Two sides of the table

I went out to eat with some of my second year speaking class students. I have a really nice chemistry with this class; in fact two of the students who are sisters had me over for a lavish meal cooked by their mom the day before. We decided to get some students together to see some live Turkish folk music at a local bar/cafe. We had to invite everyone in the class, of course, so no one would feel left out.

Before we went to the club, the twelve of us (out of a class of forty) went out to a meal at a local restaurant. Half the students who came were very modern, and half the students...well, I didn't know until they arrived, but they came from more conservative families, as you can see to the left.

In Turkey, the scarf is banned in government, including national universities like mine, which has caused some real social problems here. I'll get into it in another blog post. I had no idea which students some of these were because it was difficult to recognize them after only two times in class (without scarves on at the time). What was even more interesting was the stark difference between the two groups. One half sat on one side of the table and chatted quietly among themselves, the other group (pictured in the cafe we went to later) was loud, constantly making jokes, and the males and females were openly physically affectionate with each other.

They got along just fine, of course, and were very kind to each other. But there was a clear difference between the two; it was palpable. I sat in between the two groups and conversed with both of them, bridging the middle somehow, interacting as much as possible with the awkwardly shy girls. The girls in scarves didn't come out with us to the bar after dinner either. When one of my more liberal female students told me that group wouldn't be joining us, she whispered, "So conservative! It's because they serve alcohol at the bar and they don't want to be seen there!"

What interests me most is how the two different sides of Turkey, the very Western and the more conservative and religious, manage to co-exist. Between young people, this existence is more harmonious. But this dichotomy between the West and Turkey's Islamic heritage is a mounting tension that constantly dictates her growth, her identity, her future, and sometimes threatens to pull her apart at the seams. It will be interesting to see how she moves ahead.