Sellum

So, its day two, and I’m a little over whelmed. Istanbul is incredible. I spent half of yesterday being left speechless, and my mouth hanging open in pure amazement of the grandeur that we were seeing, and the rest was spent being sleep deprived and jetlagged. However, one thing I’ve come to understand is that Turkish society is one filled with many contradictions, weather intentional, or not, they are undeniably present in everyday life. My first night in the city was spent watching the finals of the EUFA cup in a pub in Istiklal, with two other people from the group. We realized very quickly that we were surrounded by locals who were rooting for both teams. After a while of going back and forth between cheering and booing at what we believed to be good plays and bad calls we started talking about the beautiful game with each other and why we were rooting for which side. The group sitting in front of us was rooting for Chelsea while Alex and I were cheering on Manchester Utd. (who won in a shoot out), and as we discussed why we were each rooting for our teams some things about the culture became very evident, even though we weren’t discussing culture or anything to do with Turkey for that matter. We’ve talked several times about how patriarchical of a society there is in Istanbul, and the machismo that goes along with it. A strange dichotomy exists within males and there interactions in society, in public they appear to have a need to be boisterous and be constantly showboating but at the same time, when it comes to women, they are always placed on a pedestal, in other words, they are “momma’s boys” for lack of a better term. As our new friend was discussing his love for Chelsea, he talked about how a number of the individuals on the team were such incredible players, and that everything about the team was what players did as individuals (bringing forth that idea of the show boating, testosterone enhanced ego), yet each and every time the girl sitting with him opened her mouth, he quieted down, and gave her absolute and undivided attention. Another great contradiction was that of another early experience of mine in the city. Shortly after arriving in the city Stephanie, Alex and I walked around the corner from our hotel to a Nargile (hookah / water pipe) café, and sat down to smoke. While sitting in the outdoor courtyard I noticed that I had stopped paying attention to the chaos of the city around me, and that all I was paying any more attention to was my new companions and the few other people sitting around in the café. While driving, or even walking down the streets the air is completely filled with people hurrying from one place to another, with absolutely no time to waste, and definitely no patience for anyone that gets in their way. On the other hand, from talking to Alex and his early experiences in Istanbul talking to locals, people (generally middle-aged to older men) will spend up to four hours a day, just sitting and smoking either by themselves or alone. The same things go for meals as well, and traditional dinner can take up to 2 hours, even when you are just sitting outside in a café in a busy area. As Elif told us in Istanbul, once you’ve paid for something, the table is yours for the night, no matter how long you want to stay. Yet in the U.S. its, come in, get your food, eat, and get out. The juxtaposition of lives in Istanbul is incredible and very intricate, and these are just surface level examples, let alone delving deeper and deeper in to the chasm between religiosity and secularity. It is plain to see that to exist in Istanbul one must dance a very delicate dance.