Turkey has surprisingly not turked me. I have not been cheated (too badly). I have not been pickpocketed by a sneaky brown youngster, nor have I been raped by a burly brown man. Istanbul, where I am right now, has thus far proved to be the most amazing city I have seen on this trip. This is probably because the Turks possess the one thing that neither the French, nor the Italians, nor the Greeks possess: a work ethic.
The Turks worked surprisingly hard at keeping their city clean. The French piss openly on their streets, the Italians sleep 22 hours a day, and most of Greece is under construction and dog/donkey shit. But the Turks have a legion of street sweepers that march up and down the sidewalks like the robots in I, Robot gathering up garbage. I swear to God. They are also the FRIENDLIEST people. The night we showed up, a taxi driver named Hussein The Jolly Kurd (he was a jolly Kurd) drove us around for an hour at 11pm at night trying to find us a cheap, quality hotel.
“My friends,” he bellowed in broken English, “You no want hostel. Hostel, 12 bed in one room. You sleep next to the Pakistani and the Indian. You Canadian, I like Canadian. I am Kurdish! Kurdish like Canadian! You are like my children! I show you good hotel, very cheap!” Lo and behold, this chuckling man drove us around, personally haggled for us with various hotel owners, checked the rooms for us, told us where all the good sites are, and finally found us a place 5 minutes walk from a Turkish steam bath, a movie theatre, a series of cheap restaurants, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofya, and the Archealogical Museum. He also swore that if we could not find a place, he would drag us back to his house, where we could spend the night. “You like my children! You come stay my place! Canadian, you like my children! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Also, the Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar is a giant Richmond night market, but thank God Almighty, with no Chinese people. I despise Chinese street vendors because they are sneakier than rattlesnakes and cheaper than Kieran’s sister. Once a Chinaman sees your money, it’s like making eye contact with a shark. Your money is still in your pocket, but you KNOW that in 3 minutes or less, it will be in theirs’. But these are Turks, and without tooting my own horn… the average brown man is NO MATCH AT ALL for the average yellow man at THE HAGGLING CONTEST. My entire race is made up of grocery store and laundromat owners. No one outcheaps us. NO ONE OUTCHEAPS US.
A true conversation:
Sean: My friend! How much for this (unnamed object)?
Turk: Ah, friend! This is beautiful thing. Very high quality. You from Japan?
Sean: Canada, Canada.
Turk: Ah, Canada! I like Canada, I give you good price. 120 lira. Very good price. I pack it for you.
Sean: No, 120? My friend, at the night market in Richmond, items like this, I can get three times as big for 100 dollars. You are trying to cheat me, friend! (A lira is roughly the same as a Can dollar) I will pay you 30 lira.
Turk: 30 lira! Impossible, impossible. Please, look at the quality. I give you 110 lira.
Sean: My friend, I will tell you a secret. The other guy over there, he offered me this same thing for 50 lira. (Nothing of the sort happened, I was lying my ass off.)
Turk: 50 lira! Allah, no, no… this is 120 lira. But I am generous man, I give you 100 lira.
Sean: My friend. I can go back to that other man, and I can have this for 50 lira. I turned him down. I will give you 35 lira.
Turk: 35 lira? No! Please, I am good price. You Canada, Canada, beautiful place. 85 lira.
Sean: Friend, I am a student. Student, I have no money. I eat eggs for every meal. I steal food from my friends when they are not looking. 35 lira is all I can give you.
Turk: You must help me, sir! Come, I give you special student price. 65 lira. No better! Whole bazaar, no better.
Sean: Friend, look at my shirt. This shirt cost 5 dollars. I’ve been wearing it for 4 days. I have no money. 45 lira.
Turk: 45 lira! Ok, ok. I am Kurdish. You know Kurd? I am good man, please. I have 12 children.
Sean: I can’t give you what I don’t have. This thing, it is for my father. (I say this to EVERY street vendor, no matter what I buy.) My father, I have not seen him in 8 months, please. For my father. 45 lira, I have no more. Look at my shirt.
Turk: Ya, allah, sir, ok, please. 55 lira. 55 lira.
Sean: Friend, I have no money. 45 lira. (Starts to walk away)
Turk: Sir, 50 lira! 50 lira!
Sean: (Walking away) I have to buy other things, I need money to take the bus, you know the bus. The bus in Turkey, very expensive…
Turk: Okay sir. Come, shake my hand, I give you 45 lira. 45 lira.
The thing is, the guy still CLEARLY made a profit from me, despite the fact that it went from 120 to 45 lira- otherwise he would simply not have sold it to me. The conversation was also at least 4 times longer than that…. I just included the funniest lines…. most of it was very serious haggling with no giggles involved. Everyone I bought from made a profit from me. But at the same time, I paid about half or a third as much as an dumbfuck, drawling, slow-wit, tongue-tied American would have. Thank god for my Chinese blood: I used to think I had all the disadvantages of being Chinese and none of the advantages. Well, I still can’t drive, and I may be bad at Math, but I can outcheap the Brown Man.
Oh yes. The steam bath. The Turkish steam bath is something I recommend EVERYBODY try at least once. We showed up at this 300 year old Turkish bath place on a whim, and paid 20 lira to this Turkish chick at the reception, who studied American literature at Istanbul University and had the unsettling habit of winking at me. They gave me a towel that was resembled a dishcloth (and was not much bigger) and showed me and Kieran into this WEIRD room.
There was a big marble octogonal platform in the middle, which was heated from underneath. You lie flat out on it until you start moisturizing like a chicken in a pot. On the edges are stations where… and this is where culture started to fuck with me… big, hairy, sweating, round bellied, handlebar-mustached Turks would GIVE YOU A BATH. Yes, my friends. Not hot Turkish, bronze-skinned, raven-haired, dark-lashed chicks, but some of the most ferocious looking men I have ever seen.
Luckily, you have to PAY to get the bath and massage from these titans, and thank God I did not. Otherwise, they would surely have wrung my puny body like a towel. From what I saw them do to other men, they made them lie down, and then gave them the most INTENSE massage. Fingers forced into the forehead, palms crushing into the back, joints forced in ways that joints were not meant to be forced. Then they would grab a bar of soap and LATHER them up… and when you see a beefy Turk soap up the inner thighs of another beefy Turk, you will not know WHAT to do. Homophobia wrestles with the imperative to respect someone elses’ culture.
Anyway, you basically sit on the marble to you start sweating like an immigrant at an English exam. Then you soap up (still wearing your towel, thank God!) and dowse yourself with liberal amounts of hot water. Then, you dump huge amounts of ICY COLD water on your head. Then, ifyou like, you can do it all again, without the soap. It is the most RELAXING experience you will ever have.
But do not wear your contacts into the steam bath. They will condense with moisture and SLIDE INTO THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD.
Okay, I am off to Cappadoccia tonight, which is an underground city… hundreds of underground caves stretching down 8 stories. It will be like the dwarves in LOTR… I can’t wait.
I am off! Lates.
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