Syndrome of Erasmus Turkey- it's not me, it's you

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"Turkey, Izmir, Urla, I'm sorry. I tried my best to know you and love you. But in the past three months , I'm losing myself to you, and you're still so distanced. I failed you. I don't know what to do anymore. "Jay Hung, 2017 November
Life in turkey is like the tomatoes here, for most people it's fine, but for me I just can't. 
When I first chose Turkey, to do my exchange in Izmir,

I really looked forward to it

Because all the interesting culture and this mysterious feeling

it is a different land with no doubt,

I came with my open mind, tried to embrace every thing

Be a friend with every person I met, but I failed.



What I experienced may be individual case, but actually all the foreigners face some hardships they really can't endure.

In generally speaking, this land should be a place with good food, friendly people, and nice view.

This country is in the middle of Asia and Europe, and it is very known for being a mixture of them.

I can understand the Asian conservative and self limit part and the European brutal simple part, this combined and the conflict zone of war, refugee, and religion, everything together make a Frankenstein out of the bare ground.

What is majestic about this country? I need to admit the landscape, morphology is great, but all the creatures and activities happening on top is devastating this heritage of Mother Earth.

People on the land is either not educated and just using everyday working hard and result little.
And the so called "educated" population, what are they doing? Are they living or trying anything? Actually I saw the education system is dragging everyone to be busy all the time for nothing, just a waste of time and resources.The ones got educated and came back are also just stuck in their comfort zone and not improving. Their so lack of vision and ability are shocking to me.

What above all is the whole conservative government, protective law, proud of all domestic products.

They just view every foreigner as a capital resource, every touristic place are made to rip off, and also every place, friends will ask for the price I bought because the possibility of being ripped off is so high. But to be honest India is still the best in this skill. But the law enforcement is also viewing foreign as a target, from every import tax, or if you bring anything in, it will have heavy tax

For the food, the climate here, the warm Mediterranean sea brought the warm olive, tomato and all the vegetables,  but due to religious issue, they don't have pork dishes. But the food is unbelievably oily, like all the meat drown in oil, only with the spice and yogurt they can eat it. It shown on people's health condition, obesity are overall.
But still, they love their food, this special taste, and also because they produce most of their agriculture goods, the taste make most Turk only miss the food in here. But its just not my taste.

A messy relationship among traffic, city, and people. I can never understand, though I tried.

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First start with small everyday life.

So many times people will ask me "where are you from?"

And always that's all they know and start talking a bunch of Turkish and sometimes strange movements
once one man grabbing his own neck and choking his throat
another time they just sit and kept looking at me in strange ways.
When I first arrived, one police stopped me even before I go through the customs, they stopped me for one hour checking all my files. And start making fun of my name by pronouncing it in all kind of weird voices
After they finally let me through, I'm at the custom
He saw my passport, I show him the German student visa and that I'm Erasmus.
And he just laughed and took it to the guy next to him and saying like "hey its Taiwan! wow what a rare thing!"

I'm NOT a rare specie in this Zoo which you can just play with.

So for the first thing, phone.
They let all foreign phone have three months since they inserted a Turkish sim card. And then there will be no signal for this phone unless go to pay some tax or some phone store can use some "skill" to make it work, how long is not guaranteed.
This is a method to protect the local phone producers, or going to nearby countries you can buy phones a lot cheaper.
For Iphone X 64GB 6099 tl around 1355 euro
In Germany 1149 euro, Taiwan around 1026

This actually show three things
High import tax: all foreign products are not worthy to buy in here

Strong government control: the government put control on all the things, no noise after 12, or the police will come, even its in the middle of the noisy area.

Black method: though usually the official method is usually very bad or not functioning, so people came up with all kind of "hacks"

And like in September my roommate helped me set up the sim card and I put 75 tl in it.

The system is strange and the money used up in one month, which should be only 24 per month

So in October I went there by myself, I thought it should be easy. But not, it took me almost 2 hours and I got a strange lottery or TV Serie package, ok it is also 4 gb, but its more expensive and they asked me to charge money twice, in a total of 40~50, and also my father's name and mother's name. It was a really strange thing and I spent the whole morning there.
After this experience I never go there alone.

Transportation

The transportation in Izmir is IZban, metro, Eshot bus, and private minibus
In Urla there is only Eshot bus and minibus

Going to school 35 minutes, to Izmir 70~80 minutes, Kitesurf 30 minutes, Cesme dive 60 minutes

The minibus is really small but a little faster, the EShot is big slow
Both are shaking and hot, not ventilation


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The undeveloped world shouldn't be the issue, still, the people here is what causing it.

Am I suffering? Not in a serious level, and actually maybe whining too much

Also this atmosphere among all shows this, and the cycle of hatred started so fast that I can't even stop it

So, I will need to apologize if you are mad about me for reading this article. And for the followings.