After the first part of the faq (frequently asked questions) turkey series, it seems curiosity about turks & turkey does not decrease. At least, to continue the series, I have a bunch of interesting (!) questions. So let's reply them all.

Do you celebrate Christmas ?

Well, Christmas is a holy day for the Christian community, so if we consider Turkey is  known as a Muslim country, Christmas is not a big deal. But there are increasing number of Santa Klaus and red thong promotions commercially. Besides that, although it is not recognized as a holiday country-wide, any Christian is free to live his/her own Christmas experience in Turkey, as well.

Turkish people do not believe in Jesus, right ?

Yes, as you mean Muslims by Turkish people, we do believe in Jesus. Only difference is the main prophet is known as Muhammed and it's believed that Jesus is not the son of the God and he was not crucified. That's the belief according to Islam.

Are you also circumcised like the Jew ?

Yes and don't worry, it is just the foreskin :) If you wonder more about the operation, Wikipedia may help you here. Plus, this is also considered as a health operation as well which non-Muslim or non-Jew people can also have.

You don't like the Greeks ?

This is a big bullshit. Historically and politically two countries have some conflicts, that's true. But we are talking about the citizens of two countries which have almost same traditions, culture, cuisine, etc...So this country HATE country couplings stayed in primary school history books, I guess.

Are you allowed to marry up to 4 women ?

Turkey is, also, a democratic Republic. For your info !

Turkish guys do not want to have a serious relationship with foreigner girls ?

Well, I am aware that Turkish guys do not have the greatest reputation especially in West Europe. This has some unfortunate reasons. But this again depends on the person you have met. For the girls : Just try to be a bit smart and get to know your guy, it's independent from the nation.

to be continued...

I don't know how it is going on in your town, but here in Bucharest, people are almost ready for a Christmas & New Year time with their beloved ones. On one hand, it's suprising how people are on a momentary party mood, on the other hand it's nice to see a "totally moving" period. Well they will be back on 1st of January :)

And this is the 4th year that I am posting here. There have been 108 posts through those 4 years trying to leave a "memento" from my trippie experiences. I did not start it to earn money - well I am not that blogger either - , I did not have millions of readers - monthly 1.000 pageviews actually - and I had different kinds of contributions - some gave me a big support, some just made jokes about -.

Now, closing another year full of surprises for me, I want to save another "next year" list here to check at the end of 2011. Here comes my list for next year, let's see which ones will be ticked.

1. 2010 was unfortunately was not full of trippies. I plan to go out of "Europe" in 2011. I don't know where exactly, but it will be outside this continent.

2. I will stop smoking ! (Well that will be one of the biggest and toughest achievements for me)

3. I will re-start swimming, properly. It's been a long time away from the water.

4. I will definitely learn damn Romanian :) Listening - speaking - writing : a whole package !

5. I will actively and definitely take part in a worldwide social project. I have the candidate list with me, 2011 will be the time to choose and dive in !

Not that hard to complete, ha :) ?

Wish you a delightful and exciting X-mas & New Year time !

ps : Sorry to  destroy your holy mood, but this is my lovely jingle bells present for you...

Photo Source: Just it was the place that I wanted to spend this and each new year...

Well it's quite normal to scratch out the country you are living in, so that's what I am doing. Plus, unfortunately, 2010 was not my best trippie year ever unlike previous years or next years, so this why recently romania-related posts are welcoming you. This time, I remembered all the comments when I first decided to come to Romania. My friends, people that I met, my family, everyone had different images of Romania, naturally. And after one year of life experience, it's good to enlighten people, totally subjectively, from my perspective. Here comes the top 5 stereotyped comments that I was told and it's my time to make a comment about them.

1. Are you going to a gypsy land ?

This is quite a common stereotype about Romania. How Romania felt into this situation relies on the historical facts. Orginally coming from India, Romani people spread whole Europe, If you are more interested in their historical background, I highly recommend you to read about the Holocaust times, some sad Nazi facts about assimilation on gypsies. So shortly and very basicly just update your knowledge about the roots of gypsies. Plus, there is nothing wrong with them, just same old story, integration, cultural and socio economical incoordination..Similar immigration problems occur in any other countries. Approximately gypsy population in Romania is around 2 million. (where population of Romania is around 21 million)



2. Romanian music = Big boobs sexist lolipop blondies' popular songs ?

Well, pop music is trendy. In US, popular hiphop is no different. And, as an effect of post communism this consuming style also exists in Romania of course. But just following some certain shity tv channels, do not expect to get more than this from Romania. They have various kind of songs, singers, bands, etc...and people that are choosing them. Shortly, Romanian music is not just this :


3. You can not walk on the streets because of the dogs !

That's true that there's quite a lot of dogs on the streets. There has been some governmental tries (!)  to stop this, but still there are many untended dogs around. I haven't bitten by any of them yet and most of them seem OK :) I can't controvert this observation, but I think there are some other more disturbing reasons not being able to walk on the streets.It will be a topic of another post.

4. Romanian girls' teeth are ugly.

This was a funny comment from some friends and I don't think it's a national issue :)

5. We are cheated, stolen, etc....

Just take care ! Yes, you are not in the world's safest country, but rest of 6 billion people are also not. You are not in Luxemburg, Zurich or Stockholm. Yes, some taxi drivers cheat; yes I have been stolen also; yes I saw crying ladies stolen, etc..But, I still think Bucharest is quite safe ! I think it depends on your safety criterias.

More to come...

I have always appreciated those guys who were able to speak several languages and easing their lives while travelling, immigrating, expatriating..I could never be one of them :) Popping up with a turkish mother language, I was already not that lucky unifying my language with some others. Turkish is unfortunately not similar to any other languages in the world. And then a long secondary & high school time, trying to learn English from Mr. & Mr.s Brown cassette tapes..Even daring to blog in English, I am still just a simple user of it, I guess. Then came a mannered time when I had attended an Italian course for over a year. Result : I forgot all, only "che culo" remained I think :) Afterwards, I had chance to live in Germany and I think I can handle  to speak a bit further than Rammstein song lyrics. Finally, here comes the Romanian, our lovely Latin (yes, many still think it's a Slavic language) based language which after a year I can catch up some basic conversations. So, to make a self-criticism, I can not speak any of them properly :)

Ok, actually, this post is not about how incapable I am, but more about the motivations to learn another language. People try summer camps, intensive language courses, international datings, reading "How to speak .... in 5 minutes" guide books, listening to audios and even getting married :), but in the end it's all about how much you want & need it. Experiences show that anyone could handle to survive with a very basic English in most parts of the world, so why should you try to learn any other language to bother yourself :) ?

Not so true ! These globalism, internationalization, 'no borders' campaigns are all nonsense as nation-based language differences will continue. So as a very simple first rule, if you decide to live in a foreign country, you should get the language in order to ease your survival. Once, I found out a group called "Kein Deutsch in Deutschland - No German in Germany" which was composed of some American & British expats living in Germany. Well, this is bullshit, there is no intelligent anarchic sense behind it.

But, wait, let's turn back to this motivation topic. I recently found out that my motivation stands on the reality that the coming of translation-chips is so soon. Google Translate or realtime web conferences are just simple examples of where we are heading to. Sooner or later, it will be possible for a Chinese guy speaking with a Norwegian girl, without any need of speaking the common language. So, yes, this is my motivation. When that day comes, I will come up with this blog post as a "You see, I told you" argument. But, until then, I must focus a bit more on learning this damn hard Romanian :)

Enjoy your French ....