Living in the neighborhood of Sultanahmet comes with its banes and blessings. We are undeniably close to many of the major tourist sites and to public transportation, but we are also close to ... well ... the tourists. One recent fascination has been with watching the cruise ship tourists who are bused up to Sultanahmet Square in droves to "visit Istanbul" in 3-5 hours. We've been here a month and in many ways feel we've barely scratched the surface of what is here, so the idea of understanding anything of significance in 3-5 hours seems particularly shocking. Today we met a taxi driver who complained vociferously about the huge white tour buses that are waved past the blockades of the square (the center of Sultanahmet has become a pedestrian zone except for the tour buses), while the taxis are all stopped above or below the square. Because the streets are so old and narrow and (sorry to say, but it seems apt), "Byzantine," the closing of the square to taxis has created a massive pile-up of traffic that has no way to move from one side of the square to another without wending its way through tiny residential streets.
Sultanahmet is host so so many people every day that it is probably inevitable that it has become infested with shops with intrusive salespeople all vying for the seemingly unlimited tourist dollars/euros/pounds, etc. A stroll through the neighborhood elicits calls of "where are you from?" "You very pretty. I make you good deal," the even more obnoxious "I know you are American!" or the strangely compelling "Are you from Seattle?" (I have to resist the urge to respond to this one in Turkish, it seems like such a peculiar question to me). Knowing some Turkish is a big help with all this, because most of these people are violating Turkish norms of hospitality when they harass people on the street. They manage to pull it off because they are speaking English, and they recognize that at least for Americans, norms of politeness strongly dictate that you must respond when spoken to. If I do respond to people, I try to respond in Turkish as much as possible, because it calls them back to Turkish norms. It's a lot harder for them to be rude in Turkish, because being rude is a violation of the Turkish expectation/duty of hospitality. Speaking Turkish calls upon that identity in a way that often makes people back off. I once had a hilarious conversation with a shoe shine boy who was extremely persistent in his demands (in English) to polish my husband's shoes. I responded to him several times in Turkish that we were not interested. Finally I stopped and faced him and asked point blank (in Turkish), "What's wrong? Aren't you Turkish? Don't you understand Turkish? I've already told you 'no' four times!" He completely lost character (for those actors among us). He could only keep up the brash and persistent role he'd taken on if he spoke in English. Once I insisted on a real conversation in Turkish he burst into embarrassed giggles and we both had a good laugh together.
Despite the feel of the area as a metropolis of its own, it is also a small neighborhood, where people know each other and talk with each other daily over tea. We intentionally found an apartment for the students that is out of the rush of Sultanahmet proper and in a quieter neighborhood, but to access public transportation, they must go through the area fairly frequently. In the throng of tourists we usually feel fairly anonymous, but in a small neighborhood people talk. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when people I had never talked with before started asking me (when I was alone on the street or with my kids), "Where are your students?" Tonight I got a particularly strong reminder when my family was walking past a man I had never spoken to before who stopped me and asked "Do you speak Turkish?" You must believe me when I say that NO ONE here ever assumes that an American knows any Turkish other than possibly "teşekkur ederim" ("thank you," which most Americans completely butcher, because it's a mouthful). I usually ignore or politely toss off the calls of shopkeepers, but this time I stopped and asked him why he asked. He made an excuse about how my husband looks Turkish (but of course he didn't ask my husband, which would have been a more appropriate thing to do if he really thought Paul was Turkish. Even more oddly, our son, who is Kazak and was with us, really IS Turkish from the perspective of most Turks, so he's the one who we're most often asked about). I mentally dismissed the man's response as a polite fabrication, but suddenly realized that of course he knew all along that I spoke Turkish, because this is a small neighborhood and people talk. We've been told by a long-time resident of the neighborhood that there is a strong neighborhood grapevine, and our group is one of its current discussion topics. For those who might find this frightening, I think it's neither a good thing nor a bad thing; it's simply a reflection of how social networks here work. One aspect of becoming a part of a community in Turkey, even in a very superficial way, is becoming known by the neighbors and becoming the subject of discussion on the grapevine. In many ways I'm grateful for the neighborhood grapevine, because it can also become a source of protection. Several years ago we had a few students who went back to the hotel to get something and then got lost on their way to meet back up with the group. They ran into a man in the neighborhood who knew exactly who they belonged with and where the group was at the time, and he took them to us and reunited them with the group. They had believed that they were anonymous and that no one could possibly know who they were with, but he started describing members of the group to them and they were quickly convinced that though they didn't know him, he knew exactly who they were. The reality of the neighborhood grapevine, also means, though, that it is very important to guard one's reputation. It's easy to get a reputation for being unkind or loose or bad-tempered, and that reputation precedes you and impacts the reception you will get in the neighborhood, even with people you've never met.
In this case, it was primarily a curiosity for people that I was clearly a visitor to Turkey but also clearly knew some Turkish. The realization that someone without an obvious need to learn the language would go out of their way to learn Turkish is both fascinating and flattering, and becomes, in itself, a source of conversation.
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