A little bit of Ireland

A little bit of Ireland outside of Europe

Skrevet af: Henrik Vejsgaard Koch

Irishman Jim lives in Alanya, Turkey, with his wife and two children. Jim teaches communication/English at one of Alanya’s private schools. His wife usually stays at home to take care of the house. Occasionally though, she helps the drama department at Jim’s workplace by teaching dance there. When Jim paid us a visit, we had prepared some questions for him.

Is there some kind of Irish community here in Alanya? If there is, do you mainly socialize with other Irish people?

No, I don’t think there is an Irish community here in Alanya. Creating communities with people with the same nationality as you, is mostly done by the Scandinavians and the Dutch, we Irish just try to become a part of the already established Turkish community. We are, based on our own observations; a quite unique couple because we both are Irish. Most of the non Turkish couples we know are half Turkish, half foreign.

If you have to give your best guess, why is it that couples are mixed nationalities?

I think it is because the Turkish men are very good at being romantic, romantic in a BIG way. Though the romance levels usually drops after an eventual marriage I get a little bit embarrassed because the Turkish men are much more romantic than I have ever been towards my wife.

Why did you move to Alanya?

We had been vacationing here several times during roughly 10 years and really liked it here, the weather is nice and Turks ADORE children. So four years ago we moved from Dublin to Alanya, we had spent 11 months planning the move. The housing market in Ireland was horrible, so we began considering property outside of the Republic of Ireland. Also when we moved to Alanya, things were especially great in Ireland. After more than a decade with the famous “Celtic tiger”, the country’s economy suffered a bad recession period. We found out that living here was very different from vacationing here and in the beginning it was tough, but after about a year we had gotten used to living here.

You said that Turks adore children, how does that affect the children do you think?

In Turkey children are allowed to stay children for longer than most children living in the EU. You can see children in the start of their teenage years playing ball with each other like small kids. This might be because the media doesn’t play that big a role yet in Turkey. Turkey hasn’t gone through a kind of digitalisation yet so people are influenced by the media far less than in the EU. They don’t really watch American TV shows here. Actually they don’t really watch that much TV at all.

In what ways are the Turks different from EU Europeans?

The Turkish society is very interdependent and the parents play a large role in the lives of their children. The Turks use a lot of body language and gestures. Their gestures are different from those used in Europe. For example: in Europe you consider it rude when pointing at someone. In Turkey, you don’t just point carefully with your finger, you point with your whole arm.

There is not much order in the Turkish society; they don’t follow the rules as strictly as the Europeans. People drive how they want, not caring much about the signs or the traffic lights. The Turks cut in line and negotiate every purchase, even in the supermarket where the prices usually are determined beforehand.