Before we got to Istanbul, a friend from college advised us to look for accommodations in Kadikoy, a neighborhood on the Asian side of the city. “That’s where all the cool people live these days,” she said. We followed her advice and were not surprised to learn that the couple we rented the room from are both actors in their thirties. Less the glitzy plastic Hollywood type, and more the salt-of-the-earth theater type who views the stage as a platform for art expression as well as social commentary. The first night we arrived we joked that we’re lucky to be staying with famous people. “Just a little bit,” M said as he showed a clip of a popular TV series he had acted in. “But now people are starting to forget me.” His voice trailed off, his tone matter of fact with a touch of self deprecation. She isn’t currently acting either, and works as a drama teacher at a local school.
If maybe at times he seemed a little down, it was because he had not acted in the last year or so. He knows he has talent, having won scholarships to study at the conservatory and the Best New Actor of the Year a few years ago, so he’s optimistic that the right role will eventually come. But understandably, he’s getting impatient and somewhat bitter at the industry who seems to increasingly favor ‘young and handsome’ over ‘experience and talent’.
We like both of them instantly. They are easy going and open, equally eager to explain Turkish culture to us as they are in hearing our stories from the road. It helps that all of us are food lovers. Within a few hours of arriving at their place, they had given us a list of the quintessential Istanbul local food we must try and shared a homemade dessert (ashure – a sweet porridge made of grains, oats and nuts) she had made earlier in the week. When we woke up the next morning, they were busy preparing a traditional Turkish breakfast spread (kahvalti) and menemen (scrambled eggs cooked in tomato sauce and green pepper), and invited us to have breakfast with them.
Their kindness didn’t stop there. After breakfast, M offered to walk with us around the neighborhood to give us the lay of the land and point out different restaurants and street vendors. I tried the famous rice-stuffed mussels (midye dolma) from a road-side stall that he recommended (Delicious!), we played backgammon (tavla) at a local cafe, and for dinner, we went to a local tavern (meyhane) to drink raki and have fried anchovies that are especially fresh this time of year. It tasted similar to the rakija we had in Albania and Montenegro though the anise flavor is stronger, and in Turkey, they don’t drink their raki neat. It’s always mixed half-and-half with water, which turns the alcohol milky white. They also never pound shots with their raki or drink it alone. Raki is to be drunk with food and with friends. No wonder it’s common for taverns to have set combinations on their menu where groups can order 5-10 different small plates of food (meze) and a bottle of raki for a set price.
We decided to extend our stay in Istanbul, and ended up spending a lot of our times hanging out with our new friends. They cooked us dinner and breakfast, we made Indonesian food for them. They taught us a new card game (Americano), which is a close variation of a card game we already knew (Continental), and we played late into the night. We went to the movies together to watch the new Joker movie, and played Okey (a tile game with similar rule to Gin Rummy) at a local game parlour / tavern. We traded our favorite music, artists, movies and TV shows, and learned their views of the country. They told us about their life stories and aspirations for the future, and we shared ours.
At first I was a little bit wary with their generosity, feeling as if we would owe them something if we accept too much of their kindness. “Do we need to tip them at the end of our stay?” I asked Gabriel the second day we were there, worrying that perhaps the food and the walking tour service are their ways of getting extra payment from us. “I think they’re just nice people.”
Gabriel reminded me that we would do the same thing if the roles were reversed and we were welcoming people into our home. How very true. Of all people, I should know. I think after spending a few months in Spain, I’ve forgotten that there exists in this world, thousands of societies where hospitality and generosity to travelers / strangers are the common norms. They had no ulterior motive; they are just kind and generous people.
While M is naturally more extroverted, S is more reserved and shy, partly because she’s a little bit self conscious about her English and partly because she often seemed mentally exhausted after a full day of teaching. I can empathize. On days when she seemed more relaxed, we would converse using a translation app, passing the phone back and forth. I asked her about her family, she asked me about Colorado. I think I showed her a picture of the mountains, which she couldn’t believe was real. At some point she told us that she wished to move to Hollywood one day. “Why?” I asked her, half expecting that she would say something related to her acting career. “Because…,” she paused for a moment, “because American dream,” she said in English.
“What does that mean to you?” I asked her.
She smiled as she read the Turkish translation of my question, as if this was a test question whose answer she had prepared a long time ago.
“Freedom,” she said.
It’s tempting to dismiss her answer as nothing more than a trite platitude she probably ripped off from a Hollywood movie, the same incredulous way I often react whenever I see New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die” license plate.
Freedom is a much more concrete and relatable aspiration when one lives in a country that can be categorized, by most international standards, as a dictatorship, ruled by someone who intends to turn Turkey into a conservative Islamic state. To her, freedom means being able to wear whatever she wants without getting silently judged by people on the street, and we’re not talking about anything obscene like leather chaps or lingerie, just regular modern wear that we all take for granted. I know what she means. When I spent a day walking around the old bazaar area wearing a tank top (exposed shoulders), I could feel the impolite gaze coming from all around. Similar to what’s been happening in Indonesia, Turkey is marching away from the secular, westernized country it was, and is becoming more conservative and more religious. In this case, freedom is neither superfluous nor abstract. It’s actually a very simple straightforward desire.
At the end of our stay, we ended up only seeing a few of the ‘must-see’ tourist destinations, but I felt I knew more about Turkey than any other countries we’ve been to after just one week of hanging out with M & S, who at this point seemed more like old friends than they are strangers. We treasured our time with them because we recognize that this type of honest cultural exchange doesn’t just happen every time we visit a new place. In our experience, it’s actually quite rare to get a local’s true perspective of the place. One, because of there’s often language barrier in the way. Two, because the business of travel has turned interactions into transactions, so instead of real human to human connections, we are served a packaged and monetized version. And sometimes I also think there’s apathy coming from both sides that prevent us from connecting. Each thinking: “Why bother with all the efforts when we will all become strangers again once we part ways?”
I wondered if, being at the crossroads of various trade routes from East to West, North to South, means that Turks are accustomed to receiving travelers and exchanging ideas with travelers from all corners of the world. Perhaps M & S are exceptional host because it’s in their DNA. Whatever the reason, we are grateful we strike it lucky with our new friends in Kadikoy, where all the cool people live these days.