Being from Moda

If you see someone in Moda — Kadıköy's seaside quarter on Istanbul's Asian shore — sitting facing the sea, doing nothing for hours, don't worry; they're working. In this neighborhood, lingering isn't a waste of time but a way of living. Sitting long in a café, staying yourself within a crowd, thinking while facing the sea — a person learns all of this here. That's why being from Kadıköy, and especially from Moda, has always felt to me like more than geography: it's the form of your relationship with the world. The person of Kadıköy is a bit urban and a bit defiant; Moda is a slightly more inward, more aesthetic, slightly melancholic version of that.

One of the strongest marks Moda left on me is a sense of rhythm. There, life runs but doesn't shout. There's a hurry but it isn't crude. People don't pry into each other's lives, but they don't stay entirely indifferent either. Being able to be at the center while building your own small world is a meaningful luxury. Moda gives a bit of that. The streets of my childhood, the seaside walks, the way to school, the old apartment buildings, the wind, the sound of the ferries — without you noticing, all of this gets written into your character.

Another side of Kadıköy is its diversity. Different classes, different tastes, different languages, different ideas circulate in the same district. This teaches a person early on that there is no single mold of life. Maybe that's why people who grow up in Kadıköy become a bit more observant. You become familiar with human landscapes. On one side an old shopkeeper, on another a new-generation café culture, on another the spirit of the stands, on another an appetite for art. The city doesn't flow as one color. This both wears a person down and enriches them.

For me, being from Kadıköy and from Moda also means a kind of fidelity to memory. A person can see many parts of the world, can find themselves in very different cities; but some neighborhoods don't stay with you only as an address. After much wandering, you realize they have mixed into you. They reach into how you speak, what you like, how you walk, even what you long for. That's why I value this belonging. Because sometimes the thing that best defines a person isn't their profession, but the spirit of the neighborhood they carry.