Istanbul Diaries: An American's Tale of Culture Shock in Turkiye Part 2

It is time for part two of culture shock in Turkiye. How many parts will there be? This series is potentially endless. I suppose I’ll stop when I get tired of talking about it. Usually, the first question I am asked is “What’s different?” I always answer the same. I say that every single thing you do in Turkey is completely opposite and mixed. If things were just the opposite, you would at least know to do the opposite. On the contrary, it’s also churned in a vortex of the unknown making something as simple as crossing the street, standing in line, or asking someone a question, different in every way. 

When I came here, it felt like everything I knew was wrong. I had to learn how to live and breathe from scratch. It didn’t take much time to realize that I had unknowingly thrown myself in the deep end of the cultural Mariana Trench. Every time I felt like I understood something, my understanding could only align with what my perspective allowed. As my perspective changed, I gained new understanding of everything in an endless cycle. 

Nevertheless, time has been kind to me and I often forget what exactly was so different for me when I arrived. I’ve had to check some of my old journals to get insight into my first impression. Looking back into these journal entries, I’ve realized that much of what I was experiencing, I was unable to explain. All I knew was that it was different. I’m just grateful that the intensity of my learning period has dwindled significantly and it feels like I am in the final stretch. 

#1 People don’t know how old they are.

It was mid September and Mustafa and I were sitting on the terrace of the family restaurant. As we were soaking up the sun and view of the Bosphorus, we somehow got on the subject of ID cards. He handed me his to look at and immediately pointed out that the birthday listed on his ID was not what he had told me. I was taken aback to find that the date on his ID made him a year older than what he said he was. Obviously, my first question was why and what was going on here. 

What he told me next made my jaw drop to the floor. He said that many people in Turkey, especially the Kurdish and those born in villages, don’t know their real ages. I didn’t believe him. I was convinced that it was absolutely impossible for a person in this day and age not to know the year of their birth. Immediately, he called out to one of his fellow coworkers and asked him when his birthday was. This man was so surprised by this question that he actually laughed. He said “I don’t know. I think my dad made me older.”

You “think your dad made you older?” What does that even mean? Other answers I’ve gotten over the years were things along the lines of  “When the cabbage was harvested.” Come to find out, children born in villages didn’t have birth certificates and many villages, like my husbands, didn’t have electricity until 1995. Their fathers register them later on when they put them in school. Interestingly, in Turkey, all children need ID cards to go to school so this is when the father heads to the local government building to get them IDs. When the father goes to the office, he brings his child along with him and tells the clerk what date to write down. No proof, no nothing. On top of that, to keep it simple, they usually “make” their birthdays January 1st. I can just picture the scene.

Clerk: “How old is the child?”

Father: “.....sii…seven. Seven.”

Clerk: Month and day?

Father: “January 1st.”

If you ever meet a Kurdish person, particularly millennials and older, ask them about their birthday and they will very likely say January 1st. Every year on New Year’s day I get about 15 birthday notifications on Facebook. Go figure. My husband's dad was a little bit more creative and he apparently took a bunch of his sons to the office at the same time. He made their birthdays May 1st, June 1st, July 1st, August 1st, etc.

This conversation made me think about how important age is in our society. How many laws are based around age and the seriousness of pretending to be a different age. Of course, the Kurds are not pretending, it was just an interesting thought.

#2 No Lines

In my introduction, I mentioned that something as simple as standing in line is different. How is standing in line different you ask? To put it simply, there is no line. There’s a crowd. Line etiquette does not exist. People cut in the front, from the sides, from behind, and any direction possible. Everyone stands on top of each other and there is no regard for personal space. They also walk directly up to the cashier or person working to ask questions even when they are dealing with other customers. It is survival of the fittest and I find it extremely difficult to go along with the crowd. Every bone in my body says that I should wait in line even when people skip me. 

What sends rage up to my eyeballs is when another register opens, people run for it. There is no courtesy of allowing the person in front of you to go. Luckily for me, the cashiers always know that I’m not from these parts and they call me to the counter when they see I’ve been waiting longer than others who jumped to the front. 

I can say that in the wealthiest neighborhoods, this is not always the case and people can be more considerate. What strikes me the oddest is that people do not get upset when the person at the back of the line races to the newly opened register. They don’t see it as rude and rather think they were too slow or that they should have paid closer attention. 

All in all, the hardest thing to adapt to and overcome is different views of polite behavior and respect. If you have been raised your whole life to believe that something is rude, it is very difficult to see it otherwise, especially when it’s something that feels inconsiderate.

#3 Lack of correct information

Rather than explaining exactly how there is a lack of correct and consistent information online and across institutions, I’ll give you an example that perfectly illustrates how things work in Turkey.

Back when I first got here, Mustafa and I needed Covid testing in order to travel to Tanzania. The flight company listed different hospitals where we could acquire accepted tests and I chose the one nearest to us. My first instinct was to call and to make an appointment. This was obvious, I thought, because we were going to a hospital. When I asked Mustafa to call to make an appointment, he told me we didn’t need one, which really confused me. I then asked him to call and ask for information about the hours of operation, how much the test costs, what we need to bring, etc. Initially, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to call the hospital and ask, but he eventually gave in and made the call. We were told three things: testing was done from 11am-2pm, it cost 250 Turkish Liras, and that we didn’t need an appointment.

When we arrived, it was a quarter after one. After being asked to wait outside for a while, I got nervous that the testing time would end and we would miss it. Two hours passed and I noticed that they were still allowing people into the waiting area for testing. Odd.. they had told us testing closed at 2pm. After hours of waiting, we finally completed our tests and went to the desk to hand them our test swabs and make the payment. Then we learned that the test was only 115 Turkish Liras. Following this, my husband told the man at the desk that we had called and they gave us completely different information about the price and hours of operation. The man then responded, “We don’t have a phone.”

Arguably the lack of current and consistent information online is the most frustrating thing I have experienced while living here. This applies not only to hospitals but to virtually anything such as proper location, hours of operation, and other government-related processes like marriage and immigration. Government institutions will send you back and forth from place to place on wild goose chases in search of documents that don’t exist. 

On top of that, everyone gives you different information and pretends to know what they are talking about. When we were trying to get our marriage license, it took us almost two weeks of running across the city for different documents. The government office would send us to a different office only to be told that we should go to a different place only to be told that the document didn’t exist or that we didn’t need it. It is not every day that foreigners get married in Turkey so no one knew what exactly I needed to get the job done. I am not even kidding when I tell you that I nearly gave up on the whole thing.

In terms of location, I can’t tell you how many times I have gone to a place via google maps and it not exist at all, even for official places like pharmacies. Google maps itself struggles a lot in Turkey for reasons unknown which is why the most common way of finding a place is to ask someone. But, to me, difficulty finding a location is nothing compared to incorrect procedural information like I mentioned previously. 

#4 You don’t return an empty plate

To end on a positive note, I want to mention something that I really admire about Turkish culture. It is quite common for neighbors to make different food items (usually dessert or side dishes) and bring them to your door to offer them to you. These are usually offered on one of their own plates, so obviously you have to return it. However, the rule is you cannot return an empty plate, cup, dish, etc. You should make something and return the plate full. If you can’t make anything, you should at least fill the plate with something like fruit or nuts. 

This little ritual of reciprocity is really beautiful in my opinion and it is definitely something I hope to carry with me throughout life. When someone offers me something here, I usually try to make them an American or South African dessert so they can try something they have never had before. Banana bread is something that doesn’t exist here and it is a real hit with the Turks. It is funny how things that seem so usual to us can be a source of interest and curiosity in others. Other desserts I try to introduce them to are things like pie, brownies, “American style” cookies, scones, etc. 

Closing Thoughts

Writing this article brought back a wave of memories and while many of the things I mentioned might be negative in the moment, they always make a funny story. I look back on moments of frustration with lightheartedness rather than contempt. It makes you wonder how people who are born into such an unorganized system adapt to our strict rules and regulations in the West. I must say, having had this experience, I understand why such strict rules and regulations are necessary.  

At the end of the day, you learn to adapt and you learn what to expect. There's a great big world out there full of Ideas and different ways groups have adapted to living. You learn that your frustration isn’t going to change anything and It doesn't have to. Because of this, you learn to appreciate certain things about your home country when you move away. Obviously, this is not a competition or a comparison - it is simply different and I have developed an appreciation of both countries and cultures.