Reflecting the culture via videos

Turkish People and Culture

Last week, Thomas Thomsan requested us to chose a video representing our culture and to determine the reasons why we choose it. This was the first time that I watched and selected a video on "youtube" for an educational aim. Furthermore, it was very good experience doing something different for educational purposes, in my opinion. So, I have found this video effective enough in terms of reflecting Turkish culture. I hope you like the it. While watching this video, you can see most of important symbol representing Turkish culture. These symbols are;

• arthitectural building for instance mosques (not only mosques but also churchs), castles, palaces, museums, bridges, Maiden's Tower
• natural cultural remains such as Cappadocia, Sculptures in Nemrut
• horses having important role in the life of Asians
• see the cultural turkish dance called "halay"
• some traditional musical enstruments such as "davul" and "zurna"
• conventional clothes
• both urban and rural areas
• sports such as rafting, camping, climbing, surfing, skiing
• traditional tournament called "oil wrestling"
• a kind of cat having one blue and one green eyes called "Van cat"
• different sources of income such as fishery, silk, industrial factories
• national plane firm called Turkish Airlines being famous in worldwide
• Turkish foods such as "döner"
• a slice of villagers' lives
• how to make Turkish carpets and ceramics
• whirling dervishes called "semazen"
• modern arts demonstrating in turkey such as theater, opera, ballet
• memorial cemetery of Ataturk ,who has founded Turkish Republic, and flag of Turkey
• national Turkish football team wining UEFA cup

 

Statistics for the questionnaire

          Question1. You have lunch between:

          a.     11:00 – 12:00

          b.     12:00 – 13:00

          c.      13:00 – 14.00

Question 2. Do you snack between meals:

a.     Usually

b.     Sometimes

c.      Never

Question 3. What is your most important meal:

a.     Breakfast

b.     Lunch

c.      Dinner

Question 4. How many times do you eat in a day?

a.     Two

b.     Three

c.      More than tree

Question 5. Have you dinner between:

a.     16.00 – 18:00

b.    18:00 – 20:00

c.     20:00 – 22:00

Question 6. How often do you eat outside?

a.     Once a month

b.     Once a week

c.      Several times a week

Question 7. How often do you eat foreign food? And what is your favorite one?

a.      Usually

b.      Sometimes

c.      Never / Rarely

Here are the answers given the second part of question:
Arabian
Indian (two times)
Italian
Japanese (two times)
Turkish
Chinese
Thai food

Question 8. Dou you prefer  eating organic food rather than inorganic?

a.      Yes

b.      No

c.      I don’t mind

Question 9. How often do you eat fast food?

a.     Usually

b.     Sometimes

c.      Never / rarely

Question 10. What is the food you eat mostly?

Pasta (seven people gave the same answer)

Bread and vegetables

Vegetables ( two people gave the same answer.)

Black bread

Meat and vegetables

CONCLUSIONS:
We have asked this questionnaire to ten people and what we have found out is that:

-The most of them prefer having lunch between 12:00-13:00.
-Most of them usually snack between meals.
-The 90% of females think that the most important meal is breakfast and males give more importance to lunch and dinner.
-Every woman eats more than three times in a day and most of the men prefer eating just three or less times.
-Almost the 100% of those polled agree about having dinner between 18:00 and 20:00.
-In relation with question 6, all of females eat outside once a month. However, males have different opinions, as some of them do it once a week.
-The majority of over thirty people eat foreign food sometimes and in reference with the youngest ones there is the same percentage who eat it usually and sometimes.
-Moreover, the foreign food they prefer most are the Indian and the Japanese ones.
-All of the people, regardless the age or the gender prefer organic food.
-Almost of all the people we polled eat fast food sometimes.
-Pasta and vegetables are the most common food that these Danish people eat.

In summary, from our point of view, in general, Danish food habits are healthier than ours (Turkish and Spanish), as they have breakfast so early because they also get up in the first light of the day. Moreover, they also have dinner sooner and go to bed earlier than us; prefer eating organic rather than inorganic food; they eat a lot of vegetables and not so much fast food; and they eat a lot of times in a day.

I have made these statistics with Paula according to our ethnographic study.

Culture, Identity and Citizenship 

I would like to share what I have learnt in the lesson of Democratic Citizenship because I find it very interesting. I hope you also enjoy like me.

Culture: A group that you belong to. It can be a national culture, a gender culture, religious culture, youth culture and so on.

The Concept of Culture

• Some kind of group people belongs (national, sports, gender, religions etc.)
• Culture changes from our countries to here (we discussed the reason why we have different cultures)

               - Habits are different.

               - We are learning more with less amount of content here. It’s because we have group works, so we can remember easily. (social constructivism = the name of this kind of learning)

               - In Denmark, more relaxed teachers and students concerning classroom.

               - People  negotiate  culture (negotiation between participants)

Examples of descriptive culture and complex culture

* Culture change e.g. gender roles (complex)

*  Culture   and static. The way to do things will not change. (descriptive)

*  Tendency to stereotyping people from other groups to nation (descriptive)

* There is a change that stereotyping will lead to judgements about a stituation. That is not right or at least, not the whole explanation. (descriptive)

* What is important here is that we should try to be open minded. Not all people from a culture acts the same thing. (complex)

* Looking  for other explanations to how a situation went

Identity

There is a discussion between few extremes concerning identity.

1.  "Identity has a care that never changes.”
2.  "Identity is changing all the time because we are in social relationship with others.”
3.  "Identity is negotiated and differs according to the social group you are in.”

                - Upbringing

                - School

                - Friends

                - Prejudicing

Identity has to be confirmed.

Cultural Identity: It is not something static.

                - Culture is complex.

                - Identity is complex.

Be aware of prejudicing about people from other culture. Or else, there is a possibility that you act in a negative way about are not aware of it.

What is the citizenship?

Citizenship: right and duties that the citizen in a country has. If you are a citizen to a country, there are some rules you have to obey such as moral rules, right and duties, a sense of belonging, a feeling of responsibility. If you have a passport you will have these rights and duties.

Next, Thomas asked us a question on how to make people feel that they belong to a country. And then, we have talked about "cohesion and unity".

Grundtuig after 1864: There was just one national culture in Denmark. We had lost the last regions with minorities to Germany.

Many people feel that the social cohesion is corroding (crumpling). That may be special for Denmark in comparison with other countries. Moreover, immigration is what people concerned. The Danish focus on culture in citizenship is the strategy to cope with the question of diversity.

Citizen education is about the group of people and the democratic constitution.

T. H. McLaughlin’s text (Citizenship, diversity and education a philosophical perspective)

• Is concerned with the question of cohesion.
• From 1992 which is early when we discussing the content of citizen education.
• Asks if “liberal democratic values” is enough to make cohesion is multicultural England.
• He is not sure it would be enough for people to feel that they should take active part of society.
• Asks for public virtues. (teaching to be concerned with more than themselves)

We have to teach pupils to be active and not indifferent.

• Not tell them how to take care but make sure that they are concerned with more than themselves.

In early 1990s, it became important for the European Union to focus on democratic citizenship education because of “the Fall of the Iron Curtain (a term for the communist part of the world)”.

Ethnographic study about "Danish foods & eating habits" 

in Copenhagen

Our teachers have mentioned us Copenhagen excursion. Before going to Copenhagen we have made an ethnographic study as a group. Firstly, we have chosen a topic about what we want to investigate and and what we want to learn about Danish people. Next, we have prepared a questionnaire about Danish foods and eating habits. I would like to share these questions with you. And then, we have decided what we are going to do in Copenhagen after our excursion accompanied by Peter and Anne Kristine has finished.

The day when we have been in Copenhagen, first of all, we have gone to a primary school which is one of the most famous schools in the capital. It had really huge buildings like a university campus and many playground for pupils and many facilities that they can use for their spare time as a hobby such as a well-equipped music room and a wooden workroom. It has drown my attention so much that the pupils does not have to wear a uniform at the school. Because in Turkey, all of the pupils studying in a primary, upper and higher secondary school have to wear a uniform. What attracts my attention secondly is that there are some refrigerators at school for pupils' using. It is really a very big opportunitiy in my opinion.

After visiting the school, our teachers have guided us going the Christian cemetery and they made us to show Andersen's tomb ,who is the most famous Danish writer worldwide, mentioning his masterpiece and a slice of his life. Before this time, I didn't know Hans Christian Andersen was Danish. Of course, I know his name and his literature & fairy tales but I didn't really know that he was Danish.

After visiting the cemetery, our teachers have left us alone so we have had a spare time to conduct our questionnaire. We have requested people whether they could participate in our work or not. Some of them have replied positively and answered our questions although some of them have not had enough time to do this because they were in a hurry. Unfortunately, we have also encountered another problem that some of them cannot speak English. Moreover, a shop assistant has warned us it is not aloud to ask questions to costumers without a permission from the main shop while we were asking some questions about their eating habits to the costumers in a supermarket. It was very disappointing for us. Anyway we succeed to complete our ethnographic study.

To conclude, we have asked ten people including men and women in equal parts. Furthermore, half of them are over thirty and the other half of them are under thirty concerning their ages. After we have been a ITC-media conference, we decided to use "wikispace" in order to use our work on pupils' education. So we have created a wikispace account and uploaded our work there arranging some pages. You are very welcome to have look at our pages and make comments. Here, you can easily contact us:

http://drinkandfoodhabits.wikispaces.com/
http://drinkandfoodhabits.wikispaces.com/-/Copenhaguen%20inhabitants%C2%B4%20food%20habits/Ana%20and%20Ilknur/

This is made by Paula, Ana and me.

THREE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR HUMAN KIND TODAY

 
                                                Created by İlknur, Ebru and Bara.

We have created this map on the course of Educational Studies II.

A RECORD OF MY INTERCULTURAL EXPERIENCE

A. Feelings
All the people living in Denmark stay at home at weekends. When I go out at weekends, the main street is almost empty and there is silence so much. It is so too strange for me. Because all the streets are so crowded in Turkey especially in weekends.

All the brands in the supermarket are in Danish. So it is difficult to understand what exactly it is. And the Danish food are very different when I compare it with the Turkish food. For this reason sometimes I feel homesick. 

The first week of coming to Denmark is like a mounth for me. It was a liitle bit hard to get use to live in a new place with new people and very new culture. But I think I am getting used to here day by day. Other international students help me for this. For instance: They always invite me for an activity such as playing volley, going to the beach and etc.

B. Knowledge
That it is aloud to wear whatever they want is the most important thing I learnt about life at school. Because all the pupils have to wear a unique uniform at the level of primary school and high school. It is a little bit different than my country.

The most important things I have learnt about the country, the nation, the state where I stayed are that everything is so expensive here but the people living here do not find this so strange like me because their salaries are also so high. 

What I have learnt about customs and conventions of talking with people is that almost all the people living here are going home at christmas. In Turkey, we have no such kind of traditions about the christmas. But I really would like to attend a christmas activity because I wonder what it looks like.

C. Actions
In Turkey, the people kiss each other from both of cheeks in order to greet someone else. At the first time I came here, I tried to greet with this way but the greeting is very different than Turkey. That is, Danish people greets each other by just pressing the flesh or saying "hi".

I asked all Danish people I have met "what are Danish people doing during the weeekend?". I really wonder the answer of this quesion. Because I could not see anyone on the street when I go for a walk.

A SELF-ASSESSMENT OF MY INTERCULTURAL EXPERIENCE

A. Interest in other people's way of life
I am interested in other people's experience of daily life, particularly those things not usually presented to outsiders through the media. For example, some people make their own bread because the white bread is only cheap but it is not so healty. So, the other wholemeal breads are rather expensive.

I am also interested in the daily experience of a variety of social groups within a society and not only the dominant culture. For instance, most of the students are going Bacardi Bingo at thursday's nights. It is like a rituel.

B. Ability to change perspective
I have realised that I can understand other cultures by seeing things from a different point of view and by looking at my culture from their perspective. For example, I can understand that they drink alcohol so much whereas I do not drink it, I can understand their cultures.

C. Ability to cope with living in a different culture
I am able to cope with a range of reactions such as discomfort and somesick I have to living in a different culture. For instance, I am not alone living in a different country. So there are lots of other people having some problems like me. It makes me feel more comfortable.

D. Knowledge about another country and culture
I know some important facts about living in the other culture and about the country, state and people. For instance, they love resting so much and in my opinion they prefer to stay at home even at weekends. Even if I find it strange, I respect their life styles.

I know how to engage in conversation with people of the other culture and maintain a conversation. For example, ome can ask to somebody that how the first impression about Denmark and Danish people was. or I can engage a conversation by asking the first experinces at the Copenhagen airport, by asking whether it is difficult to come Vordingborg from Copenhagen.

E. Knowledge about intercultural communication
I know how to resolve misunderstandings which arise from people's lack of awareness of the view point of another culture.For instance, When my flatmate was confused because of some misunderstanding, I tried to tell her lack of awareness due to the cultureal differences.

I know how to discover new information and new aspects of the other culture for myself. For instance, allmost all the people living here have a pet especially a dog. And I discover that some people have more than one pet. It attracts my attention that the people having pets are generally over the middle ages.


I have created this document according to Michael Byram's Sprogforum.
Here, you can find: http://inet.dpb.dpu.dk/infodok/sprogforum/Espr18/byram.html

The Burger

It was very delicious dinner!!