Yasak

Here in Turkey you find this word a lot. Yasak means forbidden... but really only sometimes. From the first day that we arrived in Turkey, to the day we moved into our dorms, to the signs we see in all of the dolmuşes that take to get around, this word has crossed my path. Turkey is known to be a country with contradictions at every turn, this just so happens to be one of these contradictions. It has been a little over a year since smoking was banned inside restaurants, stores, dorm rooms, and nargile (hooka) places, but the signs that mark it as forbidden, oddly enough, often have people smoking under them. A nice smoke free bar can turn into a hazy, cloud filled room anywhere between the hours of 12am and 1am. A dolmuş driver will start smoking when all of the lady passengers have left the bus. A student will smoke in the halls of the dorm or even inside their dorm room if they have altered their smoke alarm a little. This is a statement being made. They are all saying, “So what? I am smoking. Fine me!” While getting caught in doors by the police or by dormitory management will find you out of 62 YTL, people often see it as only 62 YTL and go on about their business. For businesses like restaurants, bars, and nargile places, often a police officer takes a bribe from the owner to conveniently look the other way. It is even more comical when the police is there smoking with the owner. It may be forbidden but really it isn’t.

The second place I found this word was in each and every rule and statement on my housing form. Just to give you a few examples: It is forbidden to have visitors after 11pm and before 2pm. It is forbidden to be in a member of the opposite sex’s dorm after 11pm. (And my favorite)It is forbidden to have alcohol in your dorm room or on campus. For that last one, the cleaning staff (remember the ones that clean your room from top to bottom every week?) check every nook and cranny of your room to make sure that you don’t have any. While it may be forbidden, it surely isn’t. Like all of the other things that are forbidden here, people’s friends and girlfriends come and go as they please, alcohol is conveniently hidden in their locked drawer or in their desks, and there is a general disregard for the rules within limits. Just this week I have been harassed by the head of the DSS, the Dormitory Management Service, on 4 separate occasions this week about having a visitor in or around the dorm. I swear he was stalking me and looking to bust me for cooking with a girl in the kitchen at 11pm, for speaking with a girl in the cafeteria (conveniently attached to our dorm), for speaking with girls outside of our dorm at 3am, and for eating with my friends at 4am in the morning. He even stopped by my room tonight to see if everything was alright and to get me to sign a form for this month that claimed it to be. I should have put everything is alright except for the fact that you are really creepy, but alas, I held back. In all actuality though, he is probably lurking outside of my door as I type this… -shudders-

Even Youtube is yasak. From the words of a angry rantings of a young Greek boy badmouthing Mustafa Atatürk, to the wonderful banter between Youtube and Turkey, my favorite word was born came fourth. Instead of taking down the video, Turkey, as a country, banned Youtube all together. But like everything else here, being forbidden doesn’t really mean much. Here on Koç University campus, Youtube is allowed and its use is even encouraged. Outside of campus, people attain their Youtube fix by using proxy.youtube.com to watch music videos, political speeches, and of course viral videos.

Another place that you will find my new favorite word is on each and every traffic sign. It is forbidden to drive both ways on a one way street, but people do it anyways. This often makes it very difficult to cross a street because you could be looking the right way and still get hit. It is forbidden to drive on the train tracks, but if you have the gusto to do it and you are in either a taksi or on a motor bike it is like your personal lane. It is even forbidden to speak badly about Mustafa Atatürk or about the Türkçe Nation, but people here are very politically oriented so if you argue it right, you might be ok. Everyone here has an opinion on everything political. Either someone is a complete monster or a total saint. If I remember one thing about Turkey, it would have to be that everything here revolves around politics. It is sad, but sometimes I feel that my Turkish friends know more about US politics than I do... I think I might need to read the NY Times a little more.

Here, some rules are meant to be bent and others broken. I just hope that I can keep them all straight, Inşallah!

As always,
You are what you eat, and burası Türkiye (This is Turkey)
JD