[TRADITIONAL MUSIC PLAYING]
STUDENT: First I should add water.
Measure [INAUDIBLE] cup.
[SPEAKING IN TURKISH]
[MUSIC]
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: I was born in Baku, Azerbaijan.
My parents are from a small tribe in Azerbaijan called Juhuri,
and they immigrated when I was four from Azerbaijan to Turkey.
So for the biggest chunk of my life I grew up in Istanbul, Turkey.
And had a great time, learned a lot about Turkish culture.
I wanted to work over summer.
And one of the best work opportunities for people my age
who speak some kind of English was to work
as a fortune teller for the tourists.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Oh, can we have some coffee?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: Yes.
Let's start.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Yeah?
OK.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: So let's, yeah.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Oh, it's delicious, yeah.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: It's great.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: How do we do this?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: OK.
So first we're going to take the coffee cup.
And then we're going to cover it with the saucer.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: OK, got it.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: And then with your thumb at the bottom
and then your index finger middle finger on the top--
ALYSSA GOODMAN: OK, like this?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: --yes.
And now you're going to make a wish that you're not going to tell us.
And keep about that wish and how much you
want this wish to happen in real life.
And while doing it, turn three times clockwise.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: OK.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: OK?
And then now we're going to very quickly turn
it outwards and put its saucer on the table.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: OK.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: And while we're doing this,
I'm going to say a Turkish phrase that basically
says whatever is my situation, let that appear in the cup.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: OK.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: [SPEAKING TURKISH] OK.
Great.
Now we're going to let it hold a little bit.
So before we do that, would you mind putting your ring or a coin.
The ring indicates that you want to hear more
about personal relationships, romantic relationships, friends, love,
sort of things.
A coin indicates you want to know more about your professional goals, money,
bank accounts.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Let's go personal.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: OK.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: OK, Put the coin--
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: Just put it on the--
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Put it on there?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: Yeah.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: OK.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: And we believe that the energy of the ring
and what the ring stands for is going to actually influence
what is going to be seen in the cup.
It's not only about the future.
It's also about what's present and the past, because it nurtures our knowledge
of what is future going to be, right?
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Right.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: We'll wait a little bit until it dries.
The fortune teller obviously, like all the types of other fortunetelling,
a lot of them, you try to read your customer in a way.
So at first what happens-- what were my instructions in the cafe-- was
the tourists would come, I would ask tourists
a bunch of introductory questions.
Try to understand whether this person is rich or poor or married or single.
Where is this person from?
And kind of understand what are the worries in this person's mind?
And after you drink the coffee and try to start interpreting the coffee,
you kind of project the things you've learned about this person into
and the coffee cup and pretend that it's the coffee
cup that's telling you all those things that you have learned before.
So you really use your interpretation skills in ways.
It's almost like a clinical psychology practice,
where you are trying to bring--
without giving directed advice to individuals,
you're trying to lead them to come to advice they want to hear by themselves,
and they want to do.
So I think some of the fortune tellers would really
approach their work from that lens.
But we also used to have a booklet.
And the booklet basically was--
this was a short, maybe 10 to 15 pages, booklet.
But it would say rabbit means this.
Star means that.
A skyscraper means this, et cetera.
So this way when we interpret the shapes, we have kind of a basis.
A lot of people have different ways of looking at the cup inside.
Because now you're going to see I'm going
to divide the cup in different parts.
And different parts for me is going to mean different things.
So I'll put my cup away, and I will return your ring to you.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Thank you.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: The energy is there.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Oh, I feel it.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: And I will flip the cup over, ooh.
The way I look at the cup is always that basically the handle parts, this part,
is about love.
This part is about wealth.
When I cut from the middle, the left part is going to be present
and the past, and then the right part is going to be about the future.
And the very dark bottom is going to be about family.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Some other people at Radcliffe here
also had this discussion about whether people really, really want
to know the future or if they just kind of want to chat about the future.
And you know maybe what you're saying is great,
or maybe it's just a nice opportunity to have a chat.
So what was the balance of that kind of goal with people?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: I think for our culture, most of the time,
it's a social tool to get to know other people and catch up with friends.
So when you say, let's have a cup of Turkish coffee,
this means that you're committing for a chunk of an hour and a half, two hours
to actually sit down.
It's not something on the go.
[LAUGHTER]
And you sit down and really discuss life matters, right?
Let's say you are divorcing from someone or you are changing your career path,
you're relocating from one city to another,
or your mother is going through an illness, kind
of important events in your life.
And you want those events to be discussed and mentioned and shared
with someone.
But you also want to know whether those events are potentially
going to come to a positive or a negative outcome.
So I think coffee drinking culture and the coffee cup fortunetelling
really enables that type of a venue for people to alleviate their own worries.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Do you know how old it is?
When it started?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: Yes, so we know according
to historical records of the Ottoman Empire that it's around 16th century
when the Ottoman Sultan for the first time started having this.
What we call today the Turkish coffee actually comes from Yemen.
And it was imported into Ottoman times when
it basically was a part of Ottoman Empire,
and came all the way to the Sultan.
And Sultan loved the taste of it.
And we know that some of the people were brought from the city,
from Istanbul at the time, to come to the Sultan
and give his fortune from looking at the cup.
And that's how it spread to the local elite of the Ottoman Empire
at the time.
And from there spread outwards to all the region.
I see a volcano.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: A volcano?
Oh, look at that!
That really looks almost like a pyramid volcano.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: See there's some lava coming.
Actually a volcano is a very common feature in coffee cup fortune telling.
It is a mountain and a volcano.
A volcano happens when the top is not sharp.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: I see.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: And a mountain happens when the top is sharp.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: OK.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: Mountain means actually there
is going to be a challenging path, and at the end,
there is going to be a lot of relief and a lot of happiness.
Volcano means there's a lot of something coming, it's like a volcano eruption.
That might mean good things or bad things.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Great.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: But mostly volcanoes indicate
that there's a lot of energy of some sort that's coming your way.
And this volcano, gladly, has an opening.
Do you see that at the end there is an opening?
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Definitely.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: So this opening would indicate, once again,
that whether this volcano brings you bad news or good news,
whether there's a lot of bad things happening
or a lot of good things happening in one moment, it is going to result in good.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: OK.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: If this was completely closed which could have happened,
if that was completely closed that would mean
that it's just going to be negative results, even
if it's a positive volcano.
So this would mean nothing to worry.
There's going to be a time that's coming in the near future--
and we also know that coffee cups cannot tell you more than 40 days.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Oh, really?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: So this is in the next 40 days.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Is that to ensure the return of the patron
to the coffee fortune teller?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: It means that I want to see my friend again.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Got it, OK.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: In no more than 40 days.
When I was growing up and my mom was working,
and I was around nine years old, 10 years old,
and didn't want to stay alone, I would go with my mom to the work
and see all these women doing these different types of fortune telling
and prediction systems, echoing with the cycles, lunar cycles or astrology,
about what's going to happen in certain Turkish people's lives.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: And that was a big part of the local culture?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: Yeah, it was a big part of the local culture
and I think there's definitely certain individuals who
choose to not engage in it.
And there's certain individuals who choose to believe in it a lot.
In Azeri, we have a phrase that says, don't ever
believe in fortune telling fully, but never stay without fortune telling.
So you need to do it a little bit, but not too much.
If you see there's a bunch of towers, actually.
This could be an Eiffel Tower.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: I am going on the Eiffel Tower.
I've never-- been to France many times and I've never
gone up in the Eiffel Tower.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: And the Eiffel Tower is--
oh, my god, the Eiffel Tower--
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Looks exactly like the Eiffel Tower.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: It does exactly look like the Eiffel Tower.
Can you turn that so that we can see a picture?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: And the Eiffel Tower is in the romantic side.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Oh.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Oh, come on, it's Paris.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: It is a city of romance.
So the main situation of where I see coffee being drank
is the middle age population, because they have the biggest worries,
I think, in their lives about money, about love, about marriage,
about different things.
So they usually see this as a tool that they can believe in.
They still consume Turkish coffee a lot.
A lot of times the people who are going to do it
are the people who have the time to be able to commute two hours to a friend
and sit down.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: You were also saying something about people don't
drink the coffee for the caffeine?
Is that what you said before?
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: Yeah, totally.
I think--
ALYSSA GOODMAN: So it's a purely social event.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: 100%.
No one would drink Turkish coffee because they
want to stay awake that night, which I feel like people in the States
and at Harvard, specifically, we do it like, oh, I need to wake up today.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Does it have a lot of caffeine?
Or I'm going to find out later.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: It has a lot of caffeine.
And I think maybe some people would find it offensive
if you drink this coffee in a rush to just keep yourself awakened.
Because it is an offense to the tradition of drinking this coffee
and making this coffee.
And as we saw earlier, it takes time to make this coffee.
It's not an instant process, and you really need to spend time.
No life is going to go completely horrendous,
and no life is going to go without any problem.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Right.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: So it's important to highlight opportunities
of growth and opportunities of concern and really
put attention to certain letters and certain characters.
And see whether those letters and those people and those types of concepts
appear in your life.
ALYSSA GOODMAN: Well, I completely get it now.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: [INAUDIBLE]
ALYSSA GOODMAN: It gets stronger on the bottom.
CENGIZ CEMALOGLU: Yeah, yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]