Turkey by Czech students

AFRE trip to Turkey Hello everyone, We are happy to introduce you a set of reflections and observations of differences between the Czech Republic and Turkey. There were four of us students in our group (Ales, Denisa, Kristýna, Karolína and Libuše) and this is what we noticed was different. We hope you are going to enjoy reading and comparing our notices as much as we enjoyed the whole “Turkish” experience.

Czech group in front of a mosque (by Dagmar Milotová) 1.

General information We were really excited about our trip to Turkey because had not known what to expect. We

were familiar with the situation in Turkey. However, it is always different to hear about something and then really experience it. And for that we were looking forward to meeting new people and taste new culture (or we should better say taste Turkish food).

Turkey is a beautiful country placed with its main part out of Europe. The south of Turkey is very different from the north-west (e.g. Istanbul). Firstly, it seems a bit poorer, intolerant, chaotic and generally more similar to Syria, Iraq etc. White people are something very unusual there. It makes you feel like a celebrity. We realize that it sounds funny, however, when you walk down the street and strangers ask you about your country, language and what more they want to take picture of you, that really makes you feel special.

When we arrived, EVERYTHING seemed different. Overall it was hard for us to find out more about Turkey and its traditions because even when our hosts tried to show us as many traditional things as possible, when we had questions they usually were not able to answer because of their poor English.

One thing you notice immediately when you get to Turkey is that they are patriots. A very important thing is that their idol Atatürk is almost everywhere. On stamps, postcards, households, bureau offices, restaurants, toilets (!), streets, facebook accounts etc. It seemed strange to us because we do not honour our late presidents this way.

It means that the national flag and the portrait of their beloved former president can be seen VERY often. As Ales says: “The flags! Oh my God, the flags... they were pretty much everywhere!”

The flag! (by Alessandro Transilvani)

We went to the very east of Turkey. The landscape is close to what you can see in Greece or Israel. It is dry with lack of grass and few trees only.

The colour you see when you look at it from the plane is sand beige or brick brown. And although it is possible to visit beautiful mountains in Turkey the country is flat most of the time.

Landscape (by Denisa Sedláčková) Another interesting thing we noticed is that there still is a big construction boom. As we travelled through the city of Gaziantep we saw hundreds of construction sites around the peripheries of the city. In fact there was no big financial crisis as in the USA or EU and other parts of the world.

Turkey experienced a crisis a decade ago and since that time its economy is going very well. The Turks we asked about it ensured us we were right.

2.

Mosques When driving through cities, it felt very different for us

to see mosques whit their minarets everywhere. In the Czech Republic, we are used to seeing churches.

A mosque (by Kristýna Vaňková)

3.

Food and drinks Food in Turkey looks and also tastes very unfamiliar. It took us a little while to get used to the

new taste. Also, it is important to note and warn our countrymen that the taste was really unpredictable: what looked sweet turned up to be cheese and innocent-looking dishes were heavily spiced… Moreover, Turkish people (according to their religion) do not eat pork and this explains why they eat lots of lamb instead (how many times a year does an average Czech eat lamb?

Well, rarely any…). Grilled vegetable and tons of different kinds of spices are also very popular.

Turkish mix (by Libuše Vykydalová) There are two groups of sweets in Turkey. Group one is extremely sweet and group two has almost no taste. This or that way, pistachios are in everything.

We fell in love with Turkish rice. Unfortunately we cannot describe the taste as was so different from ours and tasted great! Also, the Turks eat much more vegetables and fruits than we do and these are sweeter and tastier. “I love melons so I was pleased to eat them all the time,” said Kristýna. And really we got to eat lots of melons. There were also little green plums that could be eaten with salt. That is different from us because our plums are purple-blue and we eat them just as they are.

And the tea… Turkish tea is very tasty and is drunk from little glasses of a rather funny shape.

As much as it might sound weird to drink tea in a country of hot climate like Turkey, it was fine and very good.

The tea (by Libuše Vykydalová) To avoid health problems, we were encouraged to drink only bottled water which is available not only in bottles but also in little plastic cups (which reminded us of those the Czechs use for yogurt).

If you want to buy ice cream on the street, you will not get a scoop like in Europe. Turkish ice cream is being cut to pieces by stick and that forms its shape.

What surprised us probably the most, was that Turkish people serve coffee before they go to bed.

About 10 or 12 pm. We were shocked when they offered us coffee before midnight because in our country we drink coffee for breakfast or after lunch but usually not less than 4 hours before we go to bed.

Coffee (by Jiří Vocilka) In restaurants, there is a lot of waiters (usually about 6 men, no waitresses) who take care of you. It was very comfortable and we enjoyed it. Compared to this, what we get in the Czech Republic is more like a “serve yourself” service. Also, when you go for a coffee, a water pipe is a common following social event.

4.

Traffic The Turkish traffic was scary: we could not get used to the high speed they drive. They kept

beeping all the time and they never used seat belts. The police in our country is very strict about seat belts so we were surprised that it was okay not to wear them. And also, on our roads we only use claxon when there is something dangerous. In Turkey, they beep and they still seem to be relaxed.

“The chaos on the streets was kind of what I experience in Italy but more radical,” said Ales. The "time-to-green" counters impressed us. While waiting at a red, the lights above show you how long you will have to wait for the green man. Over semaphores, they have stop-watches that measure time when is red and when is green. Red there is usually 1 minute and green there is about 10 seconds.

When you go by Turkish bus, you do not pay for tickets when you enter. You are going to pay when ride is in progress. It means that your money may be passed from the very back of the bus to the front and be held by all passengers sitting closer to the driver.

The rolling stock is below the European average. We guess that the average age of Turkish rolling stock is over 18 years. We saw lots of Fiats, Peugeots and Renaults, Fords and also Škodas but only few Japanese and Korean cars. Also, in Turkey, gas is very expensive.

Sometimes it gets over 2€ per litre. “Now I know why are all the highways (with tollbooths) empty,” said Ales.

In Turkey it is very popular to ride a motorcycle.

Generally speaking, we could say they are “relaxed” about the traffic (an example: a standard scooter carrying four people and no one seemed to worry about it).

A car and a mosque with western travellers (by Dagmar Milotová)

5.

Art The host school gave a concert on the

very first day of our stay. And we did enjoy it!

Turkish music is so different. Not just their musical instruments but also their voices. We could appreciate it because we attend a school specialising arts. The concert really was a beautiful experience.

The concert (by Denisa Sedláčková) Turkish traditional dance is quite simple, accompanied by drum and trumpet (very loud). We could see that Turkish people like to dance anywhere possible. Mall, bus, whenever there is music, they dance.

Turkish dancers (by Libuše Vykydalová) We noticed that in the school, there were a lot of specific paintings (in contrast to our country where we are also familiar with abstract paintings).

6.

People and communication Generally said, people of Turkey are friendly. They are hospitable, helpful and they keep

smiling. We miss that in the Czech Republic! They are also loud and seem to enjoy their lives. I liked that because at home we do not see people smile or chat this way.

As mentioned above they are patriots. With passionate love for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

They were really lovely to us as their guests but not all Turkish men were that pleasant to meet. As Karolína said: “I wanted to get out of an airplane but I just could not because there was a man who did not want to let me go. I was angry and surprised that no one gave me the way.”

According to the fact that English is not a required subject at most of the schools, Turkish students were not brilliant at it. That created complications but eventually we managed. It was a pity though because there could have been more conversation among us. Instead we only smiled.

And what is worse, besides students, we did not find many people speaking English. Usually people gave us strange looks when they found out that we came to Turkey knowing only a few words in their language. When talking to Turkish citizens, we also noticed that they use a different sign language. It was surprising but we got used to it.

Probably the most surprising Turkish habit is kissing when saying “hello”. Girls in the Czech Republic do it too but to see two men kissing on cheeks seemed strange to us.

We saw a lot of people smoking. Czech people smoke too but not as much as those in Turkey.

What some of Czech students found funny was that next to a warning on a cigarette box such as “smoking kills” was also placed a picture with what exactly can smoking do.

The Turks have numerous families – one pair usually have about five kids. The “head” of family is the father. In Turkey, they are very hospitable.

7.

Clothing We noticed that the Turks love to wear shirts. And why not? Shirts look nice (girls could tell).

But our boys rather wear t-shirts especially in hot summer days. The weird thing (for us) is they also wear vests under everything.

Next thing was the veiling. We knew it was not obligatory so we kept observing and comparing during the whole trip and we think it is fifty fifty. It really depends in what part of Turkey you are. In Gaziantep, young women do not wear them so often but when we go more to the south (e. g. Antakya), it gets a little bit more "popular".

The veiling (by Kristýna Vaňková) 8.

Organization Turkish people do not seem to have a concept of time or at least they must have a big

problems with it. The lunch and the dinner time is the only time they know (and the dinner time is not specified as it is usually around the sunset).

We noticed that our hosts did not need so many hours of sleep as we did. Maybe it was because of what food they eat (healthy and nutritious). It may not seem important but as much as we loved the program, we were exhausted most of the time (see the picture).

Czech group exhausted by the Turkish sense of time (by Jiří Vocilka)

Getting new friends (by Libuše Vykydalová) What we found bothering while being in Turkey was that we never could go anywhere alone.

I know that it was for our protection and I was thankful that the Turkish students were willing to accompany us but it felt strange to keep having someone with us all the time.

Another thing that we had to get used to was listening to Turkish music all the time. As mentioned above, it is very different. However, our hosts enjoyed it and listened to it all the time. So that is how we learned a Turkish word “ses” (which means “voice” and when they shout it, they mean “louder, please”).

9.

Students and holidays Children go to school by a small school bus where they listen to Turkish music, which is loud

and has the same melody or rhythm.

Holidays take three months during which time the students feel free to meet round the school and have picnics.

Turkish

host

students

(by

Alessandro

Transilvani)

10.

Shopping We found out that to exchange money in a bank takes

insanely long time especially because people are not familiar with English.

The traditional Turkish market is called “bazaar” and we enjoyed shopping there especially when we learned how to bargain with the sellers. It was interesting to see the small shops overfilled with different stuff. We also noticed a “delivery” man who distributed tea to sellers in the stores.

The bazaar (by Denisa Sedláčková) We were surprised by the security check whenever we wanted to enter the mall. We had never seen anything like that but we could understand that was because of our safety. Furthermore we noticed they do not use price tags in their shop windows.

11.

Housing First thing you notice when looking at a typical Turkish block of flats is that they keep water

in a barrel on their roof! So there is usually from one up to 20 barrels on one roof. To see something like this in the Czech Republic means to feel fascinated!

Blocks of flats in Turkey (by Alessandro Transilvani) Turkish flats are much bigger than our flats. A typical small Turkish flat has a living room, room for guests (dining room), room for kids and a bedroom (for parents). In our country, young couples usually live in small flats which means two or three rooms altogether. Besides the size, it is also different because of all the decorations they use.

Conclusion In the end we were so happy we could go. Even though sometimes we were exhausted or the whole situation was getting complicated, we truly enjoyed every minute of our “truly Turkish experience”.

We enjoyed comparing the differences and seeing them with our own eyes. It was great to make so many new friends and have new memories. We do not think that any of us will ever forget this interesting trip.

Thank you!

Alessandro, Denisa, Kristýna, Karolína and Libuše

Czech students (by Jiří Vocilka)