many pictures because a policeman told me it’s forbidden; and yes, as you enter, like in every museum or public building, here in Istanbul and at home in California, you go through a metal detector and your bags are x-rayed.) Like the bazaar, merchandise is grouped together (all shoes in one area, all home goods in another, etc.), and it was packed (think consumerism at its peak), but the mall is clearly orderly, clean, well-lit and very chichi. I walked all seven floors, which are connected by escalators, stairs and a glass elevator.
Two of the floors are dedicated just to food (including the perennial McD’s, Burger King and KFC), the top one for more formal restaurants. In a china store called Portland I ogled an exquisite porcelain $500 vase; and in Koç Taş I marveled at how anybody would take (what I imagine is way too much) time to arrange light bulbs so artistically. There’s a huge IMAX theater showing films from everywhere, but I decided to go out into the city and explore.

The metro ride was easy: everything’s labeled in both Turkish and English; the trains are super modern, fast, clean and the stations are decorated with murals (usually depicting life around the Bosphorus) done in new generation tiles from Iznik.

Şişli is one of the 32 districts of Istanbul on the European side. In the 17th century there were only graveyards there; in the 18th, vineyards and gardens were planted, but in the 19th, with the expansion of Istanbul, many immigrants and non-Muslims began to settle there. In 1913, after the first electric tram was installed, even more people moved in and many apartment buildings were built in the 1920s. After that modernization, Şişli became one of the most elite neighborhoods where the upper class and wealthy foreigners lived.

Today it continues to be a bustling religiously mixed and prosperous commercial and residential part of Istanbul where you can find many Muslim mosques, Christian churches and Jewish synagogues. The Jewish presence in this area is interesting: there’s the Şişli Beth Israel Synagogue at Efe Sokak No. 4, which is a very modern building and is supposed to be the center of the Jewish community.

I think I walked by the Italian Jewish Cemetery, but since it was closed and since I didn’t see the monumental Baroque gate the guidebook describes, I’m not exactly sure. It was founded to serve about 400 Jewish families who arrived from Crimea during 1854 and 1855 and it’s still active, though like many cemeteries in Istanbul, it’s not easily accessible. It used to be that cemeteries in Istanbul were located right in the middle of neighborhoods, but with modernization they were relocated outside the city, and thus are now barely seen. I liken that to moving Woodlawn Cemetery (in place since 1863) and its 300,000 graves (some of illustrious people like Herman Melville, Irving Belin, Fiorello LaGuardia and Otto Preminger), out of the north Bronx. What a loss that would be for that Bronx neighborhood! There are supposed to be many famous Istanbullus of the 19th century buried at the Italian Jewish Cemetery, and the tombstones are supposedly inscribed in Italian, English, French, German, Russian and Latin.

So yeah, I also want to tell you a little bit about the delicious food I've been eating. I'll be upfront: I've eaten one too many Turkish Delights and Baklava--and a whole lot of simits (think of New York size soft pretzels with toasted sesame seeds--yum!). Simits are so easy to eat on the run. They're sold in bakeries (along with a lot of other kinds of breads), in Simit Salons (along with coffee and chai, sort of like at Noah's Bagels), from carts and even trays on top of men's heads. They're 50 kurus (that's about forty cents) and for me they're a meal (not balanced eating... I know).

I've enjoyed the typical Turkish breakfast (though I'm totally ready for my usual oatmeal), which consists of several kinds of olives, raw tasty tomatoes and cucumbers, a few kinds of white cheeses, breads, jams, yogurt (did you know that Turkey introduced yogurt to the world?) and chai (strong tea) or coffee.

I won't try it, but everywhere you go you can also buy corn (imported from the States?) either boiled or roasted. There are carts in every nook and crany. And of course, there's pizza everywhere too. I’m not the best person to discuss all the delicacies available here (since I’m vegetarian and definitely not a "foodie"), but I can tell you about what I’ve smelled and seen while others eat. I’ll start with what you can find at restaurant row under the Galata Bridge. I walked through it today again, just to see what it’s like on a Sunday. It was packed with people eating fresh “fish between bread.” That’s what that place is famous for: (fried, sautéed, broiled, and in a few other ways) fish placed between two (sometimes more) pieces of either flat bread, baguettes, or fancy (like whole wheat with nuts) bread. If you want, they’ll put cilantro, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pepper, and sauce. It looks and smells delicious, but I'm leary because I see all those people fishing off the Galata Bridge and I know about all those tankers that spill oil into the Bosphorus, and all the cars that have accidentally fallen in (not to mention the bodies in the cars), all the garbage thrown in by cruise ships, ferries, people...yikes!

People seem to eat a lot of roasted lamb--with rice, in stews, in sandwiches, in fancy restaurants and on the streets. Pierced huge chuncks can be seen at stalls and carts everywhere (imagine what our Health Department would say about that). The vendor (99 percent of the time a man) pulls out a looong blade and slices pieces according to how much you order. Then, depending on your preference, he puts the pieces over rice, in a sauce or in a huge baguette sandwich. You wash that down with Coke or Pepsi. Borek is everywhere too. They're the Turkish version of a spring meat roll. As a main meal it can be served with a shepherd's salad (chopped cilantro, parsley, tomatoes, onions, vinegar and olive oil), or on the run it too can go in between bread.

I've also had a lot of chai--both the Turkish version (which is just tea, mostly apple flavor with tons of added sugar and served in a pretty tulip-shaped glass--I skip the sugar) and the chai latte made with soy from Starbucks. Other than the Cappadocian white wine (did you know that wine has been produced for millenia in Turkey? Right now there are about 50 operating wineries in different regions; the most famous ones are Okuzgozu, Bogazkere, Narince and Kalecik Karasi), I also tried Raki. A tiny sip was enough for me. Raki is a traditional Turkish drink made from grapes and raisins and flavored with pungent anise. Usually you dilute it with water and it turns a milky color. But even diluted it is way too strong.

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A couple of days ago, I met my colleague from the Interior Design Department at WVC, Çiğdem (she's Turkish and is here on vacation), and we visited Kadir Has University where we talked with the Department Chair of Architecture/Interior Design about a possible faculty and student exchange program between the schools. The university is in a beautifully re-designed old building located in Cibali overlooking Haliç (the Golden Horn); from 1884 until 1995 when it was abandoned, it used to a tobacco warehouse and factory until 1998 when it was renovated and then opened as a school in January 2002. Kadir Hasoglu, the business man who established the university, died just two days ago at age 89.
Like so many of these new private universities in Turkey, the “mission of Kadir Has Univeristy is to help the public and private sectors prepare for EU accession.” Çiğdem spoke with representatives at the other universities that have Interior Design programs that we're considering. They include Bahçeşehir University located in Beşiktaş overlooking the Bosphorus (which was founded in 1998 by Bahçeşehir Uğur Educational Institutions), and Bilkent University in Ankara, which was founded in 1984 by Ihsan Dogramaci.

I'm really fascinated by the surge of private for profit universities in the 1990s (for example, Koç University that was established by Vehbi Koç Foundation in 1993; I posted pictures in a previous entry). They are all modeled after American universities, all the teaching is done in English, and they all seem to have very explicit political and economic aims. I started reading a 2006 dissertation (titled Histories, Institutional Regimes and Educational Organizations: The Case of Turkish Higher Education by Zeynep Erden who says that in the 1980s Turkey experienced a great deal of Americanization and economic development, and when the government eased control of education and laws were changed to allow individuals and foundations to set up private universities, they "were seen as a force that would bring competition in the higher education field. Hence, in addition to the control of the state, now it was time for market forces to increase the variety of services as well as to increase the quality of education due to expected competition among higher education organizations" (60).

(No, I don't have too much time of my hands, it's just that the issue is really interesting. After all, these institutions are training the future political and economic leaders of Turkey, especially since 9/11 when it became so difficult, particularly for Muslims, to study in the States. That's a lot of power for those universities.)

Coffee/Loti

The Yale Institute is over; everyone is gone; Greta, our Yale Institute leader, has gone on to Syria. I’m very tired. Today I tried to rest, especially because it’s been unbearably hot and you can’t walk for long before feeling dizzy, despite drinking bottles and bottles of water. I had been considering going on to Bucharest, but I saw on BBC World that over 500 people have died there this week because of the extreme heat. Budapest and Sofia are no better. There are raging fires in Greece (while monsoons drench northern India), so I looked into the Mediterranean coast in Turkey and was told by a travel agent that it’s equally hot and uncomfortable. Thus, I’m going up in altitude to Cappadocia where it’s cooler than Istanbul and there’s less pollution and even more history. I’ve been assured by the travel agent that there’s wireless in my cave hotel, so I aim to continue this blog. As I write this, a 6.9 earthquake has rocked Indonesia. Over two million Iraqi refugees have overwhelmed Syria; the US has agreed to take 7,000 of them. The new sensation on youtube.com is a 4-minute video of 1,500+ inmates dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” in the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines. In Harare, Zimbabwe, as the country prepares for a weeklong demonstration against the government, thousands of protesters have been brutally beaten and imprisoned. India has agreed to buy nuclear technology from the US. Twenty-two Koreans are still in captivity in Afghanistan; one has been killed by the Taliban, their 42-year-old Christian minister, whose body was dumped in the dessert. Bulgaria makes the news again: Europeans are horrified that impoverished families willingly sell their children to shady individuals who traffic them to affluent parents who bypass legal adoption processes. And, Istanbullus continue to seem surprised by the outcome of Sunday’s election. (I’ve updated my blog entry on politics; check it out.)

The heat seems inconsequential. If only Lady Mary Wortley Montague (a Brit who traveled through Turkey and lived in Istanbul in the early 1700s) could be here now. I was just reading a letter she wrote in 1763: “The climate is delightful in the extremest degree. I am now sitting, this present four of January, with the windows open, enjoying the warm shine of the sun, while you are freezing over a sad sea-coal fire; and my chamber set out with carnations, roses, and jonquils, fresh from my garden.”

The news is absurd, depleting; I’ve no words to describe what it does to the soul. Better to get lost, for just a little time, in Turkish history, beauty and culture—coffee, for instance. (Alright, twist my arm, I admit that I’ve been hanging around coffee houses.) I did not know that Turkey introduced cafés to the world. Yes, the very “cradle of civilizations” that has the remnants of 13 successive societies (Hittites, Assyrians, Phyrigians, Urartians, Lycians, Lydians, Ionians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, Seliuks and Ottomans) spanning 10,000 years also gave birth to neighborhood cafés! (And you thought it was Starbucks? Sorry, their first store opened in Seattle’s Pike Place public market in 1971, and yes, it was innovative in that it sold fresh-roasted whole bean coffee.) Okay, the coffee plant grew naturally in Ethiopia, but the Turks were the first to adopt it as a common drink, often adding spices such as clove, cinnamon, cardamom and anise to the brew.

Prior to 1000 AD, members of the Galla tribe in Ethiopia were energizing themselves by using ground coffee beans mixed with animal fat (eeeeeeuuu!). Then at about 1000 AD, Arab traders brought coffee back to their homelands and began to boil the beans. By 1453 coffee was being used in Ottoman Constantinople. (At that time, Turkish law allowed a woman to divorce her husband if he failed to provide her with her daily quota of coffee.) The world's first coffee shop, Kiva Han, opened in Istanbul in 1475. (The first coffee house in Italy opened much later in 1645; in England in 1652; in Paris in 1672.) By 1600 coffee had been introduced to the West by Italian traders. By 1607 Captain John smith who founded Jamestown in Virginia had brought coffee to North America. By 1668 in New York coffee had become a breakfast staple. By 1920 prohibition had boosted the sales of coffee so that by 1940 the US imported 70 percent of the world’s coffee crop.

My favorite place to drink coffee is the Pierre Loti Café at the top of the hill in Eyüp Cemetery. From there, you can see the Golden Horn, which was settled in the 7th century BC and historically has been described as the world’s greatest natural harbor. You can see the whole city, and the Galata Bridge that was built in 1992 to replace the (now rebuilt) pontoon bridge (also called the Galata Bridge) located further away. You can distinguish the rebuilt pontoon because the lower level is packed with restaurants; on top, men line the sides where they spend hours fishing. Galata Tower, the most recognizable feature of the Golden Horn, looms nearby. I took the elevator up the 196 feet high open balcony for another magnificent view (despite the haze of pollution) of the city. I like the Loti Café because it’s decorated in 19th century furniture (even the waiters wear period clothes), because the views are exquisite, and mostly because of the romance and literary history.

It turns out that the café is named for one of its customers, Pierre Loti (his real name is Julien Marie Viaud Rochefort), who was a prolific and romantic travel writer, and who had great affinity with what we now call the Middle East. Loti once admitted that he felt he had a “half-Arab soul.” He also said, when he was a child, “I will wander all the world over and return, a grey-haired man, to the home of my father to muse on the strange and beautiful things I have seen.”
Loti was a midshipman in the French navy and thus traveled widely. He first visited Istanbul in 1876, immersed himself in Turkish life, lived in a house in Eyüp and fell in love with a married Turkish woman, Aziyadé, who dared to sneak out of her husband’s harem to spend time with Loti. Loti had to leave in 1877, and years later when he returned to Istanbul he found that Aziyadé had died. Overwhelmed with sadness, he sat at the café that now bears his name and he mourned. Eventually, after turning his memories into a semi-autobiographical love story titled Aziyadé, he took her tombstone back to his house in Rochefort, France, where it can still be seen.
I leave for Cappadocia on the 31st; I’m sorry I’ll miss seeing Konya. I'll leave you with more wise literary words written by Turkish painter, writer, journalist, sculptor and cineast, Abidine Dino (1913-1993) who wrote:

Every summer Turks placidly watch foreign migration flowing into their country, those same Turks who had at one time practiced an admittedly more belligerent form of migration. But the old motive is still there: a delight in seeing the world. Today the verb “see” is gaining ground: one learns to see, one is able to see, one occasionally loses all hope of seeing. We try to see in paintings, photography, films and television, with the eyes of others and with our own. Nothing is ever totally satisfying. I still remember one morning in 1953 at Vallauris, where Picasso said, with a note of sadness: “A man sees only once or twice in a lifetime.” It is true, but also shattering. How does one approach this Turkey? Should you forget about seeing and instead, taste grilled swordfish or Bosphorus strawberries? Or the contraband alcohol known as bogma “stangler” or lamb grilled over vine shoots? To glimpse Turkey would it be better to prance dead drunk to the beat of an enormous drum on the roofs of a village in round dances of another era? Or is the answer to sit at the bow of a Bosphorus boat under the finger of light piercing a snow storm at night? Perhaps one could guide a plough behind a bony ox or suffocate from dust on a road while jeeps race by.

Maritine crossroads / Bazaar

Pierre Loti's description of the traffic on the Bosphorous:
I watch the coming and going on the strait, which during the day tends to become the world's most heavily traveled corridor. At its center, farther out, huge ships steam past one another, forever communicating between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Closer in, there are the caiques, vessels of every kind, the little paint-daubed sailboats that, on breezy afternoons, hurl themselves mindelessly against the quay of the house, sometimes demolishing its fragile marble balustrade.

Turkey is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Aegean Sea to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the south; that's 5,176 miles of coastline. That explains, partly, why the geographical area has seen the birth of 13 very significant civilizations. The link between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara—the Bosphorus—has been, and continues to be, a key factor in the development of this area. The Bosphorus is still Turkey’s major maritime route, the main medium for transportation and exchange, and the most direct route for connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

It fascinates me to see the myriad kinds of activities this strait hosts. Two days ago, when it was sweltering hot, I walked along the European edge from Eminönû, past the Ortaköy Bridge (one of the two that connect the European and Asian sides of Istanbul) to slightly beyond trendy Ortaköy, which put me right about in the middle of the Bosphorus. The edge is lined with numerous ferry piers that are indeed indispensable transportation for thousands of Istanbullus transferring back and forth across the continents, and especially during summer weekends, to the nine Princes’ Islands. The ferries, first imported from England in 1854, are generally named after neighborhoods: Rumeli, Trakya, Göksu, Beylerbeyi, Tophane and Besiktas.

Shipping and cruise lines dot the edges. Fishing is a national pastime and a main industry. The shipbuilding market volume now nears $10 billion. And of course, transporting oil has taken on even more significance after the break-up of the former Soviet Union; over 7,400 tankers carry more than 125 million tons of oil through the Bosphorus. In addition to all that activity, at any time of the day you can see people rowing, sailing, swimming, sitting… (I should note, too, that the environmental harm has increased exponentially. For example, on 13 March 1994 the Cyprian tanker Nassia and the freighter Shipbroker collided into a huge fire that killed 29 crewmen; the spilled crude patched miles of water and washed onto the shore to affect everything.)

Trade results in… bazaars! Bazaars are festive, magical, intriguing, beguiling—and a source of frustration to someone like me who doesn’t like to bargain. In Turkey’s bazaars, as in most bazaars in the Middle East, the initial quoted price is simply a place to start haggling. You can expect to pay 30 to 50 percent less—if you can maneuver the exchange and unspoken rules of respect and protocol. For example, I sat in a jeweler’s store in the Grand Bazaar while he offered chai and made conversation about the elections, the States, world news—all sorts of topics discussed in multiple languages. He was very courteous and solicitous.

My only role was to be genuinely interested in buying the gorgeous gold earrings I’d stopped to look at; somehow, vendors can actually tell if you’re truly interested and they leave you alone if you’re not. It is understood that if I wasn’t really interested I would not go into his store, drink his tea and waste his time; once I entered his store we were bound by a common agreement to exchange goods.



I was very tempted to buy the earrings, but felt increasingly uncomfortable as in between the topics of conversation, we discussed (what seemed to me to be) and exorbitant price that he was apparently very reluctant to decrease. I couldn’t keep increasing my initial offer because, really, I didn’t know how much the earrings are actually worth. Some people enjoy that sort of exchange and even get a huge kick out of walking away with a cheap price. I don’t feel triumphant in that, especially if I have to haggle with a woman who may seem so very financially poor in comparison to me. Haggling evokes way too many mixed feelings in me; so, needless to say, I left sans the earrings.

In the Middle East, bazaars are always located next to a mosque, since that kind of trade is what supported the establishment and growth of the mosque and in turn what provided the vendors with a place to pray, sleep (since most mosques also have caravanserais, bed and breakfast sorts of lodging), and store their merchandise. (There’s a growing body of scholarship on this topic; perhaps later I will provide titles of recent books and articles.) The Grand Bazaar, built at the command of Fatih Mehmet after the conquest, is one of the most famous markets in the world and is right near my hotel. It is a city within a city that consists of 75 acres of alleyways and a vast network of covered streets and buildings. At the center are domed buildings, called the Old Bedestan (warehouse), where stores with the most valuable merchandise are located.

When you enter the Grand Bazaar, the place looks like a bewildering maze, but soon you realize that there’s an orderly grid like arrangement. Shopkeepers are clustered together according to the kinds of good or services they provide. There is a street of jewelers, leather workers, silk fabrics and other textiles, food, sweets, rugs… anything and everything you can imagine. The stores are owned and operated by individuals, but the municipality of Istanbul owns some of the buildings.

In the mid-19th century, Théophile Gautier wrote of the Grand Bazaar: “There are jewelers whose gemstones are put away in safes or in glass cases placed beyond the reach of thieves. In these dark boutiques, rather like cobbler’s workshops, riches of the most incredible sort abound.”