Turkish Hands: Gesture Your Way Home.
One very windy day long ago on a mountain trail in Cappadocia, Turkey, a handsome mountain guide explained to my eight year old son the porousness of the rock, the geology of the valley, and the need to take care on the smooth stones… I couldn’t hear him through the wind, but I could understand almost everything he said. And all at once, after living in Turkey for almost five years, it hit me.
I was watching the PHENOMENON OF TURKISH HANDS:
The ability to communicate full thoughts, emotions, reactions or directions with a simple hand gesture. The need for words or the need to understand the language is completely bypassed and the meaning is so much clearer and more direct.
The physicality of Turkish people is unmistakable and, without question, one of their most impressive features, at least to their more awkward Western cousins. Their hands tell it all: their helplessness, their anger, their faith, their favorite recipes, how big the fish they almost caught was, and how bad you’re going to get it if you don’t behave.
About the Book
In the book I offer: Comedy, learning, self-awareness, a window into the Turkish culture and soul that no one has explored before, a way for people who want to work with this culture to communicate with them. A window for Turks to know more about themselves. And my expertise on language, communication, the vibration of words, and the comedic aspect of the situations I make up in an effort to describe situations in which you would use these gestures makes this book and the books that will follow, a rich and fun read.
This book is the first of its kind for Turkey and Turkish culture.
How many times have you seen a woman at the market lift her eyebrows to the sky and click her tongue when you asked her for out-of-season veggies, or a waiter tilt his head sideways and nod gently with a slow blink of his eyes, to say ‘yes, we have the perfect table for you, quiet with a view of the Bosphorous (see Var / Yaparız Abi page).
Now you will know what all this means, and you will be better prepared for physical demonstrations that otherwise might chip away at your comfort zone: intense reactions towards children like cheek pinching and kissing, hair patting, and general squeezing accompanied by the words “ I could eat you;” men holding hands or walking arm in arm, touching each other’s legs while chatting or leaning on each other; or you, the visitor, being held by the forearm and forcibly turned around to face the right way when you ask for directions. Allow yourself to ease into the grace of the moment, be touched by Turkish hands.
Who needs it?
Anyone who likes to laugh.