Addiction!

I hate that word... it's just overused! My mom, my whole family and even some of my former classmates used that word to describe my hobby: being online. On my birthday, this was what I received.
And yes, sometimes all I do is being online watching some tv-shows, killing time on Facebook or MSN and just do some non-productive stuff, even on sunny days.
But that's not all I'm doing. There are now more than 20 blogs that follow regularly, including some partially scientific work about technological developments, experts sharing their ideas and thoughts through recorded speech and also socio-political news covering the controversy about homosexuality and the suffering of many Japanese and Libyans these days. That's why I consider myself not addicted, just really interested.
But it's true, my hobby didn't allow much activity outdoors. But that changed thanks to smartphones and tablet-pcs and yet parents are complaining that we bring our gadgets along. So what? For many young people just being outside without anything to do is just a waste of time, so why not combine it?
To analyze if we are addicted or not the "the world UNPLUGGED" project surveyed 1000 youngsters from 10 different countries what they experienced after just 1 day without any electronics.
"It was a difficult day… a horrible day" a Chilean participant answered. And yes, everyone would agree to that, because it was the first of a major change in one's life. And yet it is interpreted as some sign of addiction... which is just wrong.
I am not going to explain my further thoughts on this survey, that's why I ask you to do that instead? How would you feel if you took part? And do you consider yourself addicted?

Being a "Good Man"

Omegle is a website I occasionally visit, especially when I'm bored. You'll soon realize what is about: pure conversation with a total stranger. Just try it out if you want to know more about it, because this all is not about Omegle, at least not primarly.
During one of my conversations are teenage girl from Korea asked me what I did today. The first thing she said was "what a good man!" after I told her that I had been cleaning the kitchen. I was really proud for sure, but seriously sad right after. My both parents are working, from time to time me and my sister help out in their shops and we do some of the house work too, because my sister (she is 5 years older than me) made sure at some point that it's just not fair that I'm free to do anything while she is expected to do the cleaning and cooking. And she was right (and still is, of course). But this girl's reaction expresses a total discrepancy bewteen the situations of each of us.
And not olny hers. I know of many friends (both German AND Turkish, despite the common cliché that Turkish boys/men are the worst concerning this) who hardly do anything at home. And I wonder why. Mothers and sisters are complaining all over the world, but they still do not manage to change anything as long as they stay passive and let the stigma control their families and with that the whole society. So what if my friends consider housework as not suitable for men? I'm not ashamed of what I do, especially not of the reason I do it: it's because I love my Mom and my Sister just as I love my Dad, so why not help them out? Most importantly, my Dad encouraged me to do that.
A sociology studying friend of mine once told me that there studies indicate that women in Germany do less housework than before but that German men do not do any more housework. How does that work? The amount of housework stays more or less the same. Therefore it has to be shared among the people living in the same place. It is not shared at all though and the study is still true. The explanation: since people here in Germany got more and more wealthy, many women decided to let women from eastern Europe do the housework instead.
And this is why we lose, all of us. Why we won't get rid of those sweatshops and awful working conditions all over the world. Just think about it.

Coming of Age

As I mentioned in my previous entry, in many Turkish families being adult hardly makes a difference as long as you live with your parents. In this case, it's about my plans to buy a motorcycle or rather my plans to get the motorcycle driving license.
It's definitely not a matter of money, it never really is. It's more about the permission to do it. I just won't be able to move my parents to approve of my plans since they consider it to be way too dangerous (and they have a point of course). But this fear of risks is so typical for so many Turkish parents and grand-parents and aunts and uncles and so on and so on... I certainly feel honored that they care about my well-being and my health, but in some cases life just feels like a golden cage, in which I should not have any reason to complain but which is not fulfilling either.
Of course, I just could do whatever I want to, I mean, who's going to stop me? But it just does not work that way. My parents' approval is very important to me. If I choosed to have it my own way it would make my relation to my parents really weird. I definitely do not want to have that, but let's be honest: No one will always be able to be OK with their parents. Sooner or later it has to happen that one disagrees, no matter who that is.
And I think that one should not allow anyone to interfere in one's life-shaping choices. That'll be a bit different for married people or for parents themselves of course, but you know what I mean.
All this might sound like living through hell, but in most cases I can count on the support of my family and their advice and most importantly their patience regarding my mistakes.
So I guess I can live without riding a motorcycle. Maybe a motor scooter will do... which my parents still consider too dangerous...


Tell me about the topics you disagree with your parents. What does cause some tension in your family?

Babysitting at a Concert

The title actually says it all: Yesterday I was babysitting my cousins at a concert of Bruno Mars (you might know him, if you have any female teen relatives). The reason why I did that was because their parents only allowed it if an older relative was taking care of them. That's so incredibly typical for the Turkish culture and menatlity! Really! You could be 40 years old (I'm overdoing it of course) and your parents still would remind you to be careful and take care repeatedly. I was told the same yesterday, to drive careful and to maintain a slow speed (I was not only the babysitter but also the driver... I feel used).
So we arrived at 4 pm and waited for 3 hours to finally enter the hall and wait for another 2 hours only to listen his music for about 1 and a half hours... Seriously, that's bold! And I did all this only for my cousins. I had absolutely no interest in Bruno Mars' Music (which wasn't that bad after all). Of course, my cousins loved it.
What I want to say is, that the Turkish way of family is a medal with lots of joyful and big get-togethers and favors to ask on the one side, but on the other side plenty of duties and work as well.
I would never trade this in for anything else, even though it might get annoying from time to time. But that might just be my attitude towards this.


How about you? How does your family work? I guess it gets annoying in every family but in the end we manage to make it work out somehow.

Going Out

Going out always proves to be hard. At least when you're in group of Turkish youngsters, because we Turks just like to laugh and talk really loudly... it just happens. One of the main reasons might be that the groups are pretty big, counting at least 5 or 6 people every time. So it's rather natural to be loud, isn't it? Because it doesn't happen in smaller groups. But it just might be the Turkish temper after all. That'll be pretty hard to prove though...

Despite all this, I know how disturbing it can be, especially for other costumers. Having such loud group of people really is annoying for the customers and the owner as well. And that's who I feel sorry for the most: because it's the restaurant manager or the waiter who now has to maintain us as costumers, but keep us calm so we don't disturb other costumers either.

I just wanted you to know all this. It definitely does not happen out of disrespect. We just have another idea of having fun, that's all.



Did you ever experienced something similar to this? I guess it just happens when two different cultures get in touch.

Religious Holidays

Today is the day the Prophet Muhammed (Peace may be upon him!) is born. Celebrating Islamic holidays is already hard enough living in an environment where you do not too much attention on these topics because you're busy with work, school or just usual business. It gets even harder to remember the holidays or even be aware of them because the Islamic calendar is based on the Lunar Months which means that the Islamic calendar is 11 days shorter than the worldwide used Gregorian calendar.

This causes an annual shift for any given holiday or event  related to Islam so that it gets even harder to remember them.

Happy holiday for all the Muslims all over the world! And thanks a lot to all those reading this!
I'll gladly answer your questions about this or any other topic. Just let me know about them.

I'm not going to

I'm not going to use "Lost in Translation" as the title for this entry, since it might cause a wrong assumption, because I never saw this movie, but it's going to be about exactly this: how language, poetry or proverbs are lost in translation.

Joseph Brodsky claims that "Poetry is gained in translation", when we consider translation as a transformative act. He might be right, accounting his profession and that he was able to speak several languages fluently.
But for average person (even though none of us is average) it's a bit different. I just lack the ability to do that. It's nearly impossible to translate a simple Turkish proverb into German, let alone English. The same goes the other way round of course.

That's one thing that really annoys me (and surely others too) living in a multi-cultural place. It's challenging every single time to explain the details of my culture and religion. That does not mean that I'm tired of doing it though. I'll keep on doing it as long as others ask and as long as they want to listen.

So thanks for your attention! Did you ever experience something similar?