This past weekend I was touring New York’s Hudson Valley with my son. At the Roosevelt home at Hyde Park, we ran into a couple of gentlemen who urged us to make a stop at West Point, further south. “The river curves in an unusual way there,” they told us. “And the Yankees ran a chain across it to keep the British out.”

The same technique employed over three hundred years later? The next day, we headed to West Point to take a look. The river there is indeed lovely and curving.

Both the Americans and British knew that passage on the Hudson River was strategically important to the Revolutionary war effort. Americans wanted to slow or block the passage of ships on the river, and then attack them with cannons.

In late 1776 Henry Wisner, one of New York’s representatives to the Continental Congress, recommended the placement of chains in strategic locations along the Hudson River. The Americans eventually put chains across the river at several existing forts.

The largest and most important chain project was the one at West Point. There, the river narrowed, and curved so sharply that, together with winds, tides and current, ships already had to slow to navigate the passage.

The Great Chain was completed by Sterling Iron Works and put in place in 1778. Cannons were installed in forts on both sides of the river to destroy ships when they slowed to a halt.

The 600 yards (550 m) chain contained huge iron links, each two feet in length and weighing 114 pounds (52 kg). The links were floated down the river to West Point on log rafts, and then the rafts holding chains were united.

On 30 April 1778, the chain was in place across the river. Its southern end was secured to a small cove on the West Bank of the river and its northern end was anchored to Constitution Island. The chain’s tension was frequently adjusted, and until 1783, the chain was removed each winter and reinstalled each spring to avoid destruction by ice.

Did the chain work? Nobody knows, because the British never attempted to run the chain!

The post Of Chains and Invaders appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

At dinner that evening, we talked about Turkey, my sister- and brother-in-law shaking their heads in wonder—and envy. They wished that India, in the same time period, could have made this much progress.

After living somewhere for awhile—or visiting a place multiple times—you start to develop opinions. I’ve been to India eight times, most recently this past month, and Turkey was my home from 2010 to 2013. Here, in an attempt to cross-pollinate, I present some comparisons and contrasts. Caveat: terrorism currently affects both countries, Turkey more so at this moment. That topic—and an evaluation of top leadership in both countries—is beyond the scope of this essay. So, please try to disengage from recent perceptions as depicted in the media.

Turkey, which emerged in the late 1940s from military dictatorship, strikes visitors as an orderly place. Turks enjoy smooth roads, clean air, and firm law enforcement. Few bars on windows indicate that the country feels fairly secure from petty crime. Turks revere the idea of government and laud the person who pays the most taxes each year.

India, with a democratic tradition also dating to the 1940s, appears chaotic. Garbage lies in the streets. Cities seem unplanned. The air in cities like Delhi is foul. Indians seem to expect little from their government. My husband long ago told me that his middle-class family does not vote. Why? Because their votes are swamped by the vast, poverty-stricken majority.

Turkey was never colonized. Indeed as Ottomans, Turks were themselves colonizers for centuries. India was colonized, primarily by the British, for over three centuries. Both countries, in throwing off their pasts, went through population exchanges. Turkey in 1923 expelling its citizens of Greek origin, and India in 1947, when Pakistan was created. Apprentices of the great Turkish architect, Mimar Sinan, helped design the Taj Mahal.

Nearly all of Turkey’s citizens are Muslims, and its Kurdish minority looks and worships just like the Turkish majority. By contrast, all religions reside on the Indian subcontinent: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikkism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism. You can be on the steps of a Hindu temple and hear the Muslim ezan loud and clear. It is surely easier to govern, easier to get citizens to pull together, in a homogenous country.

Turkey is most impressive in that it accomplished so very much in the middle years of the twentieth century. While India has also made progress, what impresses me most about that country is the creativity and brainpower of the people it sends to the U.S. Surely no other immigrant group in the U.S. has been so dazzlingly successful.

Two countries with much to admire: India for its brilliant human exports and Turkey for its successful, up-by-the-bootstraps century.

I would rather live in Turkey than in India. But I do think that homogenous countries are at a disadvantage in today’s world. There is simply a dearth of different ideas, and citizens are not called on to be flexible and creative. Turkey should loosen up a little in order for the full flower of its people’s creativity to blossom. Now that you have mastered control, Turkey, start learning to embrace complexity and diversity. Open yourself to diversity, to messiness, and even to a little dirt. It will be good for your soul.

People from heterogenous countries are wizards of adaptability. That trait helps them as they go out into the world and that, I believe, is the secret of the Indian sauce. Nice work, Indians, but do try lift up those who work for your public sector. Without good government, life can be nightmarish.

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After leaving the museum, we did some window shopping, walked to a new restaurant for dinner and then returned home by cab. Our day involved crossing and recrossing Taksim square three times. Less than 24 hours later, the place was attacked by a suicide bomber, with 32 people injured. It is domestic terrorism, not religious or anti-American in nature, but a long-standing ethnic conflict. We were warned a year ago that in Turkey, “ever so often a bomb goes off.”

On Sunday morning we drove to Edirne, two hours west, to see Turkey’s most magnificent mosque. The road was excellent and we passed barren fields that had been radiant with sunflowers in the summer. For a few miles the misty, blue-gray Sea of Marmara came into view, but we were mostly among rolling plains and sparse vegetation.

There was little traffic on the road, but we did pass a truck that had something written on it about Iran. I sat up and wished I had looked more closely. Then its twin came into view. Yes, it was from Iran, carrying a load of goods to Europe, sanctions be damned!

We arrived in Edirne about 1 pm, or so we thought. Turns out Turkey had changed from daylight savings time the night before, and we didn’t know it. Another one of those little occurrrences we routinely miss here.

The Selimiye mosque dominates the center of the little town, although several other mosques stand nearby. The weather was warmer than Istanbul and the light more intense. We had heard liver is the specialty of the town, and indeed all the little restaurants seemed to have the word ciger printed on their outside boards. We went into a cafe and ordered some. It came heaped on a plate, thin slices, deep fried and delicious.

The proprietors seemed surprised to have foreigners in their restaurant and wanted to make us happy. After our meal, we were asked if we wanted tea. We receive this question quite often at restaurants and usually say no thanks, but I often wonder if that is a faux pas.

I asked my Turkish teacher about this last week and she said no, it is perfectly okay to refuse tea in a restaurant. So we told the young waiter, hayir, tesekkurler. A few minutes later, however, an older guy, stocky and with salt and pepper hair, obviously the owner, emerged with a smile and “asked” if we wanted tea. The Turks are like this, strong-minded, and we knew not to refuse.

Two tiny, complimentary glasses immediately appeared on saucers with a couple of cubes of sugar each. Then a plate with wet wipes for our hands, a pile of cloves and some tiny, wrapped hard candies. We enjoyed the treat and paid the bill. As we left, the waiter standing at the door (there is always someone there to thank customers and wish them well) motioned for us to wait, and squirted lemon-scented lotion onto our hands. This is an ancient custom, something we’ve only seen once or twice in Istanbul, but we walked away feeling very well cared for.

The mosque is stunningly beautiful, built by Turkey’s renowned architect Sinan, in the mid-1500s. Inside, it doesn’t soar as much as the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, in fact its bright, splendid dome gives the impression that you can reach out and touch it. My photos don’t do it justice, but google the Selimiye mosque in Edirne if you’re interested.

While we were walking around inside the building, a young Turkish woman heard Sankar say something in English, saw the guidebook he was holding, and approached us with some questions. In perfect English, she told us that Mimar Sinan left a signature tulip design on every mosque he built. Also, Sinan’s work was considered so perfect that out of respect for God, he also left a small, intentional error somewhere in each building. She was wondering if either of these was discussed in our guidebook. Together we paged through our book, but found no mention, and we thanked her, saying she had given us more information than we had given her. A few minutes later she came up to us again and exclaimed, “We found it!” She and her architecture student sister had located the tulip, carved in marble near the base of a fountain inside the mosque. Didn’t find any error, however!

Mosques are carpeted and you leave your shoes outside. We saw a man who had brought his young son, perhaps six years old, with him to pray. They were, of course, both stocking-footed, and apparently the carpeting was just too much of a temptation, because they soon began laughing and “rassling” around on the floor with each other. It was a charming moment, true to the spirit of religion and also to the playful genius who built the masterpiece.

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