4.27.2009

MEII: Week 2


Greetings. It's Monday, so that means week #2 of our Mission to End Intercultural Ignorance (MEII). And, like I mentioned last Monday, I am not very culturally literate, but I'm committed to trying. My commitment has been renewed, especially after being awed by the intercultural knowledge of all my learning partners who somehow know significantly more about the United States than I do, plus they somehow speak more languages than I can even fathom.

This week's country is: Turkey

Brief facts:
-Boarded by 8 countries (who knew?): Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan (oh dear, I didn't even know this was a country. I really need to study up!), Iran, Iraq, Syria
-unique combination of Eastern and Western culture
-democratic government
-population: 77,000,000
-Today, I learned from my learning partner, Harun, that the Turkish alphabet is very similar to our alphabet in the United States. It has 29 characters, and it looks almost identical.

CIA World Factbook article on Turkey
Turkish Poetry


Do you have any Turkey thoughts, facts, or references to share? Thanks for joining me for another country of the week!

3 comments:

  1. I think the most amazing thing about Turkey is that SOOOO much of the Bible took place in that land. From Genesis through Revelation, you can find a place in that region. It's pretty incredible to be there!

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  2. We had a good friend a few years ago who was a student from Turkey and one of my favorite things was being invited to his apt for turkish coffee and turkish delight :)

    Thanks for all the info...btw, I didn't know that Azerbaijan was a country either...no worries...now we both know. Isn't education great :)

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  3. We had a family from Turkey that opened up a restaurant just up the street from where I live. Their women are very pretty. The men and women are very hard working.

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