I've been accepted EA on this essay to Chicago, but would love some last minute advice on this for William and Mary and other applications, as well as some scholarships. Hope you enjoy :)
(It is rather long, approximately 2 pages...sorry! If you have any suggestions as to how I could cut it down, those are always welcome.)
Question 5: (As Was Posed in an Application for Admission to the University of Chicago)
What is the difference between turkey (the bird) and Turkey (the nation)? Please be only slightly specific.
From my most recent American History class I remember how my teacher used to call people who did foolish things "turkeys". William Seward was a turkey for a little while, until we found the oil reserve. President Hoover was a turkey, depending on who you asked. I always thought that was funny, especially when I brought to mind how Benjamin Franklin had compared the eagle used on American insignia to the plumage of a turkey, and how he had declared that the turkey was an incredibly respectable bird. Nobody else seemed to notice this except for Franklin, because we can still find that wretched eagle that he had found so deplorable on most of our money. When you read Franklin's letter to his daughter concerning this issue, it seems to be in bad taste, on America's part, to have overlooked that turkey.
In further regard to the bird I can honestly say that turkeys are probably very adept at many things but I would know very little of such activities. I have never met a turkey.
Upon meeting my first Turk, however, I spotted a great difference between the Eurasian and the flightless bird. He was a co-worker of mine at an amusement park. Everybody who works there has their place of origin printed on a small beige name tag. Mine said Virginia. His said Turkey.
T-u-r-k-i-y-e, actually.
There were many Turks, and he wasn't the only one I worked with, but the first I happened to smile at. The company that owns the amusement park has a work-study program overseas, and every summer, college students from Russia, Poland, China, wherever, flock over to the small town of Williamsburg to work alongside American high school students as they supervise ring toss players and buckle in thrill-seekers onto dangerous roller coasters.
Turkiye smiled back at me in the same way that I had smiled at him, and although his name tag country was new to me I recognized a sense of brotherhood between us. He proceeded to introduce himself: "Iyi geceler. Ben Dogukan. Naber?"
He thought I was Turkish. It was an easy mistake I guess. We wore the same uniform, and our skin was about the same shade of caramel. I excused myself for not understanding. He laughed, restated his phrase in well-practiced English. His name was Dogukan and "what's up"? We got along well from there on out. It seemed like every night he and I would go to the housing where the international students lived, to observe the vibrant culture that had suddenly emigrated, almost by divinity, to this bland little town. What appeared to me like an obtrusion on my part - "it is no worry, you are a guest; Turkish people love our guests like they are cousins," Dogukan always said - became, in time, a nightly reunion of family.
I taught my new Turkish friends how to play Rock Paper Scissors and introduced the bravest of their pack to sushi. They, in turn, had me learn basic Turkce, my colors and numbers and how to ask for tea. They begged me for CDs of Avril Lavigne and Pink to take home to their siblings, to whom Western music was legendary, and I gladly obliged - along with CDs from The Doors, Andrew Bird and Radiohead. I played soccer, badly, and taught them how to say "I love you" and "I do not want to work today" in Spanish. I discussed with them the life of a global student, the ingredients of baklava, the rules of baseball, the difficulties of learning a new language. They began to call themselves Turkeys. I never called them Turkeys. It didn't seem right.
I was doing the work of an American ambassador, but I felt like an eager young immigrant to this foreign culture. I called Dogukan abim. It means, in Turkce, "brother".
Having to quit work for school, and consequently quit my new dwelling amongst the Turks, became somewhat frustrating. Dogukan promised me that when I came to visit Turkey someday (I most certainly will), should I contact him, he would be my personal tour guide around Istanbul. This vow held little to assuage what qualms I had, however, about leaving home. I found myself speaking slowly to my friends and family, which they found amusing. Tea had lost its flavor once I had to switch from Turkish black to English.
In short, I was feeling awfully, awfully homesick.
The most painful part, maybe, was conversation. I talked to friends about Turkiye and Turks and Turkish things of no real specification and they nodded along, but knew very little with which to facilitate the conversation. It seemed strange to me that, as beautiful, rich and warm as this culture is, it is not contemporarily marveled at in the way that we are dazzled by Parisian society, which lent to us the Statue of Liberty, or the people of Italy, whose architecture and cuisine is commonplace in large cities (though surely lovely nonetheless). It would seem, I suppose, that Turkiye hadn't given America much to talk about recently, and so the magnificence of the Taurus Mountains and the native dance of southern Turkiye, the kolbasti, would be lost upon the world.
I promised Dogukan, abim, I wouldn't let that happen. I talk about Turkiye today like a faraway dream place. People question my passion for the country, and I reply meagerly with what can be explained with words. My fascination surpasses what most Americans consider logical for a person who is not of Turkish descent, but most Americans have never shared a loaf of bread with a Turk.
I guess when we get right down to it, turkeys and Turkiye share the distinction of being well- intentioned, respectable entities; both admirable, both overlooked.
