An American Life in Istanbul

Here is a series of pictures - all from Turkey - that a friend sent to me. The ones posted here are the ones that I could easily see happening in Turkey

Debatebly better than a whole in the floor, which is quite common in Turkey.

I haven’t seen something like this personally but it wouldn’t surprise me if I did.

Looks a little dangerous, doesn’t it?

Another one that I haven’t seen but wouldn’t be surprised if I saw it.

This is my favorite one. I actually have seen this at one of the monuments. On the right it says the entrance fee is two million Turkish Lyra. On the left it says “entrance one million.” Sneaky Turks!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Just some pictures from the weekend. That’s Doruk, Erman and myself. Because there are so many students in Istanbul, there is quite a good night life to be found. Istanbul is a city that never sleeps. These pictures were taken at ‘cafe pi’ in Taksim. They have a huge variety of drinks on the menu, and play American Rock and Pop music.

From the left Doruk, Erman and myself

Doruk and Erman

Friends!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tulips have long been indigenous here in Turkey, and are the symbol of Istanbul. In the spring time, they can be seen everywhere. Yesterday I had the chance to go to Emirgan park, the park that was given to the boy friend (yes boy friend) of one of the sultans. It now serves as a beautiful, wooded retreat from the hustle and bustle of Istanbul. The park is so quiet and beautiful that you wouldn’t believe you were still in Istanbul.

Below are some pictures from my afternoon in the park. I went with Tahsin, who will join the army on Saturday to do his mandatory military service. What you need to know is that a european ambassador to the Ottoman empire took the flowers to western Europe with him between the years 1550 and 1560 because they seemed to do very well in the early spring, a time which is unfriendly to flowers. If you would like to read more about the Tulips and are not interested in the pictures, here is an interesting article about it: Sunday’s Zaman Article: Tulips Making a Comeback. Anyway, here are the pictures:

The road through the park was falnked on both sides by tulip beds

The road through the park

Red Tulips!

Me sitting on one of the many picnic benches.

Even the bathrooms looked nice.

Tulips!

Tulips!

A concert going on during the tulip festival on an island in a pond.

The evil eye. This is a very traditional symbol in Turkish culture.

Tulips!

An advertisement for the tulip festival.

You can see the Bosporus in the background. The park is on one of the higher hills next to the Bosporus.

Tulips!

Tulips!

A small flower shop in the park.

All the fences along the path look like this: more tulips!

Tulips!

Tulips!

Tulips!

Tulips!

Tulips! (notice anything strange about this picture?

On the way out of the park.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

A few weeks ago, Alper sent me this video. This is from the main highway into Istanbul, the highway that I take to get into the city. The best part is probably the last driver who drives not only against traffic but in the fast lane?! The question is why do so many people need to go against the flow of traffic? Are they stupid or are the roads poorly designed. My guess is a combination of both, but more the later.

I have several more traffic, driving and car related entries if you are interested:

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Over the weekend I stayed at a friend’s house (I will avoid using names because the issue may be sensitive) that I do not normally stay at. Realizing I had not asked my friend what his parents do, I asked. They are both professors at two of Turkey’s most prestigious universities. I was excited.

The town I grew up in was near a very large and reasonably well known university (Stony Brook University in New York). There were many foreign professors and foreign students from all over the world there. Because of this, many of my friends growing up were the children of professors. From my experiences growing up and my experiences at university, I found that the academic community always held a good, well informed opinion of current events, and was a good way to measure what changes were coming.

So at breakfast, I casually slipped in questions to his father, constituting what I consider my first interview. The issue was the pending court case to remove the current government for being anti secular. I briefly commented on this issue in: Economic Hiccups. I was curious to find out what the academic community though of the whole situation.

Two petitions were passed around amongst Turkey’s 40,000 person academia. 3,000 professors signed a petition in support of the current government and claimed that there was nothing wrong with what the government has been doing. 8,000 signed the petition against the government (this 8000 included assistants where as the 3000 did not). My friend’s father signed the petition against the government, his wife did not.

The interesting bit of this story is what happened to my friends father who we will call Ahmet for now. Ahmet is a tenured professor here in Istanbul. On top of his normal job he is a senior part-time researcher at separate government institute where he has been working for approximately 20 years. He was recently promoted to chairmen of the executive committee there. He is also a member of Turkey’s equivalent to the National Academy of Science in the US.

After his name appeared on a similar petition against the government, the person who had appointed him to chairman - a person serving in an office appointed by a council which is made up of the prime ministers appointees - called him and asked why he signed the petition. She followed up with the question “do you think I appointed you for your academic achievements?”

At the end of each year, each person at this government institute must submit a report for what they have done. This time, when Ahmet went to turn in his report, his 20th or so, they told him it wasn’t necessary. Nor would he need to submit a report for his position as chairman. He of course, was not rehired.

I’d like to thank Ahmet for sharing this story and commend him for having the courage to stand up for what he believes in.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I actually wasn’t sure that the Istanbul based soccer club Fenerbache had beaten London’s Chelsea last night during their champions league match last night here in Istanbul. Fenerbache is the most expensive team in Turkish history this year with a total cost for it’s players of 100 million euros. That’s quite an impressive number. Besiktas and Galtasaray are finishing somewhere around 50 million euros. Chelsea on the other hand is the most expensive team in history, coming in at 456 million euros per year. As you can see these two teams are of a drastically different scale.

However, since signing Roberto Carlos over the summer (See: Roberto Carlos is Coming to Istanbul) Fenerbache has seemed unstoppable. They are currently in the quarter finals of the most prestigious tournament in Europe, which means they are in the tops 8 in Europe this year. They are on pace to win the Turkish league again this year (they are currently on top).

Well last night I looked at my window to this scene:

Keep in mind I live in a remote sparsely populated part of Istanbul. The majority of the noise is from that darn truck which is out almost everytime there is a big win by a Turkish team, but you can hear the horns of all the other motorists. They are all stopped just before a roundabout where the people get out of their cars and run around and scream. Sorry I didn’t get a video of that, but I will have another chance the next time Fenerbache or the national team accomplishes some great feat.

Of course worse things can happen than losing sleep. If you remember (See: Wine-ing and Crying) I got teargassed standing in a crowd of Besiktas supporters last year. That was not fun.

Anyway, Fenerbache has to tie or beat Chelsea when they play in London next week on the 8th of April. If they score at least two goals, they can also lose by only one and still move on because of the away goals rule, but the finer points of the Champions Leagues rules are not interesting. Let’s just cross our fingers and hope for the best.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Current Mood: Esctatic

Guess what? I am no longer employed! How’s that for big news? Didn’t expect that did you?

If you were one of my friends here in Istanbul, you probably were expecting it. Over the past few months it became clear that things just weren’t going to work out between my employer and myself. It came down to a schism in ideology that was part cultural differences. It would be a great topic to write about, but knowing that this is a public forum and that some of distributors have or still do read my blog, I am not going to say anything. Anything that could potentially adversely affect my past employer would be unprofessional.

The question is what will I do next? I am not sure. I will apply for jobs around Istanbul because frankly, I like Istanbul. It’s a great place. I may also apply for masters programs. I may go on a little adventure. The company gave me a decent severance so I don’t immediately need to find a job. They offered to let me stay in the apartment and use the car for as long as I want - which when they realize how long I want they may change that clause to ‘as long as i need.’

To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought about it too much. I already have a round trip plane ticket to the US  for April 14th-28th. I will just figure it all out when I get back I guess. I feel like I should be more worried - I know my friends are worried - but I think the end of my employment was due. Things just weren’t going to my satisfaction. A few weeks ago I met a Syrian representing an American company in the Middle East. He told me that I didn’t know it yet, but since compressors is such a specialized industry, I was going to spend the rest of my life in compressors. That worried me.

I am a bit disappointed though. I was finally starting to get the hang of things. I took this job with no prior training and received no training once starting here. I more or less had to figure everything out on my own. From servicing compressors, to international shipping regulations, I discovered most of this information on my own motivation. These past few months things have been picking up for foreign sales. In March, I felt as though I was on the cusp of really boosting the foreign sales. Everything had finally fallen into place: Alper had found a packaging solution, I had translated all the necessary things into French, I had completed our new service manual, we had finished designs and prototypes for our new potentially huge OEM customer (they were readily accepted), I had completed compiling all data for our technical documents and Altan had nearly completed the 3D technical drawings… pretty much everything was falling into place. Furthermore, I had had the whole gambit of possible questions about compressors so I am no ready to handle tough questions on the fly.

But as I said, it was time. I am excited at what the future holds for me.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Two weeks ago a friend from high school, Jessica, came to visit me. She, like me, is an expatriate. She currently lives in Cadiz, Spain where she works as an English teacher. She came to visit Istanbul for one week. Below is an excerpt from her blog entry or you can click here to read the whole thing on her blog. Thanks for visiting Jessica it was a pleasure to have you.

<<<

Then we met up with Conrad and went back to the same one Conrad always goes to and his friend Izzie and his other Turkish friends showed up and we played more backgammon and they smoked hookah and we drank lots of tea and orchid milk drink. The Turks never get bored of hookah and backgammon and tea. It’s so absurd. If I had to pick one drink that I always drank, and one thing I always smoked, and one game that I always played, it probably wouldn’t be those. It would probably be white mochas, and maybe it would be backgammon, but it could also be Scrabble or Geschenkt or Taboo, and we won’t discuss anything to be smoked.

>>>

Now here are some pictures. Since Jessica wrote everything in her blog, and it’s too far in the past, I will only give some pictures to look over.

Waiting for our traditional Turkish breakfast with Leyla and her friends. This was a nice cafe in Yesilkoy right on the Bosporus. Because it was outside and there was food, lots of birds were flying around and Kyle got crapped on twice.

Jessica and I standing at ‘Rumeli Hisari‘ the fortress built by Mehmet the Conqueror before he conquered Istanbul. The whole place was built in only four months!

One of the many ships passing through the Bosporus. This one I found interesting because it’s carrying railroad cars!

Swimming anyone? There are many ladders like this (and nicer ones) for swimming in the Bosporus.

This is me eating Iskender Kebab, an extremely delicious Turkish specialty. I failed to make my brother and Jessica try this while they were here. Sorry guys.

Jessica, Leyla and Theresa out at our favorite bar, Akdeniz (which means Mediterranean Sea in Turkish). They play great 80s and 90s music.

Doruk and I at Akdeniz. Jessica thinks that my friend Doruk looks like Jack Black. Not sure that I agree.

After Theresa broke a glass, Doruk was really distressed.

Some of the best sites to see in Istanbul from the left, Hagia Sophia, the ancient Cisterne that stored water for the city and the Blue Mosque.

Jessica was really excited to see Starbucks so she took a picture of their menu.

This is the view from the Galatta Tower which used to be part of the defenses of Istanbul. It’s on the European side just north of the Golden Horn. Jessica had to visit this on her own while I was at work.

Since it was Saint Patrick’s Day while Jessica was here we went to an Irish pub where this guy got a drink thrown in his face. Lesson learned: don’t piss off crazy Turkish girls. That’s his hat I am wearing.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The Turkish economy is actually quite good. The size of the unreported or black market economy makes Turkey reasonable stable. Despite the very volatile political situation that has been developing over the past year, the Turkish Lyra spent most of the fall being one of four currencies rising against the year. However, there are hiccups form time to time.

When I moved to Turkey the Lyra was trading for 1.41 against the dollar. One month ago it was at 1.16. Today it’s at 1.24. Despite the bumpy ride, things seem to calm down. Since the financial crisis of 2000 where the Lyra lost half its value over night, things have been pretty good. A lot of people lost a lot of money during this crisis, however many with close ties to the government coincidently sold everything they had and invested in foreign currency weeks or days before the crash (according to my friends). Some people think another crisis is coming (SeekingAlpha.com) which may contribute to the recent volatility. People remember what happened and are afraid it will happen again. Despite a GDP growth rate of 5.1% and single digit unemployment (according to the CIA world fact book), people still don’t have much faith in the economy. All  the major banks here in Turkey allow you to easily open your own foreign currency account online for no charge. I currently have four accounts and am considering opening a fifth, adding a fourth currency to my list. A lot of business is done in Euros in Turkey as well, including my own company’s. We buy and sell everything in Euros as a way of making our pricing structure more stable.

Just after the markets closed on Friday March 14th,  a case was brought against the ruling AKP (justice and development party) party here in Turkey. They were brought up on charges of anti-secularism (that’s illegal here in Turkey) and will be investigated by a special court on whether or not they have violated the secular laws of Turkey’s constitution. This is not the first time that a government has been brought up on charges of being anti-secular, and if the party is dissolved, it will not be the first time that a government has been removed from power for such a violation. Naturally Monday morning, when the markets opened, things got crazy.

Two months ago I moved most of money to Euros at around 1.7-1.75 Lyra to the euro. On the 14th when the markets closed,  things were around 1.85. On Monday, by noon, the Euro broke 2 Lyra (I sold everything). When things closed one week later on the 21st, the Euro was at 1.917. My speculation clearly paid off. Despite the ongoing case against the government (which again, is widely unpopular among the educated upper and middle class), the economy seems to be doing alright (Turkish Daily News Article).

So now that things have calmed down for the time being, what will I do with the windfall I received from this speculation.  It’s not too much so probably I am just going to buy a round for my friends. More likely though, I will do my best to speculate against the outcome of this court case. If the government is removed - which by the way has control of the executive branch as well as most of the parliament - I am sure things will get crazy again.

Cheers.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Check it out:

Turkish Government Bans YouTube!

No more YouTube!

In Turkey there is a law called article 301 which has made it illegal to insult ‘Turkishness’ since coming into effect in June of 2005. The article states:

<<<

Article 301 states the following.^[6]

1. A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.
2. A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.
3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.
4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.

>>> (excerpt from wikipedia.org)

The law has been used to persecute journalists, writers, bloggers, poets even people for public speeches they have given. The most notable cases were against Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk for an interview he gave for a swiss magazine (charges were dropped against him), Wordpress.com - an online blogging community, and most recently YouTube (it has been banned several times over the past year), for a video of Kemal Mustafa Attaturk singing about how he is a homosexual (at least these are the major incidents that i know of)

I am sure you can all see what an obvious violation of freedom of speech this law represents. The current government has been ruthless about persecuting journalists, shutting down newspapers, blocking websites. They must think they have a mandate from Attaturk himself to protect the Turkish identity. In the international community, the European Union has insisted Turkey remove this law. Although allowing international law and international treaties to override Turkish national law, Article 301 is nonetheless a clear violation of fundamental freedoms and political rights. There has been talk of removing the law, but it has been more than one year since president Abdullah Gul suggested removing the law. Instead the government recently lifted a long standing law from the early days of the republic banning head scarves in public areas, but that’s a whole other story.

Regardless of whether or not this law stays active or is repealed, Turks will feel very strongly about their Turkishness. In my experience it seems that the Turkish identity and Attaturk (the prophet of this religion like nationalism) are more sacred than Islam in Turkey. There are many mosques in Turkey, and many people fast during the month of Ramadan, but there is at least one picture of Attaturk in nearly every business in the whole country. While religion is important here and it is observed, Attaturk and Turkishness are indoctrinated by the state. In school, teachers teach how great Attaturk was, they teach how about how important everything he did was. His drive to secularize Turkey is what saved Turkey from the mess that many of the other Islamic nations are in right now (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Libya). In some ways Attaturk has god-like status here, in other ways he’s far beyond that. Recently we met a man who had Attaturk’s face tattooed on his arm.

This intensity sometimes manifests itself in violence against those who do not share this view point. With the state prosecuting “anti-Turkish” antagonists, vigilantes within the community do so as well. Hrant Dink, former editor in chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, is the most notable case in recent history. He was a very vocal critic of both the Armenian and Turkish stances on the ‘Armenian genocide’ (Related Blog Post: Turmoil in Turkey: Part II). He had been prosecuted three times for his opinions about the incident before a young ultra nationalist Turk, Ogun Samast, assassinated him in January 2007. Pictures later surfaced of the arresting officers smiling and congratulating the killer while holding a Turkish flag. What kind of message does that send? Another notable case was Michael Dickinson, a British artist who made a collage showing the Turkish prime minister as a dog. He was held for 10 days. You can see the picture in question below:

He later showed this collage, again of the prime minister, getting himself into trouble again:

I find both picture entertaining especially considering what my friends, and many of the other educated people in Turkey have to say about the current government. To any of my Turkish readers, I pose this question: Is Turkey getting better in terms of human rights and freedom of speech? I would like to hear some opinions other than my own on this one.

With YouTube banned, what am I going to do at work on the slow days. At least I know that I can always retreat back to my home country, where I can say what ever I damn well please.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!