Messin' with Texas

Current Mood: Bored

Regardless of who you are, where you come from, or what you are interested in, you must go to Taksim. It is the heart of Istanbul. There are clubs, restaurants, shops (one of which haven’t closed for a minute in over 40 years), bars, nargile cafes, Starbucks… you name it, and it’s there. At night, a cacophony of different music, car horns, motorcycle engines, singing and yelling fill Taksim’s crowded streets, creating an atmosphere that is quite unique in my experience. There is a kind of infectious energy there. If you are tired, go to Taksim and take a beer, you won’t be tired anymore. The endless energy that is in the air there, that makes the pulse that keeps time in Istanbul’s heart, will draw you in; it will trigger a second wind.

Saturday night, after dinner at a fabulous restaurant in Taksim, I had some time to kill before meeting Basar and his future brother-in-law, Alistair, so I took a few laps around Taksim and noticed a few things. Should you have the opportunity to kill some time in the evening in Taksim, do as I have done. Walk around, look not at the shops, not at the clubs, not at the beautiful men and women that epitomize sexual desirability, instead look at everyone. Look at all the faces, listen to the language, and watch the shoulders, the eyes, the walk and the clothes. In the short main street through Taksim you will some very interesting groups.

Couples: Of course there are many couples walking through Taksim. It is very obvious who is together and who is not. Turkish men always seem to walk with some sort of body contact with their girl. They will either hold hands, put a hand around the waist, or around the shoulder. Of Taksim’s patrons, these are the slowest walkers. After all what is the rush anyway? Taksim moves in a special way. I won’t attempt to describe it (I would need to see from a bird’s eye view to be able to have any real comments on this), sorry to disappoint, guess you’ll just have to visit and see for yourself.

These couples strolling carelessly through Taksim illustrate a point of Turkish culture, which I have observed but I don’t think I have mentioned here (on my blog) yet.

Groups of friends: These are typically large groups of Turkish men, which stroll through the streets of Taksim at leisurely pace. Although not quite as leisurely as the coupled people you see, they do seem to be as close at times. In Turkish culture body contact between same sex friends seems to be a very normal thing. Two guys will walk down the street one with his arm around the other. Heck, Murat’s uncle Ahmet comes into the office and gives me a little shoulder massage from time to time. It is also customary for Turkish men (well for everyone) to kiss each other twice on the cheek when greeting. I am not exactly comfortable with this yet, but I am trying to fit in.

It is interesting to note before reading about the foreigners, that Turks seem to walk in lines perpendicular to the flow of traffic, and often keep their eyes looking ahead at eye level. They don’t really look at anything in particular; they just look ahead or at each other.

Americans/foreigners: You can pick them out from a mile away. They walk different, they talk different and they look different. I saw several groups of English speakers – I assume they were tourists – in my stroll through Taksim and they all seemed to have the same characteristics.

1. They walk faster. They all seemed like they were going somewhere urgently, or lost and getting a bit of anxiety because of it.

2. They walk in a line parallel to the flow of traffic. This makes it easier to stay together, and therefore they can move faster. Does this say something about which culture is more efficiency oriented? I merely pose the question – I dare not take another shot at the Turkish way without examining myself ?.

3. They don’t look ahead of them. Turks seem to look straight ahead as they are going and talking. They look at each other, or directly ahead at eye level. They don’t really seem to be looking at anyone or any particular thing, just kind of looking. The foreign groups follow their leader and look everywhere but straight ahead. They look at the signs, the shops, each other, their shoes, their phones, but rarely straight ahead for any length of time. I do the same thing because it’s all so new to me, but the foreigners always seem a bit skittish. Taksim is intimidating and many of them seem to be a bit intimidated. Perhaps they are partially afraid to make strong eye contact with the Turks who stare so boldly ahead of them.

4. They walk closer together. If you took an aerial picture of Taksim, I bet you could pick out all the groups of foreigners and tourists. They stay much closer to each other, which ends up offsetting any efficiency gained from lining up parallel to the flow of traffic, so that knows if any of theories are right. I suppose you’ll have to look for myself and see if you see the same things.

Transvestites: Let me say it again: Transvestites. Big, manly, muscular, square-jawed, broad-shouldered, Transvestites. What true place of the night would be complete with out transvestites? Where I am from, you don’t see a lot of Transvestites, so I can’t help but stare sometimes. The first thought that goes through my mind is always, “what an ugly women. She must have fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.” As the ogre gets closer, my second thought is always, “ooohhhh, right.” On this particular evening in Taksim, I was amazed by one’s 5 o’clock shadow (how could they let that go?!) and I guess I gawked a little bit too long, because she, err he caught my look. My face was expressionless – my mouth may have open a little bit in disbelief, which I suppose could be taken the wrong way. He noticed me, and attempted to do a feminine smile back at me. I immediately turned and walked the other way.

The funny thing about the Transvestites I have seen in Taksim is they are probably the worst kinds of guys to dress up as women. They have such masculine forms and shapes to their faces and bodies that they could never fool anybody. This leads to the question of why none of the guys with feminine looks, and there are many, are not playing for the other team on Friday nights?

Occam’s Razor tells us that the simplest answer to a problem is the right answer until it can be proven wrong. In this case, our simplest answer is that they do change uniforms at half time, and have just been fooling me so far. Scary thought isn’t it?