[HN Gopher] On leaving Turkey (2021)
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On leaving Turkey (2021)
Author : ahmetomer
Score : 110 points
Date : 2022-04-18 10:54 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ahmetomer.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (ahmetomer.net)
| SenpaiHurricane wrote:
| As a Turkish engineer who left Turkey 3.5 years ago, I wish you
| good luck! You will feel alone, confused and behind at the
| beginning but later on you will adopt European life style and you
| will realize there is a huge world out there to not belong a
| single country. You made a great choose, enjoy it!
| jdrc wrote:
| Interesting, what are the things that a Turk would need to
| adapt to?
| t43562 wrote:
| Not being able to bend the rules. Sorting rubbish.
| The need to get 3 quotes before you get anyone to work on
| your house The fact that not everything is a conspiracy
| Foreigners sometimes prefer to finish work properly rather
| than fast - e.g. without leaving wires sticking out of the
| wall in a big shopping mall etc. Non Turks aren't all
| accustomed to you going up and talking to their baby as a
| total stranger Not having toilets that squirt water on
| your bum like they do in Turkey.
|
| You can live in a nearly complete Turkish bubble in the UK
| and Germany is probably even more like that.
|
| This would be sad. Turkish food, for example, might sometimes
| be good but the world has a lot to offer and I've met a lot
| of Turks who won't try anything (Brits are probably slightly
| better on average but many are just as bad).
| SenpaiHurricane wrote:
| Things I learnt so far:
|
| - Slowing down (Turkish people always in a rush)' - Saying
| 'NO' (we tend to say YES a lot eventhough we think it is a no
| situation, both in your real life and work life) - Every
| people I met, they already visited most of the countries in
| Europe, so they are travelling all world and met with
| different people from different cultures. Before I came
| Europe I only visited one country other than Turkey. It takes
| some time learn other cultures and how to behave... -
| Politics is stupid. - There are other problems than economy,
| middle east, religion etc. People are talking about
| sustanability, climate change, electronic cars etc.
|
| There are other things but these are the ones come to my mind
| so far :)
| aranelsurion wrote:
| About the last one, I remember being positively surprised
| by how little 'happens' in terms of news in Germany,
| compared to back in Turkey. Leaving that feeling of
| impending doom, as if something bad is waiting just around
| the corner, and most of your small talk now being about
| shitty weather or whatever.
|
| Then COVID and Russia happened, and now the world is
| catching up in doom and gloom. :)
| SenpaiHurricane wrote:
| Yes indeed. Same in NL.
|
| On the other hand, I find these attitudes hypocritical
| when it comes to war and Ukraine. As if suddenly, these
| people realized war is bad. Turkish people have been
| facing it since 2003, if we talk about terrorism we may
| have to go back even further.
|
| The Syrian War was never discussed, but now everyone is
| talking about the Ukraine War, and no action is taken
| instead of painting big buildings yellow and blue.
| ahmetomer wrote:
| Thank you for the good wishes! Tbh didn't feel much loneliness
| since I know few people here in Germany and also nearby
| countries. Getting adapted to a new country is a sweet
| experience. Enjoying it so far.
| weatherlite wrote:
| It is a very very long journey. Not trying to discourage you
| or anything but have you even had your first German winter?
| agumonkey wrote:
| how many (and which) country did you go to ?
| scandox wrote:
| > mostly brown
|
| I too am mostly brown. Love this way of putting it for some
| reason.
|
| For so long I wanted Europe to encourage Turkey to join the EU
| and I feel very sad about how negatively it all turned out.
|
| While we have responded somewhat coherently to the war on
| Ukraine, I feel like this is a temporary moment of clarity. In
| other respects I feel like our drive to look outwards and take
| risks is very low.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| Of the 6 reasons to leave I would suggest two of them are
| completely valid, career and economic hardship.
|
| The other 4 are grass being greener.
|
| Unknown future, I would suggest Germany has the most unknown
| future out of any country right now.
|
| Country leadership, reads like a lot of countries, even a cynical
| US take.
|
| Too much politics, literally politics.
|
| Architecture, this one is interesting. If you're comparing a
| postcard or even tourist perspective to a city that you've grown
| up and lived in your whole life, you will be able to see warts
| and all what you know but nothing from the city you're comparing
| it to.
|
| I've had the privilege now of living in a bunch of different
| cities for enough time to get to know them more than just as a
| tourist. I would suggest 2 months of time at a minimum to get the
| vibe, 4-6 to actually know a place and then the more subtle
| details continue to be noticed / learned of from then on.
|
| A concrete example of something you won't understand about a city
| until you've lived there is the postal service / how easy it is
| to recieve things. I had a drivers license circumnavigate the
| globe after it was returned to sender thanks to the efficency of
| the Spanish postal service and their ridiculous Franco era hand
| cart delivery.
| sh33sh wrote:
| Hopefully a lot of brave young Turks aren't blinded by western
| propaganda like you and were able to build a great IT community
| for example. The country shows great promise in the coming
| decades
| nnoitra wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. I know these
| things can bring up strong feelings but nationalistic and
| political flamewars (which this sort of comment tends to lead
| to) are against the spirit of this site and only make things
| worse.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| pacija wrote:
| Im ZK, Agent aus Turkei
|
| Deutschland, Deutschland, alles ist vorbei!
|
| :)
| golergka wrote:
| Ironic -- I'm reading this in my Istanbul airbnb, having left
| Russia in total emergency just month and a half ago, living out
| of a single suitcase, without any idea of where I'm going to
| live. And just before I opened this blog post, I was thinking
| about how comfortable and surprisingly modern Turkey appears to
| be, and if I, like a lot of my friends, should later apply for a
| citizen's permit here.
| picardo wrote:
| Good luck. My family emigrated to US from Turkey in the 90s. Back
| then, the inflation was over a hundred percent. It costs millions
| of liras to buy a dollar. Now the history is repeating itself.
| The value of lira is tanking and inflation is running amuck. The
| people governing the country have changed, but the systemic rot
| is still there.
| dark-star wrote:
| The lira was devalued 1000000:1 in the 90s. So if a dollar was
| 1000000 lira back then that is actually a similar figure as
| stated in the article of 1.8 lira for the dollar.
|
| I have a 1000000 lira note right here that a friend gave me
| around the year 2000. I kept it because I liked the big number
| on it. It looks special. Even then he mentioned that it was
| only about a dollar or two
| thelight1 wrote:
| thriftwy wrote:
| I wonder why he did not consider working remotely. Getting a low
| end European or even American developer salary while living in
| Turkey should be pretty kushy. You can also live in the
| mediterranean away from that poorly built mass housing he
| described.
| notch656a wrote:
| >Turkish citizen with Kurdish origin
|
| That may answer your question why they may not be excited to
| stay in Turkey.
| mda wrote:
| Not necessarily. Things improved a lot in past 30 years, I
| would say Turks and Kurds suffer almost equally nowadays.
| ismaildonmez wrote:
| > I would say Turks and Kurds suffer almost equally
| nowadays.
|
| That is quite the truth.
|
| Source: Turkish citizen with Turkish origin with brown skin
| :)
| ahmetomer wrote:
| My origin doesn't have much to do with the difficulties I
| endured (except that the region I lived in is much less
| developed than the rest of the country). Fortunately, it's
| not the 90s anymore. Everything that made it hard for me to
| live, can be said for any average Turkish citizen as well.
| Well, unless you are very rich.
| notch656a wrote:
| I'm shocked, but encouraged to hear, there are essentially
| no generational effects you note of the oppression Kurdish
| people experienced.
|
| This sentiment may not be repeatable concerning effects of
| Turkish government on Kurdish peoples outside the border of
| Turkey, particularly in Bashur Kurdistan and Rojava
| (especially Afrin Canton where hundreds of Kurdish
| civilians were killed in connection with events proximal to
| what Turkish government refers to as 'Operation Olive
| Branch'). I can't imagine there are warm fuzzies inside
| knowing your tax money goes to murdering fellow Kurds near
| your borders.
| mda wrote:
| I am just curious, do you currently live in Turkey? Or,
| do you currently live in any of the places you mentioned?
| notch656a wrote:
| I fought with the YPG for a number of months, during
| which time I lived in Rojava.
| csunbird wrote:
| YPG is a organization with plenty of Kurdisch
| nationalists in it. Just like any extremist, whatever an
| extremist claims needs to be filtered and fact checked,
| and then taken with a pinch of salt.
| notch656a wrote:
| The question was whether I had lived in any of those
| places. The answer is to a limited extent I have.
|
| Damned if I say yes, damned if I say no. You reveal it's
| just a bad faith trap -- I'll just be dismissed whether
| the answer is I have lived there at all or I haven't.
|
| >YPG is a organization with plenty of Kurdisch [sic]
| nationalists in it.
|
| And Turkey is a country with plenty of Turkish
| nationalists in it. By that logic you argue any Turkish
| citizen is an extremist. Feel free to 'fact check' and
| come up with whatever extremist rhetoric you'd like to
| use to dismiss away the fatal effect on civilians of
| recent Turkish-backed incursions into Afrin Canton.
| m00dy wrote:
| AFAIK, most kurds feel excited to be part of Turkey.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| This statement is on the same level of nonsense as saying
| the Ukrainians are thrilled to host their Russian
| neighbours presently.
| thriftwy wrote:
| But the other way around, since russians are Ukraine's
| kurds. The number 2 ethnicity that nobody ever talked
| about.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| That comparison might make some sense if Kurdistan were a
| enormous global power and shared a huge land border with
| Turkey. When in fact, Kurdistan [checks atlas] does not
| exist at all as an independent country, much less a
| dominant world power.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I think that Turkey would be very, very polite to its
| kurdish minority in this case. But it was not the case
| with Ukraine.
| EB-Barrington wrote:
| Prior to the war, this is not entirely true other than
| exceptional cases.
|
| Now, it's very true, and will be forever. This is what
| happens when thousands of Russians invade your country,
| rape, murder, steal, destroy, and act like barbarians. I
| anticipate no forgiveness, and Russians will be unwelcome
| in Ukraine for a very long time.
|
| (IMHO, this is more than justified)
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| As someone who has never been to Ukraine or Russia, I
| genuinely don't know: what has Ukraine actually done to
| repress its Russian minority? I've read that 1) Russian
| is not an official language in Ukraine, 2) there have
| been some efforts made to promote the speaking and
| teaching of Ukrainian (though Russian remains widely
| spoken) and 3) a Ukrainian bill recognizing Ukraine's
| "indigenous peoples" did not cover Russians.
|
| That strikes me as...almost nothing. What am I missing?
| thriftwy wrote:
| Closing of Russian schools which has started in 1991 I
| believe and was bound to culminate next year with total
| elimination. That's the big one.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| What does "closing of Russian schools" mean? What is a
| Russian school? A school that teaches the Russian
| language? And why are they closing? Were they banned by
| the government, or are they closing for some other
| reason?
|
| The explanation given here [1] is that Ukraine is only
| changing the language used for instruction to Ukrainian,
| nationwide, not prohibiting the teaching of Russian.
|
| You shouldn't believe everything that you read on the
| internet of course, but this strikes me as far more
| plausible.
|
| [1] https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/in-ukraine-schools-
| will-be-clo...
| EB-Barrington wrote:
| My home is Kyiv. I've been in Kyiv the entire war.
|
| It's rare to ever hear a conversation in Ukrainian in
| Kyiv, most people speak Russian. Even though lately some
| people I know have tried to "switch" to Ukrainian (most
| people are bi-lingual), they have all switched back to
| Russian pretty fast. Ukrainian is strongly promoted, and
| legislated in many situations. But, I think you have
| summed it up nicely with "almost nothing".
|
| I've never seen any repression of the "Russian minority",
| prior to this war. This is just anecdotal of course. Many
| Ukrainians have either Russian friends, or extended
| family, or heritage.
|
| However, now, I assume Russians will be persecuted in
| Ukraine pretty much forevermore.
|
| BTW, I'm not Ukrainian or Russian, I just live in
| Ukraine.
| notch656a wrote:
| Maybe we met different Kurds. I met a lot in Iraq and Syria
| and most of the ones I met balked at even having to speak
| Turkish (even if they could speak fluently), let alone be
| part of the country. I imagine some of the ones I met were
| blown apart by Turkish forces some time after I left
| Rojava.
| m00dy wrote:
| I'm a white Turk, 1,87cm in height, with green eyes, and
| I am socially accepted even in the nordic Europe
| peninsula. Guess what? My sister is getting married to a
| Kurdish guy, and I will be visiting the Kurdish-dominated
| part of Turkey this summer for the wedding. I will be
| able to tell you whether Kurds are bad or good firsthand,
| and also, I can't wait to load up a bunch of AK-47s and
| hand generates and shoot them over the sky during the
| wedding ceremony.
|
| xD
| hurflmurfl wrote:
| Until recently I was living in Russia, and I'm happy to have
| moved just now despite having to pay $12,000 more in taxes.
|
| When I moved to Russia a few years ago, I was delighted to pay
| less tax, and dismissed the bad political situation as
| something that doesn't matter and just a way to save more money
| before moving somewhere else eventually (the famous "some time
| later").
|
| Well, now that I've had to move because the said "political
| situation" has escalated quite rapidly, I can say that having
| to pay more is a good trade-off [in my eyes] for safety and
| sanity.
| jhugo wrote:
| The article lists a number of reasons for leaving Turkey that
| are unrelated to money.
| bombcar wrote:
| Fun fact: the distance from Istanbul to Munich is about the same
| as from Des Moines to New York.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Fun fact: The distance from El Paso, USA to Ciudad Juarez,
| Mexico is 0.0mm, which is much greater than the distance from
| Hamburg, Germany to Berlin, Germany.
| brimble wrote:
| I think the reason so many surprising distance comparisons in
| Europe involve Germany is that most people have in their heads
| that Germany's farther West than it is. And that it doesn't
| stretch as far East as it does. Maybe it's a leftover from Cold
| War-era maps.
| jdrc wrote:
| also because munich is a major hub airport
| tradertef wrote:
| Other than leaving Turkey part, I am fascinated by Ahmet's
| background. He says he has graduated from semi-religious high
| school (IHL?) and did not attend university. The fact that he
| self-taught coding and English is amazing to me and not very
| common. Good job and best luck with your life.
| [deleted]
| istanbul7 wrote:
| egeozcan wrote:
| Well thanks for providing us a good example for his comments
| about the average citizen.
|
| (The comment I'm replying to says that the dogs are looking for
| meat while heroes are fighting for the country).
| Bombthecat wrote:
| And he is likely writing that from a safe job in Europe, not
| Turkey.. It's fascinating how people develop so super strong
| feelings about "their home" while not living there.
| mda wrote:
| This is uncalled for. You might not agree with his comments but
| please keep it civil.
| kaeruct wrote:
| This really resonates with me. I made a similar move to Germany 4
| years ago from a different 3rd world country.
|
| I find it quite sad how so many capable people leave their
| motherland because of lack of opportunities. The rich countries
| keep getting the best people from countries worse off, it seems
| like a vicious cycle.
| sprash wrote:
| No reason to feel sad. Simply move back to your own country and
| start fixing problems. Your country needs you. Germans probably
| feel sad too about the fact that their country is turned into a
| generic settlement area for economic opportunists.
| omegaworks wrote:
| >Simply move back to your own country and start fixing
| problems.
|
| Spoken with the confidence (and arrogance?) of someone that's
| not aware of how rich countries help to create the problems
| that cause young people to flee their homelands.
| themitigating wrote:
| Are you sure?
|
| Isn't the current inflation and investment issues in Turkey
| caused by Erdogan? He remains in power by blaming "the
| west" without providing details and using nationalism to
| gain votes [1]. He then also gets votes by pandering to
| conservative Muslims.[2][3].
|
| It's similar to what's going on in the US
|
| [1]https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/13/erdogan-blames-turkeys-
| curre...
|
| [2]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14683857.20
| 19.1...
| sprash wrote:
| The people living in Germany did not cause inflation in
| Turkey.
| aranelsurion wrote:
| > Germans probably feel sad too about the fact that their
| country is turned into a generic settlement area for economic
| opportunists.
|
| Why would Germans feel sad about software developers (listed
| as shortage occupation in Germany) and other
| educated/experienced mid-class workers moving in to Germany,
| getting things done and paying taxes?
| sprash wrote:
| There is no shortage because across the board wages are
| rising much slower than inflation. Considering software
| developers specifically: The wages in Europe are much lower
| than in the US. We are talking about less than 50% after
| taxes. And in Germany wages for software developers are
| even lower than UK, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Switzerland
| and even parts of France (Paris). Conclusion: there is no
| shortage of software developers in Germany. Not by a long
| shot.
| weatherlite wrote:
| IF there is a shortage, which I agree there probably
| isn't, it is exacerbated by relatively low salaries that
| keeps Europeans from entering the field. Why become a
| software engineer in Germany? Unless you make it into
| FAANG you are not much better off than becoming a
| schoolteacher yet you get none of the benefits like job
| security and long holidays. Schoolteachers don't become
| "old" when they turn 40. I wouldn't bother with software
| development in Europe it is not a great career path.
| European companies can fetch cheap workers from the 3rd
| world really easily and the next step is to simply hire
| them remotely. The ones who make decent wages in European
| tech are only managers or scrum masters, never the people
| who actually write the code.
| nnoitra wrote:
| Big mistake to go to Germany.
| forkLding wrote:
| The Chinese call this "running" (there is a Chinese character
| that is worded the same as run in pinyin and is used to term as
| escaping/leaving from China), something that has been increasing
| with the iron fist of the CCP coming crashing down a lot more
| often, especially what has happened with Shanghai.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Is there a positive/negative connotation with it? In English to
| "escape from a situation", the implication is that the
| situation was bad and you are saving yourself from it. But if
| you "run from a situation", it generally implies something like
| lack of courage.
| farslan wrote:
| For anyone interested, I made the complete opposite change and
| moved from the U.S to Turkey: https://arslan.io/2020/12/20/why-i-
| left-the-us/
| Saint_Genet wrote:
| What made you make the decision to move to a country ruled by a
| autocratic far right politician? You don't seem to touch upon
| that in the link provided
| Efimeridopolis wrote:
| google his name and you'll get an idea, I think.
| dkural wrote:
| What're we supposed to find?
| artogahr wrote:
| Not really adding anything to the conversation, but have been
| following you for a long time and felt interesting to see you
| here. Selamlar.
| sedatk wrote:
| 73% of Turkish youth wants to leave the country:
| https://www.duvarenglish.com/report-finds-73-percent-of-youn...
| ahmetomer wrote:
| That's an unfortunate reality for the country, and its future.
| I believe many of them at some point would like to return in
| the case that the current political and social environment were
| to get better. It is what it is now.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| How fair is that though? I would imagine that a majority of
| individuals in many countries around the world would like to
| like in the US, China, Japan, or Europe if they could. Is 73%
| markedly higher than we would see in India, Iran, Pakistan, or
| Nigeria?
| true_religion wrote:
| Everyone wants to come to the US in their youth, then they
| become 30ish and desperately want to move back "home" to
| raise their kids in peace.
|
| There is a cycle of wanting economic benefit, then finding
| that it's too hard to actually spend it in the US political
| climate.
| themitigating wrote:
| Peace as in avoiding war? I would think Europe and the US
| are the safest countries to be in.
| infamouscow wrote:
| This is is true of Canada too.
| egeozcan wrote:
| I've also left and your reasoning is more or less the same as
| mine. For me it's been more than a decade, and Germany is filled
| with opportunities. I wish you all the best, bol sans, viel
| Spass.
| ahmetomer wrote:
| That was also the general desire among many of my friends and
| colleagues. So far I'm happy with the life in Germany and
| Europe. Thank you for the good wishes!
| mahathu wrote:
| How did you find an apartment in Munich? My girlfriend is in a
| very similar situation as you. Also, how long did you wait
| between the visa appointment at the embassy and you getting the
| visa? hosgeldiniz to Germany!
| password4321 wrote:
| Paging lnicbou as per
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23103251#23109401 and
| https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/find-a-flat-in-berlin
|
| > _My niche is "make knowledge of Germany approachable to non-
| Germans"._
| ahmetomer wrote:
| Thank you! I had known a friend who helped me with apartments.
| Generally it is quite difficult to find an apartment that has a
| good price/quality ratio. As for the visa, I got it by post in
| 7-8 days after the appointment.
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