(a taste of the city)
After a slightly fuzzy first night – clarity of mind and traveling do not mix in my experience – I woke up early the next morning. The spacious room still looked fine, but I realized that it wasn’t as spacious the rest of the year. Two beds, two desks, and two closets suggested two inhabitants – I was lucky to have it all to myself for four weeks. (Over the next week, my room would quickly turn into the go-to place for a few other members of the program, turning it into “the press room” and making painfully clear how much of a nerd the average journalist actually is.)
Our Saturday morning was spent in one of the many Turkcell telecommunication stores in Beşiktaş – four weeks of reporting in a city requires a working cell phone, and obtaining one is a considerable feat. When you spend no more than two weeks on Turkish territory, an international phone plan usually works, as do most European sim cards. If you stay longer, however, you’ll find yourself disconnected. The Turkish government demands registration of all cell phones in use, supposedly as part of anti-terrorism measures. As a foreigner wishing to remain within Turkish borders, then, you are required to either register your foreign phone, or to purchase a new one (which will, of course, be registered as well). Taking into account that none of the program’s members spoke any Turkish (yet) and we had only one interpreter, the process of registering each and every one of us as well as buying a few new phones and several sims took all morning.
The afternoon took those of us who had just arrived to the Eminönü neighborhood, to Istanbul’s famous spice market. Quickly loosing track of the rest of the group, perhaps on purpose, I wandered through the tiny little streets that make up the market. Spices and herbs, Turkish delight, and countless of tea sets lined the horizon. That, and the most fascinating variety of faces. Armed with my camera and lovely new lense, I gave in to one of my favorite pastimes: taking people’s portraits (from a slight distance, and this, I admit, is because I fear dirty looks and possible punches in the face). Grabbing a headscarf from a little bin conveniently placed just outside the entrance of the Blue Mosque just to the left of the market, and carrying my shoes around in a little plastic bag, I got my first taste of Turkey’s religious architecture.
Dressing up for our official welcome dinner, the group headed over to the roof of Bahçeşehir’s main building. Consisting of fourteen girls (eleven students and three interns, and most of them 21 and under, which of course meant that 27-year old me, and two others – 24 and 33 respectively – dubbed ourselves “the old ladies” right from the start), our little walk over to dinner drew somewhat of a crowd. The university’s rooftop café turned out to be double-booked, leading us to crash a Turkish wedding. Though, really, they were crashing our welcome dinner. Unapologetically gazing at the elaborately dressed wedding guests, we enjoyed our lovely meal under an extensive awning, looking on in amusement when it started to rain and the wedding party hurried inside. Fireworks ended the night, and a fascinating second day.
(welcome to Istanbul)
It’s a Thursday afternoon, and I feel like I haven’t slept properly in days. Which is actually true, come to think of it. I’m in Istanbul, on the border between Europe and Asia, and have been averaging 5 hours of sleep per night.
Known as the city on seven hills (a nickname it shares with Rome and San Francisco), Istanbul is home to more than sixteen million people. For four weeks this summer, it’ll be home to me as well: working as an intern at Hürriyet Daily News and taking introductory courses in Turkish at Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi, arranged by ieiMedia. At the same time, I’m getting to know the Turkish press and its inner workings, hoping to translate my newfound knowledge into an extensive article that will serve as my MA thesis at NYU.
Stumbling out of a plane last Friday afternoon, I made my way through customs, found my luggage, and grabbed myself a cab – heading for one of the Bahçeşehir dorms in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş neighborhood. Staring groggily out of the window, I realized I had never been in a cab in a country where I hardly knew the language, all on my own. Over an hour later, I finally arrived (after the cab driver had extensively studied the address I gave him, shook his head profusely, asked for a number to call for directions, and stopped at several cornershops for even more details) and bumped into most of ieiMedia’s Istanbul group. Back from their first tour of the neighborhood, they were off to dinner in one of the many restaurants overlooking the Bosphorus. Dumping my stuff into my room – it looked spacious and clean on first glance – I went with them.
Welcome to Istanbul.
By MEREL VAN BEEREN (written for my reporting class at NYU)
NEW YORK – Singling out one faith group in the United States is “divisive and wrong” and harks back to McCarthyism. Thus claim 51 organizations in a letter on February 1, addressed to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, in response to the scheduling of hearings later this month on homegrown terrorism that specifically focus on American Muslims.
The House Committee on Homeland Security is run by newly appointed Chairman Peter King, the Republican representative for New York in Congress. King has justified the hearings’ focus by referring to the myth that 80 percent of American mosques can be qualified as extremist and the idea that Muslim organizations have not cooperated enough with American law enforcement.
“These claims are as much grossly inaccurate as politically irresponsible,” said Alejandro Beutel, government and policy analyst for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
“Our concern is that King’s way of going about these hearings is more about political circus than anything else. He’s playing politics instead of solving real problems.”
Though King’s Republican colleagues support his approach, he has critics on both sides of the political spectrum. Where his left-wing opponents disagree with his narrow focus, some on the right are upset that he has not invited critics of Islam such as Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, and Daniel Pipes, head of the Middle East Forum, both conservative policy bodies.
The organizations of the coalition that wrote the letter to Pelosi and Boehner mainly fear the impact the hearings might have on the perception of Muslims – a group of people who have already dealt with much bias ever since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The hearings, they say, could foster fear and suspicion and might cause government surveillance to target innocent people. The letter even drew a comparison with the investigations led by Joseph McCarthy, the notorious senator who prosecuted suspected communists in the late 1940s and early 50s.
A policy report on Post-9/11 terrorism in the United States by the MPAC concluded that 7 out of 11 Al-Qaeda related plots were actually foiled with the active help of Muslim communities, directly contradicting one of King’s main claims.
“Just because some people choose to cooperate quietly does not make them any less patriotic,” said Geneve Mantri, Director for Terrorism and Counterterrorism at Amnesty International USA.
Amnesty was one of the organizations that joined the coalition in the hope of bringing some common sense to the debate. Its “fear is that the impression will be created that Muslims are uncooperative, which will expose them to more vitriol,” Mantri said.
The coalition’s letter also made note of the international repercussions the hearings might have. “A hearing that demonizes the American Muslim community will not go unnoticed by Muslims around the world and will contribute to perceptions of how the U.S. government treats Muslims,” it says.
The Public Religion Research Institute polled the public on their attitude towards the hearings. Despite the fact that 56 percent of Americans were in favor of the hearings in general, more than 7 out of 10 people said they were against the narrow focus on Muslims.
Mohamed Sami Essoulh, a student at the City University of New York and founder of the non-profit organization “Moroccan Americans in New York,” was disappointed in the choice to focus on Muslims. He fears Muslim immigrants will feel frustrated and denied their place in society.
“There are radicals and extremists in every religion and not only in Islam,” Essoulh wrote in an e-mail. “Honestly, I believe that Muslim Americans are the scapegoats for the real issues that Peter King and his colleagues should be addressing.”
Most members of the coalition who wrote the letter did not expect it to have an effect on the hearings, according to Beutel. The motivation to send the letter was more about making a public statement – to “sing in a unified chorus against manipulation and fear-based bigotry,” he said.
A press release from the Committee on Homeland Security on February 8 stated that the hearings will proceed as planned, confirming the coalition’s expectations. King wrote Bennie Thompson, a Democratic member of the Committee who asked for a different focus, that he would “not allow political correctness to obscure a real and dangerous threat to the safety of the citizens of the United States.”
Dr. Paul Abels, Director of Knowledge and Analysis at the Dutch National Coordinator for Terrorism Prevention’s Office, said that he can understand the American focus on jihadist Muslims. He said that it is similar to the Dutch approach, but emphasized that it is very important to be aware of threats coming from other groups. The Netherlands is a country where Muslims make up 5.8 percent of the population as opposed to the 0.6 in the United States, and came to the country for work purposes, where American Muslims usually migrated for political reasons.
The Netherlands has taken a broad approach when it comes to dealing with domestic terrorism. The focus is mainly on preventing the radicalization of Muslim youth, but the authorities monitor other ideologies constantly. The focus on prevention of radicalization rathr than on Muslims in general has largerly prevented the stigmatization that some fear next month’s congressional hearings might lead to.
Law enforcement in the Netherlands has, said Abels, seen an increased “shared resistance” to terrorism among Muslim groups and organizations. Abels deliberately chose the word “resistance” over “cooperation” – the latter word, he said, often gets equated with
betrayal of fellow Muslims. Because of the “shared resistance,” he said, relations have improved between government and Muslim groups, and “recruiters are no longer allowed to access mosques, imams no longer call for violence and mosque councils inform the government of possible radicalization of youth.”
Abels’ predecessor, Lidewijde Ongering, spoke to a U.S. Senate Committee some years ago about the Dutch approach to homegrown terrorism. “That was in a time when Americans were under the impression that homegrown terrorism was not a factor in their country, only in Europe. Several incidents since then have shown that they had a false sense of security,” Abels wrote in an e-mail in Dutch.
That is exactly what the coalition wants to achieve – a focus on actual threats, instead of imagined ones. “The Committee on Homeland Security should focus on keeping us safe, rather than engaging in fear-mongering and divisive rhetoric that only weakens the fabric of our nation and distracts us from actual threats,” the letter concluded.
Efforts to combat the anti-Muslim rhetoric the coalition believes King’s hearings represent have not decreased in the least. Last Sunday, the coalition and many more organizations organized a rally on Times Square, under the banner of “Today, I am a Muslim Too”. Several hundreds of people attended, despite the torrential rains. Today, two days before the Committee’s Hearings are scheduled, the website whatunites.us was launched. It “calls on Americans to focus on what unites us and to call out rhetoric and actions that divide us,” the site states.
Mannen in Amerika zijn kort. Niet dat ze dat zelf echt door hebben, of dat het een wereldschokkende kortheid is, maar de gemiddelde Nederlander kijkt zijn ogen uit. Met een blik die iets naar beneden is gericht.
Waar ik mij vanaf mijn zestiende in Nederland altijd omringd heb geweten door vrienden vanaf 1.80 – een uitzondering daar gelaten – tot ruim over de twee meter, is de Amerikaanse man al zeer trots op 1.78. A mere five foot eight.
Door de ruime aanwezigheid van nog kortere Latino’s voel ik me als korter-dan-gemiddelde-Hollandse langer dan ooit tevoren. Meestal zeer vermakelijk, maar lichtelijk onhandig: viel ik niet juist op veel te lange mannen?
Written for my reporting class at NYU.
The city hardly feels any different. Streets are the same, the crowds haven’t changed and bicycles have not gone out of style. Amsterdam is unperturbed by my absence. I, on the other hand, have changed in the first three months of my two-year stay in New York.
Small details prove that I have been slowly adjusting to life on the other side of the world. Addressing restaurant personnel in English, waiting for the subway doors to open automatically as they do in New York, a feeling of happy surprise at the low cost of alcoholic drinks in a bar. But mostly, I feel slightly out of place in my hometown.
I am not alone in feeling unsettled. Nicky Amiabel, whom I interviewed some weeks ago about life in New York, has since returned to Amsterdam, having finished her internship at the Dome project. Unlike myself, her leaving New York is permanent.
Having spent three months in New York, she has a hard time adjusting to being back in Amsterdam. Nicky was thrown right back into normal life, with all the accompanying responsibilities. “Everything went right back to what it was like before I left,” she e-mailed me in Dutch.
Cross-cultural reentry, as returning home after spending time abroad is called, is characterized by ambiguous feelings. On the one hand, an experience in a new country changes a person’s views of the world and encourages them to try new things at home. On the other hand, settling into one’s normal life can be difficult. You pick up where you left off, including all the things that weren’t much fun in the first place. Furthermore, sharing your experiences with people at home can be a letdown. They might not understand what you’ve been through, or are perhaps not interested in your stories.
“Some of your experience may need to be internalized, processed and integrated into your own life in ways that make sense for you, without your ever being able to fully share them with anyone else,” Jim Citron and Vija Mendelson write on transitionsabroad.com.
Even if you are able to share your experiences and feelings of adjustment, the transition can still be difficult and can take some time. “I still feel homesick for New York,” Nicky says, expressing a feeling of not completely belonging in either city, feeling at home and a tourist in both.
By MEREL VAN BEEREN
NEW YORK – They hardly stand out in the midst of all the orange, but they’re there in force: Dutch runners in the New York City Marathon made up almost 3.5 percent of the participants in this year’s race.
Dutch runners in the 2010 New York City Marathon – photography Merel van Beeren
Throughout the course, Dutch names such as ‘Willem’ and ‘Martijn’ pop up regularly on the bright running shirts. Flags add an extra dose of orange. It is not just the official color of the ING sponsored marathon, but also the national color of the Netherlands.
The New York City Marathon is considered the ‘one to run’ for marathoners. Starting out small in 1970, it has become an internationally renowned marathon and one of the largest running events in the world. More than 40,000 runners participate each year, hailing from over 200 countries and territories.
The Netherlands, a country of 17 million inhabitants, has contributed an average of 1,500 runners every year in the last three years. The marathon’s preliminary results state that this year’s number was 1,476 finishers out of 44,829, confirming the significant Dutch contribution.
The financial services company ING, the marathon’s main sponsor since 2003, is firmly rooted in the Netherlands.
“Our company’s Dutch heritage and the Dutch connection to New York City adds a special element to this sponsorship,” Joseph Loparco, director of external communications at ING Americas says in an e-mail.
“We like to say that we turn the Big Apple ‘Orange’ for the weekend!” he writes.
Six years after the first New York City marathon, the original route was redrawn and leads the runners and large numbers of spectators through all five boroughs of the city. The runners start in Staten Island and then move into Brooklyn, boroughs that both owe their names to the Dutch who were the city’s founders and controlled it for the first fifty years, calling it New Amsterdam.
For marathoners, finishing this race is the goal. Its challenging course and setting in the world’s capital attracts both professionals and amateurs who put their endurance to the ultimate test on five bridges and false flats.
The unique combination the city offers draws people to the New York City Marathon: the physical challenge of the course, the exuberant audience and the opportunity to see so many sides of the city.
“It’s a unique occasion to be able to run through a city, carefree, where you normally wouldn’t even be able to walk,” Oscar Kolthoff, a 30-year-old IT-consultant, said in Dutch. Both his father and brother had previously run the marathon, and Kolthoff felt encouraged to follow in their footsteps.
Historically, the Dutch have always been runners, Ysbrand Visser, editor at the Dutch edition of Runner’s World magazine, writes in an e-mail. Combine that with a national passion for travel and it’s not much of a surprise that the country is strongly represented in the marathon.
There are no specific demands for Dutch runners, nor for other international runners. The costs for non-US runners are considerably higher, though. They pay a higher fee to participate – $281 compared to $196 for American runners – and spend a large sum on travel and stay. Also, many sign up with special international marathon organizations to avoid the uncertainties of the lottery.
Fred van Lambalgen, 49, has been running for over 30 years and participated in seven marathons before coming to New York. Together with two of his friends, he joined Marathon International, a Dutch runner’s organization, and traveled to the city to run the famous marathon before he turns 50 later this month.
The sport of running seems a good fit for the Dutch, Van Lambalgen believes: it is well suited to the Dutch climate which knows no true extremes and a landscape that, true to its name, is mostly flat.
Arjen Heida, an account manager at ING in the Netherlands, who lived in New York for several months almost 10 years ago, is new at running. In his hometown, Rotterdam, marathon runners looked so intensely happy that he had to try it for himself. Though his results are “far from a world record,” Heida enjoyed the marathon tremendously: this course is truly about atmosphere and the feel of the city.
That atmosphere is what every runner seems to talk about: nowhere have they seen the enthusiasm of the New York audience. Not just tourists, but many New Yorkers themselves go out in the streets in massive crowds, cheering on the runners and handing out beverages.
“I think the audience is one of the most important factors why the New York marathon is so special,” Vera Kuipers, an executive assistant who has lived in the city for more than six years, said in Dutch.
Kuipers is a member of the New York Harriers, one of the city’s countless running clubs. Running through Central Park for her regular runs has always felt great, but the massive crowds spread out over all five boroughs are an amazing experience.
“My facial expression was serious at times, but mostly, I was laughing,” she said.
The Dutch presence extended to the cheering crowds as well. “On the sidelines you had specific places where orange groups were standing, especially in Manhattan. You could hear Dutch voices all over the city,” Van Lambalgen said.
The New York City Marathon continues to be extremely attractive to Dutch runners themselves as well as Dutch sports fans – and both often make the marathon into a short vacation. “It’s the ultimate ‘race-cation’,” Kuipers said, smiling.
En voor je het weet zijn er meer dan tien weken voorbij. Een ding is zeker: het niveau is hier niet hoger, maar de hoeveelheid werk is enorm veel groter.
Het is elf uur ’s avonds, ik sta op de metro te wachten naar huis op Union Square. Twee vrienden uit Nederland zijn op bezoek en ben net, samen met vriendin N., getrakteerd op wijntjes en lekkere sushi. Heerlijk en gezellig, vooral na een lange dag studie.
Ik begin me thuis te voelen in de stad – heb mijn ritme gevonden, mijn dagelijkse dingetjes, en de bevestiging gekregen (in cijfers) dat mijn studie goed verloopt. Heb meer tijd om te slapen en nu ook in een echt bed – laatste Ikea bestelling binnen. Een wekelijkse kookdag houdt me op de been qua vitaminen, de griep ben ik voor door de gratis griepprik voor studenten.
Binnenkort ga ik al voor een paar dagen naar Nederland – mijn neefje zien! (en de geur van kaas, lekker brood & de Hema opsnuiven) Daarna nog maar een paar korte weekjes tot een vijf weken lange winter break met logees en leuke uitstapjes!
Zo, beste lezer, u bent weer een beetje op de hoogte …
Written for my reporting class at NYU.
Music in the New York Subway System
NEW YORK – It was nearing 2 a.m. when I walked down several flights of stairs into the subway station, heading towards the G train. Music drifted upwards from below. An elderly African American man was playing his guitar, singing Motown songs, while a redhaired girl sang along, swaying and dancing to the music.
Music is a regular feature of underground life here. The singer on the C line who asked me to choose the next song from his playlist, the violinist playing a haunting melody at the Lorimer Street station and dozens of others provide a daily soundtrack. And these examples are just the ones without a permit.
In 1985, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which runs the subways, started a program to enrich the passenger experience: Music Under New York (MUNY). At annual auditions, the program selects performers who will receive official permission to play their music in the top spots in the subway system. Being selected means having a reserved spot to play music and the use of the MUNY banner. Although no compensation is provided – apart from the passengers’ tips – hundreds of musicians audition for a spot each year. The program means a chance to play for a diverse as well as large audience: 5,086,833 passengers use the New York subways on an average weekday, as MTA statistics from 2009 show. The MUNY spots are right in the middle of the busiest stations. But what else motivates the musicians?
For Natalia Paruz, it’s about connecting with the audience. ‘In the subway I can get to reach people I won’t ever be able to connect with otherwise – from the rich to the homeless, people of all races, colors, religions,’ she writes in an e-mail. Also, ‘playing in public spaces is a totally different experience from playing on a stage. It actually feels like a different art form …’
Paruz is one of the familiar names in the underground, although she’s mostly known as the ‘Saw Lady’. She has been playing a carpenter’s saw for the past two decades, and not just below ground: she has worked with several renowned orchestras and performed solos in both Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden. Paruz distinguishes between two types of musicians who play underground: those who do it to get discovered (and disappear from the subways as soon as they do) and those who play because they love their audience –musicians who stay, even when they have gigs above ground, like Natalia herself.
MUNY benefits both passengers and musicians, she says. The quality of music is great; buskers have an easier time with their designated spots and feel more legitimate when they can put up the program’s banner. Tthe program also has created a sense of family for the musicians through the MUNY newsletter and those running the program, the subway musicians keep track of each other.
Written for my reporting class at NYU.
In 1609, Henry Hudson arrived in what is now New York, on a ship sailing from Europe – which most Americans know. The fact that that ship was of Dutch origins, and that the Dutch continue to feel a strong connection to the city formerly called New Amsterdam is less known. New York is one of the most popular travel destinations outside Europe for the Dutch, and its popularity continues to increase: in 2007, 171,000 Dutch citizens visited New York, a year later that number rose to 241,000, the Dutch news company NOS stated in an article published in 2009. As someone who recently moved from Amsterdam to New Amsterdam, I was curious about those people who come to stay for a little longer than the average four to seven days of a tourist visit the NOS article mentioned.
I met with Irene, a 24-year old dancer studying at the Merce Cunningham Studio. When Cunningham died a year ago, she was in Paris and confronted with a front page newspaper story on his death. It was then that she realized she had to go to New York: ‘The great choreographers in the United States, almost all of them were dead. If I wanted to study this, I had to be there fast.’ She sees New York as one of the most exciting cities in the world, and to live here will be an experience that she can look back on proudly forever.
Nicky, 25 years old and a recent graduate in forensic orthopedagogy, agrees. Her love for New York is what motivated her to start looking for an internship in the city, she says in a phone interview. She ended up at the Dome Project, a program that is an alternative to incarceration for juvenile offenders. The internship has given her a sense of context for her studies and important practical experience. The city has proved to be easier to live in than expected: just being here is much more exciting than coming as a tourist. Nicky can’t really define the attraction of New York, but believes it is significantly related to movies and the utopian idea they create of New York life.
‘The special thing about New York is that everything keeps on moving,’ Roy, an intern at the Dutch Consulate-General, says via Facebook. He feels that the city has so much more to offer than anywhere in the Netherlands. ‘People are a lot more open to different things around here, with the result that there’s no typical New Yorker,’ he says, and that is exactly what helps an outsider feel at home.
When I asked the girls to name one distinction between the Netherlands and New York, food was what immediately came up. Nicky thinks cheese is completely different and Irene exclaimed: ‘There’s sugar in everything!’ Above all, the three interviewees feel excited to be in the city that so many Dutch people love from afar.
Written for my reporting class at NYU.
Some nights ago, I found myself in the midst of the strangest crowd. As a student sponsored by the Fulbright and Netherland-America Foundation (NAF), I was invited to attend the NAF-Biz New York on ‘Do’s and Don’ts in International Marketing’. The room was filled with businessmen and affiliates of the Dutch consul, and for the first time since arriving in New York, I had to watch my tongue and volume when speaking in Dutch: about 80% of those in attendance hailed from the Netherlands. Though the subject of the evening was not specifically catered to my interests, the speakers managed to show the excitement of and changes in global marketing.
Stef Gans, CEO of EffectiveBrands, a company that helps to launch brands and achieve their goals on a global market, explained the importance of his work in-depth and the changes it has gone through over the last few decades. “Marketing,” Gans said, “used to be comparable to bowling”. You analyzed the lane, observed the ball, and then made a calculated guess as to where the ball would end up. “Now, it is more like pinball” – you have no control of the outcome of your efforts.
Darling Agency’s Jeroen Bours – the creative mind behind the ‘Priceless’ campaign of MasterCard – shared with us the inner workings of winning over the American market by transforming the technical ideas of marketing into slogans. Bours recommended the ‘flirt, date, marry’ approach for launcing a new brand – instead of attacking the consumer, you slowly woo them. Honesty and knowledge of the new market are invaluable while doing so, and the key to the American market is emotion. In the end, “it is all about the idea – an idea that hopefully lasts,” Bours said, smiling.
Despite their best efforts, the speakers were not the highlight of the evening, Their thunder was stolen by special guest Jan Peter Balkenende, prime-minister of the Netherlands. Having just spoken at the United Nations General Assembly, Balkenende took the floor and surprised his audience by putting away his prepared speech, and asking those present to come up with key points. Walking around the room, he took notes of all the suggestions – ranging from diversity and politics to soccer and beer – before smoothly integrating each point into his talk. In response to my suggestion – right-wing coalition, the likely outcome of last June’s elections in Holland – he stated that this election outcome had been especially complicated due to significant losses for the parties in power and the rise of the populist Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom). Where coalitions used to be obvious, this one was not. “A minority coalition, with the support of the PVV, is not regular in history”. PVV-leader Wilders “causes separation”, Balkenende said, by blaming Muslims for everything that is wrong with the world. The prime-minister confessed that he hoped the Dutch people would allow the current caretaker government to stay in control until the next elections – the people might have become aware of their stable governing, after all.
Proof of my encounter with the (almost former) Prime-Minister of the Netherlands, Jan Peter Balkenende.
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