So Thursday night a few of us went out to Taksim to get some eating and drinking and dancing done. We started out at this cool place that probably seated 30 people total, and was on the top of a building. I met a very cute Turkish girl who is a friend of a friend here, and we all went out dancing at Araf after we ate. The music there is so great. They played one song that was hilarious, and that I had never heard before. I think it was from the 90s...This is it. The Turkish girl kept touching my thigh at dinner when she would talk to me. It was weird. I didn't read anything into it; I think they do that instead of touching arms here. But it was a bit odd, nonetheless. Because one of our TAs was with us, we tried to speak Turkish for most of the night, which is always a lot of fun. We stayed out until almost 3:00am, sweating like animals on the dance floor.
Friday was our last day of Reading and Writing classes, and that night we were invited to Sabahat Hanım's house for dinner. She lives near Akmerkez in a nice little apartment. Asuman made us more mercimek köftesi, and there was a lot of food. We sat around for a few hours just chatting. Our grammar professor also came by. Sabahat Hanım told us that she used to live in Taksim, until about 8 years ago. Her neighborhood was full of gays and prostitutes, she said. Her neighbors were prostitutes, and so were a lot of her friends there. She is such a badass. She doesn't drink anymore, because she said she used to drink 2 "things" of whiskey a day. I think "things" meant like quadruple shots of whiskey. Clearly, she is an academic. She is probably the most adorable old lady ever, too. And she called me "oğlum" (my son) when we were leaving.
After we all left, around 10:00pm, the group headed to Taksim on the bus. I met up with Mert and his friend Ege, and Sydney and her friend, and the five of us headed to a meyhane to listen to some live Roma music and drink rakı. Before we left the meeting place, though, a crazy guy came up to us and started complaining about the Arab women in çarşaflar (whatever they call it in Arabic, the whole-body veil). I could barely understand him, but he kept pointing to my beard and Ege's beard. Then we hit up the meyhane. It was awesome. The darbuka player was nuts. I don't know how he didn't get exhausted after like 10 minutes of playing as fast as he was. There were, naturally, a few very attractive Turkish girls there, so I married all of them.
Sydney and I tried to meet up with people from our other group after Mert and Ege left (Mert had a final today at 9am, but stayed out until 2:30am with us...hero), but couldn't get ahold of them until it was too late, and we had bought some beers and were in the cab heading home. Our cab driver turned out to be really chatty. When I asked if we could get the daytime rate to Rümelihısarüstü, he said "What an İstanbullite you are!" And from then on we chatted about all kinds of stuff, and the topic eventually came to what a "Turk" really is. He agreed that there is no such thing as a "pure Turk," because everyone has ancestors from outside the country. Then he started quoting the Koran and saying that God made the different nations so that they might know each other. This is also great and pleasant. Then as we got near our dorm he started talking about how "çingeneler ve yahudiler" ("Gypsies and Jews") commit crimes because their ancestors were incestuous. I suggested that Roma and Jews have been oppressed for centuries, and that if anyone commits crimes, it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with their living conditions. And also I said that we (meaning Sydney, myself, and by extension, the USA) try to avoid such racism as much as possible.
It really, really upsets me when otherwise reasonable Turks pull out this racist shit toward the Roma and Jews. As if they have ever even met a Jew in the first place. Their grandparents, great grandparents surely did, because there used to be a LOT of them in Istanbul and "Turkey" more generally. The Ottomans even accepted the Jews from Spain readily after the Reconquista. Everyone here loves fucking conspiracy theories, and I think when this combines with less than tolerant political discourse from far-right nationalist parties, people are far too eager to equate Israeli political and military policy with Judaism. They don't do that with Americans, at least not when they meet one. As for the Roma, I think that racism is more akin to the anti-black racism in the USA, because people here see Roma as committing a disproportionate amount of crime, and instead of trying to empathize with the struggle of those live in awful conditions, they immediately attribute the crime rate to race or ethnicity. Far be it from me to claim that the USA isn't racist, but I would be shocked to find a cab driver that would be that openly racist. The worst part was, our cab driver was an educated man. He had friends in other countries. Oh well. Can't win every battle.
Today I had my old Akbil confiscated and was given a new one because the guy at the Akbil stand put the wrong amount on it. That made me sad, but hey, at least I have an Akbil still.
Tonight I am going on a party cruise with a lot of kids from my program. It should be fun and relaxing. More to come as it develops.
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