Early Life
Boztepe was born in Eskişehir, Turkey, the second of six children. At the age of four, his family, originally from Bağlıca village of Emirdağ, moved to Germany. According to Boztepe, his early days in Germany were difficult due to his Turkish heritage—he was a constant target for racial insults and, more often than not, verbal abuse would escalate into physical abuse. Martial arts became something of a necessity and his father urged him to begin training. Boztepe recalled, "Germany was not the healthiest place for a young Turk in those days of growing racism and neo-Nazi movements." He claimed to have been in over 300 street fights, many of them a result of this period, though he also claimed to have not started any of these fights.
Read more about this topic: Emin Boztepe
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“We passed the Children’s Bureau bill calculated to prevent children from being employed too early in factories.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Undershaft: Alcohol is a very necessary article. It heals the sick—Barbara: It does nothing of the sort. Undershaft: Well, it assists the doctor: that is perhaps a less questionable way of putting it. It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)