A weekend in the life

This weekend I had no homework because we'd just had our midterm (we're halfway done already!). I spent Friday going to museums (the Mevlevi Lodge and Ottoman Bank Museums near Galatasaray, and the Pera Museum), and Saturday at the Grand Bazar, another bank museum for Republican Turkey (because it was free and we were in the Golden Horn so why not) and Mısır Çarşısı, both days with people from my program. So today was a day to wander on my own.
This afternoon I went to a bilingual (Turkish-English) church service off Istiklal, where we sang in Turkish and Farsi. There were people from the UK and the US (both of us from the US were in my program), from Canada, Iran, Korea, and Bulgaria. The service was led by a bilingual Korean-Turk, and it was a music-prayer Sunday without a sermon. Afterward I met and talked to a guy who's medical student in the Ukraine, where he had met some American missionaries and converted. He's originally from Iran, but his family now lives in Turkey and he is currently visiting them for the summer.
Being in that church reminded how much of an international space The Church has become; earlier today, there had also been morning services in English and a service for East Africans. Evangelical Christianity is no longer the religion of the American South; it has spread across the globe and already contains people from almost everywhere. Every tribe and tongue, I guess.
After the service I went to the Lambda office, where I found out (in Turkish, which may mean something got lost in translation) that basically nothing's happening around there for the rest of the summer.
Then I headed to Cevahir Mall, which is in Şişli (right by the metra stop). It felt a lot like home, like Northlake or South Park. Though I suspect it was the size of the two put together, along with Concord Mills. I wandered around the six stories of the mall, looking for a duffle bag (which I ended up getting from Columbia Sportswear, because I couldn't find it anywhere else). I got a falafel wrap (a la Naf Naf Grill) from a place called "The Upper West Side" that specialized in Philly cheesesteaks and Falafel (which I guess is pretty representative of the mid-Atlantic region, all things considered). I learned there that electronics are actually considerably more expensive in Istanbul than in the US (a small computer that if I were being generous I'd value at $500 was telling for 2500 lira (which means it's more than twice as expensive), but that in general middle class Istanbullus shop at the same price range as American mallgoers. Also, their food court was two-stories high.
Anyway, classes start back tomorrow. This weekend I've done a lot of talking in Turkish (buying things at Cezhavir, talking to the person at Lambda, generally being out and about), so I'm hoping this weekend, in addition to letting me experience both touristy and less touristy things, was helpful on that front. I feel much more confident that I could survive in Istanbul on my own if I had to, and that I have made obviously recognizable progress.

Culture Shock: Expectations versus Reality

First I'd like to establish that Istanbul is actually no harder to adjust to than any other city in Europe or the US, and all of the things I'm talking about are minor.

Second, here are the things that you expect to find shocking but really aren't:

1. The food. Actually, most restaurants have at the very least Italian-style pasta dishes and some vegetarian soups. The worst thing I can say about the food is that if you don't eat meat the food tends to be a bit bland, because all the spices go into the meat. Also, Menemen is amazing. It's literally diced tomatoes with eggs, spices, and peppers cooked in. I've been told it's a good hangover cure, though I just eat it because it's delicious. There's also lots of fresh fruit everywhere.

2. Recitations from mosques several times per day. You kind of tune them out after a bit. No one seems to notice them when they happen.

3. Access to various basic goods. Actually, there are lots of corner stores that sell just about anything I want other than first aid stuff, which I can get from an Eczane. I even found the Turkish version of Claritin.

Now for the things that you don't expect to be shocked by, but are actually pretty strange:

1. Smoking. Everyone here smokes, including most of the people in my program. People don't seem to care if you smoke or not but they have no problem smoking near you. I've gotten used to the smell but it throws me off.

2. Water bottles. Your water comes packed in plastic in Istanbul. There are no reusable bottles in sight because no one likes the taste of the water (though it's usually safe in a newer building, and I've been keeping a water bottle). You can't get water at restaurants except in bottles, so everyone does. In general consumer environmentalism is less of a thing here as well; no one uses canvas bags for groceries.

3. Public transportation. Google maps doesn't know. I can't find any place online that lists stops of various bus routes, let alone times. There doesn't seem to be paper copies either. You basically have to find out how to get places by asking people who have been here longer. Luckily cabs are pretty cheap.
EDIT: http://www.iett.gov.tr/

Finally, the one thing that I can confirm is rather hard to deal with: Language barriers. I mean, I'm learning Turkish, but it can be hard to ask questions if I don't know the words in Turkish. I think that'll get better over time, but it'll takes some work.

On a quick positive note, though: Istanbul has the best night time cityscapes I have ever seen. Seeing Anatolia over the water still makes me stop every time I see it. I hope I can come back at some point in my life. 

Onur haftası ve ikinci hafta

Merhabalar!

A lot has happened in the past several days and I apologize for not posting yet. My computer is experiencing culture shock, I think, so I'm posting from my iPod.

In Turkish class there's been a little more attempt to explain things in English if we're just not getting it, but that's a last resort. We've been going over grammar a lot and some things are coming back to me but being reinforce in different ways (such as the difference between geniş zaman vs future tense).

Outside of class this week has been where the cool stuff has happened, though. I've been to Taksim every day for three days straight, because there have been events (some related to Pride and some not) every day. I haven't been getting as much sleep as I'd've liked, but that's okay because the events have been great.

I went to a meeting of the Istanbul Toastmasters club, which is a public speaking group mostly of professionals practicing giving presentations in English.  The ideas expressed were often pretty standard corporate liberalism but it was amazing to hear so many people striving to better themselves.

One of the Onur Haftası events I went to with my friend Syndey was a music-sharing event. People did everything from body rhythm to a song about animal rights set to the tune of Mad World to TPop songs to contemporary art music that Erin Cameron would have loved. I also met several people there and elsewhere in the community, including Karem, who is involved in a group at Boğaziçi  that does activism and research in the LGBT community here, which is awesome and who I'll hopefully be able to meet this summer.

I'm also going to a picnic this afternoon in Maçka Park, where a lot of my new friends (both from the program and Istanbul more generally) will be. So I'm excited for that too.

Anyway, I'll sign off now. İyi günler!

İkinci hafta başlar

Merhaba friends!
Blogger on my computer is in Turkish now; I've been posting from my phone so I didn't notice until now. It turns out I get computer-compatible Wifi on South Campus and North Campus (including the library), which is nice.
Anyway, classes have begun in earnest. The instructors speak almost entirely in Turkish unless we ask specific vocab questions, which is great for immersion but can be confusing. I'm still unsure what homework is due tomorrow and which questions I'm supposed to do for the reading. It's a bit disconcerting.
Unfortunately, it seems like I'm already behind on work, because instead of sitting in the library doing work I've been hanging out with people from the program, exploring the city, and attempting to talk to people in Turkish. I don't think that's a problem though; there's no reason to stress out about grades that are just going to show up pass-fail, and I have been learning a lot from what I've been doing outside of class. I can more or less ask simple requests and respond politely, even if I can't express complex thoughts while speaking just yet. I think within a couple of weeks I'll be better, because the grammar in class is giving me the tools to be able to think and talk in Turkish.
Also, I should be able to start making research contacts this week, because Istanbul Onur Haftası is this week and I'll be going to the events that don't conflict with required TLCP activities (unfortunately I had to miss a panel today for class). I don't know how hard it will be since I'm not conversant in Turkish, but it seems like there's a lot of English speaking people at least. So, that's exciting. I asked one of the organizers if I could assist but I didn't get a reply; I probably started too late since the preparation mostly happened before I got to Turkey. One of my classmates wants to come to stuff with me, which is great.
I'm still adjusting to the schedule and accommodations, but I think I've already acclimating to Istanbul itself. Other than the language, daily life isn't all that different from living in any city in the US (though with Seattle's hills and New York's crowdedness; I imagine San Francisco is a good comparison). The views, though, I might want to avoid getting used to; there's probably a dozen gorgeous views of the Marmara and Anatolia between my dorm and class each morning. The hills may be a lot of climbing but you can't fault the scenery.
Anyway, I'm going to get back to work now, because I have Things To Do tomorrow evening and I need to get ahead.

First day

Today is the first day of Turkish classes!

I arrived two days ago, and yesterday instead of class we had a placement test. I'm in the "Lower Intermediate" class, which makes sense since I haven't taken any Turkish in over a year, so it shouldn't be too hard. (I have at least seen all the grammar before, even if I forgot most of the vocabulary.)

There are a lot of cats and dogs around. They also don't tend to bother people at all, especially the ones in the street, but on campus at least people feed the cats but not really the dogs.

Istanbul isn't laid out on a grid, so it can be pretty confusing to get around, but I'm learning the nearby area and I'm pretty sure I know the way to and from campus. Google Maps is helpful by looking, but not for searching or figuring out public transit. Yelp helps even less. However, we found a couple of stores and kebapçiler so it's working out pretty well.

For some reason most of my class lives in the same dorm as me, which will be convenient. I've already made lots of friends; all my fellow students speak English, though, which means we haven't been only speaking Turkish. Maybe we will by the end though.

Also, I'm somewhat confused as to where we are, exactly. Google Maps says Sarıyer, but I'm pretty sure that's not right. Still, there's buses from here to Taksim so that should work out well. I more or less know my way around the immediate neighborhood, can get to campus and such pretty easily.

EDIT: I believe I am in Etiler. Also, enough of us have been trying to speak to each other in Turkish that I suspect it's helping. The group of us that was hanging out tonight has enough variety in proficiency that those of us on the lower end can improve from listening.

New summer, new adventures

Hello everyone!
It's summer again, and this year I'll be going to Istanbul to take a language course rather than to do interview research, but while I'm there I'm sure to meet new people and talk to them about things, hopefully in Turkish. At least, that's the plan. We'll see what happens when I get there.
I'm flying out around noon tomorrow and will be landing in the late morning the day after, Istanbul time.

The final post, I suppose? At least, of the summer.

I have finished the interviews. All that remains is to write the write up, pack and clean the room I've been living in the past month, and go home.
I'd like to say that I have learned a lot from this research, but honestly most of what I learned was not about the topic at hand.
The first lesson I learned was that I am uncomfortable with only revealing parts of my purposes to certain people. Just saying "I'm researching testimonies" or "I'm researching coming-out stories" when in reality I'm researching both, while not technically dishonest, made it hard for me to engage with people honestly. The fact that I was there to study people rather than be in genuine community with them was something I don't enjoy. So this will probably my last foray into ethnographic research of any sort.
The second was that it's not easy getting lots of interviews when you need people to contact you (which was how things were set up to prevent accidental outing, primarily). I didn't reach my 10-20 interviews per group goal, though I came close on the evangelical side. Part of that is I probably didn't exhaust all the possibilities when it came to contacting queer people, but the majority of it was just that I didn't really know how to go about it correctly. Perhaps if I had more time to explore the different communities in Asheville I could have found more people to interview; or perhaps if it wasn't summer (a lot of churches have much more limited programming in the summertime). It didn't help that almost all of the groups in both sets met on Sunday, so they often conflicted with each other but still left me with no good way to network for most of the week.
Another thing I learned is that I really need friends and communities. The amount that I've been in my room this summer has been unhealthy for me, and every moment spent with other people, whether interviewing or just hanging out, was worth it. The solo life of an academic in the humanities is not for me. I need daily interaction with multiple people in order to be healthy and productive.
As for the research itself, I do think that there is a lot of interesting comparisons to be made between how people talk about their stories, and there's also a lot to be said about similarities and differences of how communities are structured (there's a lot the queer movement can learn from evangelical groups when it comes to organizing to create social change). I do not think, though, that I have evidence for my original claim that the two narratives are effectively the same. Evangelical Christian testimony is based not just in personal experience but in study and theological quandry. The people who I have talked to (which I'm seeing is a very biased sample composed mostly of middle-aged men) for the most part didn't put the same emphasis on community that all of the queer people I talked to did. Conversions of faith are personal and internal, but coming out is a community process.
So, I guess that's it, then. Thank you for reading! I hope it was educational, or something.