Cyprus-Forum.com

[zan]

I saw a program once about the way others perceive different cultures. For the British the program decided to concentrate on the Nigerian race to make its point. They showed a Nigerian woman customer talking to a white English shop worker. To all intents and purposes the Nigerian woman was shouting and screaming at this person and was getting he appropriate response of being shouted back at. The shop worker was then taken away and trained on the culture of Nigerians and was shown a film of this woman talking to members of her own family. Again to all intents and purposes this woman was shouting and screaming and looking annoyed at the people she was talking to but and the person that she was talking to was doing the same, but at the end of the discussion they hugged each other and said "take care" and "god bless" and they walked away. It was then explained to the shop worker that that is the way Nigerians talked to each other even when they are simply talking about the weather. To us outsiders, they seem to be constantly angry and shouting but to them it is the way they talk.

It was the same whenever I took English friends’ home that had never been into a foreigner’s house. They nearly always asked why my mum and dad were fighting. To me it first came as quite a shock but I soon found it quite funny. When next you are with your family just step back for a while and pretend you don't speak the language and see.

I always make my children laugh when I do my Nigerian accent. Put that together with a few of their sayings like;
When they are telling a child off for instance;

"If you don't go to bed now I will break your head with a stone", and my boys are in fits.

I don't know if there are such sayings in Greek but in Turkish my dad used to say that he would hit me so hard my liver would split open.


The moral of my story is that we have been living apart for so long now that we have even forgotten each other’s mannerisms. It’s a shame but its true.

[Pyrpolizer]

I left Cyprus in 64 but never stayed away for more than a year at any time. Now days it is as frequent as 6 to 8 weeks.

I thought you were a child when you left no? So why the frequent visits back?

I came in February via Larnaca, no problem. Left a week later, my cousin drove us through the border, our luggage's were checked for cigarettes and whatever else we may have had. I politely opened the suit case, he asked me to open the other one. he checked them and checked our passports during all this we said yes sir, thank you sir, have a nice day sir. He never even looked at or spoke at us, just ordered us about .It was as if we did not exist.

So the policeman was cold with you. What’s wrong with that? Perhaps he was a refugee himself.Your policemen are equally cold with us at the crossing points.

Why don’t you try meet some ordinary people? I am not saying every GC will meet you openheartedly, the same way I was stared upon with a hostile eye from many TCs. You just have to try and find the right friends. When I am with TC friends I am not afraid, when I am there alone I don’t feel secure. Believe me when you are escorted by a GC the situation becomes totally different and many others will come join your company. You won’t believe how many TCs greet me "kalispera" when they see me with a TC friend.
Nothing is easy my friend. You have to work for it, believe me.

[Pyrpolizer]

Last time i tried to cross i was literally interrogated for half an hour, only to be told in the most patronising and rude way, not to return unless i get a RoC passport, which is not going to happen anytime soon, so screw them, its a fortune to spend a day down there anyways, plus i get treated like an asylum seeker …

So you came in with no evidence that you were a TC and you expected better treatment?? You should thank God they didn’t take you for a Pakistani
And they even let you pass in the end??
Hey at least show some appreciation. Your "police" does not let us pass without passport and visa.

[MR-from-NG]

I left Cyprus in 64 but never stayed away for more than a year at any time. Now days it is as frequent as 6 to 8 weeks.

I thought you were a child when you left no? So why the frequent visits back?

I came in February via Larnaca, no problem. Left a week later, my cousin drove us through the border, our luggage's were checked for cigarettes and whatever else we may have had. I politely opened the suit case, he asked me to open the other one. he checked them and checked our passports during all this we said yes sir, thank you sir, have a nice day sir. He never even looked at or spoke at us, just ordered us about .It was as if we did not exist.

So the policeman was cold with you. What’s wrong with that? Perhaps he was a refugee himself.Your policemen are equally cold with us at the crossing points.

Why don’t you try meet some ordinary people? I am not saying every GC will meet you openheartedly, the same way I was stared upon with a hostile eye from many TCs. You just have to try and find the right friends. When I am with TC friends I am not afraid, when I am there alone I don’t feel secure. Believe me when you are escorted by a GC the situation becomes totally different and many others will come join your company. You won’t believe how many TCs greet me "kalispera" when they see me with a TC friend.
Nothing is easy my friend. You have to work for it, believe me.

I was eleven in 64. So just think about it, 43 years of regular encounters with my GC brothers and not one good experience. Sad but true.

I have many Greek/GC friends here, so I cant be blamed for being racist, anti Greek or unreasonable. This is just a simple case of our GC brothers believing in their hearts that we have no right to be in Cyprus and the treatment we get is well deserved.

[Viewpoint]

I left Cyprus in 64 but never stayed away for more than a year at any time. Now days it is as frequent as 6 to 8 weeks.

I thought you were a child when you left no? So why the frequent visits back?

I came in February via Larnaca, no problem. Left a week later, my cousin drove us through the border, our luggage's were checked for cigarettes and whatever else we may have had. I politely opened the suit case, he asked me to open the other one. he checked them and checked our passports during all this we said yes sir, thank you sir, have a nice day sir. He never even looked at or spoke at us, just ordered us about .It was as if we did not exist.

So the policeman was cold with you. What’s wrong with that? Perhaps he was a refugee himself.Your policemen are equally cold with us at the crossing points.

Why don’t you try meet some ordinary people? I am not saying every GC will meet you openheartedly, the same way I was stared upon with a hostile eye from many TCs. You just have to try and find the right friends. When I am with TC friends I am not afraid, when I am there alone I don’t feel secure. Believe me when you are escorted by a GC the situation becomes totally different and many others will come join your company. You won’t believe how many TCs greet me "kalispera" when they see me with a TC friend.
Nothing is easy my friend. You have to work for it, believe me.

I was eleven in 64. So just think about it, 43 years of regular encounters with my GC brothers and not one good experience. Sad but true.

I have many Greek/GC friends here, so I cant be blamed for being racist, anti Greek or unreasonable. This is just a simple case of our GC brothers believing in their hearts that we have no right to be in Cyprus and the treatment we get is well deserved.

You are right and people are just trying to excuse the discrimination of the past I can also remember as a child coming to Cyprus on holiday on a plane with GCs from London and all the GCs woudl sail through customs without having the baggage checked yet TCs were kept behind and their baggages turned inside then being ordered to put everything back. You can imsgine the humiliation especially for TC ladies whos underwear was taken out of their luggage and thrown onto the pile of clothes for everyone passing to see who were the GCs travellers.

Im sure there is a perfectly "good" explanation that will be cleverly put forward by Gcs posters or even a joke to deflect the real issue of mistreatment of TC at the hands of GCs which they would rather block out and deny ever happening.

[Pyrpolizer]

They did the same to me in 1980 when there was information that someone was carrying drugs.

They were doing the same to you for suspicion of weapons.
They do the same everywhere in the world.

[Pyrpolizer]

Yet one thing I learned for sure, some of you are only good for crying and complaining.

[MR-from-NG]

Yet one thing I learned for sure, some of you are only good for crying and complaining.

How right you are my friend. I have 2 homes, England and the TRNC. I don't cry and complain in either of them. The day I get the same treatment in the RoC I will stop crying and complaining.

[Pyrpolizer]

I was eleven in 64. So just think about it, 43 years of regular encounters with my GC brothers and not one good experience. Sad but true.

I have many Greek/GC friends here, so I cant be blamed for being racist, anti Greek or unreasonable. This is just a simple case of our GC brothers believing in their hearts that we have no right to be in Cyprus and the treatment we get is well deserved.

Hold on for a minute mrfromng. Your family emmigrated in UK in 1963 when you were 11. I assume from 1963 to 1974 you visited Cyprus a couple of times am I right so far? You say you never felt welcomed by the GCs during those times.

Then what? As far as I know from 1974 until just recently no TC could come here and then cross to the occupied. I have no doubt the general feeling against you was not that bright. Well, put yourself in the shoes of any GC.There is practically no one who is not either a refugee himself, or has refugees in his family, or does not aside with the pain of the refugees. What would be the best you would react if you were them? Be honest and answer this question.

[MR-from-NG]

I was eleven in 64. So just think about it, 43 years of regular encounters with my GC brothers and not one good experience. Sad but true.

I have many Greek/GC friends here, so I cant be blamed for being racist, anti Greek or unreasonable. This is just a simple case of our GC brothers believing in their hearts that we have no right to be in Cyprus and the treatment we get is well deserved.

Hold on for a minute mrfromng. Your family emmigrated in UK in 1963 when you were 11. I assume from 1963 to 1974 you visited Cyprus a couple of times am I right so far? You say you never felt welcomed by the GCs during those times.

Then what? As far as I know from 1974 until just recently no TC could come here and then cross to the occupied. I have no doubt the general feeling against you was not that bright. Well, put yourself in the shoes of any GC.There is practically no one who is not either a refugee himself, or has refugees in his family, or does not aside with the pain of the refugees. What would be the best you would react if you were them? Be honest and answer this question.

We emigrated in 64, I was 11. Born 53. We visited almost every year until 74. None of those visits were pleasant as far as GC police, customs and immigration is concerned. Remember this was before Turkeys intervention.

So now you want to justify the disgraceful treatment we get because of the events of 74. So I'm answering your question honestly, I sympathise with them and perhaps understand the way they treat us at the border. What about between 63 and 74 then, what had we done to them then for the treatment we got?