Response to the Edge of Heaven

The thing I found most interesting about this film is the relationships between parents and their children. When Ali said that he had to raise Nejat alone and that Yeter sent all of her money t her daughter to be used for education, I was very touched. Perhaps I find human relationships fascinating. Some films really explore these ideas well. This film reminded me of Spanglish in a sense. It involves people who are raise in different cultures and must struggle to balance their world with their parent's world. I am not a parent so I do can not completely understand the depth of a mother's or father's love for their children, but from this film, I was exposed to such passionate ideas of love. It was a sad momement when Nejat said that he does not associate with murderers when referring to his father. Although it is justifiable on his part to have some resentment towards his father for committing such a horrible sin. Although Nejat's statement was very strong and a bit heartless, he eventually forgives his father at the end of the movie. I notice an interesting trend with forgiveness in this movie. Susanne disapproved of Lotte being with Ayten. She did not want her daugher to leave and go to Turkey. Susanne went as far as cutting Lotte off financially. However, eventually Susanne's motherly instincts kicks in and she became very worried about her daughter. In her quest to discovering Lotte's whereabouts, she is hit with the terrrible news that Lotte had died. This was a tragic moment, but it helped Susanne realized that she made a mistake by not supporting her daughter. She was able to forgive both her daugher and Ayten. Forgiveness was a powerful theme in this movie and I believe that it relates very well to the Turkish and German experience. There have been many conflicts, wars, discrimination that occured in Germany, but people have always been able to move past these things beacuse of forgiveness. It is not an easy aspect of progress, but it can make quite an impact.

Istanbul's choice

As I was reading Istanbul’s Choice by Asu Aksoy, I am reminded of a conversation I had with my cousin. She was telling me about her experience studying abroad in Turkey. In short, she had a great time there. She especially loved Istanbul. I guess I was a somewhat surprised because I had always thought of Turkey as an “old country” with very conservative people. Fun would not be the first word that comes to my mind if I had to describe Turkey. When I saw pictures of my cousin and her friends at a night-club and swimming in their bikini’s, I was really confused. My cousin finally explained that Turkey is actually quite liberal and resembles the western world. Thus, I was less surprise when Aksoy stated, “Istanbul is regarded as one of the most dynamic cities in the world, open to change and indeed changing fast. It amazes how much globalization has affected our world. I guess it is not hard to imagine that this force could affect major changes in a country. The article said that after WWII around the time before 1980’s, Turkey had a policy of Import Substitution Modality. This policy promoted local trading, and discouraged imports from the industrialized markets. In other words, Turkey was resistant to globalization. However, like many other policies of isolationism, this economic one soon died. It was replaced with progressing new markets, consumerism and industry. Of course, with this follows a city with more openness to new cultures. “neoliberalism brings together very different constituencies with diverse lifestyles, values, beliefs and practices”. I thought that this article brought up an interesting, but ironic trend in globalization. Although globalization promotes many developing countries to become more open and encourages diversity. At the same time, the exchange of products has caused the people in many of these countries to become more homogenized. Shawn showed us this effect with his pop-out book which showed men in Paris, shanghai, and New York wearing similar outfits. It was hard to distinguish the people between these three cities.

Found my topic!!! Super Duper excited :D

Last night I was slaving away at my chemistry homework in Odegard library on the third floor (quiet floor). I was very frustrated with a problem involving molar fractions, vapor pressures of pentane and hexane, density of these gases, and so on with the science train. My eyes were so dried it felt like my contacts were a heavy sheet of hot sand. I finally gave up on the chemistry problem and started researching my topic for Berlin. I was still unsure on my specific area of interest within my top two topics. So, Google came to my rescue like always. I typed in Berlin Media and the first thing that pops up on the search was Google maps listing places in Berlin with the word “media” in it. Epic fail. However, I was still able to find information about the newspapers, news channels, libraries, and publications. I could already tell that all of this information was leading me nowhere far. Thus, I started searching fore more details on minority population in Germany. I was looking at charts and statistics on different nationalities residing in Berlin. As my eyes are scanning over the various population numbers and nationality labels, I was not expecting a big surprise. I saw Turkey listed with the most citizens and then Poland, Serbia, Russia , etc. But then something caught my eye, the data listed “Vietnam (12,165). Then I looked further to see if these statistics were all that out of the ordinary. What I found was very striking, aside from Thailand, which has the smallest population (5,878) living in Berlin, Vietnam was the only Asian country listed. This was very intriguing to me and so my Googling mode switched into high gear. It was amazing how much information I found about the Vietnamese experience in Berlin. I was very excited because not only does it relate to me personally, but I learned so many new history about my country and its people.
Here is some of the information that found:
Towards the end of the Vietnam War, there were myriads of Vietnamese refugees that had escaped to West Germany. They were called the “boat people”. The German government aided these people socially and economically. Soon, they were able to assimilate and adopt the German culture and lifestyle. Even more is that most of children of these Vietnamese refugees grew up only knowing German and lost most of their links to their Vietnamese culture. Additionally, East Germany at this time also invited lot of North Vietnamese people to come to Berlin to study and be trained in industrial programs. They had 5-year contracts with the East German government who mainly just wanted to do this in order to increase labor force.
The most interesting aspects about these two different groups of Vietnamese immigrants in Germany is that they were indeed separated by the social and political wall in their homeland, but even after they have escaped, they are confronted by a new dividing line; physically it is the Berlin wall, but figuratively it is the same wall that they had left behind in Vietnam.
This quote is referring to the East German Vietnamese workers. “In terms of their characteristics and relations to mainstream society, they were almost the exact opposite of the boat people: they were the elite of their country of origin, rather than refugees from it, and they knew that they would leave Germany, so put forth little effort towards integrating into East German society or learning the local language”.
I am very glad I came across this one small statistical fact on Germany’s minority population, which led me to discover so much more information about my home country. I am excited to find out more about the Vietnamese’s people’s experience now and before the fall of the wall. From what I have read, there is still tension between the Vietnamese people living in the East and the ones in the West. This seems to the shared sentiments for Berliners as a whole. I am curious about the effects that the Berlin wall has on the people surrounding it and not only that, but the social structures that were formed.
Ultimately, I am excited to be learning more about Berlin as a city of history, struggles, and conflict, but it will allow me to discover my own culture and how it was affected so much by a single philosophy “communism”.

Germany's Cultural diplomacy

As I was searching for recent events and news in Berlin, Germany, I came across an article that relates well with our discussion on nationalism. Misha brought up this interesting topic and explained that much of the German nationalism has started to disappear. However, this article shows that some form of nationalism is good and the German government is still supporting it. The article discussed the recent expansion of Germany’s cultural diplomacy. They are using this form of diplomacy abroad. The article in particular talked about different institutes around the world that has showcase German academic achievements in science and engineering and also the arts. Additionally, the German government also funds a lot of schools in other nations to teach the German language courses. The budget for cultural diplomacy has increased by 30%, which means there is probably a lot of support for this from the German people. This is very intriguing to me because I perceive cultural diplomacy as a form of nationalism. In the word of Germany’s Foreign Minister, “cultural diplomacy offered new ways to gain influence in a world of cultural and religious conflicts”. Germany is providing a means for the rest of the world to learn about its culture, language, and achievements. This is an indication that Germany is still proud of its country and history and wants to spread these sentiments to other nations.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/265593,germany-expands-cultural-diplomacy-with-new-showcases.html