ISTANBUL // To the casual observer, Gul Mutfagi might be just a cute little restaurant in an otherwise non-descript neighbourhood close to a motorway in the Asian part of Istanbul. But for Lamya'a, it is a dream come true.
"I could feel my heart beating so hard when I entered," Lamya'a, who is from Kuwait and gave only her first name, said on a recent sunny day as she went around the modest one-room restaurant taking pictures of the tables, the open kitchen and other items as if she were in a museum.
Smiling happily, she examined every little detail of the restaurant, including the pictures on the walls intently. This was the highlight of her five-day visit to Istanbul.
"I remember everything, this is fantastic," she said.
Lamya'a and the five female relatives accompanying her were not drawn here by the menu of Turkish and international food. They and other Arab tourists love Gul Mutfagi because a popular Turkish soap opera, What is Fatmagul's crime?, was filmed here.
Turkish soaps have emerged as a booster for Turkey's image in the Middle East, as well as a tourist attraction and source of revenue. "Sometimes we have 250 visitors here in one day, whole busloads," said Cuneyt Sahin, who owns and runs Gul Mutfagi, or Rose Kitchen, with his wife Seval and his son Berke.
Fatmagul, which tells the story of a young girl who is gang-raped, forced to remain silent about the crime and to marry one of her rapists, is just one of several Turkish soaps that have become major hits in Arab countries in recent years.
Others are Magnificent Century, which deals with palace intrigues at the court of a 16th-century Ottoman sultan, the family saga Forbidden Love, and Silver, the story of a young woman marrying into a wealthy family that is broadcast as Noor in Arab countries. Lamya'a and her relatives said they knew all of them.
Alpay Gurbuz, of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (Tursab) in Istanbul, said the soaps were one reason for the increase in Arab tourists. "They certainly had an effect," he said.
The number of Kuwaiti tourists almost tripled between 2010 and 2012, from roughly 27,000 to about 65,000, according to Tursab. The number of visitors from the UAE rose from 30,000 to 48,000 in the same period, while the number of Saudi tourists doubled from 85,000 to 175,000.
Besides Gul Mutfagi, another attraction is a villa on the Bosphorus that was used as a backdrop in Noor, although soap-opera tourists are also drawn to many of the city's landmarks that appear in the series.
"The TV series influenced Turkey's image abroad and even created their own market," Mr Gurbuz said.
Adem Gurses, head of the private channel ATV, which has produced several soaps, told the Sabah newspaper last month that the export of Turkish television series was generating revenue of more than US$100 million (Dh367m) a year.
Fatmagul has become so famous in Arab countries that Mr Sahin said he had received offers from businessmen there to build replicas of his restaurant in the Middle East. He said he was still thinking the offers over.
"This is a famous place now, like Sultanahmet or the Hagia Sophia," said Mashail, one of Lamya'a's relatives, referring to the Sultanahmet Mosque and the former mosque and Byzantine basilica Hagia Sophia, two world-famous Istanbul landmarks. Like Lamya'a, Mashail only gave her first name.
"It has been very popular," Mashail said of Fatmagul, the final episode of which was aired in Kuwait about a month ago.
"We like the stories, the atmosphere, the lifestyle" of Turkish series, she said, adding that they had replaced Syrian shows as audience favourites in Kuwait.
Mr Sahin said Turkish TV soaps were popular because viewers in Arab countries could relate to the things they saw on the screen.
"In Turkey, women are suppressed, and in Arab countries, women are suppressed," he said. "We have the same values and the same problems."
When Mr Sahin opened his restaurant four years ago, he had Mediterranean food with a matching ambience in mind. But then it was spotted by location scouts for the company producing Fatmagul. Much of the action in the soap takes place in a restaurant run by Fatmagul, played by the actress Beren Saat.
"People want to sit where Kerim sat," he said, referring to the soap's male lead, played by Engin Akyurek. "I cannot change a single thing, because people would notice. Visitors pose with this teapot here, because it was in the series."
Every now and then, visitors pick fruit from the trees in the little garden in front of the restaurant.
Some fans go even further. Zekeriya Kul, a plastic surgeon in Istanbul, said an increasing number of his female clients from Arab countries wanted to look like Ms Saat or other Turkish actresses.
Dr Kul, who also performs surgeries in Dubai, said the trend started last year. Arab women told him they liked the "Beren Saat eyebrow and the Tuba Buyukustun nose," he said. Ms Buyukustun is the star of Asi, another hit Turkish soap in Arab countries.
Dr Kul said the phenomenon of the "Turkish actress look" was part of a general trend towards a more natural appearance, and replaced the "Lebanese singer look" that involved fuller lips, more defined cheekbones and very small noses.
Dr Kul had no doubt that Turkish soap operas played a part in the change. As Turkish films and series became hits in the Arab world, everyone chose "one actress as a model", he said.
tseibert@thenational.ae
twitter: For breaking news from the Gulf, the Middle East and around the globe follow The National World. Follow us
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T20 World Cup Qualifier
October 18 – November 2
Opening fixtures
Friday, October 18
ICC Academy: 10am, Scotland v Singapore, 2.10pm, Netherlands v Kenya
Zayed Cricket Stadium: 2.10pm, Hong Kong v Ireland, 7.30pm, Oman v UAE
UAE squad
Ahmed Raza (captain), Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Rameez Shahzad, Darius D’Silva, Mohammed Usman, Mohammed Boota, Zawar Farid, Ghulam Shabber, Junaid Siddique, Sultan Ahmed, Imran Haider, Waheed Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Zahoor Khan
Players out: Mohammed Naveed, Shaiman Anwar, Qadeer Ahmed
Players in: Junaid Siddique, Darius D’Silva, Waheed Ahmed
World Cup final
Who: France v Croatia
When: Sunday, July 15, 7pm (UAE)
TV: Game will be shown live on BeIN Sports for viewers in the Mena region
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
JAPANESE GRAND PRIX INFO
Schedule (All times UAE)
First practice: Friday, 5-6.30am
Second practice: Friday, 9-10.30am
Third practice: Saturday, 7-8am
Qualifying: Saturday, 10-11am
Race: Sunday, 9am-midday
Race venue: Suzuka International Racing Course
Circuit Length: 5.807km
Number of Laps: 53
Watch live: beIN Sports HD
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Gender equality in the workplace still 200 years away
It will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe, according to a December report from the World Economic Forum.
The WEF study said there had been some improvements in wage equality in 2018 compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.
But it warned that these were offset by declining representation of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.
At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracked disparities between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
After years of advances in education, health and political representation, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.
Only in the area of economic opportunity did the gender gap narrow somewhat, although there is not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51 per cent.
And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34 per cent globally, WEF said.
At the same time, the report showed there are now proportionately fewer women than men participating in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproportionate impact on jobs traditionally performed by women.
And women are significantly under-represented in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, WEF said.
* Agence France Presse
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Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
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U19 World Cup in South Africa
Group A: India, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka
Group B: Australia, England, Nigeria, West Indies
Group C: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Scotland, Zimbabwe
Group D: Afghanistan, Canada, South Africa, UAE
UAE fixtures
Saturday, January 18, v Canada
Wednesday, January 22, v Afghanistan
Saturday, January 25, v South Africa
UAE squad
Aryan Lakra (captain), Vriitya Aravind, Deshan Chethyia, Mohammed Farazuddin, Jonathan Figy, Osama Hassan, Karthik Meiyappan, Rishabh Mukherjee, Ali Naseer, Wasi Shah, Alishan Sharafu, Sanchit Sharma, Kai Smith, Akasha Tahir, Ansh Tandon
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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The five pillars of Islam
The five pillars of Islam
When Umm Kulthum performed in Abu Dhabi
Known as The Lady of Arabic Song, Umm Kulthum performed in Abu Dhabi on November 28, 1971, as part of celebrations for the fifth anniversary of the accession of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan as Ruler of Abu Dhabi. A concert hall was constructed for the event on land that is now Al Nahyan Stadium, behind Al Wahda Mall. The audience were treated to many of Kulthum's most well-known songs as part of the sold-out show, including Aghadan Alqak and Enta Omri.
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Past winners of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
2016 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2015 Nico Rosberg (Mercedes-GP)
2014 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2013 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2012 Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)
2011 Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
2010 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2009 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Women’s World T20, Asia Qualifier
UAE results
Beat China by 16 runs
Lost to Thailand by 10 wickets
Beat Nepal by five runs
Beat Hong Kong by eight wickets
Beat Malaysia by 34 runs
Standings (P, W, l, NR, points)
1. Thailand 5 4 0 1 9
2. UAE 5 4 1 0 8
3. Nepal 5 2 1 2 6
4. Hong Kong 5 2 2 1 5
5. Malaysia 5 1 4 0 2
6. China 5 0 5 0 0
Final
Thailand v UAE, Monday, 7am
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The biog
Favourite hobby: taking his rescue dog, Sally, for long walks.
Favourite book: anything by Stephen King, although he said the films rarely match the quality of the books
Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption stands out as his favourite movie, a classic King novella
Favourite music: “I have a wide and varied music taste, so it would be unfair to pick a single song from blues to rock as a favourite"
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ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates, Etihad and Swiss fly direct from the UAE to Zurich from Dh2,855 return, including taxes.
The chalet
Chalet N is currently open in winter only, between now and April 21. During the ski season, starting on December 11, a week’s rental costs from €210,000 (Dh898,431) per week for the whole property, which has 22 beds in total, across six suites, three double rooms and a children’s suite. The price includes all scheduled meals, a week’s ski pass, Wi-Fi, parking, transfers between Munich, Innsbruck or Zurich airports and one 50-minute massage per person. Private ski lessons cost from €360 (Dh1,541) per day. Halal food is available on request.
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
WOMAN AND CHILD
Director: Saeed Roustaee
Starring: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi
Rating: 4/5
Profile of RentSher
Started: October 2015 in India, November 2016 in UAE
Founders: Harsh Dhand; Vaibhav and Purvashi Doshi
Based: Bangalore, India and Dubai, UAE
Sector: Online rental marketplace
Size: 40 employees
Investment: $2 million