 Unless you are an American over the age of forty you probably are interested in football (soccer), so you must be as excited as I am to watch the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. But this World Cup has gotten some flak for poor officiating, and this is the topic of this quick-blog.  I live in a neighborhood of Izmir called Kahramanlar. The neighborhood itself lies to the east of Kültür Park, a large park at the city-center, built upon the part of the city razed in the fire of 1922. In fact, I can see the park and ferris wheel from my balcony. Beyond the park to the west is Alsancak, the wealthy downtown area with shopping, nightlife, and the sea. To the east is a substantially impoverished part of my neighborhood inhabited largely by Gypsies (or Roman in Turkish). Their horse carriages clickity-clack by my place towards the waterfront to give rides to Turkish families and tourists. The streets are loud and chaotic, which can be fun to watch from the balcony. It has a slight reputation among the middle and upper-class Izmiris, due to the gypsies, for being dangerous. But my experience has been anything but, mostly because any gypsy nefarious antics don’t apply in their own neighborhood, as if they are off duty. It’s my opinion that the neighborhood is on the perfect cusp – run down enough to be cheap yet enjoyable. It is also perfectly sandwiched in the middle of the city; with access to the downtown, metro, and bus lines while being much cheaper than a neighborhood two kilometers away. While in Turkey I have supported myself by teaching English, working a maximum of twenty-five hours a week. In addition to cooking, exercising, and studying Turkish, I have been reading a lot. Doing my MA in Portland, Oregon, I never had time to read for pleasure – being swamped with Political Science texts. So this ample free time is a blessing that I have taken full advantage of, but there is a catch. Good books in English are hard to find in Izmir and are also pricey. So I have developed a system; I read book reviews in newspapers and order them via Amazon.com to my family’s address in the USA and have the next visiting guest from the States lug some over for me. Also, my mother was kind enough to send me a box of books through DHL for Christmas, and as anyone who has ever lifted a box of books knows, that package couldn’t have been cheap. As an added bonus she also included little post-it-notes throughout the books with little hand-written love messages. There is nothing like getting half way through a book about Medieval Grimoires and finding a note from mom that says how much ‘she loves her boys.’ As a result of the steady supply of literature procured through the kindness of family and friends I have burned through a lot of books. However, some I leave half way, and this is the topic of this web log.  Basketball is my favorite sport – fun to play and exciting to watch. What’s not to enjoy about high-scoring games where the tide can turn at any minute through the superhuman talents of Goliaths-in-shorts? While drinking a beer no less! (Yes, that is directed towards many alcohol-free European venues, you hooligans.) And the Lakers – oh my Lakers, how I love you so. I have always been a fan, but living in hostile territory takes your allegiance to a whole new level. In Santa Barbara (technically neutral territory) I battled with Kings fans and in Portland Oregon I had to educate many a Blazers-lovers that although their passion is admirable (and it is), and that they have tremendous potential, their young team is not yet Lakers-grade quality. When I hear Beat L.A.! – I say bring it on. I may have done this drunkenly in the stands to my friend Andrew’s embarrassment, but some times you have to spank a naughty child. At the end of the day there is no skin off my back if they lose (they don’t often anyways), and it is an entertaining and social activity which is probably good for my health (I have no proof, but I feel that it’s true). I have realized that watching the basketball season had become an important part of my recreation, and I miss it. This may be the most painful thing about living in Turkey (apart from missing family and friends and other things that it would be indecent for me not to care about), and it is why I go to great lengths to try to watch the games here in Izmir. There are plenty of negative stereotypes abroad about Americans; most of all that we are fat and stupid. Yes, we may just be – America has ranked third fattest in the world, behind American Samoa and Kiribati, both of which are tiny island populations, with little to do besides drink beer and lounge on the beach (see Globalpost.com). Our knowledge of the world is the most pungent example of our stupidity; in 2006, two-thirds of young Americans between the ages of 18-24 could not find Iraq on a map after three years of American troops occupying the country. In 2003, only six months after Hurricane Katrina, one-third of the same demographic group could not find Louisiana on a map (see CNN.com – there are some other unfortunate stats worth looking at). Of course, these studies don’t prove with infallibility that all Americans are fat and stupid, but it is sure convincing that a lot of us are. I read the newspaper regularly. That is why I was shocked when I recently discovered that MySpace, the social networking site with which I have an account that I seldom check, is owned by arch-nemesis to humanity Rupert Murdoch. MySpace has been owned by Murdoch’s News Corporation since 2005. Where have I been? I intend to make up for my oversight with this blog.
I like documenting my days and doings with pictures. I’ve never been committed enough to keep a journal, and I’m not a fan of useless souvenirs – so photos will serve me throughout my life to recall the people and places I’ve been fortunate enough to know. I consider photography a useful tool in reflection and appreciation for all I’ve been able to do. The albums I collect, reminders. During a recent trip I got into an argument about different photo taking philosophies. The depth and intensity of our discussion made me realize how defined my ideas are about amateur photography. Living abroad one invariably will notice differences between their mother country and their host country – be they cultural, social, religious, political, economic, etcetera. For me, one of the most significant of my daily routine is the presence of an intense and pervasive bargaining culture here in Turkey, it is truly polar-opposite to the ‘everything labeled and posted’ consumer system we have in the States. Having grown up in Southern California the system of economic transactions was based largely around explicit, specifically written, rules – menus with prices, correctly labeled shelves, accurately priced products, a general uniformity in price for similar goods, and corresponding trust between consumer and merchant. The Turkish system is not like this, it is wonderfully and horribly different. As a child I used to be absolutely enthralled by the animal kingdom. In addition to saturday morning cartoons, I’d watch endless amounts of nature documentaries; the Amazon, the Dessert of Namid, the Serengeti, etcetera. I could tell you about the eating habits of the capybara (don’t know what that is? Loser!) When I lived in Monterey, California, next to the spectacular Monterey Bay Aquarium, I was determined to be a marine biologist – even dedicating some school projects to that effect. To put it shortly, I consider myself an expert on nature documentaries. Perhaps I am not a ‘trained scientist’ with a ‘PhD’, or know anything about ‘film-making’, or even have an IQ over 80, but nevertheless, you could still regard me as the preeminent expert on nature documentaries. Set in the mid-1990s Bosnian and Chechen conflicts, this non-fiction first-hand journalistic account of war and heroin addiction is wonderfully tied together by philosophic self-examination. Anthony Lloyd tackles all sorts of existential questions regarding humanity, the need for violence, familial relationships, bonds of kinship forged in war, nationalism, opportunism, idealism, and morality. Best of all, the book is not a self-righteous polemic from the moral-high ground; his self-degradation throughout the account adds credence to his insights and conclusions. |
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