Ape Rifle

Since returning home to Montreal, I have reacquainted myself with the joys of the morning newspaper read. While in China and London I got all my information by squinting at my laptop screen, so I have to say there is nothing quite like sifting through that newsprint with a nice cup of caffeine in hand (steaming tea, in my case). Currently, my papers of choice are the Montreal Gazette, the Globe and Mail and the New York Times, when it’s around.

The Canadian press, it seems, has always been fond of lamenting the state of the Canadian economy in regards to our much larger, and richer, neighbour to the south. Casually disregarding that the US is the world power and has a population approaching 300 million people, it has been somewhat of a Canuck tradition to point out that we are less productive, less competitive and all around less capitalist than the great American behemoth. This viewpoint tends to forget that, despite our deceptively large land mass, we are a small country of 30 million people. We cannot be a United States, and we are just going to have to deal with that.

Nevertheless, I’d say Canada is a pretty damn good place to live. Enormously wealthy, stable and clean according to any standards, it’s the type of place where you want to raise your family. What we have here is a nice society that mostly manages to get along in nice, relatively safe cities surrounded by picturesque countryside and stunning natural beauty. Needless to say, I’m proud to be Canadian.

So I have to say that, recently, my morning newspaper read has been a source of a lot of eye-rolling on my part. When I left Canada in 2002, the favourite point of comparison to highlight Canada’s economic shortcomings was the United States, as I mentioned above. Recently, however, the new comparison of choice is-you guessed it-Asia. Not a day goes by without some politician, corporate exec or business journalism hack warning that Canada’s lack of productivity and competitiveness is putting us in danger of ‘losing out’ on the global stage. If we don’t shape up, we are warned, we will soon be overtaken by China, India and all sorts of other countries none of them have ever visited but nevertheless remain darlings of their economic world.

It all comes down to a strange obsession with economic growth. Apparently, China is doing better than Canada because the former is growing rapidly while the latter can only manage a paltry percentage. Apparently, countries like China have tapped the secret to achieving global competitiveness. If us bloated, welfare state losers in Canada would just shake off our false sense of comfort and get serious about competitiveness and productivity, then we’ll stand a fighting chance against the behemoths of Asia.

Of course, to put it mildly, this is all nonsense. If there ever was a country that has the potential to kill our habit of equating pure economic growth with success, that country would be China. The place is an environmental, financial and, increasingly, social mess. You name it, China’s got serious problems with it. It is certainly easy to get swept up in the China Dream- I should know, because once upon a time it happened to me. There is no denying that what is going on in that country is certainly having an impact on the planet. But implying that the quality of life in China will overtake that of Canada even in the long-term is, quite simply, absurd.

I guess what frustrates me is the dishonesty of these pundits. They are using the simplistic mantra of global competitiveness, along with the threat of Asia’s rise, as a cloak for their domestic political machinations. Invoking Asia’s economic growth as a wake-up call to increasing Canada’s competitiveness and productivity is just a PR-friendly way of pushing the usual right-wing line and its obsession with deregulating everything but the kitchen sink (well, actually, maybe that too).

As Canadians, we are instructed to shape up economically, tighten our proverbial belts and strive for the utopia of efficiency and competitiveness. Of course, the advice never really goes further than that. We are not often told exactly how we are supposed to match up to a country such as China. Well, to that end, I think I could offer some simple suggestions, having lived in China and maintained a significant interest in its development. So, here is how, as Canadians, we can become globally competitive:

1) give up our democratic rights and political freedoms
2) welcome millions of peasants into our cities- and treat them like shit
3) scrap all pollution controls
4) scrap all labour laws, safety codes and quality control regulations
5) encourage rampant corruption and illegal land seizures
6) start working 13 hour days, getting paid sporadically if at all
7) welcome beatings or imprisonment for complaining about, or even publicly questioning, any of the above

What a global loser!

The smell of success

If those pundits love economic competitiveness so much, well maybe they should move to China. What’s that, you say? They live in nice suburban homes outside Toronto? Curious.

Looking out the window of my Turkish Airlines flight as it landed at Ataturk International, I distinctly remember three thoughts crossing my mind: 1) wow, there are a lot of ships in the Sea of Marmara, 2) wow, there are a lot of mosque minarets rising out of the hyper-dense urban settlements and 3) there is city everywhere. After clearing customs and immigration, I was greeted by my girlfriend and her father and promptly whisked off into the wonders of Istanbul rush hour traffic. Surveying my surroundings as the car jockeyed for space in a free-for-all expressway entrance,things at first seemed quite familiar: the cars, the roadway and the infrastructure all seemed very European. And yet, the scene that lay before me certainly wasn’t: sprawling away from the roadside was a haphazardly constructed urban density like I’d never seen.

After China, I thought I’d seen the gamut of overwhelming urban vistas. But this was something completely different. It’s just mountains of city. Heaps of city. Nothing but city. Looking out at my surroundings (which I had ample time to do given that we were in heavy traffic), I saw undulating waves of urbanity completely covering the vista to the extent that it was difficult to make out any space that was not covered by low-rise tenements,shacks,warehouses, satellite dishes, pulsating highways,tangled power lines or junk-crowded lots. I was pretty overwhelmed by this scene, urbanization and development buff that I am. My girlfriend’s father probably thought he’d just picked up a mute, because I was too awe-struck to say much.

Zoning is, obviously, not to popular in the great urban sprawl of Istanbul. Four-to-five floor buildings were built beneath, on top, beside and through each other, with windows facing in numerous directions. As we gradually made our way into the central area of the city, things only got more interesting. Huge and ancient walls suddenly sprung up beside the roadway, and soon I got a glimpse of the famous Bosporus as the road snaked along its shores. I remember it was around this point that I started thinking 1) what the f***, I’m in Istanbul! and 2) this city exudes the sort of exoticism that most other ‘exotic’ places could only dream of.

Istanbul was like all worlds crashed into one. Huge, sprawling, bustling, chaotic and dirty, but also beautiful, stunning and impeccably clean where you least expect it to be. I won’t even bother to describe the wealth of architectural gems: pick your major Islamo-Judeo-Christian religion,historical kingdom or Eurasian cultural group, and chances are you can find a material ode to it somewhere in this city. It has European cafe culture vibrancy smothered in Asian traffic sensibilities; a world-savvy middle-class swerving around beggars dancing between belching buses; wild bazaars and winding, quiet leafy streets. The infrastructure is as shiny and new as it is overwhelmed and crumbling. Watching the sun set behind the Golden Horn, silhouetting the mosques like a postcard couldn’t even manage, I watched the bridges pulsating with glistening traffic and pedestrians, the water rushing with ferries, and just soaked it all up. This is what I live for.

During my time in Istanbul, we were blessed with brilliant, smog-free blue sky and sunshine, perfect for the scenery-soaking I’m so fond of. We wandered through neighbourhoods, relaxed around Turkish coffee, took ferries across the Bosporus, chatted around tea, visited astounding historical relics, enjoyed some coffee on a rooftop terrace on a bustling pedestrian street. Hmm, did I mention that caffeine was a major part of my experience in Istanbul? So was the call to prayer, which, emitted from a number of mosques probably in the thousands, tends to make itself heard. We even took a decrepit motorboat ‘ferry’ across the Golden Horn, on which the operator encouraged me to stand up and take pictures of the surrounding sights. Given the rate at which the boat was rocking, if I had followed his advice he would likely have had to fish me out of the Golden Horn.

One thing that impressed me throughout my time in Istanbul was that it came across as bright, cheery and pretty damn clean considering the chaos that visits its streets daily. On our ferry tour of the Bosporus (which I’m told has been significantly cleaned up in the past few years), the beauty of the scenery would put most ‘developed’ world cities to complete fucking shame. Now, I don’t usually swear on this blog, but I feel the need to emphasize just how impressive this was. A city of untold millions in a ‘developing’ country managing, for the most part, not to live in its own filth. I know more than a few places that could benefit from that approach.

Needless to say, I was pretty impressed with Istanbul. I’m sure, like all gigantic cities, living there has its drawbacks, dangers and frustrations, particularly for the millions who are not as fortunate as I. But as a destination, the city does not disappoint. I’d nearly given up on the possibility of urban form originality, with so many ‘exotic’ cities revealing themselves to be nothing more than a few historic structures smothered in ugly highrises, shopping malls and general urban development that makes tacky look good. Yes, Istanbul has some ugly highrises and shopping malls. Yes, it has Starbucks (honestly, who cares?). Yes, it has about twenty times more cars than it knows what to do with. Yes, Istanbul is in the throes of ‘modernization’, like other major cities around the world desperate to build out of their perceived backwardness. Yet in Istanbul, thankfully, it would appear that this perceived ‘backwardness’ is not equated with its rich architectural and cultural heritage. The city is not ‘preserved’ because it is poor, but rather because it has a sense of style. The city’s timeless layers are something to be celebrated, to be proudly displayed to the world. For once, here is a city that knows where all the disposable, shoddy development belongs: the suburbs. In an age when urban development trends are of the sort to make anyone who isn’t blind recoil in disgust, Istanbul dares to be different. Standing on a bridge over the Golden Horn facing the minarets and domes of Sultanamet at dusk, it’s hard not to think that,despite all the nonsense, the world can still be a pretty wondrous place.

And now, after all that, here are the pictures.

Turkey is not the sort of place you would ever accuse of lacking history. And unlike certain other countries I won’t mention by name, it thankfully does not seem to have a penchant for bulldozing its historical built heritage and cultural relics.

Nope, Turkey is a country where history is all around you. Given its geographical position as a favoured crossroads of culture, and indeed civilization, throughout history, Turkey holds a veritable treasure trove of awe-inspiring mosques, old churches, crumbling fortresses and stunning Roman ruins. It is frankly amazing to be in a place that, while certainly getting on with life, traffic, modernity and all that jazz, manages to retain such a palatable sense of history.

The religious complexes in Istanbul are nothing short of stunning. The Roman ruins at Efes are beyond impressive. And yet, it was in the smaller, more unassuming locations that I truly found the history shining through. In Anamur, a small coastal town just north of Cyprus, one can swim in the warm waters of the Mediterranean and see old Roman columns lying quietly on the seabed, accompanying the ruins that dot the hill overlooking the isolated beach. On the other side of town, an unbelievably old fortress sits crumbling between the sea and the mountains (one which I got to visit thanks to the hospitality of my girlfriend’s grandfather).

However, it was in Selcuk that I was most impressed. The town is just beside the abandoned Greco-Roman city of Ephesus, and the aqueduct serving the latter apparently ran through the site of the modern-day Turkish town. So, you’d figure that, as the town expands and the aqueduct gradually falls into disrepair, the remains of the Roman structure would eventually be crowded out, demolished and forgotten. Well, not so in Selcuk. The supporting columns of the aqueduct, although crumbling, still trace the route of the original structure to a rather surreal effect since they stand randomly and untouched amidst the bustle of the town that rose up around them. Well, actually, I guess it would be erroneous to say completely untouched. At some point, about one hundred years ago as a friendly local restaurant owner informed my girlfriend, someone found these aqueduct columns to be in the way of their planned home. So, you’d think the natural thing to do would be to get rid of the columns and build your house (besides, it always seems that in the past, history never mattered as much). Well, not so in Selcuk as I said. Instead, the home was built between two of the Roman aqueduct columns, to produce what in my opinion is the coolest building in the world. How’s that for re-adaptive use?

Anyone who has traveled with me is well aware that I take a lot of pictures. Of everything. Not one to go home with a bunch of bad pictures of monuments with me in front of them, I prefer to document everyday urban scenes of street bustle, built landscapes and fun traffic chaos. I can call up thousands of images of famous structures at the click of my mouse, so for my personal collection I prefer to capture, as best I can, what it actually felt like to be in a particular place. In Istanbul, urban China and on occasion London, this entails trying to seize the energetic bustle that defines daily life in these massive metropolises and, somehow, make it shine through a still photograph. Alas, since my camera has an amazing video function I often catch myself cheating a bit and filming the amazing urban scenes I come across. In the end, though, I still prefer the crispness of still photography. Here are some examples of my attempts to capture the enthralling life of Istanbul’s streets. (note: of course, these pictures offer a very selective view of the city, as not ALL of Istanbul is like this. But these pictures are by far the most energetic, as they were taken during the central city’s rather insane rush hour.)

One thing I can’t bring myself to do so well, however, is take pictures of people. It’s not that I have difficulties with portrait photography; on the contrary, some of my best pictures have been close-ups of family and loved ones. What I’m talking about here, is the up close, in-your-face, National Geographic-style photography of ‘exotic locals’. I focus on buildings, landscapes and street scenes, because I honestly feel kind of bad objectifying people going about their daily lives as if they are some exotic cover for the Lonely Planet. I admit that I’ve tried, and occasionally succeeded, this type of shot, but I can’t help but feel extremely awkward in doing so. It’s not like I take close-up shots of investment bankers walking out of office buildings in Montreal at the end of the day, so why should I get up in the face of some street vendor in Beijing? Because he looks like the stereotypical image of what ‘China’ is supposed to be? This discomfort with objectifying people as exotic stereotypes means that when I do attempt these type of photos, they often suck because of the distance and/or hasty framing my unease necessitates.

What happened in Selcuk, Turkey, however, was a whole other story. After cruising through the Saturday morning market and purchasing some olive oil soap and a nice fake Nike cap to beat the sun, my girlfriend and I took a seat in a small park just behind some of the market stalls. Not far from us, a group of kids were playing on the jungle gym. At some point, they must have seen my camera pointing towards their general direction (I’m no longer sure if I was actually trying to take a picture of them or just fiddling with the settings on my camera), because they started saying loudly in Turkish that everyone takes pictures of them but they never get copies. Fair enough! So my girlfriend and I decided that it would be a nice gesture to take a picture or two of them, print out copies and send them in the mail to the kids. She proposed this to them and they energetically agreed.

Of course, being the smart kids they are, they weren’t going to settle for one or two pictures: they posed for at least twenty pictures divided between mine and my girlfriend’s cameras! And by posed, I mean POSED: we had group ‘gang on the jungle gym’ shots, each kid posing individually, a girl repeatedly pulling me aside to shoot a portrait of her with a flower in her hair and so on. As I got fed up shooting the jungle gym scene and trying to manage the kids into a decent shot like a fashion photographer, my girlfriend got dragged over to some flowerbed and bushes where the kids took turns doing all sorts of Kodak Moment poses. We got out of there eventually, thanks mostly to my girfriend’s assertiveness, and I decided that I should probably watch where I point my camera in the future.Once back in Istanbul, we went to a photo shop and had the pictures printed out. When I returned to London, my girlfriend sent them off to the kids with a nice note. In retrospect, I feel pretty good about what we did. The kids were certainly right: why shouldn’t they get nice pictures of themselves instead of merely fulfilling some stereotypical role as the ‘third world child’ in the eyes of countless foreign tourists?

As an added bonus, they will also gain international fame through a guest appearance here on Ape Rifle. So, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you The Selcuk Crew. Let’s all hope they got their pictures.

When I look at the following picture after the fact, I have to wonder…Why is that kid on the left holding a knife??