Rough moments
Being American in Turkey has been fine so far. I have honestly encountered the most welcoming and warm culture imaginable. The relationships and friendships I've begun so far are closer and more comforting than some friendships over longer periods of time in the past. Besides the ever frequent question, "Do you like Bush?", my friends, coworkers, and acquaintaces have accepted me as a human being just like them.
It was because of this warm welcoming that I had trouble this weekend with a few conference delegates in conversations about the USA and the West. Many of these delegates were only 2 months into AIESEC and very determined on seeking a traineeship experience and nothing else. Compared to other facis, I felt a bit less welcomed. This could also be attributed to my scant knowledge of Turkish.
One particular moment stuck with me and I've been trying to deal with it ever since. On Sunday evening, we had a session called "World Café". I chose to facilitate the topic of East Vs. West?. My goal behind this discussion was to understand the images, words, and people that come to our minds when hearing these words, asking why they do, then questioning the actual existence of this separation. Is there a true separation or is it something we just create in our minds?
We started out with a table divided into East and West, then began listing these images that came to mind. For East, some were soul, religion, rich color, traditions, and for West, materialism, body, decisions, etc. This one particular delegate who joined our group was sort of a hot-shot macho guy. He really was giving some good input but got frustrated when another delegate questioned him. He actually seemed to be dissapointed that another Turk was questioning his perception of the West.
Really out of the blue, all of a sudden, he interrupted another delegate and said, "East is everything, West is nothing, and the East should kill all of the West." He then got up, kicked his chair, and walked out of the room. I really was in utter shock, and quite embarassed being the facilitator. Did I say something? Was it the facilitation? Why would he say something like that? And why can't I impact this guy?
I felt better after the other delegates expressed their feelings about the incident, saying they didn't believe the same, and that they really didn't like that guy. It was really comforting and I knew they could tell I was upset by it. Fortunately, the incident brought the group closer together in our discussion, and we really came to some unique conclusions. I also met a Kurdish guy who was born in Northern Iraq and has lived in Southern Turkey for his entire life. We exchanged contacts and he made sure with me that I would visit him and meet his Kurdish community.
It was because of this warm welcoming that I had trouble this weekend with a few conference delegates in conversations about the USA and the West. Many of these delegates were only 2 months into AIESEC and very determined on seeking a traineeship experience and nothing else. Compared to other facis, I felt a bit less welcomed. This could also be attributed to my scant knowledge of Turkish.
One particular moment stuck with me and I've been trying to deal with it ever since. On Sunday evening, we had a session called "World Café". I chose to facilitate the topic of East Vs. West?. My goal behind this discussion was to understand the images, words, and people that come to our minds when hearing these words, asking why they do, then questioning the actual existence of this separation. Is there a true separation or is it something we just create in our minds?
We started out with a table divided into East and West, then began listing these images that came to mind. For East, some were soul, religion, rich color, traditions, and for West, materialism, body, decisions, etc. This one particular delegate who joined our group was sort of a hot-shot macho guy. He really was giving some good input but got frustrated when another delegate questioned him. He actually seemed to be dissapointed that another Turk was questioning his perception of the West.
Really out of the blue, all of a sudden, he interrupted another delegate and said, "East is everything, West is nothing, and the East should kill all of the West." He then got up, kicked his chair, and walked out of the room. I really was in utter shock, and quite embarassed being the facilitator. Did I say something? Was it the facilitation? Why would he say something like that? And why can't I impact this guy?
I felt better after the other delegates expressed their feelings about the incident, saying they didn't believe the same, and that they really didn't like that guy. It was really comforting and I knew they could tell I was upset by it. Fortunately, the incident brought the group closer together in our discussion, and we really came to some unique conclusions. I also met a Kurdish guy who was born in Northern Iraq and has lived in Southern Turkey for his entire life. We exchanged contacts and he made sure with me that I would visit him and meet his Kurdish community.
posted by amartin4 at 12:10 AM
1 Comments:
Wow, that's really intense! I don't know what I would do in that situation either! Thanks for sharing the story!
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