The most interesting Journey in my life

The most interesting Journey in my life

In 2010, I met a man from Germany. He was one of the special foreign students at Bogazici University but at that time I didn’t know that he would be also special for me. Although he was a Turkish-German boy, he didn’t speak Turkish fluently when we met. So the first communication between us started in English. However, it had never been very well even though we started to talk in Turkish. Thus, I had just realized the importance of sharing a common language while communicating. He had stayed in Turkey for 6 months. During that time, I had learned how to communicate with him but it destroyed my Turkish grammar.=)

On the other hand, it was difficult not to have a common culture. We had lots of difficulties and conflicts in the communication. Because in Turkey, people-especially women- say what they want or what they think indirectly, I was really shocked sometimes about what he said.

One other conflict was the difference in hospitality. After he offered me something and I said “no, thank you” to show how kind I am, there weren’t second chance to say yes because he didn’t ask twice. Turkish people are really insistent on it especially when they host someone. Although he hated drinking tea, he had to drink tea many times in Turkey to accompany with me. However, I couldn’t convince him to drink Turkish coffee but I told him that he would have to drink if he wanted to marry with a Turkish girl.

One day, he told me that he kicked the back of a taxi because the taxi driver had infracted the right of pedestrians. Of course, I said that all Turkish people were supposed to say: “Don’t do that again! Taxi drivers are the last person to fight in Turkey.”

Lucky to us, we were both open to different opinions. Thus, we created a bond between us by sharing ideas about almost anything. It was something like I couldn’t do it before with so many Turkish people although we all shared the same language.

Finally, I want to say that it doesn’t matter to live in the different countries for the one who you want to be with, or not to share a common language or culture while you are together. It does matter that how you see the situations: In the former, you are lucky to have someone you want to be with; in the latter, you are lucky to have the one next to you!

2011