Thanks for the comments, Ipek.

1) The post wasn’t meant to analyze all of Turkey, just my own situation around Christmas.

2) What makes you think the resistance to globalization bothered me? It was just an observation that it’s different here.

3) I don’t really care for Istanbul much. I certainly wouldn’t move to a city just for a night or two of familiar parties.

4) It’s actually very easy, partly because most people think they know a lot about the US, and many of them do. It’s easy to strike up conversations about differences and similarities. I think people from places that are not culturally diverse have a much tougher time moving elsewhere. Big parts of the US are filled with immigrant communities from all over, so it’s already like living abroad in some ways.

Again, thanks for reading and commenting. I really do like it here in Kas and I might come back after I leave for the summer.
-Tom

2) Why does this resistance against Globalization bother you? Why does these people necessarily embrace a shopping craze because even the Asians are doing it?

3)Istanbul is all you want. If you want to get that New Year feeling, just be present at Taksim Meydani, İstiklal Caddesi at New Year time. You’ll have an experience you couldn’t think of having back home.

4) Being an expat must be hard for a North America centric.

Annoyed, thank you for commenting, and thank you for reinforcing the stereotype of bitter expats trolling articles and message boards trying to spread unhappiness. The original essay was about feeling out of place in an adopted country that ignored Christmas. It wasn’t a complaint and it had nothing to do with America being better, so your turning it into a complaint and then complaining about the made-up complaint is a perfect example of how many sad or bored expats see the world. I’m going to use this in an upcoming article as well about that very subject. -Tom

Disappointed User,

You aren’t arguing that Turkey is mostly a Muslim country so I have to assume this is a friend pretending to be a professional troll because no one else would waste this much time trying to insert their own personal experiences into an essay about feeling strange during a holiday. Your own personal experiences will fit nicely into your own essay but they don’t affect mine.

Interestingly, I’m working on another article about how some expats are so bored and unhappy that they spend half their days trolling expat forums and articles looking for ways to spread their own unhappiness. Look forward to being quoted in that one, but not to worry since you aren’t using a real name anyway. -Tom

“They just mean the government and church aren’t the same”??? Right, isn’t that they very definition of a secular state? What’s really idiotic and ignorant is the headline of the article.

I can’t tell if this is someone impersonating an ignorant internet commentor for laughs, or really someone so filled with rage that they missed the whole point. Not to waste much time just in case it’s the former, Turkey calls itself a secular country, but they just mean the government and church aren’t the same. The rest is so idiotic that it’s got to be a joke. -Tom

1.) Turkey is a secular country.
2.) Why would a Muslim country be more likely to acknowledge Christmas than China?
3.) There are many churches in Istanbul that celebrate Christmas.
4.) All of my Turkish friends wish me “Merry Christmas” during the season.
5.) It’s not true to say that everyone ignores the call to prayer. How many American Catholics are in mass every Sunday.
6.) “Not that long ago this was Greece”??? What history books are you studying? This has been Turkey since 1453 and the area where the Author lives was Turkish before that.
7.) Because the area looks like Mediterranean Spain it should celebrate Christmas? Seriously?