Istanbul, 26th March, 2013
Innocent, abroad? Or, Ugly Aussie? Thoughts on cultural dissonance, at 3am....
I'm finding here that my natural disinterest in shopping is actually a strong aversion and I am hating being hassled to buy stuff I couldn't care less about. At the same time, I'm aware that I cause cultural offence by declining invitations to sit, have some apple tea and just appreciate the quality of this one's carpets or that one's ceramics (which they can easily post home for me), especially after they have been so willing to help me with tourist information. I resent the constant pressure, and the fact that that they don't back off in the face of reluctance and discomfort - I am in danger of becoming agoraphobic.
The Cousin Turkcell experience leaves me baffled. He was charming (of course!) but my natural suspicion was obvious throughout our dealings, and rose as he kept trying to reassure me that he was honest and simply trying to be helpful, and as he over-explained what we needed to do. (Yeah, yeah, blah, blah.)
He comes to the nearby Turkcell shop with me and I explain that I want SIM cards for my phone and iPad. After a brief chat with a Turkcell salesman, he tells me it will cost big money and then bigger money to register them both and that it will be a month before they work. He comes up with a wonderful idea for me. He wants my iPhone "because it is original and has been used by a good person" - so, he will swap an unoriginal iPhone 4S, belonging to his son, for mine. That way, no money changes hands and I have a phone that doesn't require registering and will work immediately. Forget the iPad - wifi hotspots will be everywhere in the mountains. (I have already decided that I will pursue the iPad issue elsewhere.)
I tell him that, as long as I can get all data from my iPhone, the swap might work for me, so off we go to get the other phone and transfer the data. This involves an interesting tour of the backstreets of Sultanahmet. We stop, first, at his carpet shop, where I am offered a carpet or kilim of my choice for free (oh sure, that would be posted!); we call in at a mosque, where the man who has his car keys is praying; we drive to his home where he yells up to someone who lowers the iPhone from an upstairs window in a bucket (she greets me in native-speaker English); he makes a phone call to an American woman, puts it on speaker phone, and gets her to tell me how long it took for her newly-registered phone to work. "It never worked", she says, and he nods at me and says, "at least a month"; we drive to the cousin's Turkcell shop but he can't transfer the data. It's easy, however, so off we go to the man who can do it - but, no he can't do it, either. Although I'm kind of enjoying the mad dash, I'm over the iPhone issue by now and suggest an alternative plan of just buying a basic second-hand phone which won't need registering, and so back we go to the cousin's shop and the deal on my new Samsung is done. He drops me back where we started, asking if I'd like to contribute something towards his petrol (I say no, because I feel ripped off); then he says he doesn't mind having helped me as long as I appreciate it. Huh? I don't recall seeking his help or encouraging his involvement in any way - and I just bought a phone from his cousin.
I really want to maintain an openness to the people I meet, but I feel vulnerable because I have an important problem to resolve and no inside knowledge of how things work. My internet research tells me how things should be, but stops short of pointing me in the direction of an English-speaking service that can help; so, a measure of trust is necessary - but who to trust, when your own culturally-specific indicators of trustworthiness don't apply?
I must tackle the iPad issue today, so I will ring Utsav for inside info and advice....
Here is an iMovie I made of Istanbul impressions:
Posted with Blogsy
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