Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Hearing "Tales from a Female Nomad" in Person: Rita Golden Gelman

Rita Golden Gelman
Author, "Tales of a Female Nomad"
and over seventy children's books
It struck me today as I was sitting having lunch with author Rita Golden Gelman how ironic that was. If there is anything Rita Golden Gelman is not - it is a 'lady who lunches.' Pinch me! I was meeting one of the exciting role models of my last four years as an 'Empty Nest Expat'."

I got to meet Rita, and by arriving early, have lunch with her at the Professional American Women of Istanbul (PAWI) meeting in Istanbul which I attended for the first time. Rita was the guest speaker! The women in attendance were also captivating, happening ladies making their dreams happen here in Istanbul.
Rita Golden Gelman is the author of the acclaimed book "Tales of a Female Nomad." I read her book as part of my vagabonding journey these last four years and was absolutely riveted. The blogging universe exposes us to all kinds of people living lives different than our own these days, but Rita Golden Gelman was a true pioneer in choosing a different path than the American dream of a house with the picket fence.

Rita lived the American dream, actually. She was married - a dutiful wife of an interesting man and mother to accomplished children. She lived with them in Manhattan and Greenwich Village, New York as her children grew up. Eventually, her husband's work took the family out to the film industry in Los Angeles in California. Rita didn't identify with any of it. Her marriage eventually fell apart and she decided to put the anthropology she had been studying in a PhD program at UCLA into practice by seeing the world. By then her children were grown. She sold everything, stuck the house money into savings without spending a dime of it, and has spent the last 27 years living without a permanent home and traveling the world.
She told such incredibly inspiring stories from her book which I won't share here because they are hers to tell. "Tales of a Female Nomad" inspired a whole community of readers to email her with their travel adventures (including the sublime recipes they collected along the way). Rita organized some of their tales into an anthology called "Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World."

Random House paid her and her 41 contributors an initial payment of $55,000 for the book. All of the money goes to support children of the lowest castes in India with vocational training. Guess what's on your Christmas list, family! What a legacy. And what a gift to give to her community of readers - the chance to be part of that legacy.

Risk-taking, trust, and serendipity are key ingredients of joy. Without risk, nothing new ever happens. Without trust, fear creeps in. Without serendipity, there are no surprises.
~ Rita Golden Gelman's quote on Starbuck's tall cup #31
There are cultures where overseas travel is really celebrated. The Netherlands and Isreal come to mind, for me, as two countries where citizens have enough time off, a lack of fear, and the willingness to hit the open road. America is not one of those cultures. Rita is interested in changing that and has a plan to do so.

At age 75, Rita is starting to feel her age for the first time. She wants to go home to spend the next two years in America working on her legacy. She is frequently invited to speak at universities about her global travels. She always asks the university to set up a talk at the local high school as well. Gentle readers, do you know of students that would benefit from hearing Rita's inspiring tales? Why not suggest her as a speaker to your favorite lecture series committee?

Rita believes Americans would approach the world with more understanding if each high school senior took a gap year between high school and college to see the world. She said high school students have three choices: university, work, or military after high school. They are not ready to experience any of these yet with full maturity. She urges grandparents to begin a $500 a year gap year fund for their grandchildren so that kids have a year to mature before starting the bigger commitments of study, work, or job while using that time to understand the greater wider world better.

She has started an organization called Let's Get Global. Her plan is to partner with a young man who is creating an American Gap Year Association and beginning an accreditation process for American gap year programs. Rita would like two people in every high school to be able to win a "Gap Year Scholarship" just to demonstrate the power of the idea to young people everywhere. Two young people from each high school nationwide setting off for parts unknown could begin to change American culture of fear about the outside world.

Rita says that fear drives one of the most common questions she gets about her lifestyle. "How can someone overcome the fear of setting out on an adventure?" She is currently working on a book of 64 tips for developing a successful mindset for global discovery.

What an exciting moment to
meet one of my vagabonding
role models!

So Westerner, ask yourself, could you give up the control Rita has over her life? It seems like control is the #1 Western addiction, but Rita just strugged her shoulders and says "I see what opportunities come to me." She rarely knows where she'll be six months from now. She has four steadfast rules 1) smile at everyone, 2) talk to strangers, 3) accept all invitations and 4) eat everything that is offered. The ability to be adaptable to multiple peoples, cultures, situations and opportunities has resulted in an incredibly inspiring life well-lived.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Enjoying Hometown Friends in Istanbul


 Brian Smith and me
One of the fun parts about living in Istanbul is so many friends come through town as tourists. This summer it was my  Ames, Iowa high school classmate Brian Smith and his very fun wife Fazia Ali. So many giggles! Brian is so in love with Fazia. It's moving to see. They have been married for 19 years.
Family friend Bahar
and Brian's wife Fazia
Brian is a Pulitzer-prize winning photographer. His first magazine photograph appeared in LIFE Magazine when he was a 20-year-old student at the University of Missouri.  Five years later, Brian won the Pulitzer Prize for his photographs of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Yes, that's right, at age 25!

Because Brian started achieving so early and for so many years people are always asking him for advice and he is happy to provide it. Here's an example from his blog where he shares Secrets of Sports Photography: his favorite Olympic Moments.  It is great storytelling of jawdropping images we will all remember.

Lately, Brian has specialized in celebrity portrait photography. I love hearing him talk about his book project "Art and Soul: Stars Unite to Celebrate and Support the Arts." The book grew out of the desire of entertainment professionals to share in a deeply personal way how they had been impacted by the arts. Truly, some of the most iconic celebrities are featured. I dare you to look deeply into Ann Hathaway's eyes in Brian's portrait and not want to say "yes" to whatever she asks for! You can thumb through 15 of the portraits on the Amazon site and vote for the ones you like. All of these portraits were also featured at the Library of Congress. The stars hand-carried the book to Congress to advocate for more funding for the arts.


















This fall Brian will have a new book coming out called "Secrets of Great Portrait Photography: Photographs of the Famous and Infamous." Along with instantly iconic photos like this cover shot of billionaire space entrepreneur Richard Branson, Brian shares the stories behind the photographs and how he connected with his subjects to create such unforgettable images.

I admire my classmate's work and his willingness to mentor so many young photography professionals coming up. Brian gives speeches all across America on photography topics but also on just getting started as a professional. I enjoyed the storytelling in this webinar: "Stop Waiting for Your Big Break." He frequently is invited to share on this and other topics in person.

After coming to Istanbul, Brian and Fazia went on to Athens. I LOVE this photograph he took of her there.
"My Goddess Rocks the Acropolis"

Brian Smith on Twitter: @briansmithphoto
Brian Smith on the web: http://briansmith.com/

















Wednesday, July 4, 2012

The book that made me crazy with homesickness for America

Aldo Leopold
I have a young teenage friend here in Istanbul who pines to be out in the Turkish countryside among apple orchards, tending herbs, growing living plants and enjoying nature. Instead, he's growing up in a city of 15 million! That has to make his summers out in the country just that much more special.

I tried to think of English-language books that I could share with him that spoke to this inner calling of nature. "Walden" of course, by Thoreau. "The other side of the mountain" by Jean Craighead George, one of my own childhood favorites. To this day I still remember how much I savored reading her young adult novel about trying to live off the land by oneself as a teenager in the woods. Instead, I gave him a book, even though I hadn't read it myself. I had, however, heard mentioned over and over again as one of the best in the American canon for nature writing: "Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold.

"Sand County Almanac"
 has sold over 2,000,000 copies
"Sand County Almanac" proved too difficult for his intermediate English. So he gave it back to me.
Having always meant to read it because of its steady, growing reputation, I opened it up and began.

"Sand County Almanac" is divided into a year of observations about living on a Wisconsin farm and the natural life that goes on there through the seasons. Aldo Leopold, the Iowa-born author, was a professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Wisconsin when he wrote it. He would retire to his "tired-out" farmland and shack on the weekend with his wife and five kids. Before his professorship, he was very active in the United States Forest Service writing the first fish and game handbook ever and proposing the first National Wilderness Designation ever for Gila Wilderness Area.

Thank goodness, I was going home to America within the month! The beauty of the Wisconsin farm landscape came pouring of every page of this book. So did his pride and passion for observation of his piece of land, something every property owner has felt. Having last lived in central Wisconsin when I was in America, I could hardly bear reading it so evocative was it for all that was gorgeous about nature in the Midwest, and Wisconsin in particular.


Aldo Leopold is considered
the father of wildlife ecology

No wonder my young friend had such difficulty with the English. Aldo Leopold's language is so learned and his thinking so lofty, I began to regard what was in my hands as "divinely-inspired" like Mozart's works or Handel's "Messiah." Could a human being create such a work of such sacredness, joy, and wisdom without help from a higher power?

If I could have every American read one chapter, it would be "February." There is no action in this chapter other than Aldo sawing apart a tree for his wood-burning stove. Doesn't exactly sound like a must-read, does it? And yet, each sentence is utterly compelling.

Aldo describes not knowing where our heat comes from as a "spiritual danger." A spiritual danger! Is that not what we experience when we consume our petrol mindlessly as we do without acknowledgement of the depletion of nature and cost to human life?

He says "if one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend a week in town astride a radiator."

I am not going to split my own oak for heat anytime soon, but let you and I just ask ourselves if we know the details of where our heat comes with the same deep consciousness and thought for its replacement as Aldo did. While sawing, he recalled exactly where the tree originated from, what it measured in length and width, what was going on in history at the time of its birth, and what the oak had to survive to get to this age. When another oak was felled by lightening on his property, he allowed it to properly age in the sunshine it could no longer use, and then split it one fine winter day secure in the knowledge that there was a renewable source of new wood growing on his farm. Do we consume our heat with that level of awareness and consciousness about where it's coming from, how it shall be renewed, and at what cost?

The forward alone is full of such copious amounts of wisdom it was, again, awe-inspiring to read. May I absorb his wisdom to my bones.

From the forward:


"But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-clear: our bigger and better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. The whole world is so greedy for more bathtubs that it has lost the stability necessary to build them, or even to turn off the tap. Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings."                                          
                                                                                    ~Aldo Leopold, 1949








You might also enjoy these Wisconsin or nature-related posts:

The Marvelousness of Madison

A Spectacular Hike to Gem Lake

Elk Bugling Season


Couchsurfing Hike to Český ráj

Hiking the Sázava River in Central Bohemia






Friday, March 23, 2012

Africa Day @ the Global Minds Book Club

On the first stunning weekend of Spring
we met to discuss an amazing book
in a beautiful home
overlooking the Bosphorus.
Knowing that my Ghanian friend Clarence wouldn't be in Istanbul forever, I asked him if we could read an African book and have him moderate our discussion at our Global Minds Book Club, which he founded.

My view of Africa from Istanbul was completely different than the view I had back home. In America, the only thing one reads about Africa in the media is generally aid, AIDS, drought, and other negative stories. Think of the most recent American media firestorm about Africa: the KONY video. It's a simplified African story told by non-native white people with motives that are hotly debated. 

In Istanbul, however, I see TV commercials aimed at African consumers. These commercials  made me realize there is a large middle class there. Clarence says there are over 50 million middle-class consumers in Africa right now.

Clarence, who founded the popular Istanbul "Global Minds" book club over a year ago, usually runs the group as a complete democracy with a 'majority rules' vote on each title, but in this case, there might have been a bit of enlighted and beneavolent leadership. 

Clarence suggested Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel "Half of a Yellow Sun" based on this wonderful TED video of her warning all of us as people to beware the "single story" we have in our heads about other nationalities, races, and classes of people. It's really worth 18:49 minutes of your time.
I picked up a copy of her book and noticed the cover had a sticker denoting it as the 2007 Orange Prize for fiction winner. I was intrigued to learn the Orange Prize for Fiction is a fairly new prize started in 1996 (which you can "like" on Facebook for more information) that honors the best book published by a female in a given year in Britain. The announcement of the long list of candidate titles for the prize coincides with International Woman's Day.

It stunned me to realize that this was the first book I had ever read by a black African author EVER in my life. I found that sobering. I've read books about Africa, such as "Out of Africa" by Isak Dinesen (a European expat living in Kenya), but here I am, in my 50s, and this is the first time I've ever heard a black African voice in novel form. Even though I'm a librarian, a life-long avid reader, and a life-long book club attender, I hadn't even gotten to the point where I had the limiting "single story" about a people, I realized, I had NO story from their point-of-view. That means every single thing I've ever read or heard about black Africans to date was not through their eyes, but someone else's.

I do think that's changing now in America as many high schools are having their students read "Things Fall Apart" by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. I want to read that as my next African title.  Of course, like many American women, the most recent stories I've had about Africa have all come through Oprah's eyes.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote her book about middle-class Igbo people struggling to survive in the Biafran war when she was just 29 years old (note to self - my only previous knowledge of Biafra - again from an outsider - a George Harrison album cover devoted to starving children in Biafra). It was such a riveting story. I want to read everything she writes!

I absolutely loved this book. An introduction to a new author, a new place, a new people are what makes book clubs such a powerful tool for sharing ideas and life-long learning. It was my book club that got me to pick this book up.

After I finished the book, I read more about the Nigerian Civil War on Wikipedia and was frankly astounded and reminded of the evils of colonialism. 
Norah is from Kenya and was our gracious hostess.
 She said "feel free like a housefly,"
a Kenyan aphorism of welcome telling us to be comfortable.

I told her we call it "refrigerator rights"
in America.
Good friends have "refrigerator rights,"
they can just walk in your house and open the refrigerator.
Clarence and a new member from America.

True to form, Clarence used the title
 as a launching pad to discuss all things African:
 politics, gender relationships, tribal customs,
 superstitions, economics.
It was a fantastic, frank, fearless exchange of views.
Nationalities represented for this book:
 Kenya (2), Ghana, Canada, America (3),
 Ireland (2), New Zealand.

 We all wondered where our Turkish voices were that day -
we were dying to know what they thought of the book. 
Norah's ambience included both beautiful African art,
this piece represented the Masai tribe,
and tribal music playing softly in the background.
I loved hearing Norah's perspective!
Ana, a Kiwi, me, a Yank, and Jackie, an Irish lass
We had planned to watch a Ghanian movie afterwards
but we had a four-hour book discussion,
our longest ever!
It was delightful watching twilight
descend over the bridge as we talked.
Pausing to watch the ship go under the bridge,
from Norah's balcony,
I felt so blessed.
It was a magnificent way to spend the day.

I can promise author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I will not stop at this "single story."
I want to read more African fiction and stories.
Her outstanding book made me care about people
I never heard of before.
It also made me want to know more.

You may also enjoy these posts:





Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Discussing Books with the Istanbul Global Minds Book Club

I was proud to moderate
George Orwell's brilliant book
"Animal Farm"
at Global Minds Book Club
One of the Istanbul-based groups advertised on the Internations expatriate social network that attracted my attention was the fairly new “Global Minds Book Club.” I love reading and discussing books and have belonged to several book clubs over the years. The organizing mission of this group was to read books from all around the world and discuss them with people from all around the world who were currently residing in Istanbul.
Sinan, second from left,
moderated our discussion
of Harper Lee's
"To Kill A Mockingbird"
Global minds discussing global books: what an exciting idea! That was different than most book clubs organized in our home countries which feature friends of similar demographics discussing titles that are often targeted at that demographic. Those can often be a “great minds think alike” club.

I knew it would be a different type of book club when the first meeting I went to started with shots of melon liquor. While we may not have educational diversity (many members have graduate degrees) we do have national, religious, racial, ethnic, tribal and sect diversity.
Stalwart members
Matt and Işil
For the Turkish people who come to the meetings, it is often their first book club experience as there is no tradition of book club discussions in Turkey. There are many reasons for that. Widespread literacy is less than 100 years old in Turkey due to the change in alphabet. Stories in this part of the world are often shared orally rather than on the written page. The idea of discussing art, culture, politics, and life in a good-natured way with all kinds of different people that one doesn’t know very well is often considered a new and very foreign idea, especially when the premise is that the discussion takes place over a book. I tip my hat in appreciation to people of all nationalities who come to the club to discuss a book in English, frequently their second or third language.
Clarence Nartey, Founder
Global Minds Book Club
leading our discussion of
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's
"Half of a Yellow Sun"
Clarence Nartey, the man from Ghana who started the “Global Minds Book Club” is uniquely suited for the role.  As a marketing manager for a multinational corporation he has traveled all over the globe in his professional roles with visits to 20 countries (Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Togo, South Africa, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia,Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Turkey, UAE, France, UK , Spain and Israel), sometimes living in a country for a month at a time, and other times living there for a couple years. I remember when I got my first emails from him detailing how the group was organized, what we were reading, and when. I thought “this is MBA-level organization for a mere book club.”  Joyfully, our book club is both relaxed - often meeting poolside or in a picnic venue, and organized within an inch of its life!
We met under the gazebo
at my place
last summer to discuss
Haruki Murakami's
"After Dark"
We frequently meet in our different homes. This has prompted our members to travel all over Istanbul and gets us into neighborhoods we would not have a reason to visit otherwise. The club has become so successful that Clarence has considered dividing us into two groups, with a meeting simultaneously held on each continent. There are over 240 people on the email list, with around 15 responding positively that they will come, and a usual 8-10 actually making it. Not bad considering that coming to a discussion can involve up to a two-hour trip each way as people cross continents!
We were supposed to go swimming
after this meeting
but the discussion was so good
we never got in the pool
Clarence says, “what thrills me about reading now is not the act of reading a book, but now reading a book, organizing friends to share it and using the book as a springboard to elicit multiple and diverse perspectives from fellow readers.”  He has done that so beautifully and created such a lively community of book lovers here in Istanbul . Wanting to extract every bit of value from the experience, he has also asked the members to donate the books after the discussion to interested libraries or groups to help them broaden their reading horizons too.

Eventually, even the expatriates we rely on the most, like Clarence, must leave. That’s the nature of the expatriate experience – a short time together of meaningful intensity.

He has told the Global Minds Book Club that within a month or two he will be transferred to the continent of Africa. He is excited about returning to his home continent, but oh, will we miss him! In keeping with his tradition of stellar management, Clarence already has his replacement “Global Minds Book Club” organizer lined up. 

Our reading list to date:
Global Citizens - Mark Gerzon ( non-fiction)
Little Bee / The Other Hand - Chris Cleave (fiction)
Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell ( non-fiction) I joined here
Life of Pi - Yann Martel (fiction)
To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee (fiction)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan S. Foer (fiction)
After Dark - Haruki Murakami ( fiction)
The Gambler - Fyodor Dostoevsky( fiction)
Animal Farm - George Orwell (fiction)

The White Tiger -Aravind Adiga (fiction)
Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger (fiction)
Shah of Shahs- Ryszard Kapuscinski (non-fiction)
Half of a Yellow Sun -  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (fiction)

 This book is easily my favorite discovery through the club!
Future Titles:
New York Trilogy - Paul Auster (fiction)
Cairo Modern - Naguib Mahfouz (fiction)
Sammarkand - Amin Maalouf  (fiction)
Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell (non-fiction)
Do you have an expat book club? Or a book club devoted to reading international titles? What has made it fun? Do you have a book recommendation for our club that your group enjoyed?

You may also like these posts:

Making Expat Friends Through Internations

Africa Day @ Global Minds Book Club

All my posts on books

 


Thursday, March 8, 2012

Heath Lowry's "Ongoing Affair" with Turkey

This is a fun, charming memoir of a Peace Corp volunteer's time early in the Peace Corp program serving in a rural village in Western Anatolia. Mr. Lowry paints a loving portrait of Bereketli's characters and culture. This book describes what must be the beginning of his "ongoing affair" with Turkey as he now holds the Kemal Ataturk Professor Chair of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies at Princeton University.

One thing that he speaks of frequently in this book, which is also frequently mentioned in today's literature about the Peace Corps, is how Americans are sent abroad with little or no direction of what it is they are supposed to accomplish. It is to Mr. Lowry's credit that he was able to help bring about positive change working with the locals while still knowing his place. He represented his own country very well as a Peace Corps worker.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Understanding Iran: The Power of One Graphic Novel called 'Persepolis'


Persepolis, Volume One
by Marjane Satrapi
Americans have been miscommunicating with Iranians for 60 years. Rather than continue to be a part of the problem, I "sought first to understand" rather than "asking to be understood" by reading this book. It is a profound, moving, and shocking graphic novel. I was continually in awe of the author's insight at such a young age; Marjane Satrapi wrote her book in her early thirties. I was also impressed by how many different ideas were presented in what is esentially a comic book that could be read in a couple of hours.

"Persepolis" helped me to understand how powerful people misuse the fear created by outside events to consolidate power for their own ends. This book starts with a reminder of how America and Great Britain interferred with Iran, causing the events that eventually led to the removal of the Shah from power (America overthrew a democratically-elected government in Iran in the 1950s).

The power of the book lies in how personally the story is told and its effect on a sophisticated, young, globally-oriented child who is age 6 to 14 in the story. While my country's wrong-doing is presented matter-of-factly, Ms. Satrapi saves her biggest impact for the self-imposed stupidity of constant war and constant death created by the Iranian regime during its war with Iraq. Her genius and wondrous courage is helping us, the readers, feel the stunned horror of one's country badly run through a series of vignettes from her childhood.



Author Marjane Satrapi
I would like to read Persepolis 2, to find out what happens to the author. Ms. Satrapi is an incredibly valuable woman to a country that most probably isn't ready to appreciate that fact. She seems like a creative visionary who will be read by all Iranians 50 years from now because she told the truth. While the status quo continues, I assume her work will probably be denounced by the powers that be.

Extrapolating the lessons learned from finishing this book back to my own country, I see how the events of 9/11 have also enabled American leaders, particularly the executive branch, to consolidate power in a way that doesn't bode well for the citizenry: the Patriot Act, indefinite detention of citizens, the end of "probable cause" requirements for internal spying, and new Presidential authority to take the lives of citizens without judicial oversight. Each externally-inflicted harm creates, causes, and enables worse internally-inflicted harm.

Interested in reading another book about governmental abuse of power?

You might like this post:

The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia

or if you're interested in books about the general region, I recommend this post:

The Ottoman Empire from the other side as told in "The Bridge on the Drina"

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Time Out for Turkish

Maiden's Tower on the Bosphorus

I haven't blogged here for awhile.  It is not because I don't have a million things to say; I do. I have had to choose - between spending time learning Turkish - or blogging. Turkish won. It's not like I have a staff who can help me keep my blog going while I study: gidiyorum, gidiyorsun, gidiyor. The authenticity of my blog is that it is merely me, myself, and I.

I've had so much fun learning Turkish, I've put "learning another language" on my bucket list. Before becoming an "Empty Nest Expat" I was a typical American who could only speak English. I took 7th grade French, but I didn't learn much and never had any opportunity to use it.  These days in America, a child could at least practice his Spanish with a native speaker on a daily basis. Like many in America, I found it hard to justify the time investment of learning another language with only the typical two weeks of vacation each year, usually spent within the continental United States. Take a look at this infographic before embarking on a language journey.

Part of being an "Empty Nest Expat" though is to meet people on their turf and attempt to communicate with them in their language and hear, see and feel their point-of-view. My time in the Czech Republic rid me of the intimidation factor many Americans feel toward learning a foreign language because I met plenty of people who had learned not one, but two, and sometimes three or more foreign languages.  If they could do it, why not me?  This was such a perfect example of the importance of role models in our learning environment. Even though I came from a highly educated environment (my hometown is among the top three American cities for number of Ph.D.'s per capita), I don't often meet Americans who have learned a lot of languages, so it is easy to say and think,"I'll never learn." Nonsense.

America's political climate also encourages America to stay ignorant of the languages and world outside of America.  When I was younger, if a politician made fun of another politician for knowing a foreign language, it wouldn't have occured to me to wonder "why does that politician want to keep Americans afraid of and ignorant of the greater world? Is he afraid we'd all discover that our country is getting outperformed on several metrics?" This downscale English-only attitude may appeal to some aspects of the American public but only furthers to make the nation less competitive globally. Plus, when our citizens don't know other languages, we really do have to rely on our own political leaders for interpretation of events.  It's healthy to have points of interaction with other countries at many levels, including citizen-to-citizen, and not just in our native language.
The first week I was in Turkey, I went to YouTube to look up "10 words of survival Turkish." The two words for "thank you" take six syllables to say. YouTube was censored at the time in Turkey so I found this instead: the 100 most useful words in Turkish. I learned them. My goal was to learn three words a day. Next came this resource, the free part of the website called "Funky Turkish." I've also been using a book called "Turkish in Three Months." I've lived here a year-and-a-half and I'm about halfway through.

The person who has really propelled me forward on my language learning journey is Aaron G. Myers, writer of the Everyday Language Learner blog.  Aaron is a former English language teacher who now is a self-employed language-learning coach. I signed up to take his free 10-week course on self-directed language learning.  I also won an hour of coaching from him through his Facebook page.  These two wonderful educational tools have helped me realize and maintain my own enthusiasm for learning Turkish.

It doesn't hurt that Aaron also lives in Istanbul, and has taken the exact same journey I'm on - learning Turkish! He's created, for example, his own handcrafted audio site for people learning Turkish language to listen to again and again.  It's called the Turkish Listening Library. It would be fun to contribute my own Turkish audio someday.

Aaron Myer's blog and advice are suitable for any language.  He has taught me about fun online language-learning resources that I did not know about. So far, I haven't spent a dime on the Turkish I have learned. I also have invested only the amount of time I would not regret spending on it while living here.

I started with a resource Aaron suggested as part of his 10-week journey: LiveMocha.com. It's the largest language-learning website on the Internet. I first logged on on March 7th, 2011 and finished my final and 51st lesson on January 24, 2012.

Now I am beginning with a second online resource he recommended called LingQ.com which will help me graduate from phrases to conversations. I am still a beginner but I can make myself understood with people who don't know English, even with my rudimentary grammer.

The first year of language learning is the hardest. I watched with interest as Yearlyglot tried to learn Turkish in one year from Italy.  I lived here in Turkey and I wasn't near that fast! At the end of the year, he admitted, "ok, so maybe that wasn't doable." But in watching people learn, I learned too. I also learned not to think of language as something binary: not knowing or flown-blown fluency.  One of my Czech students told me he had a fine vacation in North American on 150 words of English. Getting to that level with online resources is fun and easy.

Did you know, when the creators of Esperanto were looking around the world for a suitable grammar for their newly-created language they chose Turkish grammar as the most logical?  I found that, in itself, motivating!

Monday, August 15, 2011

Provence Inspires Me to Make My First Tart

 Creating a Leek and Dried Morel Tart
 My college friend Robin said, "People ask, what do you do in Provence? I always answer not much: go to the Provencal markets, bring home food, cook, do it again the next day." 

There is something about Provence, because it is a poly-culture agricultural environment, that brings out the cooking creativity, passion, and endless enthusiasm for cooking in everyone who lives there, regardless of nationality.

What is a poly-culture agriculture environment? The example I know best and have lived personally is Madison, Wisconsin. It has endless small family boutique food producers making small volumes of amazing specialty items.  These local farmers are rock stars in the community and the farmer's market is equivalent to a concert where everyone comes and applauds.

On the other hand, a mono-culture farm environment is like my home state of Iowa with lots of corporate farms producing one crop.  It doesn't create the same enthusiasm to take everything home and cook it up. You can't anyway, because they're raising grain for livestock.

To aid her in her cooking quests, my college friend Robin has collected cookbooks from all over the world in multiple languages while she was working all over the world.  I could pour over cookbooks for hours, couldn't you? So many of her books were new to me. One that she particularly used a lot was by Stephanie Alexander named "A Cook's Companion: The Complete Book of Ingredients and Recipes for the Australian Kitchen."  Robin specifically enjoyed that all the recipes were organized around their main ingredient.

I found myself responding to the daydream-inspiring cookbook "The Food and Flavors of Haute Provence" by Georgeann Brennan.  What a gorgeous, easy-to-use book!
 The smells! Oh, the smells!
 Leek and Dried Morel Tart
Right out of the Oven
On one of my first nights there, Robin and Jim invited over lovely friends for a dinner party al fresco.  While Robin prepared a magnificent veal roast, with beautiful potatoes and roasted fennel, I had picked out a recipe based on a single ingredient Jim and Robin had in abundance.  They had a friend in Malaysia who happened to be the world's largest exporter of morel mushrooms.  He had given them 4.5 kilos of dried morels for their own cooking.  As you can imagine, a dried morel mushroom does not weigh very much so the supply of this tasty mushroom was unusually large and just waiting for me to cook with it!

I've had veal, but can't say I've had a veal roast before this. It had been prepared with care by her local Cadenet butcher. Have you tried roasted fennel? This was something new to me too. It was delicious, so easy (she just sliced it in half, spiced it, and stuck it in the oven).  Plus, it's so healthy and pretty on the plate!
 The veal roast ready for carving
Robin's husband Jim
carves the roast
while Mark, a local winemaker, looks on

Leek and Morel Mushroom Tart
Although puff pastry, leeks, and dried morel mushrooms are the components of the tart, this is a versatile dish in which many substitutes are possible.  In France, supermarkets, even the small ones in the rural areas, have fesh or frozen puff pastry, which is also available in the United States, but not as readily.  Pizza dough is an alternative to the puff pastry.  Unlike puff pastry, it is easily made even by the most unskilled hands.

  
The delectable topping, with its undertone of sweetness from the leeks' natural sugar, is made of thin slices of leeks that have been simmered in a little butter, then combined with fresh goat cheese and rehydrated morels and seasoned with thyme.  one can substitute onions, which also have natural sugar, for the leeks, and dried cepes or shiitakes might be used in place of the morels, as might fresh mushrooms.


Although the tart makes a fine first course, I find that accompanied with a green salad and red wine it makes an excellent meal in itself.
25 dried morels, about 1/2 ounce
3 cups warm water
6 large leeks, carefully rinsed
2 Tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon unsalted butter
1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
2 fresh bay leaves, or 1 dried
1/4 sour cream
1/4 cup crumbled fresh goat cheese
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 Tablespoon white wine
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 sheet prepared puff pastry, 10 x 12 inches and 1/4 inch thick, thawed if frozen
1) Put the dried mushrooms in 2 cups of the warm water to rehydrate them.  This will take about 15 minutes.  Finely slice the white parts of the leeks plus 1 inch of the pale green.
2) Meanwhile, melt 2 Tablespoons of the butter in a skillet or saucepan over medium heat.  When it is foamy, add the leeks and saute until translucent, about five minutes.  Add the thyme, bay leaves, and the remaining 1 cup warm water.  Cover and simmer until the leeks are nearly tender, about 15 minutes.  Remove the cover and continue to cook until virtually all of the liquid has evaporated, about 15 minutes longer.  Remove and discard the bay leaves.  Stir in  the sour cream and goat cheese, and add the salt and pepper.  the sauce should be creamy and thick.  Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F.
3) Drain the morels and cut them in half lengthwise.  melt the remaining teaspoon of butter in a small skillet over medium heat.  When it is foamy, add the morels and saute for 5 or 6 minutes.  Add the white wine and chicken broth and continue to cook until all but approximately 1 Tablespoon of the juices has evaporated.  Remove from the heat and set aside.
4) On a lightly foured work surface, roll the puff pastry into a rectangle 1/4 inch thick and approximately 12 by 18 inches.  Place it on a floured baking surface to within 1 inch of the edges.  The paste will be almost 1/2 inch thick.  fold the edges over the leek mixutre, crimping them to make a free-form tart.  Place in the oven and bake until the crust has puffed and the leeks are golden, 12 to 15 minutes.  Add the morels and bake another 5 minutes.  Serve hot, cut into rectangles or wedges.
It tasted so creamy and good
from the warm sour cream
and goat cheese underneath!

Afterwards, I wrote in Robin's cookbook on the leek tart recipe page, the date and whom we had served.  Over a lifetime, I find these little notes create such an evocative list of memories of good times and good companionship.

Friday, July 15, 2011

The Ottoman Empire from the other side as told in "The Bridge on the Drina"

The Bridge on the DrinaAbout five years ago, a friend whose book taste I completely respected told me about this book.  He was so enthusiastic I knew someday I would read it, even though I had never heard of the author, never heard of the book, and knew nothing about Bosnia.

 Who could have suspected that I would eventually be living in Istanbul someday, be familiar with Ottoman history up close, and have walked a historic Mimar Sinan stone bridge with my very own feet. Not me.

What a book! What an author! And what a translator! This book is a haunting wonderful memoir exquisitely rendered in time and place. A young Christian boy is taken to the Ottoman capital to serve the Ottoman Empire. He converts. Eventually, he rises to a position of advisor to the Sultan.  The Balkan native decides to use his position to build a stone bridge designed by the great Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan to commemorate the land he came from and to glorify God. The book "The Bridge on the Drina" is a fictionalized history of all that happened on that bridge over 400 years of village life.

We often assign metaphysical powers to grand urban assets like the Eiffel Tower, but this book made the reader cherish a rural stone bridge as a precious jewel that made life grander and more meaningful for all the villagers who come in contact with it.  Could a man-made creation serve a nobler purpose?

Ivo Andrić is almost like a Balkan "Mark Twain" so great were his powers of observation about human nature, sometimes wryly so.  You can not read this book without feeling he has an enormous love for humanity because he can describe people at their worst, their weakest, and best with such compassion and grace, it's impossible not to love his writing for that fact alone. I found myself writing down sentences within the book just to savor their genius later.

After I finished the book, I looked the author up on Wikipedia and I realized I had no idea while reading the book what faith he was because he wrote about the Christian and Muslim villagers with such insight you could almost think he had both faiths in his family. Ah, such is the Balkans.

Lastly, his patriotism moves me. Ivo Andrić gave all of his Nobel prize money to improve libraries throughout his homeland.  He had an ability to make the whole world care about his little corner and love it as he did. I want to read everything else he has written.

What book has made you see an area of the world for "the first time?"

You might also like: 

How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

In Prague, You Can Enjoy Reading at the Cafe Europa

Who Was Atatürk?

Share the Best Of Czech Culture

I Served The Kind of England

The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

"The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria

This marks my 400th blog post.  I have to give a shout out to a blogger I read and was inspired by before I became an expat.  Once while reading his blog, he remarked that he had reached 400 posts. I had no way of knowing how easy or hard that was at the time. Now I do and I salute Al Tischler, formerly of Radio Free Europe, for all of his hard work on the blog he wrote while his family was in Prague called Tischlers In Prague.  I loved reading his family's adventures and couldn't wait to get to get to the Czech Republic as I planned from America. Al, it is a pleasure to catch up with you!

Now that I'm an expat, I see things that worry me about the future of America.   A recent book published in the last few years with the title "The Post-American World and the Rise of the Rest" by Fareed Zakaria zeros in on that concern with a title that makes it sound like America zenith has past.  I love watching Fareed Zakaria's show 'Global Public Square' on CNN and wanted to hear what this cerebral immigrant had to say about the American future. 

Fareed Zakaria is well-known now to American television audiences, but it is important to remember what a breakthrough broadcasting success he was when he started his international affairs show. For most of us Americans he was the most prominent Muslim-American we had ever seen on television. Indeed, friends have suggested he could be our first Muslim-American Secretary of State.

I appreciated that his was the first Sunday talk show to consistently, week-after-week, bring an international panel of guests on his show to discuss how issues looked from abroad. Utilizing intellect and charm, he led Americans in considering and valuing viewpoints from non-Americans at a time when America was scared, hunkered down, and lashing out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat," helped me understand the economic impact of globalization, Zakaria's "The Post-American World and the Rise of the Rest" soothed me as an American and made me comfortable with the political impact of globalization (despite its alarming title). As nations become "more like America" and compete with us using the same level of democracy and capitalistic meritocracy that made America such a success, it could be easy for Americans to fear the future and the world more. Zakaria suggests that if we stay true to democratic values and don't fight the reality of the rise of the rest, America has enough advantages with our superb ability to assimilate immigrants, our unrivaled institutions of higher education, and our storied ability to turn research into actual products to compete just fine against nations with larger populations.

Our role will be to lead politically and economically by example, coordinate nations in a multi-polar world as George H.W. Bush did so well in the first Gulf War, and thrive with our friends not just by ourselves.  A new edition of the book, "The Post-American World 2.0" has been released as of May 2011.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Who Was Atatürk?

If an expatriate is going to live in Turkey, this book is almost required reading because it is about the person most beloved throughout the nation: Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.  I enjoyed this book because it was interesting to see how one person with vision saw enormous opportunity in the decline of the Ottoman Empire and created something completely new.

The average leader could get get bogged down in mourning the loss of territory, wealth, and power the Ottoman Empire was experiencing.  Atatürk shrewdly knew what was defensible and what was not.  He literally "rebranded" an entire nation, calling it "Turkey" and defended it against the Allied Powers.  Today, the Turks are proud to be the only Islamic country that has never been colonized.

Coming from America, which now celebrates multi-culturalism, this book helped me understand why Turkish people find multi-culturalism so threatening.  At the time of the War of Independence, Turkey was threatened with being "nibbled away" by various ethnic groups claiming "Turkish" land for "their people." With Atatürk's leadership, the land mass known as "Turkey" is one piece and one nation.  The Turks have begun updating their dated thinking on multiculturalism with the beginnings of a more liberalized attitude toward the Kurds, but there is a long way to go yet. Turkish attitudes towards ethnically-diverse groups within Turkey are similar to where mainstream white America was on the subject in the 1950s: "Aren't we all Americans? Aren't we all Turks? Minorities should conform to the culture of the majority." Turks are coming around very, very slowly, like we did, to the idea of "Yes, but....there is nothing wrong with celebrating our varied heritages." 

There are a couple things that totally impressed me about Atatürk. He excelled at all martial and diplomatic strategic activity. He had the forgiveness and detachment one sees within great leaders like Mandela toward his former foes.  For example, when given the opportunity to walk on a Greek Flag to celebrate a Turkish victory, he refused. His neighboring examples of how to run a country were Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, and Mussolini's Italy, yet when other party members wanted him to put his party above the nation, he refused.

Atatürk was superb at cutting losses at what wasn't working, such as the Turkish Arabic-style alphabet and Ottoman-era Turkish language infused with many foreign words, simplifying the whole language with a Latin alphabet. The librarian in me was fascinated by this decision. The agony of cutting off all heritage literature from current and future readers is so momentous! Mango points out though that only 10% of the population was literate at the time of the change so it was less of a risk than first imagined. The hard part remains that only the select few who understand the old script can read it for themselves.  Everyone else has to rely on what "experts" say the old writing says. 

Atatürk wanted women to be liberated to be their best. Turkish women were granted the right to vote in 1930 - compare that with Swiss women who didn't achieve it until 1971!

Atatürk made government secular within a land that was almost 100% Muslim. Rather than be cowed by worries of offending religious sensibilities, he pursued Western-style education and knowledge for his people. He constantly communicated to them his belief that they could make their own destiny. To this day, Turks carry that feeling within them.

Mango's book is considered the definitive source for English-language speakers.  It's a little scary how completely Mango dominates the reading list for English-language readers on all things Turkish.  He have been enormously productive and his output is extensive.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Checking Out the History of Dissidents: New Vaclav Havel Library to Open in 2013

A Force for Good
Vaclav Havel

Modeled after the American Presidential Libraries, the new Vaclav Havel Library will be a repository for Vaclav Havel's published works and unpublished papers. Unlike Presidential Libraries, this Library will carry the samizdat of years of repression and the official papers of years of expression.  The unique gathering of that collection makes for an interesting juxtaposition and the final triumph of Prague dissident voices from repression - to rule  - to Presidential level archives. It's a fairy tale, really.  A political fairy tale.

Click on my title to read more about the project.

Monday, May 9, 2011

So, Are You Thinking About Becoming an Expatriate?





 New this week:
"Expat Women Confessions"
by Andrea Martins
and Victoria Hepworth

 When I was thinking about becoming an expatriate, I had no idea what was involved or how I would do once I went overseas.  I was very lucky to find the Expat Women website because their monthly newsletter, collection of expatriate blogs by women from all over the world, and website features gave me the courage to dream. Expat Women was probably one of my very first information points about everything involved with being an expat.  Reading other women's experiences gave me courage! 

As anyone knows who begins down the path of a research-heavy dream, it can consume a lot of hours poking around on the web to find answers to the thousands of questions involved in any new endeavor.

Luckily, experienced expats Andrea Martin, Director of Expat Women, and Victoria Hepworth, manager of the Blog Directory that is contained within the Expat Women website have teamed up to answer some of the most commonly asked questions women have about what is involved in an overseas life.

This week, these two accomplished ladies are launching their new book: "Expat Women: Confessions." Their one-stop guide to issues related to expatriation covers topics such as how to settle in and deal with culture shock, how to handle a crisis such as medical issues or death abroad (heaven forbid!), what are some of the money and career issues common to expatriates, and most importantly: how will expatriation affect one's relationships with significant others, aging parents, and children.

Andrea and Victoria know what questions people would ask and want answers to before they leap! Andrea talks to expats all the time not only through her web site but also through her professional speaking to expatriate groups.  Victoria wrote her Master's thesis on 'trailing spouses,' the phenomenon where spouses whose other half has been offered an overseas opportunity that decides a couple's path.

They will undoubtedly cover a topic that seems unnecessary before you jump.  I never thought I would need to know about sudden repatriation, but I did.  I wish I had known about that before it happened. That's the beauty of this book.  Expat Women: Confessions answers questions we think to ask and those we don't.
 
Travel Sites Catalog All Traveling Sites Expat Women—Helping Women Living Overseas International Affairs Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory expat Czech Republic website counter blog abroadWho links to me? Greenty blog