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From Abroad

One of the most difficult things for Westerners to get used to in countries like Turkey is that nothing is ever definite. Everywhere you go you can bargain and if a request is reasonable you can most likely do whatever you please after a little convincing of the authority figures.

DISCLAIMER: I am not talking about doing things that are flat out illegal. I am talking about bending small rules that frankly I wonder why are taken so seriously in the States. I certainly do not do, nor do I advocate doing illegal things in general, especially in foreign countries, and ESPECIALLY in Turkey. You DO NOT want to go to Turkish prison. Read on.

For example, the other day I went into a store to buy a bathing suit. Now, in the United States, if you go to a store and purchase a bathing suit, you are going to pay whatever is written on the tag. In fact, if you were to even mention that you might like to pay something less than the tag price you would certainly be met with, at the very least, some confused looks, if not some real hostility. Turkey, however, is quite different. I came into the bathing suit store in a hurry as I was going to buy a bathing suit for a school trip that was due to leave in half an hour. I bought two bathing suits for my friend and I, and the total came to around 30 lira. Fortunately, this is Turkey:

Me: “Abi (brother), you don’t have the sizes I need”
Turk: “Well I’m sorry but it’s all we have”
Me: “Hmm, well, you see, it’s a little expensive and you don’t have my size. Also, I’m a student at Yildiz Teknik (my school, just up the road) and I don’t have a lot of money”
Turk: “Oh? Where are you from?”
Me: “Well, I’m American but I’m studying Turkish at Yildiz for the summer”
Turk: “Hmm? Well, I guess we can make a student discount. My son is studying in New York City and he loves it.”
[he rings up 20 lira on the register]
Me: “Ah thank you so much abi, I really appreciate it. Good luck to your son.”
Turk: [literally] “Enjoy wearing it, laughingly laughingly!”

In Turkey there are lots of laws and social rules, just like anywhere else. However the difference is that in Turkey everything is like “well, eh? that’s not really allowed, but? you’re a student, so? how about you just don’t do that”. Not to say that the Turkish police are slouches; quite the opposite. They are some of the toughest cops around. However unlike cops in the US, you can reason with them. If you were to, say, want to walk on a large semi-completed but no-longer-under-construction bridge on the Golden Horn, you’d probably tell the policemen stationed there that, while it is supposed to be illegal, you are foreign students and want to get some good pictures of the Horn and you will most certainly be careful. For example.

Turks have a phrase that I seem to be hearing more and more these days, probably because I understand significantly more than the last time I was here. Burası Türkiye, “this is Turkey”. You see a car driving the wrong way on the highway, burası Türkiye. You see a cab driver cut a bus driver off and the bus driver gets off the bus to yell in the cabbie’s face; burası Türkiye. You see cops with AK-47’s posing with soccer fanatics, police taking tea breaks, news headlines of “Snake Fights Cat in Kadıköy”, people selling piles of old aluminum, alarm clocks shaped like mosques that play the call the prayer, tens of stores in a row that sell the exact same product, grown men that sell only umbrellas and lottery tickets, headscarved women with Armani sunglasses? burası Türkiye, burası Türkiye, burası Türkiye.

Just ‘cause my mama says she likes these: