Wednesday, May 31, 2006

One Week After My Return



Merhaba folks,
That's Turkish for Hello. It has been a week since my return from Turkey, and what an adventure it was staying for nearly a month. I was scheduled to visit for 2 weeks, and extended my visit for another 2 weeks. And as traveling influences one's life, my trip to Turkey has definitely left indelible marks I will cherish forever. I succeeded in meeting fellow filmmakers from South Africa, South Korea, Israel, and Turkey, to name a few. I met the film festival coordinators and volunteers, who are amazing people juggling too many hats, but making it all worth while. In a few words, the film festival was a great experience. But my trip also included meeting Turks, and Kurds, men, women, and children, even old people, an Iraqi gentleman, and learning about what life is like for people on the other side of the world. It was inspiring, heart breaking, invigorating. I even managed to connect with my independent Turkish hip hop group, find African migrants living amidst Turkish society, do some sight seeing in between, travel to Ankara via train, while also coproduce, write and direct a short movie that was divinely inspired. And despite returning to Los Angeles with a terrible illness, and the fear that I could have contracted bird flu, (don't worry, I don't think I have), all things considered, my trip to Turkey was a success. If you're interested in learning more about the details, keep in touch with my blog as I include photos and stories about a filmmaker's trek to Istanbul, Turkey.








First things first, the trek to get there. Flying to Turkey, which was a 16 hour voyage -- 12 hours from L.A. to Germany, and 2.5 hours to Turkey from Europe, was the best flight I have experienced. Though I consider myself a globe trekker, I am not necessarily someone so comfortable with being suspended up in the air for long periods of time. I may look mild-mannered, but internally there is a raging battle of fear I am always having to confront everytime I get on a plane. This time it was a bit different. Nicole and I flew Lufthansa, and all I kept saying was how happy I was to have flown with German pilots. Their take offs and landings were exceptionally smooth and comforting. Guess there is something to that German efficiency. Loved it. For anyone a bit squeemish about flying, worry not. Fly Lufthansa. Danke.

Once we landed in Munich, we learned that we had a 6 HOUR lay over, just to get to a place that was only 2.5 hours away. That was discouraging after a long flight. Walking around the airport was also a bit disconcerting, given the different cultural vibes. What do I mean by that? The Munich airport was so QUIET!!! I'm used to loud: people talking, noises everywhere, but there was none of that. It seems that Germans are quiet people. Nicole told me stories of her childhood growing up in a family that is culturally German, and of how she recalled stories of her relatives visiting Germany, and them noticing the quietness, the way doors were always kept closed in German homes. Since she comes from a loud, boisterous family, the Munich Airport was a cultural experience for her. As for me, I'm also from a loud, big, noisy family where we would get into big, impassioned, knock down, drag out fights over politics, movies, whatever; the point was, there was always a rucus shaking the walls when I was a kid. So, for me, walking around the Munich Airport felt like I was in a museum, where the secuirty guards were waiting to shush me at every turn. Using the Munich Airport bathroom was definitely cool, because it was so quiet, and so clean, and efficient. There were even little wipees available to disinfect the toilet seats, and the bathroom stall doors isolated the user in solitude. I was impressed by it all, yet when I was washing my hands at the sink, I still felt loud telling Nicole how impressed I was. After wandering around for a half hour, Nicole and I decided that we should make the best of our six hour lay over.












We took the train into the center of Munich and wandered around in the rain. We saw churches, lovely cobblestoned streets with shops, and I saw so many people that looked like Nicole, I kept joking with her, that she should kiss the ground, because she had returned to her Motherland. People even spoke to her in German, believing that she was German, a definite opposite from our trip to Cuba, where everyone thought I was Cuban.








Though we were only in Munich for a few hours, I enjoyed our day trek. The train was wonderful, easy to use, and efficient. We saw perfect plots of green land, farms, which Nicole said reminded her of Nebraska, where lots of German-Americans live. We saw German graffiti, which was cool, a personal favorite of mine, since I love graff artwork. Before heading back to the Munich Airport, we had tea in a Turkish restaurant, a precursor of what was to come, and where I tried brushing up on my Turkish. Tea= cay. What amazed me was despite not understanding German, I did notice how some Germans mistreated Turks. In the Turkish restaurant, I saw an older German couple speak sharply to a Turkish Worker, and even rudely disregard that Turk, treating him as if he were stupid. Being of African descent, I am aware of such disrespect and mistreatment, and it reminded me of the ugly racism many of us people of color experience in the United States. This started me thinking about what life is like for Turks living in Germany. After some initial research before traveling, I have learned that many Turks feel they are not accepted by Germany society. It also seems that a large portion of Germans do not consider Turks to be white, and certainly not German enough, even the Turkish-Germans born there, whose first language is German. So, it made me wonder a few things: how do modern societies deal with multiethnic, multicultural peoples, and how do Turks categorize themselves? Not all, but many Turks certainly have light skin, so aside from cultural differences, what constitutes whiteness, or Europeanness? The face of Europe is really changing, and European identity can no longer be equated with the human construct of race, and skin color, so Europeans are being forced to deal with such issues. Little did I know that in the near future I would have many conversations in Turkey that would flesh out issues of "race," skin color, and national identity.

On the train back to Munich Airport, we encountered two Columbian woman. They were speaking Spanish, and loudly, which was music to our ears, and reminded of us the United States. The Columbians noticed our interest, and we chatted with them in Spanish. We learned that one of the women is married to a German man, and she also thought that Germans were too quiet, and that her in-laws thought she was too loud. Man, did we relate. These women were loud, warm, and wonderful, and when our train pulled into the airport station, though we were all strangers who'd briefly met on a train, in passing, we kissed each other, a sign of our mutual loud kinship, and wished each other bon voyage. Traveling is so conducive such experiences.

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