{"id":24341,"date":"2010-10-28T19:06:11","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T16:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=24341"},"modified":"2014-01-05T21:35:12","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T19:35:12","slug":"german-erasmus-student-on-life-in-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/10\/28\/german-erasmus-student-on-life-in-istanbul\/","title":{"rendered":"German erasmus student on life in Istanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0KATJA HEISE<\/span> @<\/span>Translation:\u00a0Anneka<\/span> @<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Since the start of my politics degree in 2004 at the\u00a0Philipps University of Marburg, I knew that after a few years I would be going abroad for a semester as an erasmus university exchange student. However, it wouldn\u2019t be to the traditional destinations likeSpain, England\u00a0or\u00a0Holland. I wanted to go a bit further away, somewhere a bit more exotic. In the list of universities which Marburg has an exchange agreement with I spotted the\u00a0USA, Canada\u00a0and even\u00a0South Africa. Right at the bottom of the list nestled\u00a0Istanbul. I knew it straightaway – that\u2019s where I wanted to\u00a0go.<\/p>\n

Living alone in a big\u00a0city<\/h2>\n

As my plane begins to descend above Istanbul at\u00a0Atat\u00fcrk airport, I get briefly scared. As quick as lightning, everything that could go wrong entered my head. After all, this is my first time in Turkey and I don\u2019t speak a word of Turkish. \u2018Everyone speaks English there anyway,\u2019 my erasmus coordinator had promised me. Far from it! Arriving in the girls\u2019 dorm, I am welcomed by three smiling, friendly ladies who give me a strong Turkish coffee to drink, but no-one speaks a word of English. As no other solution comes to mind, I sign a list of dorm rules without understanding its content. That\u2019ll probably turn out okay, I think to myself, until later a student from Estonia explains that I signed a document agreeing to an 8pm curfew, accepting that no visitors are allowed and especially male visits are strictly banned. What\u2019s more, I live with five other girls in one room, and unfortunately no-one speaks English here either. It\u2019s bed to bed on an area measuring 20 square metres. The possession and consumption of alcohol and cigarettes are strictly punished. That isn\u2019t what most young European exchange students expect from their erasmus semester. But erasmus stands for a bit of studying in another country and a great deal of partying, partying and\u00a0partying.<\/p>\n

Bei meiner Ankunft bekomme ich kurz Angst\u2026 ich spreche kein Wort T\u00fcrkisch |\u00a0\u00a9Objektivist\/flickr<\/em><\/p>\n

Unlike in Germany, the young people have a very intense relationship with their elders, even throughout their twenties. Parents are informed if a student would like to go out or stay out the night. There are also mentors. \u2018Ablas\u2019 are older boys and \u2018abi\u2019 are older girls who the younger students can talk to, but they also watch out a little that their prot\u00e9g\u00e9s apply themselves primarily to uni. This system in German dorms would be absolutely unthinkable. Whether that\u2019s a good thing or not is open to debate. I\u2019ve led more than a heated discussion about whether and when young people should be sent out \u2018alone\u2019 into life \u2013 it\u2019s common when you start your degree in Germany. However, I haven\u2019t witnessed lonely, insecure and often completely overwhelmed young people in Istanbul. Being alone in a big city and not coping without familiar surroundings nor fitting in after a while is sadly more common in\u00a0Germany.<\/p>\n

Political\u00a0discussions<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m spending my exchange semester at\u00a0Fatih University, a conservative private university far from the city centre. In Marburg the lecturers take their time and are available at any moment for one-on-one talks. However at Fatih friendships with the professors develop quickly; you drink coffee together and are on first-name terms with each other. That gives lots of scope for discussions, about politics for example, which are a great deal more controversial than what you\u2019re used to at home.Why democracy? Military dictatorship can govern the state affairs a lot better, argues one politics lecturer at\u00a0Istanbul university. My initial reaction is speechlessness, then rage as I end up trying to convince by arguing \u2013 sometimes with mostly a little\u00a0success.<\/p>\n

Read our series of erasmus accounts of Istanbul from\u00a0Yeditepe<\/span> and\u00a0Halic\u00a0universities<\/span><\/p>\n

I learn how to explain my arguments and points of view from their foundations: \u2018Why should a popular sovereignty be so good, then?\u2019 In Istanbul I\u2019m learning to challenge my own view of life and not to see words like \u2018democracy\u2019 and \u2018human rights\u2019 as a universal goal. \u2018The military in Turkey has always catered for peace and stability,\u2019 my lecturer argues. \u2018If a civil war threatens a country, these aims are the first priority.\u2019 It occurs to me that my ideas of right and wrong are meant for my own little world, to an alarmingly high degree at that. There\u2019s not only one solution. Truths are always just results of initial situations and therefore can\u2019t apply either absolutely or universally. It\u2019s a shame\u00a0actually.<\/p>\n

Women in\u00a0Istanbul<\/h2>\n

A German notes women treated with respect in Istanbul | Headscarfed or not, they take on open gestures in public identifiable to a European public<\/em>As many as\u00a017 millioninhabitants live in the Turkish metropolis. The social heterogeneity of Turkey is reflected in this crowd of people. Everything is here: in the city centre for example, life runs riot. Alcohol is allowed on the street, transvestites sit in Starbucks, Turkish girls wear mini-skirts. \u2018It\u2019s more European than in Europe,\u2019 joke the Turks about the party mile in Taksim, a square leading to the heart of Istanbul. The people here believe in the maxim of the founder of Turkey, Atat\u00fcrk; a statue of him marks the middle of the square. It\u2019s the alignment of Turkey to the west for prosperity and modernity. The people who I meet on the street think that islam is \u2018outdated\u2019 and that European is\u00a0\u2018in\u2019.<\/p>\n

<\/object>Taksim square, Istanbul | Protestors and party people alike meet her, such as to celebrate Michael Jackson\u2019s life (October\u00a02009)<\/em><\/p>\n

I take a seat on a bus and travel an hour eastwards to an entirely different Istanbul. Tower block after tower block line up as far as the eye can see, where the residential complexes of the Turkish middle class are spread. A Turkish woman explains that arranged marriages are the best marriages, and that women are too sensitive for the world on their doorstep. There are hardly any women to be seen at all on the street. If so, they are veiled, although headscarves are banned in public buildings. In Istanbul, the Turkish women have a trick to still cover their hair: the headscarf stays on but they wear a wig over it. That looks often very strange, but it\u2019s generally accepted. Apart from that, women are treated with a lot of respect. On the bus, free seats always go to female passengers and sometimes even the seats next to them stay free. When I am with my fellow students for a stroll or going out, not one man looks me in the eye or approaches me. I want to smile to the waiter who serves us an ice cream, but I\u2019m completely ignored. The first time it\u2019s weird and I\u2019m a bit hurt. But when I understand that disregarding a woman is a sign of respect, I see it differently. It feels actually pretty good\u00a0even.<\/p>\n

An erasmus semester in Istanbul is an incredibly rewarding experience. You should brace yourself for a little adaptability, but I have to see Istanbul again. It\u2019ll be as soon as next year, as I\u2019ll be writing my master\u2019s thesis about islamic influences in Turkish domestic policy. That kind of research would work better on the\u00a0ground.<\/p>\n

Images: \u00a9Leif; \u00a9Objektivist; \u00a9boublis\/ all courtesy of Flickr\/ video: \u00a9justuur\/\u00a0Youtube<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0KATJA HEISE @Translation:\u00a0Anneka @ Since the start of my politics degree in 2004 at the\u00a0Philipps University of Marburg, I knew that after a few years I would be going abroad for a semester as an erasmus university exchange student. However, it wouldn\u2019t be to the traditional destinations likeSpain, England\u00a0or\u00a0Holland. I wanted to go a bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":24342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}