A Fez of the Heart

Prologue to A Fez of the Heart: travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat.

1). Choose one passage from the reading that you found particularly interesting. Why was this interesting?

There a couple of passage that is interesting to me. But the most surprising one is that in the 1930’s “Turkish citizens were to be counted. Turkish citizens were first to find themselves a surname. After eighteen months, the warning went; those families that had failed to find themselves a surname to their liking would be fined and supplied with one of the district official’s choosing.”

This part interesting because it never occur to me how last names started or for what purpose. Since we are so modernized we sort of received our last name the day we are born. Last names are a very interesting topic because in different culture last names mean different things. For example in Hmong culture, last names are very important because we used last name to carry on the bloodline and the family name. It also is very important in that we are not allowed to marry the person with the same last name where as in Japanese culture, last names do not matter and anyone can marry anyone. But in Mexico or Costa Rica, people have not only their father’s name but also their mother as well which makes their last name longer.

2). Use examples from this reading to illustrate the interaction between economics and culture.

Within this article it points out that this group of people uses their culture as a way to gain capital and tourism. “By the late 1980’s, however, the sons of those same fisherman and farmers had discovered the value of the coins and sold them to the local museum. Exchanging old Nike for New, they spent their earnings shodding themselves in the latest athletic shoes and set about running hotels and restaurants where the menus offered fisherman’s mallet and farmer’s lamb.” This shows that the people promote their culture to tourist and because the currency was an apart of their culture people sold their old coins/money as a part of attracting tourist because new money was coming in. Another situation was the bikinis where it was banned. Muslims were deeply offended. “French visitors who had been largely brought up on nude sunbathing and doubtless thought slipping on a bikini for jaunt through town might label them as puritanical killjoys. As a result, several of them were stoned by incensed villagers.” This affected the economy due to that people were not allowed to wear bikini and were drove tourism down. In a huge part of society, tourism plays a part of the economy. But also culture as well due to that people are only allowing certain things to happen or banning certain activity can cause the increase or decrease in tourism.

3). For your study abroad country, identify the leading destinations for tourists. What draws people to those specific places?

China has been a leading destination for tourist because of the historical places such as the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, and many of the modern cities including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, and parts of Hong Kong as well. China has also have a huge population which spread Mandarin Chinese teaching abroad leading people/students to also want to go to china to study the language. China also has a thriving film industry which leads a lot of viewers to be interested in China. Stars/actors such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li play a huge part in introducing China as a country because of where they are from this cause people to be interested in Chinese culture. Martial arts has also play a big shift in films which changes how most films are made now a day involving actions and fighting.

Work Cited:

Prologue to A Fez of the Heart: travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat. Article