“My friend, are you lost? Where are you from, my friend?”

This scene plays out hundreds of times in an Istanbul day. Any traveler who so much as makes eye contact with a Turk while walking past can expect to be chatted to. The Turks are friendly and outgoing by disposition, which is a trait reflected in the structure of Turkish economic life, a merchant culture, everyone with something to sell. In Turkey you’re always talking to people as a matter of daily business, and when Turks talk to foreigners, usually they’re trying to talk them into something, whether it’s visiting their carpet shop, staying at their brother’s hotel, or even just to come inside for a çay (tea). A Brit I met described Turkey as a “society of hustlers”, a perception which is more or less correct, though you’ll seldom get ripped off if you know how to haggle. Salesmen push themselves into your personal space everywhere you go, under the guise of polite conversation. Sometimes foreigners have witty rejoinders at the ready (”Table for how many, sir?” “Zero.”) but you’ll find the Turks are very good at what they do. Their politeness and warmth makes them harder to ignore than, say, a tout in Thailand barking a sales pitch in your ear as you step off the train.

But this gentleman wasn’t standing near any wares. He simply wanted to help us out.

“Take tram up, three stops, then to funicular and ride to Taksim square. Is cheaper to get akbil (Istanbul transit pass) so you don’t pay every time.”

He was a large man with a thick head of wavy hair and a big smile. We asked him some more transit questions and he answered them splendidly for us. He then asked us a few things, about Canada, about traveling and how much money it costs.

“Both of you rich, yes? In Turkey you must be rich to do this. Canada, get paid lots of money?”

He was quite a nice fellow, but we wanted to get up to Taksim before it got dark, and I kept feeling the urge to just thank him for his help and move on. But he stood very near to us, and his body language was such that we could tell he wanted to have a nice long chat with us Canadians, and that it would be impolite not to let the conversation wind up on its own. So we chatted a while.

It turns out he was actually a carpet salesman. He pointed to his shop further up the street. He was on his lunch break, and didn’t want to sell us anything, he said. But he liked talking so much he just wandered the streets on his lunch break talking to people.

“It’s not always about business,” he said.

We told him we work in computers. This is almost always an invitation for people to ask you to fix their computer, and this time was no exception.

“I play this game, FIFA 2007. Manager mode. I love it. But I make season, first place, and I lose it. The save game, gone.”

Well, that’s a drag. The save file for his video game disappeared. Can’t help you there, pal.

“I think it is because of the sexy sites.”

Huh?

“These sites I look at. Internet sexy sites.”

Oh. He thinks he caught a virus from looking at Internet porn. Well, I suppose it’s possible. He then proceeded to tell us, in graphic detail, about each and every one of said sexy sites (w/ URLs provided) and segued this into a more general lecture on the kind of pornography he likes (e.g. “these American black man”) and doesn’t like (no comment). We were now growing uncomfortable. As entertaining as this was, we were now being sucked into a conversational vortex from which there is no escape except either by death or by having this guy invite us into his house to show us his porn collection. I backed away a little, and Will did the same. He moved a little closer, and carried on with his discourse. Will offered him a bottle of water, hoping to distract him a bit. It didn’t work. I checked the time on my cell phone to make it look like I had to be somewhere. He didn’t notice. His eyes lit up as he described sex act after sex act. Eventually I had to cut in and tell him, regretfully, that we could not carry on this conversation any longer because we had to be in Taksim. He understood, but before leaving he was sure to write the URLs of the sexy sites on a piece of paper and insist we take it.

“For when you get home” he said. “Souvenir from Turkey.”

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Turkey.