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Port of Call |
LAST UPDATE March 12, 2008
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| November 4, 2007 |
Kusadasi, Turkey – Peace Starts with Friendship – Making Friends with
Turkish Students |
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There was an instant rapport between the Turkish students and participants as they came together for one day to learn about each other’s culture. |
Peace Boat’s visit to Kusadasi in southwest Turkey was a chance for participants to learn about Turkish culture and make Turkish friends through an exchange program with university students from the city of Izmir. They were brought together by a shared curiosity about each other’s culture and country, as well as the desire to make friends from different parts of the world. For those Turkish students studying Japanese, it was a rare chance for them to practice with a native speaker, although most communication was undertaken in English. |
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Turkish students peruse the Article 9 Exhibition and learn about how this article of the Japanese Constitution renounces war as a means of settling international disputes. |
The two groups gathered at a spacious café in Selcuk, near the roman ruins of Ephesus. As an icebreaker, there was a brief language exchange to ease communication, with each group learning basic greetings and introductions in Japanese and Turkish. Peace Boat staff members then took the opportunity to share the origins of Peace Boat with the students. They were surprised to learn that the organization was started by only four Japanese university students back in 1983 who sought to learn the truth, rather than the textbook version, about Japan’s relationship with its neighbours. Peace Boat also brought along the Article 9 Exhibition, comprised of a range of paintings and pictures made by various artists portraying the importance of the pacifist clause of the Japanese constitution. ‘We believe it has the power to send the message that we don’t want to fight, so we can live in a much more peaceful and sustainable world,’ explained programme leader Takako Kishi. |
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A traditional Turkish wedding ritual in which the bride-to-be is adorned with henna before her wedding to symbolize her leaving the family and joining her husband’s |
The Turkish students went to great lengths to showcase elements of traditional culture to the participants. They were treated to a flurry of dancing men donning Zebek, a military-style costume from western Turkey worn during World War I, as well as a wedding ritual still undertaken today. The bride-to-be spends the night before the wedding with her family and is, somberly under candlelight, adorned with henna, a paste made from plants, symbolizing her leaving the family and joining the groom’s. The Japanese then entertained with a traditional Eisa dance from Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost prefecture. One participant also played the shamisen, a very old and unusual instrument with four strings. It was pointed out that it is extremely rare to have such a young person know how to play it. |
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Finding out how many different kinds of fruit wines are produced in the famous wine growing region of Selcuk was one of the missions the teams had to complete |
Mixed groups then wandered around the peaceful town, some arm in arm, and chatted amongst themselves. After a leisurely lunch of kebabs, salad, and rice flavored with corn, it was time to move up the winding hills to Sirince, a tiny Greek village nestled in the mountains of Selcuk famed for producing a wide range of fruit wines. Standing on uneven cobbled pathways surrounded by boxlike tatty white plaster houses hundreds of years old, the small, mixed groups were given a list of missions to complete. One of the tasks, for example, was to find the Muhtar, or local administrator, of the village and ask how many people lived there. Completing the tasks required communication and teamwork, and one group showed a lot of initiative. When they heard that the Muhtar was attending a wedding, they boldly followed the celebratory music and cornered him at the wedding, learning that 850 people lived in the village. They also found that there were 14 kinds of fruit wine made in the region and that one Turkish proverb translates into “Chinese money.” |
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| Enjoying one last gathering and exchanging contact details before each group headed off |
Overlooking the rolling hills which autumn had turned brown, everybody relaxed at an old style café to chat over Turkish crepes and sweet apple tea. Harun Tufekgi, the coordinator of Peace Boat’s Turkish counterpartner Euromedist, stood up to give a farewell speech. ‘Each time Peace Boat has given us the opportunity to meet fascinating people. We hope you had a lot of fun. You will have these memories for the rest of your life. We have tried to expose our values to you as much as possible. Although Turkey is an Islamic nation, it is different from other countries. You can see, for example, that the women don’t wear headscarves.’ In response, participant Osawa Mariko addressed the Turkish students. ‘One day we hope you can come to Japan so we can give you a similar experience. Thank you, we won’t forget you.’ Before filing into their respective buses, some very drawn out goodbyes followed as contact details were exchanged. Both sides had discovered that despite pronounced social, cultural and political differences between Japan and Turkey, both cultures value warmth, hospitality and friendliness and harbour an eagerness to move beyond their own borders to learn more about the world. |
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