TABLE
OF CONTENTS
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Sporting Turkish Values
By Preston Price
Although Istanbul is surprisingly modern and
westernized, I did not expect there to be a very established culture of
sports. For instance, grease wrestling is a national sport that
is unique to Turkey. This, along with other unique
aspects of the their culture, led me to believe that Turkey is more
culturally unique and homogenous than I had originally imagined.
Body building also holds great value, and I read an article while I
was there that said that Turkey won more medals in body building during
the last Olympic games than any other country. The book Doing
Cultural Anthropology was useful in my experience in
Istanbul. In the introduction of the book, Michael Angrosino
emphasizes the importance
of data-collection techniques, and specifies that interviewing and
observing are fundamental to such techniques. Through these
methods I was able to successfully acquire sufficient data about the
world of sports and particularly the global impact of soccer. I
focused more on taking important observations via reading
advertisements and newspaper articles, watching television in various
public places, and even wandering the streets aimlessly and taking
notice of specific sports-related things I saw.
Soccer is the world's most popular sport, so
it
was no surprise to find out that soccer was Turkey’s most popular
sport. Although, I had been surprised to find out in a previous
port the lack of popularity that soccer holds in India. I guess
one shouldn’t make the assumption that soccer is the number one sport
everywhere else outside of the United States. I was astonished to
find out how crazy the city of Istanbul is about soccer. Every
individual that I spoke with admitted to soccer being their favorite
sport. It was just as amazing to discover the level of
popularity as well as the degree of infrastructure that the city of
Istanbul has for the game of soccer. The most significant piece
of evidence that I gathered for this, is the fact that Istanbul has
three professional soccer teams within the city. This is a huge
deal because with the exception of London, England, I have never known
of any city to house three major league teams of the same sport.
All three of the teams in Istanbul have their own stadium,
indicating the financial support from the Turkish economy. One of
the teams by the name of “Galatasaray,” has recently obtained an
international reputation after winning an annual tournament a couple
years ago which that consists of all of the top European clubs.
While
in Istanbul, I bought a Galatasaray scarf. This resulted in me
receiving numerous comments throughout the rest of the day. Some
people went out of their way just to tell me that they don’t like
Galatasaray. I can only imagine the competitive nature of the
differing fans that share one common city.
At the 2002 World Cup,
the Turkish national team shocked the world when they reached the
semifinals. I had even assumed that it was only a lucky
run. However, after my brief stay in Istanbul, I now have a
better understanding of the severity of value that the nation ascribes
to sports. I now consider Turkey an equal competitor to the rest
of the world when it comes to sports, and specifically soccer.
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