Perspective

Double atomic bomb survivor, Yamaguchi, dies in Japan at 93

Tsutomu Tamaguchi, the only person officially recognized as a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings at the end of World War II, has died at 93. Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on August 6, 1945, when a US B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) to the southwest, which suffered a second US atomic bomb attack three days later. On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan surrendered, ending the war. The major of Nagasaki said a "precious storyteller has been lost," in a message posted on the city's Web site on Wednesday. Yamaguchi died Monday morning of stomach cancer, the mass circulation Mainichi, Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers reported. Yamaguchi was the only person to be certified by the Japanese government as having been in both cities when they were attacked, although other dual survivors have also been identified. "My double radiation exposure is now an official government record. It can tell the younger generations the horrifying history of the atomic bombings after I die," Yamaguchi was quoted as saying in the Mainichi newspaper last year. In his last years, Yamaguchi gave talks about the experiences as an atomic bomb survivor and often expressed his hope that such weapons would be abolished. TOKYO AP

More later, forever,


P.S. In other, obviously less important news, I am feeling better and better about my Turkish and here's just one reason why: my (old) roommate just left the room to talk on the phone with my (old) landlord, i.e. they know that I know what they're saying. Giddy shit talk.

P.P.S. I promise a update on the reality of my world one day, but the past couple of weeks have been cray-cray. Maybe one day things will settle down, but who really wants that anyway?

Infiltration

I. I've started to consider what neighborhood of Istanbul I want to live in. Yesterday after "work" I decided to go on a bus adventure to see how long it would take to get from my school to my #1 'hood choice. I sort of made the decision last minute - I saw a bus coming my way and noticed its end destination and, having no plans for the afternoon, jumped on. It took more than an hour, buuut Fridays are the worst of all traffic days (i.e. the bus I take to my fam's house can take 20 minutes during 0 traffic and up to an hour plus with traffic). So, that's good to know. But that's not entirely the point of this #1.

After spending the past five years of my life in Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Madison, bicycles were always part of the daily scenery. And fixed geared bicycles, the flashier the better, always stood out. But here, I rarely/never see people riding bikes in my day to day life. I see some occasionally and always stare in awe when I do, considering the fact that sometimes the sidewalks are not entirely safe (thanks, delivery bros using the sidewalks to drive their motorcycles). I see more bike ridin' closer to the water, especially this one awesome pedestrian/bike path that stretches for quite a distance on da Azn side (where I live). ANYWAYS ANYWAYS! Thanks to my last minute decision to take a diff bus yesterday I - are you ready - SAW AN ALTBRO RIDING A FIXED GEAR. And he wasn't even ON the sidewalk, he was riding alongside the bus I was on. Tattoos on his forearms, messenger bag and all. WHERE WAS I for that moment?


Fixed gear photo here - you can buy this bike, people!

My cousin has a super nice bike here, and when I got back I told him about what I had seen. Once I managed to explain it (in the end by using his bike as a prop), he repeated over and over again that fixed gears were "saçma" (didn't make sense, ridiculous, stupid) as well as "tehlikeli" (dangerous).

II. On a sadder infiltration note: as mentioned previously, I spotted a girl wearing Uggs on Istiklal Cad. a bit ago. Well, my epic bus adventure yesterday also took me down Bağdat Cad. (click here for a heck of detailed article about the street) which is basically a hell of $$$ baller $$$ street. I saw approximately 5 girls wearing Uggs and, sigh, leggings. As we were turning off the road, I saw it: an exclusively Uggs store. No escaping it. After our fixed gear conversation, I asked my cousin what he thought about Uggs. His opinion? They're ugly and expensive. Holler!

III. While I was waiting for a bus home yesterday (post-adventure) a girl waiting at the stop came up and asked me a question. I shot her an auto "bilmiyorum" (I don't know). Then all of a sudden I realized some things: I understood what she asked, and I could answer. So I did, and she thanked me, and in my little heart I was jumping up and down in excitement. The little things! In summary, I did something different with my day and some sweet shit happened.

IV. I hope I see my aunt soon so she can give me those books and/or I do that book trade with Dan. I've been reading A People's History of the United States online [link] since I never read it in its entirety and ugh I hate reading online (I can't underline! I can't make notes!). But beggars can't be choosers eh? Aaaand finally I need to make a pros/cons list and/or have someone talk some sense into me so hopefully I can arrange that by Monday morning (Istanbul time). Here's hoping.

Smooches,

Haters gonna hate

Dang. I was going to post Monday (in a matter of fact, I was really gettin' into it when I was reunited with Dan at a Starbucks in Taksim and abandoned the project) and since then I kept putting it off because I have a bunch of pictures on my laptop which I wanted to throw in here. And then I may or may not have blown out my laptop charger (read: FML if so), so for now there will be one solitary flick that survived the straight struggle of the last few days. By the by, on that glorious Monday I was an American sitting in a Istanbul Starbucks drinking an Americano. Is that screwed up or amazing? I'm not sure. I've been drinking çay (tea) about ten thousand times a day, which I love, but this Americano tasted crazy delicious after a week plus of tea-sappin'. Since my little notebook is overflowing with random notes, so it goes - let each paragraph serve its own purpose:

On the topic of not getting hollered at. Last time I lived in Turkey (2 years ago) I was in Ankara "studying" abroad. Thus, wherever I went I was hanging out with Finns, Swedes, Germans, other Americans, etc. We were perma-jabbering in English, as it was our shared language. I was hollered at, and not in a fun way (is there a fun way? uh probs no), all of the time. But now things are different. I often find myself walking around areas that aren't full of tourists, I walk as if I know where I'm going (I rarely do, but when I do...oh, it's so exciting when I do!), etc. Thus, if I don't open my mouth the secret of me being a yabancı (foreigner) remains a secret, and I also simul don't get disrespected every second of my life.

When it rains, it pours bro! As mentioned above, Dan and I pranced around for a bit on Monday (Taksim, Beşiktaş, a crazy maybe Armenian church, etc.) and then that night, as usual, I went to bed late after watching hilarious Turkish television, studying, and then reading for a little. After having more insane nostalgic dreams I woke up heck of late feeling not well. By "not well" I mean I checked my email and had zero new emails from potential employers. What a blow! (More random: At one of my interviews today, I was reading the only English magazine there which was a British psychology magazine. It had an article about how a person's self-esteem, drive, etc. decreases exponentially the longer they are unemployed because the individual has more time to sit around and think. As if I needed to read that to know that.) So I emailed a bunch of people and then, after giving myself a pep talk and doing the old deep breathing, turned off the computer. A few hours later I received a phone call FROM that batch of emails that I had just sent out asking me to come in that very afternoon. Then when I got back I received an email from another potential employer asking me to come in tomorrow (which was today). Then while I was out and about TODAY I got a phonecall inviting me to an interview this evening. WHAT.

"Fake it till you make it", seri wise words. When I walked into the office for my interview yesterday afternoon I chatted with the dude-secretary in Turkish and asked for the man who was supposed to interview me. Fun fact: at language schools here, the people at the front desk rarely speak a word of English! The more you know. Anyways, the dude-secretary was cute and old and told me to take a seat. There was another girl ahead of me waiting, British it turns out, who knew no Turkish and was surprised by this short interaction. She says to me, "you had an interview scheduled for 5? Me too! I can't believe he would schedule us for the same time!" I was not that surprised, and got out my book. Then the secretary turns to me and starts chatting with me: What time was your interview for? What are you interviewing for? Where are you from? How long have you been in Istanbul? - these are the kinds of questions I can answer. When the boss finally arrived (30 minutes late, naturally) the secretary walked up to the British girl and said, "Buyurun" (which has 1000 meanings I think, in this case "Welcome into the boss bro's office") like fifty times before the girl got up to go to her interview. In comparison, I seemed essentially fluent in Turkish. I thanked him on the way out of the interview and he told me in Turkish that it was no problem, and for me, his "canım" to have a good rest of my day. Giddy Turkish.

PT.2 of fakin' it: On the dolmuş ride home after the interview yesterday (still am in shock & awe at the fact that I figured out on my own which one to take because there was at least one billion to choose from) I was sitting in the very back and had to scoot over to make room for a kid on the seat. This made the wide-load woman (with a million shopping bags) next to me get real, real close. The proximity perhaps is not even worth mentioning, as that is a fact of life when dolmussin'. Anyhoo. The woman leans over and made some apparently hilarious joke to me which had her laughing for days, so I had no choice but to chuckle along with her and say, "doğru doğru" (that's true) which pleased her to no end. My first friend in Istanbul that I made solo style.

Haters perma-hating. Today Dan and I went to Bakırköy and on the FIVE HUNDRED HOUR LONG BUS RIDE he made a chat-buddy. The dude heard us speaking English and started chatting up Dan, obvi. I was only partially listening to the conversation because I was too busy watching this kid (who was traveling with his brother - no parents) vomit all over the place at the front of the bus. That spewage led to the bus pulling off to a gas station so the bus could be hosed off and those who got puked-on could wash up (seriously here people). Anyways, somewhere along the way Dan apparently told the bro that I was half Turkish, to which he naturally asked if I speak Turkish, etc. etc. etc. Same as it ever was. When we pulled over for the wash-up slash hose-down, the guy (who was, if I recall correctly, Georgian/Turkish) says to me, very seriously, "You should know Turkish. You should have been taught Turkish." Comments like that really rub me all wrong, as you can imagine. I can't tell you the amount of times that someone says to me, "Oh you look Turkish/have a Turkish name, you should be speaking Turkish" as if language is something genetic. Scenario: I said something in Turkish, incorrectly, and as I started to correct myself my cousin/twenty year old bro made fun of me a little (ouch). My aunt then reprimanded him, saying in Turkish, "You should be working on your English. I don't hear you using your English at all. At least she's trying to speak Turkish." He then replied with a snide comment, something like, "So what? She should know Turkish, she's half Turkish." First of all: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Second of all: haters always gotta/gonna be hatin'!

California dreamin'. As I was waiting to meet with the boss at my last interview this evening, I chatted briefly with the secretary (she spoke some English! Nice!). The most revealing thing she said to me was, "We (being Turks?) want to go to California, and you want to go here [sic]. It's interesting."

Shock and awe to me is not shock and awe to all. The other day (Monday? not sure, it's all a blur) I made the huge idiot error of boarding the bus during prime getting-to-iftar time. Iftar being the breaking of the fast during Ramadan (i.e. dank dinner time when the sun goes down), which is going on right now. So. It took me one hour - ONE HOUR!!! - to get from Taksim square to the beginning of the Boğaziçi Köprüsü (Bosphorus Bridge). In total, it took me about an hour and forty five minutes or so to get home (it should take 40 or 45 minutes in a "good" traffic moment). I walked in the door, dirty and my feet all sorts of hurting, and explained/complained and was met with blank stares and: "And? So? Wash up and come eat dinner." Not because I didn't express myself in Turkish, which I actually did, but because: this. is. Istanbul. Something a little more exciting would have to happen in order to get my family's attention, I think.

Job-talk. Tomorrow I'm practice teaching for two hours in the evening. I'm not sure if I even want the job, but I'm going to get a feel for the class and get observed and, either way, I'm kind of excited for getting a chance to teach for a moment. Also, that job that I wrote about in my first entry called the home phone today and wants me to call them tomorrow (translation: they are desperate)...if they are willing to change their terms, and I don't have to change diapers, I would seriously consider it.

The 30th of August was/is Turkey's very own Victory Day (Zafer Bayramı), which celebrates the final battle in the Turkish War of Independence/Greco-Turkish War (1922). My aunt compared it to America's 4th of July, and maybe in theory that's true, but there was certainly no fireworks, hot dogs, or beer on my end. I kid, I kid, but really: there were a lot of flags hung out, and a lot of military prancing about. Cute. Tonight my aunt's family is over, and so I really should get back to my hectic life of drinking tea and eating baklava. (Click below picture to enlarge - view is from my family's apartment on the 30th of August)