remember that time in istanbul...?

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Remember that time in Istanbul…?

This is a time capsule. This is a love letter to Turkey, buried not in dirt but in space. This is a tribute to the city I lived in, the places I visited, the people I met, the language I spoke, and the friendships I made. This is an attempt to preserve these memories, to put them in a safe place - a place accessible to us all - where we can retrieve them and call them back to mind whenever we miss that time we all shared in Istanbul.

I’ve been back in California for less than a week now, but as I notice my thoughts and impressions about the past year start to lose their sharpness and slowly begin to recede into that hazy part of the mind reserved only for memories, I feel a sense of responsibility, to myself and to my friends, to record some of what I thought and experienced during my time in Turkey. As a gesture to honor all the unforgettable things I’ve experienced and all of the gifts living in Turkey has given to me and my friends, I want to document some of what I’ve seen and felt over the last year.

What I took away from my time in Istanbul is different than what all of my friends will take away. My hope is that with additional reflections, photographs, anecdotes and stories all of you will contribute to this small testament to our lives in Istanbul.

- Kenan

Note: The posts here are meant to be read in order from top to bottom, starting here and continuing onto the following pages.

The Pull

I’m still not really sure why I first left for Turkey. I was content with my life in California. After six years in Santa Cruz I had many close friendships, deep roots in the town itself, and a strong feeling of belonging. I had a simple but enjoyable job where I worked with my best friends. Life there was good. Santa Cruz: this is the real city where the young go to retire. Maybe that was why I left. I was content, yes, but uneasy with that easiness, the comfort, the complacency.

And then there was that impulse, steadily growing ever since my first visit to Turkey in 2009 and further stoked by later visits, to live in Istanbul. There’s a postcard I wrote to a friend back home - and I wish I had kept a copy of what I wrote to her on hand somewhere – where I described the classic ferry scene, complete with the seagulls, the scent of sea on the breeze, the sounds of the hoarse voiced men selling tea, and those breathtaking shades of blue you only see in waters of the Bosphorus. I ended the card saying, “I know one day I must live in this city.”

photo credit: katie fassbinder

I think anyone who’s been to Istanbul will know what I’m talking about when I say that it just does something to you. It enchants you, pulls you in, makes you want more. It can make you sigh and call out its name. I’ve even heard this from family members of mine, aunts and uncles who’ve spent their entire lives in this wonderful - and also insane and sprawling - city. It is still has that certain something that can tear an “Ah, Istanbul…” from their lips, even after all these years.

So I guess in a sense it’s not surprising at all that I would eventually move here. That the impulse would finally get the better of me and that I would leave my friends and drop my contented and satisfied life for something new. And there was also the family connection that played a large role in my desire to move. That surprise and delight I felt visiting for the first time the neighborhood where my mom and grandmother grew up. Seeing the room in Haydarpaşa train station where my great-grandfather worked. Witnessing the welcoming and loving expressions on my relatives’ faces when they met me for the very first time and yet made me feel as if I was their very own son. The recognition I felt in seeing certain gestures and attitudes, things that marked me as different in California, being reflected in my Turkish family. The realization that I felt in many ways more at home in Turkey than I did in my own country. Kan çekiyor, as they say in Turkish, the blood pulls. It’s an idiom that describes how our character and our personalities, for better or for worse, often resemble that of our families, and how even when we are separated from each other geographically there is still the tendency to behave and conduct ourselves similar to our family. And of course there is the pull, the desire to lessen that distance, to be together.

My aunt Oya, my aunt Asuman, and my mother

My great aunt Melahat and my mother

My cousin Saadet

My cousins Bora and Saadet

My aunt Oya

My aunt Asuman and her grandson Atakan

A City Worth Dying For

Bu şehir için ölmeye değer

Istanbul, elinden öper

- Duman, “Istanbul”

I once asked a student of mine how he felt about about Istanbul. He told me that he’s been here his entire life and that he never plans on leaving. You must really love it then,’ I asked. ‘No,’ he explained, ‘it’s not a matter of love. It’s more of an addiction. Istanbul is like a drug – the more you get of it, the more you want. But it kills you slowly, the longer you’re here.’

The foreigner who comes to Istanbul for the first time feels the incredible rush of this city, but remains basically clueless about the effects of long-term usage. It’s hard to deny that there’s something compelling about this place, something that gets into your bloodstream and is hard to shake. We’re all familiar with the cliché about Istanbul being the bridge between Asia and Europe, between East and West. Like most clichés, this is both reductive and undeniably true. With the Bosphorus Strait cutting the city in half, Istanbul is literally spread across two continents. Culturally, too, it is a city of contradiction, simultaneously European, Middle-Eastern, Balkan, and Asian, with a population (at least historically) just as diverse. There is also a tension between a deeply rooted, rich cultural tradition and the intoxicating, lively, churning spirit of a city undergoing constant transformation and reinvention. All of this is evident in the innumerable mosques and churches, a skyline of minarets and skyscrapers, the sound of the seagulls blending with the call to prayer, the old men playing backgammon in teahouses and the youth drinking beer by the sea, the peerless nightlife surrounding Istiklal Caddesi, and the many aqueducts, palaces, catacombs, statues, bazaars and fountains Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman. This is the Istanbul we’ve seen thousands of times, gracing the pages of brochures and travel guides. It is the Istanbul that has stolen the heart of many a tourist, including myself.

photograph credit: katie fassbinder

photograph credit: timur tusiray

photograph credit: courtney alemdar

photograph credit: timur tusiray

photograph credit:courtney alemdar

photograph credit: timur tusiray

Yet the city that greets you as a visitor is quite different from the one you get to know as a resident. In fact, the favorite pastime of those who live in Istanbul is complaining. They complain about the traffic and the terrible crowds. They bemoan the poor city planning and the lack of parking and the absurdly tall apartment buildings. They curse the constant honking, the barking packs of dogs, and the busted mosque speakers blasting the ezan into their living rooms. The old families wax nostalgic about the days when there were still forests and fields of flowers in Istanbul, when everyone was polite and genteel, the days before massive rural migration from the East brought sprawling concrete slums and a more than ten-fold increase in population. These same families lament the growing conservatism: the head scarves, the rising taxes on alcohol, and their “backward” neighbors. Other families criticize increasing social freedoms and the deterioration of tradition. And everybody, rich and poor, religious and secular, complains about the traffic. The crowds and the terrible, terrible traffic.

Yet with all its drawbacks, few people are sincere enough in their complaints to actually leave. People complain, they let off steam, they truly despise the city sometimes, but they won’t move away. Which is not to give the impression that everyone in Istanbul is living a life of luxury and stays out of some romantic attachment, though that affective addiction does permeate class lines. Hordes of people come and are trapped here simply because of work. People move to Istanbul with the hope of finding jobs. For them Istanbul symbolizes opportunity and the chance of a better life, though for many that better life is either slow in coming or never comes at all. Poor immigrants from the East leave their lives and their villages looking for whatever jobs they can find. The lucky ones find work as a kapacıs, a live-in doormen in a fancy apartments. White-collar workers also need to be in the city. People seeking a life in business, banking, engineering, fashion or film also work and stay in Istanbul. There are many incredible places in Turkey, but the country's pulse beats loudest in Istanbul. Trade, business, culture, history: they're all here. Possibility and poverty are here in equal measure, too. People hate Istanbul, but they need it. So they adore it like only an unrequited lover can. The beloved both promising, and withholding, bliss.

In the metrobus I once witnessed something that perfectly crystallized for me people’s relationship with this city. The metrobus is a fast-track commuter bus that, successful in its aim of bypassing traffic, is always, always packed. This, too, despite the fact that buses come constantly. One day I got on the metrobus and I was incredibly pleased because I had been able to elbow my way into a seat - a rare occasion. From my seat I was watching everybody squirming and squeezing as people continued shoving their way onto the already full bus. Finally - mercifully - the doors managed to shut and as the bus began to move everybody held on, thankful that at least there was still air to breathe. You can imagine how completely miserable everybody looked, brooding with downcast eyes. Some passengers were voicing the collective misery and even cursing the city aloud. The bus passed stop after stop - Fikirtepe, Uzunçayır, Acıbadem, Altunizade, Burhaniye - somehow taking on even more passengers as it went. And then it hit Boğaziçi Köprüsü and as it reached the bridge to the European side we all raised our heads and looked out the window for that thirty second glimpse of the Bosphorus curving down toward the sea, and the ships passing below, and the beautiful blue water, and again it’s “Ah, güzel Istanbul…” before the view was swallowed up by the highway and we all resumed our silent cursing.

A textbook example of addiction: the longer you’re here, the more you want to stay here. And the longer you stay, the more it kills you.

The Keyif is Killing Me

photo credit: timur tusiray

Yet with all this, I’ve never seen such a relaxed culture. Though, as I'll explain, this relaxation can be fatal too.

My family roots were initially what brought me to Istanbul. But it was the culture and the aesthetic of enjoyment I found here that made me a junkie. There is a word for this in Turkish – keyif. Merriment, joy, pleasure, joviality, good cheer, humor – these are close. I guess the best word we have for this in English would just be ‘enjoyment’, but this doesn’t fully capture it either. Keyif is more like an ethos of enjoyment, an attitude which with people take their pleasure. There’s a certain idleness to it, but a rigorous and almost principled idleness.

There are many varieties of keyif. The most common is çay keyfi, the enjoyment of tea.

People like to sit for hours at a time with black tea, some cigarettes, a little company, and preferably a good view, though a simple table and chairs on a balcony or sidewalk will do. The tea in Turkey is strong and served in little hourglass waist cups, perfect for a little tea break and conducive to drinking mutiple cups. Everybody drinks it. Old men sit in special tea houses for the retired whittling away the day playing card games. Women sit together on balconies gossiping over tea. Young people sit in hookah bars playing backgammon and drinking tea. Shopkeepers offer tea to their customers as a token of friendship as they bargain over prices, just as business men do for their clients. Tea is considered almost a human right in Turkey. The working day is punctuated with numerous tea breaks. Tea is served on ferries and long-distance buses. Everybody from truck drivers to judges drinks tea on the job. Even prisoners in jails have their tea.

photo credit: timur tusirary

Another form of keyif is kahve keyfi. Coffee in Turkey has a deeper meaning than it does back in the States. We enjoy it, we meet with friends in cafes for it, but more often than not we guzzle it, throw it back on the way out the door or in the car. In Turkey the drinking of coffee has a deeper resonance. It is drunk not in haste but with care. There is a saying in Turkish about coffee: bir fincan kahvenin kırk yıl hatırası var. A single cup of coffee has a memory of forty years. The coffee is a prop, a delicious pretense for conversation. And the connection that can be built, the sharing of hearts that occurs, over a fifteen minute cup of coffee are remembered for a lifetime.

There are many types of keyif, all based around the presence of some sort of food or drink and good company, but my favorite would have to be the ritual of enjoyment that surrounds rakı, the Turkish national drink. Rakı is an anise-flavored alcohol, similar in theory to the Greek ouzo or the French pastis. It is quite strong and served with water in tall, thin glasses. The alcohol itself is transparent but once water is added it turns to a cloudy, milky color. Rakı is never served alone, but has a whole family of meze, or aperatiffs, that accompany it. At the very least it should be paired with a little melon and some feta cheese.

My uncle Fatih in Izmir

An evening of rakı with friends or family can easily last four or five hours. The night begins with melon and cheese, and some light salads. Then you might have stuffed grape leaves, puff pastry, and a variety of eggplant dishes. There’s a whole category of dishes meant to be served with rakı, all chosen with the express aim of bringing out the flavor of the liquor. Small portions of many dishes are tasted as you drink and converse. The idea is to keep the evening going as long as possible without becoming either too full or too drunk, taking many little breaks for people to talk and smoke, and, if you’re out drinking at a restaurant, to sing and dance. As a final course there might be fish, followed at last by Turkish coffee or tea and platters of fruit. By the time you finally leave the table you are completely stuffed, pleasantly tipsy, totally exhausted, and absolutely amazed that enjoyment can be such hard work.

photo credit: timur tusirary

photo credit: timur tusiray

photo credit: timur tusirary

This is what I mean about keyif being rigorous. And for me, the first time I came here, being basically a foreigner, surrounded by family conversing in a language I could barely understand, these dinners were both a delight and a test of patience. However, as time passed I began to better understand the mentality of these evenings, even hosting many of my own for friends back home. But this culture of enjoyment began to be challenging in a different way after I finally moved to Istanbul.

My health began to suffer. Not just from the rakı nights, which at most happen two or three times a month, but from the general lifestyle of both heavy work and heavy enjoyment. The leading cause of death in Turkey is heart disease, which when you think about it is not particularly surprising. There’s the fattening foods, the oil, the butter, the salt. There’s constant intake of caffeine and cubes of white sugar with every glass of tea. There’s cigarette smoke and, for the non-smokers, second-hand smoke. These are conditions ripe for clogged arteries and heart attacks. It’s different than in the US, where processed foods and the obesity it causes are more rampant. But these were never a problem for me in the States because I was surrounded by a culture of health food and exercise. It was when I came to Turkey and begin to enjoy keyif this and keyif that that I started to notice the effects of constant indulgence. Remember the freshman 15? There’s also the Istanbul 15. What else did I expect to happen, what with the sedentary lifestyle with the lack of exercise, all the alcohol, and the incredible but calorific cuisine?

photo credit: timur tusirary

photo credit: courtney pinar

photo credit: timur tusirary

The culture of keyif, like the city itself, is addicting. And if overly indulged in it can be pleasurable and harmful in equal proportions. I’ll never forget a story a friend told me about something he saw in the museum where he worked. A woman who worked in the office was feeling overcome by sickness and stress and her friend was trying her best to calm her down. The woman can’t seem to calm down and finally her friend says, “Hadi, bir sigara yak bir kahve iç ve kendine gelirsin.” Come on, let’s get you a cup of coffee and a cigarette and you’ll feel better in no time.