I became a Turkish citizen

I became a Turkish citizen in 2022. 2023 is the 100th anniversary of Turkey’s founding. I went to Istanbul and resolved the conflict of dual nationality. This is what I saw on the road. As a Turkish immigrant, I don’t know Turkey well enough. Please forgive me if there is anything inappropriate in my writing.

I departed from Beijing Daxing Airport. After the flight attendant fed us a midnight snack in the early morning, the cabin entered sleep mode. I don’t know if it flew over Russian airspace. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep and watched the 3D view of the flight for nine hours. Now you can actually watch the real-time information of the aircraft flight on the seat screen, terrain, route, speed, altitude, temperature… The advancement of technology has made life better. If there is no war, the world will be better.

The 7,700-kilometer flight was very smooth. In the early morning, we landed in Istanbul, a thousand-year-old city spanning the Eurasian continent, and now it is an international metropolis known as the pearl of the Black Sea. The Bosphorus Strait is beautiful, and the star-crescent flag flutters on the coastline. The two sides of the strait are the European and Asian areas of Istanbul.

There are more than 20 million people living in Istanbul, accounting for almost 1/4 of the total population of Turkey. Although the capital of Turkey is Ankara, Istanbul is the most prosperous, just like the relationship between Shanghai and Beijing. Istanbul is also the haunt of wealthy people from the Middle East and Russia. In the luxury malls in the Maskra business district, Russian beauties can be recognized at a glance.

Although the Turks are not as tall as Russians, they are also very good-looking. Women have double eyelids, big eyes. Men have deep eyes and straight noses. The babies in the strollers are as cute as dolls. My friend saw a tall and handsome male salesman in the ZARA store, just like a male model. She secretly took a photo of him, but was embarrassed to say hello to him. East Asians have relatively flat faces which is very different from West Asia. I think my appearance is considered average in China, but I may be considered ugly in Turkey and it is difficult to find a girlfriend.

I know the history of Istanbul. After the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was facing the fate of being divided. Kemal, who was already famous all over the world, called on the people and various forces to save the country. He led the troops to fight against the invasion of the Greek army. He was shot through the ribs but did not leave the line of fire. He finally turned the tide of the war and defeated the Greek army. Through the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the territory of modern Turkey was established, the Republic of Turkey was established, and independence was achieved.

When I was a child, Kemal’s secular reforms were also included in Chinese textbooks. I walked on the streets of Turkey, shopping malls, banks, office buildings, government agencies… Women worked the same as men, and even among the police on duty with submachine guns, there were heroic female policewomen（the first time I saw it outside of a movie). This was all based on reform. Other things such as the political system and the economic system were based on Europe, and they were all the results of reform. The Turkish presidential election was also the first time in my life that I voted for the leader of the country.

Kemal said that military victory was not enough for true liberation. Whether it could become a modern civilized country was a matter of life and death. Unfortunately, he died of illness at the age of 54, but he profoundly changed the Turkish nation and people. In my opinion, this is a great man.

Many Chinese who don’t know much about Turkey, when they heard that I became a Turkish citizen, thought that Turkey belongs to the European Union. In fact, they are wrong. Turkey is a member of NATO.

As early as 1952, Turkey was a member of NATO because Europe and the United States needed it to guard the Black Sea and contain the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. It is said that Turkey is one of the top ten countries in the world in terms of military strength. Turkey has a lot of F16 fighter jets that Ukraine dreams of. In NATO, Turkey has the most F16s except the United States.

However, the EU did not accept Turkey in terms of politics, economy and culture. In 1987, Turkey applied to join the European Community, the predecessor of the European Union. The European Union was established in 1993, and Turkey was listed as a candidate country in 1999. I remember that in 2023, President Erdogan complained that Ukraine did it in four months, what happened to Turkey?

Joining the European Union is a long way off, and I feel that being able to obtain visa-free entry will be a huge achievement. But the most pressing problem for Turkey right now is inflation. The official data for 2022 shows that the inflation rate is 72.31%, and the private data has reached 186%. The food is the most obvious. I have a light meal, chicken rice is about 50 yuan, mutton rice is 80, and sea fish is more than 120, which is not cheap even in China.

Because of currency depreciation, the house price has increased, and even second-hand cars have increased because of anti-inflation. Everyone has to work hard to make money and race against inflation.

The elderly put out carpets and sell tissues, and taxi drivers increase their income by overcharging passengers (for a 60-lira ride, the driver asked me for 800 lira, I took out my Turkish ID card and asked him if 100 lira would be okay, and he accepted it,this showed that Turkish drivers don’t bully their own people).the restaurant owner went to the roadside to solicit customers, the uncle selling ice cream was shouting hard, the handsome guy who looked at most 30 years old was picking up Coke cans, and the coffee shop girl who looked a little like Monica Bellucci made me a cup of latte tea.

I walked past the Taksim Republic Monument while drinking tea. A boy was playing with pigeons, and a girl of two or three years old was sitting on the roadside begging, her mother wearing a headscarf was selling bottled water on the side. The girl looked like a doll and smiled. I gave the mother a banknote, and she still smiled. The mother nodded to me to express her gratitude.

I got on the subway. A little girl who looked six or seven years old was begging in the car with a paper cup. I also gave her some change. When she raised her head, I saw that there was no smile on her face, and her eyes were cold. After all, children of this age are already a little sensible.

On the streets of Independence Avenue, Kemal’s portrait was floating in the wind. I was thingking, today, Turkey’s enemy was severe inflation, which had invaded the wealth and lives of the Turks. Are there any wise and courageous heroes who can lead this country to victory in the economic defense war? I hope so.

The earthquake on February 6 was another heavy blow to Turkey. The tragic casualties were even worse than those in Wenchuan, China, and the economy was also affected. But the living people have to lower their heads to dig the ruins, and also raise their heads to examine the future of the country and nation.

Turkey can neither return to the old system of the Islamic Empire nor fully integrate into the Western system. Modern and ancient, secular and traditional, prosperous and poor, hardship and hope coexist on this 780,000 square kilometers of land.

The centenary is also a crossroads. As a Turkish immigrant, I am not qualified to comment on the future of the country, but I sincerely hope that Turkey will become more prosperous, free and safe. Turkey will become better, and overseas citizens like me will also be better protected.

Many people asked me why I wanted to become a Turkish citizen. After all, China is the world’s second largest economy. There are reasons for everything, which are hard to explain in one sentence. We are not Uyghurs, there are other reasons. After completing the procedures in Istanbul last year, I returned to China to accompany my elderly parents who were in trouble and needed me to fight for them.

I don’t know what the outcome will be, I don’t know how long it will take, but one day I will leave China, I hope one day I can take my parents across the Bosphorus, if I can’t save them, then I will tell my story, if Turkey can publish books, I want to write a book.

I hope that when I stand on the land of Istanbul again, not only will the suffering of my family end, but also that the people in the earthquake-stricken areas will have started a new life, no one will beg in Taksim Square, and the little girl on the subway will have a smile on her face. This is the responsibility and mission of the new government.