My ethnic identity is Turkish.

Both of my parents’ ancestors were Turkish but my

mother’s side who immigrated from Greek islands. This immigration from the islands almost
has no cultural impact for me except cuisine. When I was growing up almost every dish
contained olive oil in it. Another cuisine was edible plants which can be both cold and hot as a
main dish or side dish.
As for my nationality, I am legaly both Turkish and British but I was born and raised
in Turkey. The British nationality comes from my father. When he was young, he had lived in
England for 18 years and during that time, he also obtained a dual citizenship. After I was
born, because of his citizenship, he had a dual citizenship too for future advantages. These
advantages are not needing visa for europe, working, living in England and more. I used this
advantages in early highschool period. In my second year of the highschool, I went and lived
in England for a month. In this month I stayed in a dorm, go to a language school and
explored the city of Cambridge where I lived without any complication. As for my advantages
which I am thinking to use after graduating from university, are getting a master’s degree and
working a little bit in there. Getting master’s degree in a another country can create more
opportunities in the future. As for working a little bit in there, it is because if I work in a
another country for couple of years, I will gain future business connections and another
cultural experience.
As much as I liked living there there was some annoying things which came from my
racial identity. Even if I was both British and Turkish on paper, I identify myself as Turkish
because I was born and raised in Turkey and I introduce myself as Turkish in language
school. There were two disadvantages being a Turkish person in a language school with
people from different countries. One of them, there were no other Turkish in school while I
was there for a month. There was one from Ankara but his school time ended in my third day
and he was in a different classroom. Because I haven’t spoken English all that well in my
early highschool period, it was a little hard for me to fit in and make friends. The other
disadvantage was usually the bad reputation Turkey has in the eye of other countries. Because
Turkish people was Muslims and the country was in middle east, a lot of people putting
Turkish people and Turkey in the same place as the Arabian people and Arabic countries.
Because of the introduction on the first day of the school, everbody knew each others race and
nationality. While I was in that school there was one group of Italian friends which was
making fun of me all the time because I was Turkish. They were saying racist slangs and
ironically most of bad things they were saying like “Where are your wives ?” which doesn’t
apply to Turkish life style at that day.

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