İyi Bayramlar

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Surprised by a child kissing their hands and drawing it to the forehead as a sign of respect or enjoying the delicious holiday desserts, expatriates enjoy the full range of Bayram experiences. Together with the Muslim majority of the country, expatriates living in Turkey enjoy a Bayram break as well ŞAFAK TİMUR ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

Expats to experience a Muslim Bayram

While Turks look forward to Bayram to come together with family members or just to have a break from the rush of life, expatriates from various religions and nationalities also have their own Bayram experiences.

“In my first Bayram here in Turkey, I went to Edremit (a district in the western province of Çanakkale) with a good friend to visit her family,” said Stephanie Holtman, a music teacher who has lived in Turkey for five years. Holtman had already had the opportunity to witness the traditions of a Turkish family who closely follow Bayram's religious rituals as her friend's father was an imam. “We woke up every morning and had breakfast all together,” she said, explaining how the family offered candies to visitors and cooking baklava, a traditional Turkish desert.

“It was really a nice experience with the family and to see how they celebrate it,” said Holtman, who visited an area of Turkey outside of Istanbul for the first time that Bayram. “I realized that Istanbul is not all of Turkey. I experienced the country,” she said. Currently Holtman says she does not experience the Bayram atmosphere fully as she lives on her own.

Kim Erkan on the other hand, who has lived in Turkey for many years, has done more than just witness Bayram but has lived it as she was married to a Turk and used to live in Aydın, a small Aegean province. “When we lived in Aydın, I spent hours wandering around the open air street market, where women in colorful costumes sold goods they had made, grown or cooked to return home armed with odd but interesting presents, herbs and spices, exotic sweets and dried fruits to serve with tiny cups of thick, black Turkish coffee,” she said, telling about the Bayram preparations of the city residents. She witnessed women taking their children to the hamam, while their husbands waited for them outside at the barbershop, getting a Bayram haircut and shave on Arife, the day before Bayram starts.

Be a part of the community

Although religion and the tradition often differ, it does not seem that difficult for many to feel part of the community. Based on her own experience, Erkan said, “With love, respect and compassion, Islam and Christianity can exist comfortably side by side in happy union, growing stronger with each generation.”

Virginia Lowe, co-owner of a pizza place in Istanbul's Sultanahmet district, who visited many countries before she decided to settle in Turkey, said she did not feel that she was outside looking in. “While we may follow different roads to get there, we all look to the same God. I am one of the people of the book. And a joyful celebration is a celebration wherever it occurs in the world,” she said.

Lowe said she was at first startled when a child took her hand, kissed it and drew it to his forehead. “When I understood the gesture to be a sign of respect to an elder, I was touched. And now I am accustomed to the ritual when my younger friends perform it in a half-joking, half-respectful manner to their ‘abla' (elder sister). It means that I am part of the community,” she said. For Bayram, Lowe would make packets of American candies for the local kids who would knock on her door for candies, along with for the young men at the local shop nearby her house, as she said they had always been kind to her.

Turkey changes too

However, as time has passed, some of the traditions have started to weaken, especially in big cities. “Most people I know, regard it as a holiday,” said Stein-Gunnar Sommerset a Norwegian who has lived in Turkey for almost three years. According to Allan Keilin, an Australian English teacher living in the western province of Kocaeli, people are not that happy to visit relatives during Bayram. “People look annoyed as they have to see family and visit everybody and it is difficult to travel to four or five different family members,” he said.

Erkan on the other hand said Bayram retained its traditional importance and “is still celebrated with festive enthusiasm and pleasure,” despite many social and economic changes Turkey has experienced. Bayram is a reunion time for many people, according to Holtman too. “Families come together and visit people who they may only visit at Bayram,” she said. “I like that it is connecting the family.” turkishdailynews