"we're all living here in ..."

If you read my entry about landing at Istanbul's Sabiha Gökchen airport last August, you’ll know that the night I flew in to Turkey was a pretty exciting one for me.

Five hours after the breathtaking touchdown in Istanbul, I jumped onto my connecting flight and landed in Ankara at about 1am. From there I was whisked into the city and off to my new on-campus accommodation at Bilkent University, where I would be living and working for the next two years.

For most of that evening, and for a few days following, I kept hearing one tune on repeat in my brain. It was a bastardised version of Rammstein's America, and it went like this:

We're all living here in Ankara,

In Ankara it's wunderbar

We're all living here in Ankara,

In Ankara, in Ankaraaaaaaa

Of course this begs an obvious question: "So, is Ankara actually 'wunderbar'?"

Well, after ten months in the city, I wish I could answer that with an unequivocal and resounding "Yes!". But unfortunately, the truth is a bit more complicated ...

See, the word wunderbar (like its English equivalent) is what grammarians and language teachers call a 'strong adjective'. This is basically any descriptive word that could be replaced by "very very" plus a 'normal' adjective. So enormous, for example, is a strong adjective, because it means 'very very big'. Furious is a strong adjective meaning 'very very angry', starving is the strong form of hungry, exhausted of tired, and so on it goes.

The thing is, I don't know anyone who would use strong adjectives to describe this city. I mean, if you asked me "Is Ankara nice?", then I'd probably say "Yeah, it's quite nice I s'pose". But wonderful? No. That would just draw accusations of sarcasm from anyone who's been here.

In fact, if you ask the locals what they think, the word which comes up most often is "boring". They say things like "Go down and see Izmir; it's a much more interesting city", or "You should fly to Istanbul every weekend – the tickets are really cheap". They're full of recommendations about parts of Turkey which are far more interesting than its capital.

If you think about it, that's kind of remarkable. I mean, how many places have you been where the residents run down their home town and talk up other cities in the same country? Generally it's the other way around, isn't it? But Ankara seems to be the exception – the locals here are intent on shooing you off to other bits of Turkey as urgently as they can.

Personally, though, I wouldn't be so harsh on poor old Ankara. Or I might, if I'd had a really bad day ... but generally no.

One frequent criticism that I do agree with, however, concerns the 'mall mania' that has this city in its grip. Wherever you are in Ankara, there's a fair chance your view will contain at least one Retail Temples, ludicrously oversized and exuding faux prestige.

SHOPPING TEMPLE

Kızılay District, Ankara, 01.09.13

The riots that occurred here last summer took place in an area of town called Kızılay, in which the main feature is a small park with some fountains, over- shadowed by the mall you can see above. Shaped like the front end of an enormous cargo ship, at night it lights up and you can see people sipping their double whip mochaccinos on the fourth or fifth floor, displayed through full-length windows to ensure that every mouthful of whipped cream is consumed in full view of the thousands of ant-like pedestrian folk below. It's kind of revolting, I must say.

As December 25th approaches, something even more ridiculous happens: Ankara's malls do Christmas. Bear in mind that this is, of course, a Muslim country, so nobody here attaches supreme spiritual significance to the supposed birth of ol' Jeezums. It's purely and simply an opportunity to get tacky(er).

Our local shopping centre had a wonderful fake fir tree out front, with almost life-sized models of polar bears and penguins carousing around its base. It was a first in the world of nature, since – being from opposite poles – these two creatures had never before come face to face. But in Turkish malls, dreams can come true. The only question is "Whose dreams?", and frankly, the answer to that is just too disturbing to contemplate.

Yet despite the best efforts of national and multinational corporations to make Ankara hideous to the eye, it does occasionally surprise you. Both the climate and the geography make for some beautiful scenes.

FROST-COVERED BERRY TREES

Bilkent District, Ankara, 21.12.13

In winter the temperature hovers around zero, and instead of loads of snow, what you tend to get is thick morning frosts and blankets of opaque fog. When the frost clings to trees and plants, the result is a gallery of fabulous abstract shapes, delicate and powdery in some places and spiky crystalline in others.

The fog, meanwhile, can reduce visibility to a few metres, which (apart from finally slowing down these psychotic fucking Turkish drivers) lends the whole place a genuinely mysterious atmosphere. Up on our hill, on Bilkent Uni's East Campus, the feeling is one of being marooned, sequestered away from the world in a wintery shadowland. It is, on occasion, rather wonderful.

On the day when I took the photo above, the sun's late appearance just happened to coincide with a call to prayer, which echoed through the valley as this beautiful scene greeted me from my balcony. It was one of those moments when I feel incredibly glad to be living in a foreign country :-)

And then later in the year, the urban wildlife makes its appearance. For me, this has been a highlight – just on my lojmanlar and my campus, I've seen hedgehogs, turtles, a fox, peregrine falcons (a family of them is nesting near us, and they've put on some spectacular flying displays), bats who quietly chirrup at night, hawks hunting on the adjacent hillside ... and then, just a few nights ago, an owl flew past my building in full view. It was fucking awesome.*  

Ankara has one or two architectural highlights as well, including the mosque above, which you pass as you head out of the centre and towards our neighbourhood. I used to call it 'Mosque Vegas', until I noticed that, from a certain angle, its shape bears a striking resemblance to that of a landmark in my home town. So now it's 'The Sydney Harbour Mosque' ;-)

The city is also reasonably close to some rather fabulous destinations, not the least of which is Cappadocia. I went down there for a flying visit last November, and was suitably blown away by the amazing 'fairy chimneys' that were home to various ancient folk as much as 4,000 years ago. But that trip is almost certain not to be my last; it was just a foretaste of a more extensive tour to come. So I'll wait until I've done said tour before doing the "Wow, Cappadocia!" rant :-)

Back in the 'real world' of Ankara, there's also the occasional little insight to be gained from living in a nominally Islamic country. Ankara is in fact one of Turkey's least 'religious' cities, but still, you do see interesting details – like this rather mystical-looking billboard, produced by a tourist agency to advertise their hajj* package tours.

(This was hastily snapped with my phone camera, on a fast-moving city bus. Hence the crap quality.)

It's not that this is a huge revelation or anything – I mean, obviously there are companies that offer 'hajj trips'. How could there not be, given that an average of two million people attend each year from all around the world? In fact there are even airlines who fly special 'hajj flights', and Mecca's flight paths are designed to cope with the increase in traffic at that time of year. It's just, y'know, not a thing that I never expected to see advertised. I'm not sure why.

On the other side of that coin is the strange situation with alcohol - not now so much, but in Turkey's history. The national drink is rakı, a spirit-strength, anise-based concoction either drunk straight or mixed with water. Students and others have told me that, for the authentic Turkish experience, rakı should be accompanied by anchovies (which I'm told originate here) and melancholic music.

A while ago I did a class activity object of which was for students to explain what kinds of things make them feel happy. In the course of this activity, one student explained to me that the combination of theses three things (the rakı, the "little fish" and the music), Turks can derive a special kind of "pleasure through pain".

"Cool", I thought.

But the most interesting thing about rakı is that, until the recent privatisation of Tekel (a huge government owned distillery firm), the Turkish state had a monopoly on its production. This struck me as extremely interesting. For one thing, I'd just re-read Nineteen Eighty Four, throughout which the characters drink a state-produced liquor called 'Victory Gin' to numb the increasing privations of their daily existence. But more to the point, the idea of a government producing an alcoholic drink (and rather a lethal one at that!) in a majority Muslim country was, like so many things you learn in the Islamic world, a flat contradiction of what we outsiders think we 'know' about it.

In discussing life in any part of Turkey, though, by far the most important thing to mention is the Turkish people – because honestly, they really couldn't be much nicer or more welcoming. Those who live in other parts of the country consider Ankara's residents to be cold, standoffish, and perpetually in too much of a hurry to give a damn about anyone else ... because this, after all, is the fast-paced and soulless 'government town'. (Interesting side note: students here have told me that in Turkey, public service jobs are the most stressful, because of the sense of duty and responsibility attached to 'working for the Republic'.) But personally, I haven't found the natives to be any of those things. They're kind, cheerful and laidback; they see the funny side of life's everyday mix-ups (something that many folks in Ukraine could learn from); they're extremely patient with foreigners and, on the whole, it's a great pleasure to live among them.

Except that I'm not living among them. And therein lies one of the biggest problems of being here.

See, when I accepted this job, the term 'campus life' seemed rather appealing. What it amounts to, though, is existing in a bubble where all your neighbours are foreigners, and where, unless you make a special effort, you could easily survive two years here without meeting a single Turk apart from security guards and cashiers at the local supermarket. Add to that the long hours of work, and the fact that our university is in quite a remote corner of the city which is poorly served by transport, and you've got a fairly sterile, 'non-Turkish' experience.

This is quite a unique situation in my career as an ESL teacher. In every other teaching job I've had (except, for obvious reasons, the one in Sydney), you walk out your front door every morning to be greeted by a foreign country. Now, granted, there are days when you're just not in the mood for that. I reck'n it happens about once every three or four weeks – that day when you wake up just wishing that you could solve life's simple daily problems as most people do ... i.e. simply, and on the same day. But those are the exceptions. Generally speaking, the 'walk-out-your-door-into-a-foreign-land' effect is exactly why I do this. And by "this", I mean my life.

I'm not the only teacher here thinking about how to get more of a cultural experience than 'campus life' can offer. Certainly, every time I've managed to escape from the bubble, I've been in awe of Turkey. It's an absolutely brilliant country, packed solid with fascinating history, rich and varied culture, stunning scenery, mouth-watering cuisine, thriving traditional crafts, and a hundred other delights (no pun intended). For all those reasons – and despite missing the 'stans almost daily – I'm very keen to experience more of it.

So ... where does all of this leave me in relation to Ankara? Well, as it happens, I can answer that quite simply: I'm leaving. Two months from now I'll be in another corner of Turkey, living in a real suburb full of real Turkish people. And also right next to a volcano.

Obviously I'll let you know how it goes ...

See you :-)


* Did I mention I'm also a part-time bird nerd?
** The Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, which every able-bodied Muslim is encouraged to perform at least once during their lifetime.