Sean's Take on Turkey

My friend Sean LaFreniere was partly the subject of my last post and he left a long reponse in the comments section, answering me as well as some critics.

Hey everyone, as the subject of this post I thought it might be time for a comment…
First, I’m not nearly as much of a “babe-in-the-woods” as Michael makes me out to be, but for dramatic effect I am happy to let that go.
I asked about alcohol as in “do you have a full bar?” as opposed to just beer and wine. I was not shocked to find alcohol in Istanbul, but I was a bit surprised to find it in the boonies way outside of town.
I didn’t bolt from the transsexual hookers in prude fear, but in the realization that they were shoe-horning us in, literally, in preparation to slam us with a bar bill that we could not afford. I played up the, “oh, my, look at the time” gag as a way to give Mike an excuse to leave (since he was buying the drinks).
And Mike might want to clarify that we grew up in small-town Salem, Oregon and our friends in Portland include a large portion of this group as well. Portland is indeed one of the most educated and literate big cities in America (look up the stats on your own). We have more book stores and higher library use per capita than any other major city and a larger than average portion of new immigrants have advanced degrees. However, book smarts are no substitute for travel, and that was the point of Mike’s post [in the comments section – MJT] and with which I strongly agree.
I studied European and Mid East history and religion as an undergrad and have been to Europe a few times before now. However, living for an extended term in Europe has been an eye-opener and visiting the Mid East for my first time blew my mind, so to speak.
I worked with Muslims in Portland and studied the Koran even before 9-11. I have a particular interest in Middle East history and culture… in fact I was one of the first people Mike ever met to begin discussing the Mid East.
I know that Istanbul was a world-class city, I also know that there is a vast difference between the rural and urban portions of any country, and I expected Turkey to compare well (as a prospective EU member and one of the WWI powers) with Europe… However, I was STILL surprised, as Mike notes, at how “normal” western Turkey was (the eastern half is an entirely different matter).
I commute through the largest Muslim neighborhood in Copenhagen right now. I see women in veils and even burkas daily. I also eat more shwarma than is probably good for my health. And my architecture project this term was to design a Muslim neighborhood in CPH, complete with a mosque and a souk. So I was very interested in visiting a Mid East country (and I wanted to see Michael) and Istanbul was within my budget for airfare.
What I was most surprised by was that W. Turkey is less conservative than Muslim Copenhagen. I was also humorously surprised that Tuborg (Danish beer) is perhaps the most common brand in Turkey (given the Danish cartoon controversy). I also laughed to see a post-card from Anatolia showing a woman in a skimpy thong on the beach. I expected Turkey to be modern, but not quite this liberal.
One of my realizations this year is that Scandinavia, which boasts of less than 10% church attendance, is much MORE religious than we Americans are led to believe. This Easter weekend the streets of were rolled up and put in storage. Everything was quiet and churches were busy (ok, they often lure Danes inside with coffee and music, but heh).
Meanwhile, I was rather surprised to see the call of muezzins mostly ignored in even rural Turkey. I was also a bit surprised at how rare veils and head scarves were. And Mike understated the sexy dress and dancing in the Istanbul disco and we found the same in mid sized towns as well. It seems that maybe the polls and surveys paint them as more observant than they really are?
So, that is my thought of the week… Europe may be under-reporting their religiosity, while the Mid East may be over-reporting theirs.