[EXPAT VOICE] Funny things Americans say about Turkey and Turks say about America

“They aren’t Arabs,” I laughed. “They’re Turks.” Records of the Turkic peoples date back to at least the sixth century and maybe as far back as 1328 B.C. in China, I explained, noting that Turks comprise about 190 million people worldwide, compared to about 300 million Arab people worldwide.

My relative corrected herself. “I’ve heard that Muslims are surprisingly hospitable,” she said, generalizing about the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims from my report of Turkish hospitality. That’s kind of like a foreigner thinking that Americans and Christians are one and the same. Not all Turks are Muslim, just as not all Americans are Christian, I explained. There are plenty of secular or semi-secular Turks, just as there are plenty of secular and semi-secular Americans. To be honest, if you had asked me in March 2009 what’s the capital of Turkey, I would not have given the correct answer. The capital is Ankara, not İstanbul, I now explain to friends back home in America.

Almost the only images of Turkey in my mind’s eye came from movies such as “Midnight Express,” about a 19-year-old American thrown into a Turkish prison that it turns out was highly sensationalized and inaccurate. I vaguely remembered that several James Bond movies, notably “From Russia with Love,” were filmed partly in Turkey.

I knew Turkey was Muslim, and I was vaguely aware of where it was located, at the bottom of Europe and on the border of Asia and the Middle East. Now, after living in Turkey for six months, I laugh at our (Americans) naiveté and ignorance of Turkey and of the diversity in this primarily Muslim society.

When friends learned that my wife, son and I were moving to Turkey, they said things like:

“Wow -- that’s incredible, that’s radical. That’s like going to live on Mars.”

“You’ll be able to take a second wife, or five more wives!”

The Turks roll their eyes at this stereotype, as they long ago outlawed polygamy. “It is hard enough to be married to one wife. If we have five wives, we will die,” a Turkish man told me emphatically.

Other American questions:

“Will you be living in a tent in the desert, riding a camel to work?”

“Will your wife have to wear a veil?”

“If your son takes something that isn’t his, will his hand be cut off?”

“Be careful -- watch your step around those Muslims and Arabs!”

There aren’t many images of Turkey in American culture, hence its image blurs and merges with the more dramatic, even radical, images transmitted from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’ve tried to explain Turkey’s secular yet Islamic culture to Americans by making parallels to what they know about the more religious parts of America. “Turkey is like Utah [where Mormon Christians dominate], except more secular,” I say. Seeing pictures of our life here in Turkey posted online, my friends and family in America make observations like these:

“Wow -- that’s amazing. They have such modern buildings and cars, and Burger King!”

In Turkey, the physical artifacts of civilization go back 5,000 years or more, and in America, in most places, the history goes back no more than a couple of hundred years. Objectively speaking, wouldn’t living in America, the New World, be more like Mars?

If Turks take offense at these ignorant slurs, it would be understandable. But they shouldn’t take it personally. We Americans have historically been quite isolated and don’t know much about any part of the world beyond our own borders. In fact, many Americans don’t know much about their own vast country beyond their own town or city. One survey indicated 13 percent of Americans think El Salvador is in Louisiana.

When one friend was moving south from New York City to North Carolina, she received questions such as, “How can you move to a place where most people are poor, uneducated, racist bigoted rednecks?” The New Yorkers were unaware that part of North Carolina has the highest concentration of people with graduate degrees in the nation.

Of course, Americans aren’t alone in their false impressions. After nearly six months in Turkey, I’ve heard Turkish students make funny and outlandish observations about America and Americans, such as, “Turkey is bigger than America,” “Turkey’s army is bigger and better than America’s army” and “American parents don’t like their children.” Several Turkish students have asked me, with a look of revulsion on their faces, if I “like to eat pig.” Yes, of course, I reply. “Do you like to eat spiders?” This often leads to good English lessons on culture shock or strange foods from around the world.

This all reminds me of the good advice I read in an article from Today’s Zaman about a 65-year-old man who has bicycled across Turkey as well as Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and Syria on and off for 19 years. “I traveled to many cities,” he said. “I met many people. I realized that people were living in their own shells looking at the world from a small window. But life is not how they see it. There are tastes never tasted, places never visited and views never seen. The world is big. Life is beautiful.”

He has made friends everywhere, and he gives them all the same advice. “You must absolutely make the effort to visit places you’ve never seen before. Not everything is about money. A person can travel without money. I am taking pleasure in life, what about you?”