Recently I went to an international student party here in Istanbul, but I don’t want to talk about the party. I want to talk about our way to the party. We were hanging out in an apartment on the Asian side of Istanbul, where we all live. We had dinner together, some wine and around 11 we decided to get on our way to grab a bus to the Taksim/Beyoğlu district of the European side of Istanbul; it’s where all the parties happen.
So we got on our way and into the bus… As we were sitting in the bus, waiting for it to leave, it was noticeable that we were attracting some attention. Of course, we were all chatting and foreigners in Turkey generally attract quite a bit of attention.
As the bus started moving, we started getting some ugly looks from people turning around and looking at us… Maybe it was not just us being foreigners, maybe we were a bit too loud (even though we weren’t loud, especially by Turkish standards).
Then, upon one guy’s third turning around and staring at us, he said in a very direct and rather rude tone:
“Excuse me!!!!” There was a pause.
“Slowly!” Another pause.
“Slowly!!” He kept staring at us.
One of the girls present said okay and then the guy turned around to start a conversation with his neighbour. No doubt that it was about the nuisance and the suffering he had to go through, with us in this bus.
Even though the guy was quite rude – and drunk, as was obvious upon him exiting the bus – this small anecdote says something about the culture in Turkey, or at least Istanbul. You will hardly ever see someone eating in a bus, or even on the street. When two friends get into a bus together, they usually lower their voices and speak rather softly. This is quite different from other countries I’ve visited, where people generally talk with each other in a normal volume.
Also, a lot more so than in Holland, people will actually immediately get up for a woman, an old person or a person with disabilities. Not 100% of the times, but a lot more than in Holland. Over here I started feeling that the whole bus should be ashamed of themselves if there’s an old lady standing while there are young people sitting.
However, all of the above does not mean that the guy yesterday wasn’t completely out of line. First of all, you’re in the bus to Taksim at 11 o’ clock on a Friday night… What do you expect? Second of all, he was eating when he got into the bus. Thirdly, he could have asked us politely at least, or just have made some gesture instead of shouting at us.
Photo above by ibcbulk on Flickr, shared under a Creative Commons license.
How is the bus culture in your country? How are people’s manners? Can you comment about some of the things mentioned in this article and how it is in places you’ve been to?
BasBasBas.com is about my life as a Dutch student living in Istanbul. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
Comments
18 responses to ““Slowly! … Slowly!””
Hi,
I had a similar experience here in Istanbul. The day after our marriage friends from my hometown, my wife and I took the Havaş bus to the airport. They to get back home, we to our honeymoon destination.
As you can imagine, we had a lot to discuss on the way to the airport. And just the same, all of a sudden a woman addressed us, politely but firmly, saying that it is not done in Turkey to talk (loudly) on public transportation.
The poor woman of course couldn’t know that my wife was not one of the 15 foreigners on the bus, but a Turk. And she assured the lady that she may not be used to it, but keeping silent is a choice and had nothing to do with the Turkish culture as she proclaimed. At best it’s a tradition.
But if being silent on public transportation also means the politeness and readiness to leave a place for the (pregnant) woman and elder people, then that’s a price I gladly pay.
Cheers,
Max
Bas, this is a good one! 😀
Myself, no matter where I’ll go in the world, I also notice manners & customs. I try to learn the manners & not stand-out too much..
Ik wens je fijne feestdagen!
Sounds very much like this bus behaviour is unique to Istanbul a couple of rifle shots away in Bulgaria, no such manners are expected.
Asian bus commuters are normally rude and inconsiderate – which is true except in those civilized nation like Japan and Korea where respect for the elderly and pregnant women is expected of the people. In most Asian countries, they don’t queue up but rather try their best to squeeze in the bus. Sigh.
It’s understandable that generally the atmosphere in buses aren’t ‘dead quiet’ at anytime of the day. Ppl are allowed to talk even…it’s only rude if someone’s shouting on top of his/her voice.
I can’t really comment much about buses here since I hardly ever take one…..but from my experience yonks ago..I noticed people don’t queue properly and sometimes older folks aren’t given seats. And public car parks are the same..people taking up spaces meant for the physically impaired. I find this rude and inconsiderate.
I noticed something good when I was a student back in Australia years ago when the bus driver made some young ppl give up their seats for the elderly. I value that kind of good manners and I try to practice this too whenever I take public transportation.
Very interesting. It makes me think about how many American friends of mine would never be able to control their voices to a point of being polite. They’re just loud.
Did you ever tried to buy a sandwich at the campus and eat it up your way to the next class or to the buses or in my case to the dorms? Well I did a several times, and that feels so weird. It’s so normal for us, but nobody of them eats on the street 😛
I’ll assume the “slowly” translated actually into “softly” i.e. lower your volume: funny, in Malay it’s the same word used for both instances too.
Can’t immediately recall incidents in Malaysian busses: I’ve avoided them for so long! In Switzerland I like how they are kept relatively clean, and there is still the respect given to the elderly, either with designated seating or people standing up to give their seats to them.
Hi Baz,
Happy Seasonal Greetings from Bulgaria. 🙂 Party on mate, there’s only one life and you’re living it rigth now!
Well in the Netherlands you have to watch out if you want to give your seat to an older man or woman, they might be insulted because you think they can’t stand.
It’s rather strange in Taiwan for me. People are generally really quiet on buses. Almost no talking except for maybe a random whisper.
We of course are the exception to this rule 🙂 but the Taiwanese don’t seem to mind at all.
In mainland China buses were a place to meet people and talking was normal. A very strange contrast.
Thanks for the comments everyone!
@martin: I know, haha. And thanks for your seasonal greetings. Best wishes to you too!
@kyh: same in Holland, but in Turkey people generally queue… not for buses that have a high ratio of students in it though.
@My Bug Life: yeah, people talk, but very softly. Old guys on the phone are horrible though… since people are quite silent in the bus… these people shouting through their phones can be heard throughout the whole bus (and through my music of which the volume is turned up to the max).
@Rémon: I didn’t even know you could buy sandwiches on the campus. But yeah, walking and eating feels weird everywhere, but I was already used to this from Bulgaria — especially when it comes to walking and drinking though.
@lynne: yep, that’s what it translates as.
@Niels: Oh yeah! That’s why I hardly ever give up my seat there. It happened to me once.
I was talking about this with one of my friends, just the other day. I am Turkish and I live in Istanbul. We were riding the tram in Kabatas and there was a noisy group of young Dutch people inside. They were not yelling or anything, just talking aloud, but I realized that I found it irritating. It’s just the way we are raised, i guess: talking clamorously is a symbol of being ‘spoiled’ in Turkey (and since most Turks presuppose that all Europeans are rich and spoiled, they get extra irritated). To be honest, I don’t think it’s a bad tradition, on the contrary, but you are right about his rudeness: I would never tell someone to “speak slowly” unless they were talking in a ridiculously high voice.
I wonder if the real problem was speaking in another language and by foreigners vs Turkish and Turks, rather than the noisy conversation???
I can’t talk for everyone but i’m no xenophobic, so no, not because they were foreigners. I get irritated when i hear Turkish young people talking loud in a crammed public bus too; but that happens much more less, due to said cultural raising.
Yeah, it was probably more the noise that annoyed him… judging from his reaction. Though xenophobia could have played a part, I don’t have the feeling this is the case here.
The guy wasn’t rude because he asked us to be quiet… But he was shouting at us to be quiet, without kindly asking us first. Of course his English was probably very bad, so kindly asking is quite hard, but the shouting was not necessary. Ah well.
Thanks for the comments guys. Great to have some new people on here 🙂
as a local person from istanbul, i got your point and inform you that people are usually stressed during mass transportation. istanbul is very crowded and there is too much traffic. if this would be in holland i think people would have the same stress level 😛
Once I got stuck in a train for 2 hours (the train in front of us had an accident), and they couldn’t open the doors for some security reasons, but yes there was some stress level (there always people with a busy schedule). But the most of them acted (like they were) relaxed!