(The original title: A cowardly gambler)
Good evening,birds and chaps.
This is Alice, and today my story begins with 2 questions
The 1st one is "Is there anyone under 18s?" nope? thx god,coz I gonna talk about gambling, which is illicit for minors in China.
Here goes the 2rd one." Have u ever been to Macau?" yep,I've once been there, those splendid, magnificent, tremendous(-- quote Donald Trump) casinos. However, my biggest bet was not there, it was in Turkey.
Back to 2015, it was my very first time to walk into the IELTS test room, the examiner asked me, "Shall we start now? " I answered "Oui. " Yes, it is in French. That's really embarrassing, coz it's an English test and I answered in French. And at that time, I have only learnt French for 6 months. I feel awkward for my decades of English learning.
This lead to my carving for the improvement of my spoken English, so I pushed myself to take an overseas internship. After a rounded research, I've set Turkey as my destination. But Why Turkey? A middle east Islamic country with unstable security situation.
Coz at that time, Turkey is one of the most successful secularized countries in the world.( Ofc right now after the referendum launched by the president,it is hard to say.) The Muslim issue become quite sensitive and important accompanying with the cultural communication and conflicts. Besides I am really eager to learn their culture and am fascinated with Islamic arts. Plus, I also wanna preclude the misunderstandings.
From economic viewpoint, Muslims take 20% of the population in the world, it is such a huge market should be fully explored. Yes, I do care about money.
After handled many difficulties and a couple of programs, I've got a position, but my whole family staunchly oppozited my visit to Turkey bcz of the deteriorating security situation. Just 2 weeks before my flight, there was an explosion happened exactly at my arrival airport. Nevertheless I own a soul of gambler, No pains No gains, I still decide to make it. I must achieve my goals at any cost. I settled all the documents and certifications required without any help from my parents, secretly got everything ready to the airplane, but also with 3 different kinds of insurances. Coz I must take the responsibility to support my parents, if unfortunately, I die in any accidents, my parents will be paid for 2 million CNY. Sounds crazy, right?
I am brave enough to face the death, but still cowardly to spread the sorrow. After that explosion on 29th June, I made a spacial and temporal statistics of the attacks and listed some forbidden areas. 3 Days before my flights, I noticed the France closed all their consulates, I regarded this as a signature of turbulence and cancelled my trip in Istanbul, changed into directly fly to Goreme, a tiny tourist town without even walking out the airport. Luckily, my vigilance worked out. the 2nd day after I reached Turkey, on 15th July, the astonishing military coup happened in Istanbul and other main cities. However, I have easily concealed myself from these upheavals and safely returned to China with fluent English, the experience as a charity consultant and solid global friendship.
[My moments' upload on 15 July in Turkey, to tell all my friends I am totally safe in a remote village]
When we face an opportunity, do be brave enough to catch it, also be cautious enough to mitigate the risk. In all, this is my magnificent risky gamble.
[At the open-air museum of Goreme. 16th July]
PS:
Due to the time limit, I didn't write all my preparation iIn fact I've also read lots of essays about the history and political situation of Turkey on Quora, Zhihu( Chinese Quora), Lonely Planet Turkey. Also sent private messages to ask cyber-friends who r Turkish or live in Turkey currently on Weibo and Twitter. Besides, I also checked all the notifications uploaded by the foreign affairs departments, especially by the USA, coz they always keep the last "gossips". But this time it is the French guys, they even closed their consulate in Izmir where I regard it as totally safe. Unfortunately after I returned to China, the explosion still evaded Izmir.
实际做背景调查时候，还使用了
Quora、知乎、微博（Twitter），上关于土耳其旅游事项，安全情况，政治历史的问题都看了，Lonely Planet也挑重点看了。
去几大新闻门户（BBC, NYT等）统计了土耳其全境各种恐怖袭击的次数和类型。比如伊斯坦布尔老城那个广场，在我调查时候就发生过2次爆炸；警察局被袭击过；而地铁站这种普通公共设施也爆炸过，成为我取消伊斯坦布尔行程的决定性因素。
专门私信联系了居住在土耳其的外国人当地局势，划定了东南部库尔德人区，和政治意义重大的伊斯坦布尔，首都安卡拉为禁行区。尽管有帕慕克笔下的海峡纯真博物馆，反复吸引我，甚至我都定好了酒店和行程，但最后拉着同伴一起取消了。
密切关注各国外交通告，尤其是美国使馆的，他们情报最灵通。最后去之前几天，查到法国停止了土耳其全境的外事服务，我的城市Izmir的领馆也关闭了，我估计形势不妙，但鉴于Izmir只是经济重镇，从未发生过空袭，且当地商场也设有安检，还是决定赌一把去土耳其。毕竟当时重新申请别的的项目也来不及了，短期内土耳其不会安定下来，我这次不去，以后更没法去（结果现在Izmir. Antalya都发生爆炸了）。
保险方面，一个高危运动保险（骑马，热气球，滑翔伞），一个普通境外旅行险，但这种恐怖袭击都不赔（排除事项），所以我最后又买了安盛天平的一个保险，专门涵盖恐怖袭击。
所有关键资料打印2分，一份随身带，一份放住处。电子版备份3份，自己留多个不同系统备份，再分别发给两个不同的紧急联系人。
最后，首先避开危险；无法避开危险，设置多重保障措施降低风险。
祝大家旅途愉快。
这篇文章我先发在自己的公众号上的，总共开公众号快一年了，不过要死不活的哈哈哈哈
And the QRcode below is my public account(like a blog) on Wechat, I've run it for 10 months already, but half dead hhha XDDD
