BasBasBas.com

Tag: Turkish culture

  • Celebrating Christmas in Istanbul

    So what did you do for Christmas? Christmas isn’t really celebrated in Istanbul, but our university organised a Christmas dinner for the exchange students (and their families, if they had come over). Free food and free drinks (incl. alcohol) is an easy way to make international students happy, but they also threw in some Turkish folk dancing. There were two groups and the picture above is of the second. Two guys, dressed up as above, danced in a playful way depicting some story. Very cool.

    More pictures up soon! For New Year’s Eve we’re renting a boat and throwing a party on the Bosphorus… I’m DJing and my means are quite limited so I have to do some preparing. Speak to you in the new year!

    Best wishes to you all!

    ~ Bas

    So what did you do for Christmas? How are you spending your New Year’s Eve?

  • “Slowly! … Slowly!”

    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.

  • The Street Accordionist (Video)

    There’s a lot of business coming through my street here in Istanbul. Men carrying big stacks of bread on their head, men with carts with second-hand junk, women selling flowers or tissues, but we also have street accordionists… Not sure if I mentioned them before, but it’s time to dedicate an article to them, since it’s a really unique thing about living in Istanbul.

    First things first… The video! Click play. If you’re on a slow connection, like me, pause the video directly after clicking play and wait until the black bar becomes grey.

    I’ve encountered this before in my neighbourhood, but didn’t think of making a video. Last time it was a gypsy father and his son, the father playing the accordion and the son collecting the money thrown from the windows. Yes, I was following the ‘ettiquette’. You’re expected to throw the money from the window as a reward. They then stay around your corner for a little while before they walk further down the street.

    This custom of accordionists collecting money thrown from the windows might seem strange, but since a lot of business here happens in the street, as described in the first paragraph of this article, it’s completely logical. For instance, something else I’ve seen is people lowering buckets on a rope to receive vegetables from the sellers coming through the street with their carts. They then put the money in the bucket and lower it to give it to the salesman.

    Truly some romantic customs here, even though they might seem ‘uncivilized’ to some. I know a lot of people from all around the world visit this blog… My question for you is: do you have street musicians like this? Do you have customs of purchasing stuff right in your street?

    If you have anything interesting to share, please do! And remember, what might be normal, or boring for you… migth be extremely fascinating for someone living at the other side of the world… and since my readers are from all over the world, you really have no excuse not to contribute. 😉

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  • What’s this guy saying?

    So a few times per day this guy, and similar guys, come through my street selling 2nd hand stuff from their carts. To let people know they’re there, they yell something like “Yehhhhhhh”. It sounds really weird. Like a very, very sick mule.

    Besides these, we have accordionists walking the street, stopping on every corner to give their concert and wait for people to throw money out of the windows. Men that sell bread (they carry a huge stack on their head), gypsy women that sell flowers, people that collect water tanks to get them refilled for you… and I’m sure I’ll be seeing more of these professions soon… (and recording and uploading them of course ;-)).

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