A Casual Interview with me on Turkish Sci-fi and More…

Below is an interview conducted with me by Mr. Emad Aysha, an insightful, British-Egyptian academic and a gifted writer. He’s an avid fan of science fiction with an expertise especially on Arab and Muslim sci-fi. What’s special about this interview is that it has made me think about implementing more cultural elements into my future work (and perhaps writing more in my native tongue, Turkish). You can find the full interview by scrolling down. If you’re short on time, you can also visit “The Liberum“, where the interview has been published for a concise version… or just take a digital stroll onto their homepage to access loads of pretty cool articles and interviews on various subjects. Enough with the talk… and onto more talk. Here comes the interview:

The Talk of Turkey – Baris Cansevgisi on Cultural Rapprochement and Sales Tactics for SFF in the Global Village

This is a talk with a literary counterpart of ours, Baris Cansevgisi, from Turkey this time round. He specializes in the short end of fiction – novellas, short stories, flash fiction – and in both science fiction and horror. Even his SF has a psychological and philosophical bent to it. He’s clearly the thinking man’s genre writer, never content to stick to action and adventure and preferring the journey inwards as well as outwards. (For a comprehensive overview of his work, including essays and commentary, please visit his website, and for one of his delightfully whimsical stories please check out “The Night Couple”).

Interview conducted by Emad Aysha

Dear Mr Baris, it’s always great to talk to fellow authors and share trials and tribulations. To date I have published interviews of literary figures from Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Algeria, China and Yemen. I’m sure Turkey is a galaxy unto its own and you are our magic door into it. And let me commend you on your skill and dexterity with English.

Please give us the lowdown on your good person and what attracted you to genre literature, your favourite authors, and what made you want to write it in English specifically?

Watching popular SF series like V,Blake’s 7, Star Trek and Doctor Who as well as reading books like Dune (Frank Herbert), The Time Machine(H.G. Wells) and Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes) while growing up, one tends to fall in love with SF. That’s basically what happened to me. Adding my interest in psychology, sociology and anthropology into the mixture, I have begun to explore endless possibilities that one can create in SF in terms of world-building and plotting.The genre is fueled from scientific knowledge but does not require the writers or the readers to be hardcore science fans. SF is limited only by the writer’s creativity and the reader’s imagination. I mostly write SF in English as I find the language to be more settled for this genre. Some SF terms does not sound quite right in Turkish, but perhaps that’s because there has been limited SF works in Turkish when compared to English. Besides, more people get to read my work when I write in English.

To date you have published with Sky Island Journal and Lucent Dreaming Mag, or are self-published. Am I correct in assuming that writing is more of a hobby for you than anything else? Can a Turkish author – genre or otherwise – make a decent living just from writing and publishing? And have you thought of teaching SF?

Writing has to stay a hobby for me for the time being. Apart from a few mainstream and well-known authors, I believe Turkish writers do not earn enough to make a living by sticking only to writing. Not at least until they have traditionally published a book or have a solid fan base just like Orhan Pamuk, Elif Şafak and Ahmet Ümit.As for me, I have a regular day job and I can only lead a nocturnal life when it comes to pursuing my passion. I do earn from writing, but that’s mostly in the form of ghostwriting.When it comes to teaching SF, I have never taught SF as a lesson on its own. However, I tend to use SF as background if there’s a willing group of students when I teach English at university.

Are you a member of Bilimkurgu Kulübü, the premier sci-fi association in Turkey? Do they have a national writer’s federation in Turkey and do you have to have a minimum of three published works to be a full member? (They do in Egypt).

No, I am not a member of Bilimkurgu Kulübü. Sadly, due to my hectic teaching schedule, I can hardly find the time to attend their activities, which mostly take place in Istanbul. This is something I currently lack in my life– participating in social activities (in person) with like-minded people, networking and sharing ideas of course. I believe there’s a national writers’ federation in Turkey called Türkiye Yazarlar Birliği, but I don’t have much information about them as I mostly write in English. However, I know that in order to become a member of the association, it is required to have been writing in one or more periodicals for at least five years or to have published at least one work (in Turkish of course).

What is your fanbase like (age, gender) and what subgenres do you write in – cyberpunk, steampunk, social science fiction, military SF, etc.?

Apart from family and friends, my fan base mostly consists of women between the ages 30 to 70. I believe this type of fan base is mostly attracted to softer SF with a stronger emphasis on human psychology, which is basically what I mostly write about:Social and psychological effects of SF elements like time travel or parallel worlds on ordinary people. Besides social science fiction, I also write short pieces of apocalyptic SF and stories about lucid dreaming, which I try to integrate into SF settings.

On the topic of military SF, there is the famous 2004 novel Metal Fırtına (or Metal Storm) by Orkun Uçar and Burak Turna – I’d read about it in a US foreign policy magazine. Were people in Turkey genuinely scared that the Americans would invade, just like they did Iraq? And how has the Metal Fırtına series fared critically and commercially?

First of all, let me say that Metal Fırtına is considered to be Political/Military Fiction as the novel lacks common sci-fi elements (not even laser rifles or aliens). The book, having a plausible plot of the US forces invading Turkey, had initially made it a best-seller amongst the Turkish population.

Well, some people were scared at first because it’s the first novel of its kind… but the feeling transformed into anti-Americanism shortly after. I guess it was seen as something that could easily happen at the time. And we had the example of Iraq. The core idea was very credible. However, it seemed unlikely for US invasion (ground) forces to be able to move through the mountainous Turkey in 2-3 days… This and some other aspects caused pauses in the suspension of disbelief, I guess…

Metal Fırtına did not fare well critically as it had been criticised about the writers lacking knowledge on military strategies, the proper militaristic jargon or even geographical knowledge of Turkey. Later on, the writers decided to continue the series on their own, both publishing a set of different Metal Storm follow-ups (Orkun Uçar – 4 more books) and (Burak Turna – 6 more books).

Is this the sci-fi action equivalent of Ertuğrul or Valley of the Wolves?

In that sense, yes, they are very similar. But nearly every action-adventure Turkish series or film are similar in that sense. Have you seen Tarkan movies (played by Kartal Tibet)? Or Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man who Saved the World)… I am ashamed of this film as it is considered to be one of the worst SF movies in history.

What’s the anime scene like in Turkey? Are they just dubbed or does Turkey have its own distinctive sci-fi cartoon brand? Is cyberpunk popular in general?

Anime has been gaining popularity especially among the younger generation in Turkey in the last couple of decades. I am really happy about this as I am an anime fan and now it’s easier to access a wide range of anime (and manga) both in English and Turkish. Up to this date Turkey has produced children’s cartoons focusing on traditional folk stories, but we do not have a sci-fi cartoon brand of our own. There have been a couple of attempts, but I am certain this will change soon. Although being a fairly new genre for the Turkish society, Cyberpunk is getting more and more popular these days and I have started hearing about some cyberpunk anime projects. But, they are still rumours as of this day.

Here’s a wild economic question. A whole generation of Egyptians and Arabs have been raised watching Turkish soap operas and period dramas, and you can find a goodly number of translated texts by Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak in Egyptian bookstore. Do you think Turkish SF (in translation) would sell well here?

I don’t see why not. Egyptian and Arab readers are more likely to find common cultural elements like religion, geography and social life in Turkish SF stories. There are few but some good published Turkish SF writers such as Müfit Özdeş (short stories), Aşkın Güngör, Zühtü Bayar and Sadık Yemni (along with fantasy).

Finally, what are your future plans and what kind of cooperation would you like to see from your counterparts in the Arab world? I’d like to ‘think’ we have much to learn from each other and can help each other out. What about you?

My future plans? Well, I have so many projects in mind but so little time to complete them all. Firstly, as I’m a pantser and not a plotter, I have a lot of short stories that need to be heavily edited by me. I also have an incomplete novel, which had been untouched for the last five years. I want to finish that. I also want to write more in Turkish to see how well I can fare. And, finally, work on a space opera TV series script I have been thinking of lately. For the near future, I think I’ll focus more on my blog and keep on writing short pieces on anything that ticks my brain.

I would love to connect with SF writers from the Arab world to exchange ideas and more. Wouldn’t it be great if we all worked on an SF short story anthology focusing on a certain topic?

Thank you!

Emad Aysha is a member of both the Egyptian Society for Science Fiction (ESSF) and Egyptian Writers’ Union.

Xenolinguistics Part II – The Conscious Mayonnaise and Other Irregularities: Etymology of Common Words and the Aspect of Culture

Imagine that a highly advanced alien race in a galaxy far far away, somehow decide to study English after catching rogue radio signals all over the planet with their super-ranged intergalactic receptors. Before making first contact, they devise an English to intergalactic language dictionary after many years of eavesdropping. The radio signals are their only source of information as they don’t have eyes on Earth, yet. Hell, they might not even have eyes at all.

[We are assuming the aliens can distinguish between languages in the story above and focus solely on English. In reality, they would be utterly puzzled by hearing the words ‘astronaut’, ‘cosmonaut’, and ‘taikonaut’ being used for the same Earthly space men!]

_{From left to right: Astronaut Helmet – Cosmonaut Helmet – Taikonaut Helmet}

After these extraterrestrials think they have enough knowledge of the language to tackle the next message they pick up for the sake of translation, they come across some messages communicated by two unsuccessful fiction writers exchanging parts of their latest work for mutual advice. The first statement the aliens hear is:

“a chunk of mayo slithered down the hamburger paris bit in a hurry and landed on her brandnew denim leaving a nasty stain” [The correct punctuation isn’t applied as they wouldn’t know.]

A simple, single statement describing a daily mishap to someone’s jeans might be tough to crack for those who speak little or no English. Luckily, we have dictionaries! So, do these aliens! Remember, they made one! But, dictionaries may still provide more problems than solutions without context as:

The verb ‘Slither’ is usually credited for the movement of desert animals like snakes… so, the word ‘mayo’ sounds more like an animal than a condiment. Duly noted.

‘Land’ is both a verb and a noun, but it would be confusing for a member of a tribe in a landlocked region or beings from another planet with no bodies of water; in short, for those who do not have the word ‘sea’ or ‘land’ in their native tongues. Assuming they eliminated the noun form and accepted the verb form to be right definition. Why use ‘to land’ though? They would think the more appropriate word should have been something similar to ‘drop’ as ‘land’ is attributed to controlled actions like ‘the landing of a bird’ or ‘the touchdown of an airplane’ (by a pilot)… how much control can a chunk of mayo have? Does it have a conscience?

As suspected, the word ‘mayo’ is not in their dictionary, yet, as it’s the first time they picked up this word! It’s logical as it’s a really slim chance the word circulates in space between NASA and the space stations. They add the new word into their dictionary as:

Mayo: A conscious life form on Earth that attack by short leaps and known to discolour its prey by a form of spitting or dampening.

**_{Mayo does go for the heart in the long run!}**

All the world languages (not only English) are riddled with similes, idioms, and ironies. Mingle these with our diverse, unique cultures and set up grammatical systems with a lot of rule exceptions and voila; languages of planet Earth, which are bound to change as our way of lives change via new inventions and the advancement of technology!

Our vocabularies are full of made-up lexical items with little or no pattern, as we seem to name things randomly, by not following a general set of rules. Keep in mind, words make up sentences and sentences make the language itself. The above mayo message could also be deciphered as a list of place names as we can name words derived from toponyms (words derived from place names). Look:

Mayo: short for mayonnaise meaning from Mahon, Menorca – Spain
Hamburger: from Hamburg – Germany
Paris: from Paris – France
Denim: from Nimes – a town in France (de Nimes)

That’s not all, we also make up words derived from people’s names (eponyms):

Boycott (Captain Charles C. Boycott), Saxophone (Adolphe Sax), Guillotine (Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin), Sandwich (Earl of Sandwich), Nicotine (Jean Nicot) and even Bluetooth (Harold Bluetooth)

Toponyms and Eponyms are just two of the ways we name new words or concepts… there are many more but again no pattern in naming lexical items. Let’s mention one more to seal this part, which is ‘naming new locations, things or concepts by mistake or miscommunication’:

Nome (A town in Alaska): According to a theory, Nome received its name through an error: allegedly when a British cartographer copied an ambiguous annotation made by a British officer on a nautical chart, while on a voyage up the Bering Strait. The officer had written “? Name” next to the unnamed cape. The mapmaker misread the annotation as “C. Nome”, or Cape Nome, and used that name on his own chart; the city in turn took its name from the cape. (Source: Wikipedia)

Canary Islands (A group of Islands): The name Islas Canarias is likely derived from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning “Islands of the Dogs”. According to the historian Pliny the Elder, the island Canaria contained “vast multitudes of dogs of very large size”. There were no canaries (birds) on the islands. It was a simple translation error as Canariae (Canis), the Latin word for ‘dogs’ sounded a lot like ‘Canaries’.

Yucatan Peninsula: There are countless theories about how Yucatan was named. Below are just two of those theories (In both versions, the Spaniards asked in Spanish and the Mayans they encountered there replied in Mayan, their native tongue.):

The first one, points out to Francisco López de Gómara in 1552 in Cabo Catoche when the Spaniards asked some men what the name of the town was and they said “tectetan”,which would roughly translate to “I don’t understand you”. They thought it was called that way, and, corrupting the word, they called that land Yucatan.

Another version indicates that the Spaniards gave the name of Yucatan to the region because the Mayans answered their questions with the expression “Uh yu ka t’ann”, which in Mayan means “listen how they speak”, and the Spaniards understood Yucatan.

The West Indies (A group of Islands in the Caribbean): Christophe Columbus, who thought he had reached islands in the West of India, named them. Well, technically, he is right. The West Indies in the Caribbean is indeed located to the west of India…

Now, let’s add the effect of our cultural diversity into the mix and look at some interesting facts about other languages:

At one point, Arabic had over 1000 words for ‘camel’, which were abundant in the region. Although most of these words are not used today, there are still over 100 words in contemporary Arabic for ‘camels’.

There’s a theory that the Eskimos have over 50 words to describe snow and ice. These include; ‘qanik – snow falling’, ‘aputi – snow on the ground’, ‘pukak – crystalline snow on the ground’ and ‘ainu – snow to make water’. No wonder so many words, where everywhere is literally snow and ice.

Even aristocracy and wealth can alter words– the words beef and pork come from French, while the English equivalents are cow (ox) and pig. Now, the original English words are used, to describe the live animals while French originated words are used when these animals are served as food. The distinction dates back to the Norman invasion of Britain, where English peasants looked after the animals and the French nobility ate them.

Each language has unique words that don’t exist in other languages: Gigil (Filipino) is the sudden urge to want to squeeze someone out of extreme cuteness or irritation. Fernweh (German) is feeling homesick for somewhere you’ve never been before. Slampadato (Italian) is a word to describe people who are addicted to tanning saloons. Yoko Meshi (Japanese) is the stress you feel when speaking a foreign language and Yakamoz (Turkish), which is the sight of the reflection of moonlight on a body of water.

We speak language(s), where both milk and white wine sound like they’re the same colour or that black berries, a bruised eye and coffee are considered black, just as black as a piece of obsidian rock. Seriously, how are we ever going to manage to communicate with extraterrestrials when our languages follow no real pattern and we are nearly always confused?

***_{Fifty Shades of Black and the actual colour!}***

Xenolinguistics – The Intercultural Barrier (Part 1.5)

In my last post, we explored the impossibility of successful communication with the first aliens we make contact (unless they are Hollywood aliens, which are all fluent in English). Before diving deep into the aspect of culture in the next post, which is vital in inter-species understanding, I’d like to give a short pause and share a freshly-written, absurd flash fiction piece I wrote to give a brief glimpse of what I think might happen in the event that humanity makes contact with an inter-galactic race. Let’s see what happens:

8 minutes 44 seconds in Earth time. The final stronghold fell much easier than its definition suggested. It was strategically a terrible location to fend off the final assault for the remaining few Orgics that had chosen to hole up here– weak concrete walls that could easily be bashed in, inviting, thin metal sheet reinforced glass doors, with no booby traps inside and all.

Lost deep in his own, proper stronghold of thoughts, Captain Anders lingered through the main hallway, pushing aside the scattered glass remnants of the display cases on the floor with the side of his boots after each step. The Orgics had chosen to sacrifice their lives for whatever those fragile containers housed. What could be more important than life? Still preoccupied, Captain Anders hadn’t noticed he was standing right in front of a shattered glass door. He gently pushed the massive crack barely holding up in the centre with his gloved hand and watched the remaining glass fall and break into smaller pieces beneath his feet. So fragile! Then, it made sense a bit- the last of the Orgics weren’t the military type as those were the ones first wiped out. What would they know about fortifications? Anders bent his head slightly and passed through the doorway.

Anders was greeted by Lieutenant Orrin once he entered the main room where a 10-feet marble sculpture of an orgic freshly riddled with bullet holes stood.

“We’ve secured the place,” Lieutenant Orrin said.

Captain Anders saw the dead bodies of half a dozen Orgics piled up in a far corner. “Any survivors?”

“One, but it’s in a bad shape,” Lieutenant Orrin pointed at the giant statue. “Fought well trying to defend this. Didn’t leave its side.”

“I am guessing this one was too heavy to move.” Anders touched the feet of the giant statue and drove his hand up. It was hard and cold… just like death. “Why sacrifice life to save something so lifeless?”

The lieutenant shook his head, but Anders didn’t notice. His gaze was still fixed on the the colossal hardened form. “Take me to it.” He finally said, first prying his looks, then his touch away from the statue.

The small storage room had nothing but a wobbly metal chair in the centre. On it, was a loosely tied female orgic. Judging by the severity of her wounds, the loose ropes were there for her not to fall off the chair rather than prevent her escape. She had a couple of hours of life in her at most. Maybe less.

Anders lifted her chin up and saw the diminishing light in her empty gaze. Time was of essence and he had to pick the right questions to be able to make sense of the orgics’ purposeless actions. “Why?” He asked. “Why did you sacrifice your life for a heap of stone?”

Laura looked up and came into direct contact with the android leader’s blinking crimson eyes. She knew she was dying fast, and there was nothing else left the android could threaten her with to get answers. Besides, how would she be able to describe an alien concept to an alien race in the very limited time she had left? How could she explain art to those that never experienced it? On one note, the android seemed familiar with the concept of ‘sacrifice’ as it was the word it’d used. But, sacrificing one for other lives was one thing and willing to die for inanimate creations of their own doing was another. Besides even if she were able to make a little bit of sense, would it not get lost in translation on the way from the AI underlings to the alien masters? The androids were highly adaptable. They were the foot soldiers created to learn and adapt… To do the dirty work of their masters. And that adaptability alone caused Earth to fall in under a week: Thousands of live Trojan horses, dealing the unexpected final blow to the unaware human race. But, the whole dagger and cloak thing wasn’t to take humanity by surprise, it was merely to learn and record a race that was to be annihilated for good. The events of the past week started playing in Laura’s mind…

The androids were sent to Earth by their extraterrestrial overlords. Humanity has always been naïve in thinking we would make contact with the real deal alien entities, but just as automobiles replaced horse carriages and factory workers with machinery on Earth, it was only logical to think dangerous space exploration or planetary invasions would be made remotely with easily controllable androids from the comfort of their spaceships by galactic conquistadors. The droids were a form of liquid machinery disguised in flesh that could take any shape and blend in for planetary missions and sadly, copying the physical appearance of humans were not that challenging for the creations of a far superior intergalactic race. The whole invasion happened in under a week and didn’t even requiring probing. Without humanity even noticing, the droids learned everything about humanity to ease off the invasion. Well, learned about almost everything… culture and art wouldn’t make any sense to them even if they stayed concealed on Earth for a millennia. They had never had art. Nor culture!

“Why?” Captain Anders roared in frustration of the fact that a lowly race had secrets they weren’t able to figure out.

“Art… Culture…,” Laura mumbled in pain. “It’s what makes us human.” With her last breath, she wanted to make them understand that humanity was something to be preserved rather than destroyed. She’d always thought art was universal… literally… They would understand. They had to. The ropes holding Laura tightened as her head dropped down.

Upon arrival, the droids learned that art was a way of expression and imagination of the human creative skill, and paintings or sculptures were the byproduct of… art. But, what exactly was ‘Culture’?

Anders looked at Lieutenant Orrin for collaborative brainstorming. The definitions he got by connecting to the planet’s database were conflicting. But, that wasn’t surprising. The Orgics spoke languages based on conflict. A stronghold didn’t always mean a difficult place to take over, yet he clearly heard an Orgic mentioning this place as one. They had names for non-existent concepts like god, religion, soul, magic, ghost, monster… and he would never understand why they used the same word to describe existent but unrelated concepts or things. For instance, among other meanings, ‘Coach’ meant both a ‘large wheeled transport to carry a large amount of people from one place to another’ and a ‘trainer in sporting events’. There seemed to be no logical connection.

Orrin started speaking; giving definitions of the term ‘culture’:

“The manifestations of human intellectual achievement-“

“That can’t be it,” Anders cut in. “Not worth dying for something you can recreate. Besides, humans are not the intellectual type.”

“The ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular-“

“Not a chance. Creating a stone representation of yourself isn’t really an idea… as for social behaviour, there’s no scientific explanation to why they keep producing things that would never give them benefits.”

“Perhaps, it gives them benefits,” Orrin said. “We weren’t able to fully analyse them, yet.”

Anders shook his head. “They have 3D printers to create such things quicker and more efficiently. If one gets lost or broken, replication shouldn’t be an issue. Yet, they are willing to die for their own creations that can be recreated easily.”

“Thinking in Orgic’s way and speaking in their language affects my line of thinking and reasoning, is it necessary as I fail to understand even what you’re saying.”

“You know that total immersion is the best way to learn,” Anders coughed to clear his throat, which he felt no actual need to do so.

“I think I got it,” Orrin said. “It must be this one… maintain tissue cells, bacteria, etc. in conditions suitable for growth.”

Anders paused for a minute before speaking. “Have we detected any living organisms on… art?”

“Yes,” Orrin nodded. “Not on the newer creations, but older art is sometimes covered by vegetation and there’s also moss growth in time. It’s basically their breeding grounds! They ensure survival through inter-species transformation.”

“That’s it,” Anders agreed. “I am sending the report now.” He remained motionless as his eyes fluttered at intervals while compiling the final report.

And, a moment later he sent it. The final report that reached the outer ring of the 3149-R planet, read:

“The Orgics have found a way of immortality through creating lifeless representations of themselves and other things. Naturally induced tissue cells and bacteria are carefully preserved on these creations, only for them to spring out as a different life form in the future. This makes it possible for them to completely alter their DNA for a more suitable life form. Further study is not needed. Requesting permission to go on to the next planet.”

_{Transformation of the human DNA? or just plain old moss?}

—- The End —-

Communicating with visitors from outer space: The uncanny resemblance of the Unfamiliar Familiarity…

We are born… totally unaware of the world around us; an alien world…
We learn crying first… that’s our first attempt in communication… or attention seeking until we find more effective ways…
Then, we learn to stand on our knees, crawl and finally walk…
In the end, we learn to speak as we complete the totally helpless phase of our infancy. The comms link is finally online…

It takes us years to get familiar with our home world and its humanoid inhabitants. Yet, we are never fully familiar towards other life forms on our planet…

Nobody has communicated with a chicken…
Nobody knows how a potted sunflower truly feels when neglected too long…
Nobody has ever set their eyes upon the creatures living in the deepest parts of our oceans…
Nobody has tried to make a pact with deadly viruses for them not to make us sick… oh wait! Most of us aren’t even aware that viruses aren’t living organisms… but we try to kill these lifeless but contagious pieces of code anyway.

We still know only bits and pieces about the other life forms we coexist with, on our shared planet…

Yet, we seek intelligent life forms in deep space and still believe we can come to terms with these aliens through diplomacy once we find them and form an inter-galactic federation to rule the galaxy peacefully altogether… or crush the destructive, evil ones…

Before elaborating more on the ways to communicate with aliens, let’s take a short trip into some popular alien encounter plots in the sci-fi world:

A spaceship either makes its way to one of the largest cities in the world, or just crash lands in the suburbs where a small town lies nearby. The aliens’ agenda is always the same wherever they land though: to destroy us or strip our planet off its valuable resources. Then the war for our planet commences…

We beat them 9 out of 10 times. Perhaps because they look like us somehow… an uncanny resemblance of the unfamiliar familiarity: they’re either off-color humanoids, complete with all the limbs etc. Or some variation of earthly creatures like giant bugs or non-aquatic octopuses.

This physical familiarity must be the reason we believe we can communicate so easily with them.

So, let’s make it easier for the mankind and imagine the first aliens we encounter are not only humanoid in form, but also a nearly exact copy of our image. But even then… what makes us think we can understand each other? How easily can we communicate with other people? Can we even completely understand our fellow earthlings?

… in a world where,

… men can’t truly understand women…
… archaeologists can’t decipher most ancient writing forms… (such as the Rongorongo of Easter Island)…
… each Earth culture has its own beliefs and values…(even gestures)…

Still not convinced?

Try explaining snowflakes to a young Masai warrior…

what an ocean is to someone who has lived in a landlocked country all their life…

Vampires: Why they are depicted as they are…

baris-vampire

In modern times, vampires are often portrayed as gorgeously attractive, blood-sucking, immortal creatures who have supernatural powers such as turning into bats, hypnosis and having super senses and ultra speed, to name just a few. Funny enough, as gorgeous creatures as they are, they do not have reflections in mirrors. And somehow, they can easily turn into dust under daylight and can be killed by a wooden stake, when stabbed right through their hearts. Let’s speculate a bit about these elements which have made the modern vampire:

1. Blood-sucking: Blood is what gives life to the living. Since vampires are undead, it’s perfectly normal for them to suck life from us, transferring it from their victim to their bodies. And since they cannot get their daily vitamin D intake from the sun, they drink blood which has at least trace amounts of the necessary vitamins.

2. Fetish for the neck: Picture a scene where a vampire is draining the blood of an attractive victim, which part of the body would the vampire go for? What makes a great scene even when feeding? Fangs penetrating the skin over the abdomen? Knee caps? Arm pits? Or the neck itself?

In Armenian mythology, there is one queer vampire named Dakhanavar, who sucks the soles (Yes, “soles” of the feet, not “souls”) of its victims while they are sleeping. It surely does not look so cool visually, except for people with foot fetish. And maybe not even for them if the victim is a peasent grandma housing an ecosystem of blisters and bunions on her feet.

Another good reason for vampires choosing the neck is carotid arteries that can be found in each side of the neck. Why drink from an infrequently dripping tap when you can get access to a fountain. Right?

3. Turning into bats: Bats are nocturnal creatures just like vampires. Besides, vampires would not look so cool if they turned into hamsters or ponies, would they? (They would look cuter though). By turning into “vampire” bats, they also gain the ability to fly, which takes the problem of geography off the table: A vampire story would have no limits on the diversity of the locations that it took place at. Do not forget that we, humans have started as explorers as well, not settlers…

4. Hypnosis, Altering or Erasing Memories: If you are still reading this, it means that you haven’t been killed by a vampire until now. Do not consider yourself lucky as it might be because most vampires would rather feed on their prey multiple times than kill it off instantly. There’s no need to annihilate the food supply at one go. It’s like eating out at your favorite place most nights, again and again. They know that, we, humans can compensate blood loss by generating more blood when needed. Here’s how the hunting process goes for a typical vampire:

Find a lively victim, lure it into a dark alleyway by hypnosis, prevent the prey from resisting (again by hypnosis), fang its neck, drink just the right amount of blood so the victim can survive, alter or erase the memories of the incident and let the victim blame the fang marks on the neck, on a twisted tree branch run into the previous night. Visit the victim again and repeat the process when the victim recuperates.

Now, let’s shed light on why vampires seem to have this ability, which is far less cooler than most other super powers (like being totally immortal or time travelling):

Hypnosis, altering or erasing memories add to the intellectual qualities of a vampire, meaning that they do not only have brawns, but also brains. Plus, it provides them with mysterious characteristics as nobody can know anything about them for sure. The victims’ memories could have easily been altered.

5. The Destructive Sun: Nobody has ever seen a tanned lord of the night. Right? Vampires are all pale and turn into dust when exposed to direct sunlight. But, why? Well, first of all, the sun provides life to all living things on our planet. The sun and life are as closely related to each other as night and death. And vampires are dead…err…. undead, but I think you get my point.

But, what about the impact of this in modern culture?

Let’s go back about 60-70 years in history, when having a pale, white skin, unspoilt by a suntan used to be a sign of nobility. It was those times when peasents, workers and the poor had to work in fields under direct sunlight to earn a living while the noblemen stayed indoors, in their luxurious castles or dwellings and rarely put afoot outside. So, we can easily link pale skin to nobility and that may be why the vampires are susceptible to sunlight. When stripped out of their nobility (having a suntan), vampires become more ordinary, similar to the vast majority of people living in those times. Ordinary is far from being cool. Turning into dust under direct sunlight may also have reference to our origins: Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust…

6. Being irresistibly gorgeous and immortal: No matter how good-looking we are, we, humans tend to find flaws with our physical appearance (All the women and most men). We are programmed that way. The physical qualities of a vampire, on the other hand, is exactly what we have been looking for since the beginning of time. It’s a spot-on representation of what we have been longing for, just like immortality. Perhaps, vampires are a mere representation of all our dreams: Being extremely good-looking, immortal and noble beings with super powers… And perhaps, that’s why they do not have reflections as they are perfect in every way and we are not. At least not in those countless selfies we take on a daily basis.

7. Death by wooden stakes: Mythologically speaking, vampires go way back in time, when adamantium rods, lightsabers or steel swords were pretty much non-existant and iron weapons scarce. However, wood was everywhere. Although it is still not clear why stabbing vampires through the heart kills them (a heart which does not beat or pump blood), it is good to know that wooden stakes do the job. Especially ones that are shapened from ash trees (Another reference to “Ashes to ashes”?). Ash trees were also referred to “Tree of Life” in Norse mythology. There!

8. Vampire Repellents: A blood-sucker shows up in your doorstep. What do you do? No worries! Just use one of the repellents below that are commonly found in nearly every household:

a) Garlic: It’s the vampire kryptonite! As humans we are, we can barely stand the stench of someone who has recently consumed garlic, how could a vampire with super senses endure it? These creatures of the night can allegedly smell the scent of blood from miles away just as they could be effectively disgusted by the sight and smell of garlic in face-to-face encounters. Besides, garlic is known to eradicate bacteria if we assume vampirism to be a contagious illness spread by bacteria.

b) The Cross or the Crucifix: Although overrated, religion seems to have some power after all. A newly turned vampire can remember his/her sins after turning and run away when confronted by such symbols, possibly succumbing into a temporary depression. When in depression, hunger just fades away… for a while…

It would surely be different symbols (repellents) for bloodsuckers following other religions: A crescent for Muslim vampires or the Star of David for Jewish vampires would work just the same. Just pray that you never meet a heretic vampire!

c) Bag of rice: While not a repellent, common rice has its own tricks up to its sleeves. Most vampires in mythology seems to have a weird case of OCD and they tend to count every grain of rice when they come accross them, thus losing valuable night time when counting every bit.

This OCD may have developed in vampires some time after immortality as when immortal for centuries, anyone tends to get bored of life and look for new… activities to kill time…

This is just a brief summary and speculation of why vampires are imagined as they are.

I hope you enjoyed it 🙂

Archaeology of the Present

Imagine our current civilization ended up in flames; totally wiped out… a few remaining survivors of the human kind (possibly stripped of all advanced technological knowledge and know-how) started all over from scratch.

In a millennium, every advancement is already long forgotten and our civilization at present is regarded as an ancient one, pretty much like ancient Egypt in our era.

The new civilization follows more or less a similar path as ours to flourish. However, some things have never been invented or some ideas have never been thought of. At least, they invent the notion of archaeology; digging up the past (and trying to uncover our secrets).

Let’s do a thought experiment…

It’s the year 2116; a thousand years from now and the future archaeologists uncover the following:

1. The personal library of a sci-fi enthusiast, which survived a millennium in a nuclear shelter/bunker. All the books that survived are works of fiction…about intergalactic wars, time travel, aliens, etc… and after decades of hard work, they are able to crack the code of our language. What would they think? Would they regard them as works of fiction or consider them as ancient history? We seem to regard every written record of ancient civilizations as real…

2. An email message printed on a browned out paper (actually the paper browned out much later :), containing letters of the alphabet as well as characters like @,#,_,&,* and :). (From the same library mentioned above) Would they combine these symbols into our ancient language and overthink about their function?

3. A dozen autographed baseball bats by some of the baseball idols of our era dug out from the ruins of a sports shop. Luckily, the UV coating on the bats preserved the signatures from smearing out through ages. What would a baseball bat suggest to a culture who has not invented the concept of sports (for entertainment)? Perhaps, a primitive weapon of war; inscribed with an ancient god’s name to channel divine power to the wielder? How about the sports shop? Would the future archaeologists be happy that they unearthed an ancient armory?

4. A huge, curvy water slide in an abandoned amusement park: An aqueduct?

5 A bowling ball… Let me be more specific: A size 14, shiny, purple bowling ball. Hmmm… What are the three holes for? For fingers? But why three? Would they think that ancient humans had two less fingers? Oh wait! That’s how we depict some aliens!!!

The moral of this article?

No matter what your intentions are (when you invent or create something), you will most likely to be misunderstood …

Barış Cansevgisi

Author

Tag: culture