Turkish Identity

Tabriz is the home town of my father and also the capital of the Turkish (Azeri) region of Iran. I was there a few weeks ago, and it has inspired me to write the beginnings of a short story below. But first, important Turkish lesson 101.

10 things Iranian-Turks are known for:

1. Jokes, all the punchlines are meant to mock the supposed stupidity of the Turk, everyone in this country loves these jokes except for the Turks of course.


2. A poet named Shahriar, there is a weekly TV drama right now about him that is very popular


3. For being successful business people, the Iranian bazaar (market) primarily consists of Turkish buisnessman and the bazaar is still a powerful entity in this country


4. For this really cool building that is dedicated to poets of the region, Shahriar being # one


5. Carpets


6. Producing many famous clerics


7. Turkish women being great cooks


8. For being extremely protective of their language, they hate being forced to speak Farsi when a non-Turk comes to Tabriz. This makes my life difficult because I never learned Turkish growing up.


9. The Constitutional Revolution of the late 1800s and early 1900s began in Tabriz. This Revolution was beginnings of democracy in Iran.


10. In reality, Turks built Iran and made it what it is today. Most of the big Iranian dynasties have been Turkish (Safavid, Khorezm-Shah, Ghaznavid, Qajar, Seljuk). I think that ethnic Fars people know this and are resentful, which is why they make so many jokes about Turks.

Beginnings of a Short Story
At eight, a little girl doesn't understand the power an old, wrinkled woman possesses. She only sees. She sees her slouch. It is the type of curved back that Frankenstein had when he was formed from parts dug up from graves, with those uneven shoulders and crooked fingers. She sees her cold appearance, and it frightens her because somehow she knows it is the mark of a lifetime's worth of endurance. But a lifetime means nothing to her and endurance is abstract, so she is only frightened. She sees how everyone else bows down in the woman's presence. They bow because of the amount of respect she has accumulated over the years, but the little girl thinks that the old woman has possessed them all. She is careful never to look directly into the woman's eyes for fear of also becoming overcome. Her thinning hair, the language she cannot understand, the old house filled with antiques and dusty books, this city with its narrow alleyways and strange smells, these all belong to another age, another place. These are not her father's relics, and if they are, then she must be a wholly different girl.

At twenty-two, the girl has grown up and she understands the true meaning of endurance, respect, and a woman's burden. She understands now, but the woman is gone.


Two children pay their respects at the poet Shahriar's tomb in Tabriz.