13.10.2000

Dear friend,

Thank you for sending me an e-card. I haven't seen it yet but I guess it must be good.

I spent the whole of my birthday on a bus, travelling alone for seven hours from a place called Selcuk to a place called Bursa. I guess that was a special way to celebrate one's birthday.

Most Turkish men stare at me when I walk on streets. I am yet to work out the reason. There are three possibilities - lone woman, Asian woman, woman with loose long hair. Or lone Asian woman with loose long hair. Some of them just stare, some giggle and say 'Japanese' behind me. Some teenagers (boys and girls), when they see me, whisper among themselves 'Japanese!!!' This is ridiculous.

Many men have tried to talk to me. Most I think wanted to sell me something or practise their English. They would say, 'Hello (or Konnichiwa). Where are you from? Do you speak English? May I ask you a question?' And when ignored they would yell, 'I said hello!', making me feel very uneasy. Sometimes they would say 'You are very beautiful'. And once I heard, 'Vous etes tres belle', which really made me laugh (I had known the words but had never heard them spoken. I thought nobody could say those words.) Once, at 5am on an overnight bus journey when I was barely awake with a greasy face and smelly mouth, a young man said the above things to me and ask my permission to sit beside me. I really wanted to slap him on the face and kick him out of the window.

But despite the above, Turkish people are very friendly and quite helpful (may be a little too much for me). And the country is a much more westernised, modern and convenient place than I imagined. In Istanbul, for example, it's just like in Hong Kong. But of course Istanbul has a history of thousands of years.

I will fly to Paris tomorrow (14.10.2000) and be back to Hong Kong on 17.10.2000 pm. See you later.