Secretly I was trying to become a real Turk.(art work very much still in progress!!)

Secretly I was trying to catch up with the things I was missing from Turkish culture. Being born and raised 3500 km away from the motherland gives you certain gaps. And I didn’t want people to “mind the gap”/my gap as one is taught collectively in the London tube and also at Kokkedal train station in the North of Sealand in Denmark (one of the only few places where I felt a bit at home=London along with Copenhagen’s many family-kebab places where they serve you ayran, crap kebabs with compelling colorless salads accompanied by Turkish pop and Anatolian folk music!!).

I wanted to fill in the gaps, so I didn’t feel uneducated/not good enough/indifferent!

If I had only been a “normal” person who only had an interest in one thing as my mother once said to me. “But no, Hulya you have a different life condition you want many things and you are interested in many things. There is really nothing you can do other than follow this difficult path of yours!” She knew me before I knew myself. And my dear little brother who once send me a link to another ethnic woman who was educated as a Kaospilot. This was something that I once wished for, but that I had never shared with him. How did he know me?!As I didn’t even really know what way to go ever in order to fulfill my desires for a carrier that I didn’t even know what was?! And I am still walking towards that something.unclear but yet clear!!

April: I have read about SIYAD in secret today The Cinema Writer’s Foundation of Turkey. I had heard about it in the Turkish conversations among “real” Turkish youth from Turkey who were doing masters and PHDs in London before, but I cant ask these friends, acquaintances about all these lacks that I have all the time. There is a bit of an embarrassment linked to this, since many “real” Turks (then am I a “fake” Turk?!) were insulting/humiliating the almancis/expats. And I couln’td really learn everything in one day. And Rome was not build in one day, I said consolidating myself, although annoyed that I had missed out on something. I even wanted to know what the toilets smelled like in the primary schools that these real Turks went to..Still I hated the day when I went to my cousin’s elementary school in Corum when I was 13. And I felt so lucky that I wasn’t going to that school where the other children were discriminating my cousin because she had just moved to Turkey after many years in France.
That was back then and living in London made me long for the gaps. And I suddenly found myself learning things that took up my interest when I needed them.

At the same time I have something from my Danish/European/Turkish Alevi village culture that my boyfriend has only learned pieces of within 3 years. Those skills I am proud of. I also learned better “real” Turkish from him.
Nevertheless there are words and proverbs in Danish that I still don’t know! This is killing me. The new words I learn I some times write down to treasure them and secretly feel annoyed that they were always there but that I didn’t know or need them until the moment they appeared..I ahte the fact that I am not “REAL” anything/any culture!!I am a mixture, a hybrid instead which I am also proud of, but still I lack this wholeness of mono-cultural peeps!
Friday the 20th of April 2012:
Tonight I read the filmography of Zeki Demirkubuz in secret as I don’t want to seem ignorant when talking about new wave Turkish films!! (and I also looked into the films of Hakan Balamir that not many “Real” Turks know about!!)=this part is my almanci background/interest in Yesilcam.

Sunday 16 september 2012:
Surfing through Besim’s photos on facebook I found new names inside the Turkish leftwingers that I didn’t know. The name is Dursun Karatas. How did I never hear this name?!

New Danish saying: “Den sad lige I skabet”. Athough a few weeks old now.. last week’s news actually.
On the 13th of august I taught my Danish friend Sine the Turkish word “Tamam” meaning ok. And I did so without being embarrassed and this was maybe the first time that I had used a Turkish word on purpose, translated it and craved to use it in a sentence. Sine responded in a way that I had never ever expected her to.It felt great!! She was my friend, I was her friend and being Turkish and using my language which I was always so scared of and embarrassed about was actually ok with her!!I was thrilled!!:)