Orhan Pamuk must be born of “Other Colors” and in the “Snow” who later built his “Museum of Innocence“.
He got the Nobel Prize for his unique perspective and perception on being in the middle of things: Istanbul.
Pamuk invited us back to his childhood, to view changes through a child’s eyes “when we watched the film, up to the part where
Abraham loved God so much without expecting anything in return, we all cried…then when the lamb suddenly appeared out of nowhere to stand in for his only son, …we busted out in tears” (Museum of Innocence).
In Snow, his character was a journalist who investigated why veiled women went on a suicide binge.
We were invited into the inner sanctum of a mysterious culture, an exclusive club.
There, we learned that they laughed, cried, went to theatre or appeared in play.
The West can learn something and so does the East.
Pamuk truly serves as a hyphen to both worlds.
He inadvertently takes up an ambassadorial role for our new globalized world.
In our broadband world, the speed and spread of information has no longer been an issue.
But information often times don’t equate with knowledge or cross-cultural sensitivity.
Until we enter our customer’s world, with all its habits and behavior.
When Vietnam was partitioned back in 1954, 2 Million North Vietnamese migrated South in “tau ha mom” (French carriers left over from D-day). The majority of them settled near Vung Tau, Bien Hoa and Ban Co.
I was born there at the last stop. Being Northerner inside the house, and Southerner outside, I grew up aware of the subtlety of sub-cultures as they came into contact or even collision.
Later, in America, I seeked out classmates from Ghana, Singapore, Taiwan, Netherland, Argentina …to ask questions, to hear their world views.
Thirty years ago, the issues were information flow (North-South). Now that Korea and to a certain extent, Vietnam, all got access to broadband and I-phones. The results: South-South lateral flow e.g. Korean soap programing.
Vietnamese companies, meanwhile, are trying to export themselves, from tangible products (rice, garment, cashews and coffee) to intangible products (outsourcing and software testing service.)
Those who enter and embrace customers’ world will win the day.
Those who don’t, won’t.
It took me a while to register Pamuk’s name, the same way North American did with names like “Nguyen”.
But once the lights are dimmed, and you took on the character’s role (suspension of disbelief), you became a “universal” Turk with his hopes, fears and dreams.
Pamuk’s signature is his remembrance of childhood in all its particularity and his negotiating/reconciling East-West identities.
He did not floss over the details. He paid attention to them.
Because of this, he earned our trust and established himself as an observer and author.
He made the mundane his most cherished.
Because of Pamuk, I will never look at the Turks the same way (as friends rather than foreigners).
It’s as if I got new lenses to view the world, from his point of view, as neither East nor West; just global citizenry who struggle and savor their dreams, exterior and interior.
The problem with our material-centered world is that we focus on the outside and observable at the expense of the inner beauty.
He is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. This is true from Abraham on down to today.
Thang Nguyen 555 