At the beginning of the semester, I was an eager student of Turkish; I had been studying it by myself previously for the last year, 
although my skills were very limited. I had bought books for self directed study on my own and had been focusing much of my 
time on studying the language so that I would be prepared in college (this was before I had been aware that Richmond's Turkish 
classes were limited to a self-directed study program).  When I enrolled in the class, I knew I was ready for the commitment that 
the course seemed to require, and I was very excited to have all of these new resources ready for me to use.  However, I became
intimidated; it's quite different to learn a language on your own with no commitment to the language other than your own interest 
and to learn a language with utter dedication to it, as I had enrolled myself in a semester where learning Turkish was a must-do.  
In high school I was able to put it down and study Spanish when I needed to.  In this course, I was required to remain attentive 
and an active learner.
  
My approach to learning Turkish varied then.  With all of the resources around me, I began to feel overwhelmed with
the opportunities that were available to me.  I also became frustrated when I realized that I would not learn as much 
this semester as I considered myself able to before.  Now I understand that learning a language takes time, patience
and a great understanding of how exactly the process worked.  In order to learn Turkish most effectively, I now know that
I need to slowly repeat things and study tools over and over again, as well as analyze how I am best at learning things,
rather than inundate myself with knowledge until I retain only a small part of it.

My skills as an observer of other cultures greatly expanded over the course of MLC 105.  I did not ever previously
consider that languages and culture are intertwined as intricately as they are.  Rather, I assumed that they were two
separate articles with very vague relationships to one another.  Learning tools such as recognizing if cultures are 
collective or individualistic really enhance the process of learning a language because you can analyze the way that
the culture works, then from there work toward a better understanding of how to use the language.  After all, language
is simply a way to communicate with others, and how would one communicate with another individual if they do not
understand what kind of environment that person lives in?  Furthermore, learning about culture gives the language a 
context not previously there, and gives one an incentive to work harder in learning the language, because in my experi-
ence, I have learned a lot of cool things about Turkish culture that only make me want to go there more!

I am not sure if I have completely moved from the very basic information of the language.  The book How Language Works 
has taught me a lot about different principles of language and I have been able to apply them to Turkish in many ways that 
undeniably has made my journey to becoming fluent in the language much easier.  However, the book also had so much 
information that at times it became difficult to even process exactly what is being said, let alone how to apply it to my target
language.  However, I have been able to successfully take a lot of the material and apply it to my own language-learning goals,
making me a better self-directed language learner.

All in all, I very much enjoyed this unique experience.  I will not be taking the class again due to a scheduling conflict, but I 
am sure that my journey in learning Turkish by myself has not stopped here.  

My cultural presentation was based on the legend and revered powers of the evil eye in Turkish culture.  This iconic part of Turkish culture has interested me for quite some time after I saw one of my Turkish friends toting one on a key chain at work.  The evil eye is a concept that has been perpetuated around the world since the age of Mesopotamian civilizations and is almost universal in its design.  The idea behind it is the existence of evil that curses those who are under the gaze of a jealous person.  This jealous person, whether they are aware of it or not, subjects this person to possible misfortune, particularly, in fact, surrounding the one thing of which the second person was jealous.  This works in conjunction with the idea that each person has some sort of third eye about them that can manipulate luck and the future.

The evil eye, therefore, protects the wearer or user from the negative effects of jealous leers.  The jewelry works by attracting all of the negative attention away from the user and toward the eye itself.  It then either disperses all of the energy by having it bounce off of the evil eye or shatters from the impact of such negative energy.  It is said that whenever a bead falls off of an article of evil eye jewelry, it means that the evil eye was just sent toward the user and that it fell due to its effective deflection of the negativity.  This superstition may sound perplexing and hyper-traditional, but other nations and cultures all over the world share similar ideas about the perpetuation of negative energy by jealous thoughts, even in the United States with the idea of the stink eye.

The most interesting thing I have discovered about this tradition is that the evil eye has become ingrained in Turkish culture so intricately that most Turks have at least one evil eye somewhere in their home.  Some airlines have even emblazoned their planes with the evil eye, a symbol not only representing good luck but also is distinctly Turkish.  Furthermore, it is imperative that all Turkish babies and children are adorned with the evil eye.  Even families that are not incredibly superstitious would never take a chance with the health and protection of their child, and so a fine baby shower present for a Turk would be anything with an evil eye on it. 

This entire project has been extremely interesting to me.  I have already been familiar with basic things about Turkish people like their cuisine, their fashions and their history, so I wanted to learn a little bit more about things that seem odd to me.  I found out that in fact this unique tradition is fairly universal.  It also introduced me to the way that the Turkish collective think about such traditional matters.  This has revealed to me that tradition is extremely important to the Turks, although they are a genuinely revolutionary nation.

Nazar Boncugu.pptx

It was very interesting to see the different presentations.  Unfortunately I was not able to attend the last day of presentations, but I did still learn a lot about the many cultures that we are trying to explore as language learners.

The first I saw, Pete's, was about the evolution of pop music and the different kinds of music in Turkey.  This was very enlightening; the only Turkish band I have ever listened to was very similar to some American bands and so was hardly representative of the different styles of music that Turkey has to offer.  It surprised me that there was a form of rap in Turkey that was not much different from some genres of rap in the United States, but when I look back on it, I am not sure why it surprised me.  I suppose that I did not expect such diversity in musical styles and tastes in a nation that is fairly homogeneous ethnically.  I very much enjoyed the music that we listened to in his presentation as well, and have actually explored Turkish music more since then.

Haley's presentation was about Iranian cinema and a famous director whose name now escapes me.  However, I do remember that he or she was protesting the artistic censorship that destroyed the art being produced (or not being produced) in Iran.  This was very enlightening to me; I have read several books on the situation in Iran but they were always in the context of human rights.  It was interesting to see this struggle take place in a field that is both not as human and just as human at once.  The plight of those who attempt to create great films in Iran is just as notable as the men and women who attempt to be politically uncensored and unsuppressed.

Kristen's presentation on the Turkish population in Germany was very in-depth.  I had known about this movement of Turkish people to Germany for work opportunities, but she presented many details that were extremely interesting to me.  The detail in particular that struck me was that Turkish communities are so self-involved that Turkish pre-school children end up not even learning German, which will severely hinder them in life if they choose to later on live in the nation permanently.  It reminded me of the present-day situation in the Southwest US and their struggles with the increasing Mexican immigrant population.

Melanie's project concerned the death rituals practiced by Jewish people, and although it was very morose at times, it very much opened my eyes to things I did not know.  I am not familiar with much of Jewish culture, so learning about the intricacies of this one practice that seems so simple in average American culture gave me a lot of awareness about the many differences between cultures all over the world.  What interested me the most was that there are certain things that will prevent the body of a dead Jewish person to not be buried in a Jewish cemetery, which seemed novel to me, as I don't think there are pre-requisites to being buried in many other burial grounds.  On the flip side was Rebekah's project about wedding rituals in Jewish culture.  It was very interesting, but unsurprising, to see that in both presentations, religion plays a major role in all of the Jewish ceremonies.  All of these projects gave me a new understanding about all of the various cultures represented by their language-learners and made me further aware of the existence of other cultures besides my own, and that there is more than one way of doing things.

During the summer of 2009, I worked at a theme park with many international college students, Turkish students included. Almost every day after work, many of the Turkish workers would head to the local McDonald's, something that many of American employees (myself included) did not understand. Many of us assumed that there were simply no McDonald's in Turkey, but upon asking a Turk it turned out that in fact that there were plenty of them all around the nation. Rather, along with it being cheap, he said that it was "just different: the taste, the atmosphere, everything".

This made me consider the differences that a fast-food chain can have all across the world, especially one like McDonald's. In the US - or at least in Virginia - fast-food restaurants are notable for being exactly the same no matter where you travel; I could go to Seattle tomorrow and buy the same fries and McSwirl for roughly the same price as I would in Norfolk or Virginia Beach. However, considering the vastly different cuisines that different cultures enjoy, in order for a national corporation to succeed as an international corporation, it must cater to the tastes of its new customers. How could McDonald's be successful in Turkey? Well, it must submit to Turkish cultural standards.

So I went to the Turkish McDonald's website and looked up their menu. There are particular food staples that it and its American counterpart have in common: the Big Mac, the chicken sandwiches, and the smaller burgers. Of course, all of the meat supplied to Turkish McDonald's is absolutely 100% halal, which means that by the standards of Islam it is pure to eat. Then, there are the Turkish variants on the American menu, one of which is the Doubleköfte burger. In this meal, a variant on the double cheeseburger with two beef patties, the beef is substituted with köfte, a traditional Turkish meat dish that can be compared to a meatloaf-meatball hybrid of sorts. The meat - usually beef or lamb - is minced or ground and then seasoned with spices. The köfte is not distinctive to only Turkey, but each country that partakes in this dish has their own rendition of it. The Doubleköfte burger is also adorned with a special onion and yogurt sauce; yoğurt in Turkish cuisine is a little more bitter than the sweetened yogurt we enjoy in America, can be eaten at almost any meal and usually complements the flavors of meats, particularly köfte.

Another strictly-Turkish McDonald's menu item is the McTurko, a sort of kebap that is prepared gyro style. Kebap, or as we would know it better in English, the kebab, is another staple of not just Turkish meals but Middle Eastern cuisine in general. In the McDonald's rendition of this meal, you can either order it with beef köfte or chicken breast, and it comes with a hot pepper sauce, catering to the tastebuds of its Turkish consumer group.

However, something interesting I came across was this:

It's called the Mega Mac, and is known as the Double Big Mac in the United States. This burger has been discontinued in the States and can only be obtained internationally. It was very surprising to see a burger of these proportions on the Turkish menu. I suppose this illustrates that despite the international debut of the McDonald's franchise, it still wants to deliver large, American-sized meals. The fact that they are even successfully marketing this sandwich in Turkey also shows that Turks are willing to experiment with this dish, which almost epitomizes American fast-food culture; this speaks volumes about the globalization of culture that is happening throughout the world in small but noticeable ways, even by foods, and shows Turkey's cultural exchange that is being played out in Turkish McDonald's. Though food is prepared Turkish style, it is still presented like American food.

Other dishes that are particular to Turkey are onion rings (which usually are not found in US McDonald's), a MaxBurger, which is a regular cheeseburger with the meat seasoned with various items to fit Turkish culture; a sour cherry pie, which is similar to the US cherry pie offered by McDonald's but is flavored with a different kind of cherry; ayran, which is a traditional Turkish drink composed of Turkish yoğurt, water and salt; and a variety of sauces including an olive oil and lemon sauce as well as a hot sauce called acı sos. Their salads come with black olives, as olives are common in Turkish meals. However, there are still staples of American foods, as mentioned above in the case of the Mega Mac: Turkish Chicken McNuggets are nearly identical to their American counterpart, french fries are offered with almost any item, Coca-Cola products are sold alongside the ayran, and ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce and ranch dressing are also sauce options. Additionally, Happy Meals are available, just like they are in the states, and a toy is still included: right now, Batman toys are stated to be a part of the meal on the company website. And as for the quality? Still, as I have read in blogs and reports from Turkey, not top-notch, just like American McDonald's.

This movement of McDonald's to Turkey is not unprecedented, and started as far back as the nineties. Now over 50 restaurants are in the nation, and they are not the ones to have started this American food revolution throughout the country; they have simply capitalized on it. Due to the internationalization of Western culture, it became easy enough to find American food throughout Turkey, melding and changing its culture to reflect the new advancing, interrupting American culture that has changed the way that people around the world eat and shop. McDonald's as a corporation has seen that and merely hastened the process. However, it seems unrealistic that Turkey will entirely bend to the new culture that has invaded their republic. Rather, they will continue to eat at McDonald's because it is cheap, fast, and pretty tasty to Turkish standards.

The tespih is something one will see many men and some women toting around anywhere. The tespih is a string of beads with which one traditionally recites a short prayer to Allah. It is very similar to the rosary of Roman Catholic churches in that each bead on the tespih is used to say one short prayer.

Tespih are made generally with either thirty-three or ninety-nine beads. Those with thirty-three beads will often also have a short tassel at the end of the loop of beads (as seen in the picture above) with two or three beads or some other apparatus attached. The number ninety-nine is significant in that it represents the ninety-nine names of God that one must glorify: by saying ninety-nine prayers, one is praying to each of those names (although they are not enumerated per say). In the instance that the tespih has only thirty-three beads, the two or three tassels at the end of the loop are used as markers so that one can keep track of where they are in their prayers. The beads can be used for simple worship or to continue glorifying God after prayer.

On the other hand, for less religious Turks, the tespih can also be carried around as something just to play with, although they may receive castigation from those who are more religious if they catch that they are not using the beads for prayer.

A few people from another village, mere acquaintances of Nasreddin Hoca, were in Aksehir for some trade business. At the end of the day, they knocked on Hoca's door.

`Hoca Effendiz, since we were in town, we thought we should pay you a little visit. And, here is a rabbit as a token of our respect for you.'

Hoca welcomed the guests as is the Turkish tradition and asked them to stay for dinner. Hoca's wife cooked the rabbit and they all made a good meal of it. A few days later, there were people at the door again. Hoca didn't know who they were, so they had to introduce themselves.

`Nasreddin Hoca, we are the relatives of the folks who brought you the rabbit.' they explained. They were passing through Aksehir and they thought they drop by. Nasreddin Hoca and his wife opened their home to them as well. They served soup for dinner.

`It is the broth of the rabbit.' elucidated Hoca.

Another couple of days passed and there was yet another group of strangers at Hoca's door.

`We come from the neighbour village of the people who brought you the rabbit.' they said. Hoca had no choice but to let them in. When it was dinner time, Hodja brought a large pot full of well water to the table.

`What is this, Hoca Effendiz?' inquired the displeased guests.

`It is the broth of the broth of the rabbit.' Hoca snapped.

This amusing story is one of many passed on in Turkish culture centered around a wise man named Nasreddin Hoca, Hoca being a sort of title of wisdom in Turkish. Nasreddin is a very well known character based on a Sufi who may have lived during the 13th century. The stories he is included in are focused around day-to-day life within Turkey and the customs and interactions of people around him. They notably begin with a ordinary situation, then leading to some sort of objectionable, odd or quirky situation in which Nasreddin generally delivers the final word, a punchline that is not only humorous but doubles as a moral.

The history of the real Nasreddin is fabled to have started around the early 13th century in Central Anatolia. Moving to Aksehir in his twenties, he trained to become a Kadi, or a Muslim judge, and lived to be almost eighty years old. He was supposedly a philosopher with a sharp sense of humor and a wise aura. Nasreddin is not only a figure of Turkish culture: he can be found in several cultures, all under the name Nasreddin, across Central Asia and Central Europe, as well as in China, Italy, and Greece. However, anthropologists and other experts agree that Nasreddin was probably of Turkic origin. His stories are issued not only as fun tales that can be traded quickly due to their short length and general simplicity, but also can be great perpetuators of morality. Sometimes, Nasreddin can be seen making very profound commentary on the manner in which Islam is practiced. For example, this story, in which Nasreddin is a mullah, or revered Islamic scholar:

A neighbour came to the gate of Mulla Nasreddin's yard. The Mulla went to meet him outside.

"Would you mind, Mulla," the neighbour asked, "lending me your donkey today? I have some goods to transport to the next town."

The Mulla didn't feel inclined to lend out the animal to that particular man, however. So, not to seem rude, he answered: "I'm sorry, but I've already lent him to somebody else."

All of a sudden the donkey could be heard braying loudly behind the wall of the yard.

"But Mulla," the neighbour exclaimed. "I can hear it behind that wall!"

"Who do you believe," the Mulla replied indignantly. "The donkey or your Mulla?"


This joke very obviously questions the amount of trust one puts into a mullah when they are simply human and can lie and be selfish just like any other man. Many Nasreddin stories do not deal with culturally-selective topics, however; this is why the character is so universally appealing and can be transferred from Turkish to Chinese to Italian.

Nasreddin stories can be traded at dinners, in public transportation, and pretty much anywhere that one Turk can find another. They have become a very deeply ingrained part of Turkish culture, and Nasreddin is a character whose name is truly commonplace in Turkish society, despite the years that have passed from his death to his stories being told.

In my senior year of high school in an International Relations class, I was preparing to give a presentation on the nation of Turkey. A week before the project was due, I had been complaining to my boyfriend about the amount of research I would have to do about Turkish culture. He offered to help and, smirking, sent me this link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7634280864799169516#

So I watched it. I watched all 88 minutes of this life-changing film. And I could not believe it.

Üç dev adam is one of the most widely known Turkish movies internationally. It translates loosely to Three Strong Men, but is also known as Turkish Spiderman vs Turkish Captain America, a rivalry that Hollywood would never have the guts to incur. In this portrayal of the well-known American superheroes, the Spider-Man character is in fact a murderous villain, leading a violent gang of evil-doers around the Turkish metropolitan of Istanbul; he also has the power to regenerate, something that I don't believe is Marvel Comics canon. Captain America's main operative throughout the movie is to rid the city of the Spiderman character, as he is extremely dangerous and murders at random. Captain America is aided by a Mexican luchador wrestler named Santo, who is, from what I have researched, a very well-known figure in Turkey, at least during the 70s when this movie was written.

The movie itself is trash, an hour and fifteen minutes of gore, sex and poor craftsmanship, and it is not supposed to be faint: the beginning of the movie features a women being murdered by the Spider-Man's gang with a boat (I will not go into the gruesome details, and if I haven't made it clear, you should not visit the link above if gore and sexual content affect you). With the rise of digitalization, the movie, which otherwise made very little profit, has been uploaded to several video-sharing sites, which has increased its popularity significantly. Unfortunately, this movie is all of what much of the world's Internet users know about Turkish cinema, which has a rich and significant history. However, this film actually has historical purpose within the study of film in Turkey.

Other bloggers have discussed on the Ning the field of Turkish cinema, so I will not lay out all of the details, but is relevant to discuss the concept of the Yeşilcam era. Yeşilcam is akin to Hollywood or Bollywood in terms of cinema, and this cinematic period between the 1950s and 70s is considered to be one of the great booms of the film industry in the geographic region. Making movies was considered very professional and artistic, and movie-going was a popular pastime. During the Yeşilcam era, around 300 films were being produced every year. However, this all declined once the household television set became more mainstream and affordable. Once every Turk could afford the entertainment of television in their own home, what was the point of going out to the movies? The revenue that one could intake from directing or producing a movie declined significantly, and so the era died out. However, movies obviously did not become extinct. Now the most effective movie would be one that was cheap to produce and would garner enough public interest that people would watch it rather than simply stay in front of their televisions, rather than an artistic, well crafted film. It is during this time that Üç Dev Adam was released: its characters were famous world-wide, its violence would be sure to captivate, and its storyline was tried and true - violent stories like The Godfather had just been released in America only a year or two prior to the release of Üç Dev Adam and they were very successful.

And historically, Üç Dev Adam was not the only "Turkish rip-off movie", as they are affectionately known throughout the states, to be coined in that era. Ayşecik ve Sihirli Cüceler Rüyalar Ülkesinde is known in English as The Turkish Wizard of Oz for its many similarities to L. Frank Baum's piece, and was released in 1971. Şeytan, a movie with a very similar plot to that of The Exorcist, was aired in 1974, and Yarasa Adam, or Turkish Batman, was aired in 1973. Nor was Turkey the only nation to have film producers who violated copyright laws. India, a nation well-known for the quality of its films, faced a similar trend around the same time period, and an infamous movie called Dariya Dil, or Indian Superman, was produced in 1988. These movies were less expensive than buying the distribution rights to the original movies, and made a large profit due to the similarities in plot that they shared with the originals.

Today, these movies are still distributed, though not as often, as more copyright laws have been imposed all over the world. Turkish cinema has been revived through artistic movements. However, the indelible Üç Dev Adam will remain a part of the legacy of the post-Yeşilcam years as long as the Internet continues to perpetuate the popularity of such cinema. Nevertheless, this movie will remain at the very least entertaining, and that was what it was intended to do after all.

The reading for this entry was very eye-opening. Apparently languages are dying out in the blink of an eye? Who knew! I actually have been reading a lot about this phenomenon individually. Particularly indigenous languages of the Americas are being either tossed away in favor of English or Spanish, or slowly becoming extinct because nobody cares to learn them. The main cause of this happening is speculated to be the intervention of colonization, which has cast away the significance of a colonized people's language in order to celebrate the new colonizer's culture by speaking their language. Many people are attempting to save these "dying languages", and it is interesting to see how people are trying to do so; it solidifies the concept that languages are an integral part of culture, and as we've considered with the classification of languages as "direct" or "indirect", they have a major tie with how we perceive one another and how we interact, thus perpetuating such cultural trends.

At the same time, the book also makes a case for the fluidity of languages, how they evolve and change with time and cultures. This is a part of how dialects are formed; you will find that Spanish in Spain and Spanish in Colombia are remarkably different from one another. It was very interesting reading this portion because of my own research on languages. People actually are creating new languages fairly often. Language seems like a natural institution that should never be created with no basis, and many people find disfavor in "slang" or vernacular because it takes away from "proper" or "official" English, but when you look at it relative to time, languages had to have been synthesized somewhere, and although it happened thousands of years ago, it still has been fabricated. Today people are still trying to come up with new languages. Many people are familiar with the language "Klingon", which is based off of a TV-movie series and is actually practiced by hundreds upon hundreds of fans of this series today, although not as their primary mode of speaking. A very recent one is called "Unilingua", or "Mirad" in its own language. It was developed by a philosopher-writer who wanted a basis for simple and logical international communication with no roots in any other world language after studying globalization. This example makes a case for the nature of language: easy to create, easy to alter, easy to destroy.

When we speak and interact with people from within our own cultures, I don't think that we often stop and look at what we're saying, examining it in terms of what it illustrates about our cultures and lifestyles. I know that I certainly do not. Oftentimes I take for granted my own way of saying things, and it can cause a lot of confusion when I am dealing with people of other cultures.

My roommate is an international student from Bangladesh, and although she is fairly Americanized from watching movies and TV from America, we still have instances between us where intentions with our languages are not clear. In one instance, she and I were sitting in the room and I had the A/C blasting. We were both reading; however, she gets up, goes to her dresser, and puts on some socks. She sits back down, and I noticed this. "Where are you going?" I asked. "Nowhere," she said.

"Oh, then why did you put your socks on?"

"I was trying to tell you to turn the cold air off."

I simply was not used to that sort of communication, but she certainly was. American English is an extremely direct language; this much is obvious in our every day speech. While going through the language packet that was given to us in class, I found it very interesting to see the differences between a "direct" and "indirect" language and I was able to re-identify this conflict I had had with my roommate over a simple communication barrier.

I think that Turkish would be a fairly indirect language (and not just because Nuray Hocam told us so). Geographically, Turkey lies between two large cultural hubs of collectivist peoples: Eastern Europe and Asia. Most share a common heritage, and though the nation is relatively large, it is still small enough for some sort of a singular culture. Additionally, Turks are for the most part very nationalistic and patriotic. This unifying characteristic is enough to create another stronghold culturally within the people. I have not yet learned enough language so that I can identify particular examples of some indirect speech, but something about the Turkish culture strikes me as collectivist in essence and the language very indirect.

In the book the concept of dialects were discussed. When I used to see my Turkish friends they would make fun of one another for their different Turkish accents. Of course, I not knowing the language, I could not tell the difference. Today I can notice that one dialect is different from one another, but I cannot tell how exactly that is - I suppose it is just intuitive. It is interesting to see that dialects occur all over the world, although this seems common sense. Dialects are really just different inflections on different words, or the usage of words different in relation to another dialect, that are exacerbated when this pocket of language speakers are self-contained. This is a natural and universal phenomenon. US dialects are much different from one another in only a few areas in the country, I believe; I can only conjure four or five different dialects in my mind when I think of that concept. However, I am sure there are many more.

I am half Puerto Rican and half Dominican by descent, and though I feel great pride in my heritage, I'm not able to actively participate in gatherings with others of my culture, including my extended family, very much. My immediate family and I are very Americanized - my father is from the Dominican Republic, but moved here as a teenager speaks fluent English, and my mother was born in Philadelphia. We celebrate Thanksgiving, play Wii Sports and Scrabble on Friday nights, and sometimes prefer to have Taco Bell instead of rice and beans, a traditionally Latino meal that is a staple of our household diet but is the closest tie we share with our heritage in our Virginia home. However, every year our family will take a trip up north, to Philly where both their families live. That, in its own, almost inexplicable way, is a bizarre cross-cultural foray that I am never sure how to handle. I will focus on my father's side of the family with this entry.

All of my father's family who live up north - that is, most of my cousins, all of my grandparents, and most of my aunts and uncles - speak Spanish, and live within an hour of one another, so they see each other every weekend at the least, and usually throw a party once every two months for a more formal gathering. They are very tight-knit and the entire family focuses around my grandparents, so in a way they are their own Dominican community. I haven't spoken Spanish since I was five (I can only write, read, and interpret very little), and since I rarely see my family, it feels almost unfamiliar to infiltrate my abuelo's home and smell the warm scent of platanos, a fried banana dish, and boiled chicken intermingling with shouts in Spanish and English.

Its always a new experience when I go to visit. As an outsider - they mostly speak Spanish in the home, so I can basically only interpret their intentions from their tones and gestures - it is almost intimidating to be around them, although I know they are my family. My cousins can be very loud whereas I was raised in a very soft-spoken tone. In Dominican families, it is expected that one raises their voice and be loud. Also, generosity is something not taken lightly. I personally know that when Christmastime comes around, penny-pinching or bargains are not something to practice, as an exemplary Dominican must be loud, proud and giving. These are just a few of the many cultural boundaries that I have experienced from the little interaction I can foster with my extended family. Although I know that I share a bond with these people that is stronger than language and culture, it astounds me, and sometimes even makes me uncomfortable, to be immersed in such a different culture. It feels as if you are having a confusing dream at time: everything seems realistic, but still something seems off, and perhaps you are not sure of what to do, or what is real.

I wrote a short picture story about my family and what I like to do. I used several Turkish dictionaries, along with the help of a native speaker, to compose this. I hope you enjoy!

I took a page out of Pete's book (figuratively) and translated a children's book that I found online on a blog for those who want to learn Turkish. I've scanned the text, as I wrote it in a journal. I did not translate the entire book; it's pretty long for a children's book. But there is enough to get a feel for a storyline.