Buying a Carpet

It was crystal clear from early on that my mother wanted a carpet from Turkey. I was kind of hoping she would forget about it, but when I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, any hopes I had of escaping Turkey without having to bargain for a rug were dashed. I pouted for a little bit, then decided to stop whining and just get it over with. I wanted to get my mommy something nice. I steeled myself for the treacherous journey ahead of me. You can kind of look at buying a carpet in Turkey as a weird rite of passage for any savvy traveler.

Carpet buying is a game of skill and wit. Only the strong survive, at the end of the day emerging victorious from the Grand Bazaar, holding aloft a well-made but decently priced rug. It takes people years to learn the ins and outs of scoring a quality carpet. I would have to learn all of it in a couple of intensive sessions.

Ceylan and I decided to hit up tourist central, the area around the Blue Mosque, to start looking at rug shops. We had just got off of the tram, and were walking with our friends Tracey and Alissa, when a man said to us "Hey, are you from the US too?" in a flawless American accent. The question was cleverly constructed, designed to signal to us: "Hey, I am not a strange Turkish guy on the street trying to strike up a conversation with a bunch of Americans in the MOST touristic area in the city, hell no, I am one of you guys! Can you help a buddy out?" I tried to just keep on walking and ignore him, which, as explained in a previous post, is my typical M.O. when random people on the street call out to me. But Tracey felt bad I suppose, and he replied to the man that, yes, he was in fact American. That was all it took to get sucked into a three hour odyssey with this weird guy on the street. The man had a young lady companion with him, who said nothing and just stood next to his side. He told us that he was Turkish, but that he lived in the US and was married to an American women, with whom he had two young sons. Then he asked us where we were from. When I grumbled that I was from Florida, he perked up and told us that he lived in Sarasota, Florida, where he operated a carpet store. This begged my following question, what the heck was he doing in Istanbul. He replied that he travels back and forth to restock his inventory. This man finally got it out of us that I had come to Sultan Ahmet particularly to find a rug for my mother, and he graciously invited us to his "private" shop, which was conveniently only a few blocks down. It seems like the worst idea on the planet, but we actually opted to go with him. I figured that, at worst, he was just going to try to pressure us into buying a carpet, and that he was probably not interested in killing us. Too messy, and bad for the rug business. Besides, we were traveling in a pack, so we had the advantage of numbers. On the way to the shop, I started speaking to the man's mute companion, who I assumed beforehand was his wife. She told me that she was from Isparta, a small town to the East, and that she worked for the carpet guy. She was very nice; and I have a feeling the carpet guy had her stand next to him on the street so that they looked more like a traveling couple instead of a lone hawker of wares.

The carpet guy's shop was actually very nice, occupying a three-story building that looked to be converted from an old Ottoman house. We were brought tea, and our "lesson" in buying carpets began. I should explain right here and now the difference between hali and kilim rugs when buying a carpet in Turkey. The word "hali" is used to describe a pile rug of the sort one normally imagines when thinking of an "Oriental Rug," with a central medallion and flowery designs. A "kilim" is a flat-woven rug that is usually done in earthy tones and has a folk or village connotation to it. The designs on kilims kind of remind me of those on Navajo rugs. Anyway, the carpet guy basically told us to buy a carpet that was of quality wool, had natural dyes, and had a lot of knots. At that point a random blond Canadian girl, about my age, strolled in randomly and our host left with her. After he left, his very nice young assistant showed us a few more rugs, and then we left. I have to give the guy credit; he did pick us up off the street and his rugs were expensive, but from what I saw later his rugs were of nice quality, had pretty designs, and he did not pressure me too much to buy. Ceylan and I popped into a few more carpet stores along the road near the Blue Mosque, and I continued to develop a feel for quality and prices. I also took a ton of pictures of the rugs I saw, and I showed them to my mom over the internet for her feedback so I could get even a better sense of what she wanted. My journey had begun, but I knew my next and final destination had to be the Grand Bazaar.

One of the reasons I was quick to avoid buying a carpet is that I am really bad at bargaining, a key component of the transaction. I picked up a few tricks while living in Egypt, but I have fallen out of practice and I still feel helpless when volleying prices back and forth. Imagine the haggling scene in "Life of Brian," when the merchant is coaching Brian through bargaining for a fake beard, and subsequently a gourd thrown in to sweeten the deal (please watch this movie if you have not). That is usually what happens to me, with the sales person kind of nudging me and feeding me my lines ("Ok, now you should offer 10 lira..."). The second reason I was hoping to avoid it is that the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is the biggest tourist trap in the world. I went a lot to the big bazaar in Cairo, the Khan al-Khalili (fun to pronounce, but not to visit), and I sort of feel that once you have experienced one medieval, Middle-Eastern bazaar, you've kind of got the idea and there is not much need to visit all of them. The one saving grace of the Khan al-Khalili is that is also a popular hang out for locals, and a place to buy regular housewares as well as the tourist chotchkies (how do you pluralize chotchky?). The Grand Bazaar, or Covered Bazaar in Istanbul, may have originated as a local bazaar, but the main part is purely geared towards tourists, which makes it a little terrifying. I also could never seem to find a day it was open. Turks constantly assured me that it was open 365 days a year, but I began to realize they have absolutely no idea when the bazaar is open or not because most Turks rarely visit the bazaar regularly, if at all. They just assume it is always open, which is not true. The only time I could ever find time to go was during a holiday or on the weekend, usually Sunday, and it would always be closed. The name for the Grand Bazaar in Turkish is "Kapalı Çarşısı," which literally means "covered market." "Kapalı" can mean both "closed" and "covered," and the meaning here is the latter because the bazaar is not an open-air market but rather has a roof, but I joked with people that for me the Grand Bazaar was literally the "Closed Market" because every time I wanted to go it was closed, about five times in a row before I finally got it right.

Immediately after my friend Olga came from the airport, I had her plunge right into Turkey by accompanying me to the Grand Bazaar. It took us forever to even find the carpet section, what with the bazaar being a maze of alleys. The bazaar is organized by goods, with all of the jewelry or leather shops located in one section. The rug section is further to the back, and it took about 30 minutes of wandering just to happen upon it. As I feared, Olga and I were barraged with pleas of vendors, some getting right up into our faces, who were desperate for us to go into their shops. I am really turned off by that, so I just kept on walking and decided to go to the first shop whose owner did not verbally accost us. We walked for awhile, and I dodged down a side-street, desperate for a break. It was then that I noticed a small little rug shop. The owner was a sweet-looking older man, and he was sitting inside of the shop. His desk was scattered with pencils and hand-written notes, and his half-eaten lunch. He was talking on an old black rotary phone, and as I peeped into the shop, he looked at me with an expression of interest but he did not hurry to finish his phone conversation. This was my kind of guy. I asked him if he would show me some of his rugs, and he told me he usually sold whole-sale, but he wouldn't mind showing some to me. He unfurled quite a few kilims of a size and quality I felt to be within my price range. When I asked them how much they were, I was floored--they were about half the price I was expecting. I told him in that case, he might as well start busting out kilims of the next size up. He did, and we found quite a few I thought my mom would like. Olga even found a rug she liked for herself. In the end, I selected a cute blue and yellow number, and I bargained down Olga's rug if we bought them together on the same credit card. The man was super nice, and served us a lot of tea. After the tranaction was pretty much complete, I noticed on his wall a rug that had a lot of calligraphy on it. It was clearly very well done and very expensive; the calligraphy was done with a silk thread. The pride of place in the shop indicated to me that the owner loved it very much. I asked him if he knew what the calligraphy said. He told me that he did not read Arabic or Ottoman Turkish, but he knew the center was a Sura from the Qur'an, but beyond that he had no idea. Show-off that I am, I got up and looked at the piece a little longer, and told him that it was a sura from the Qur'an, and that there were medallions around the border that contained the words "Muhammad" and "Ali" in Kufic script. The owner was really excited; he had always thought the border was just an abstract decoration, and he never knew that it was calligraphy too. He offered for us to have some more tea. Unfortunately, we had to go, but I was really starting to like this guy. He was very nice, and I would take anyone who wanted to buy a rug there in a heart-beat.

So, in sum, my quest turned out quite well, and I managed to find something my mother loved. I was very happy with what I found, and I will even admit now that going through the process of buying a rug here in Turkey was actually a little fun!


<--My ugly mug with a rug. A nice rug with "tribal" designs-->

Basilica Cistern

My friend Olga also came and visited me for about a week and a half. We had many crazy travels outside of Istanbul, which I shall relate later, but one of the last things we did together before I left Istanbul was visiting the Basilica Cistern in the Golden Horn area. There are literally hundreds of ancient reservoirs underneath the city, and this is the largest. The cistern was apparently begun by Constantine and expanded by the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century. The fresh water was piped in from the Black Sea region and it was kept full in case of siege. The cisterns were lost and forgotten, and became victims of trash dumping and pollution. In the 16th century the cistern was re-discovered by an Italian researcher, who found it after locals reported that they could miraculously retrieve water by lowering buckets through their floors. The cistern has been well-restored in the last century.

I mostly wanted to see the place because it was in the Bond movie "From Russia With Love." Bond spies on the Russian consulate (in reality quite far from the cistern) through a periscope while sitting in a boat in the cistern. The cistern itself has a lot of cool ancient columns, including two with large Medusa heads. Also, there are carp that live in the water, which I am sure was a bonus meal when people were drawing water back in the day!

Kurban Bayrami

Around the end of November, I noticed these little stuffed-doll rams popping up everywhere on the streets. The first one was staring out at me from a carpet shop,  standing in the center of a huge rug. I shrugged it off, and kept on walking down the street. I then noticed another stuffed ram doll, this time with an adorable red bow around its neck, hanging out on top of boxes of nuts in front of a grocery store. Later that afternoon, the third ram stared at me next to the cash register where I was paying for my lunch. Once was normal, twice was a coincidence, but three cute ram dolls in a day would make any reasonable person suspicious. I knew something was up. When I asked some Turkish friends why the town was being invaded by pint-sized sheep dolls, they explained that this was a sign of the imminent Kurban Bayrami, one of the most important holidays in Turkey, and the rest of the Muslim world.

When it comes to Muslim holidays, most people have heard about the holy month of Ramadan, a time of fasting and contemplation, and Eid, a huge celebration at the end of Ramadan. "Kurban Bayrami," literally "Festival of Sacrifice" in Turkish, occurs about a month after the end of Ramadan. This festival is known by many different names around the world, the most recognized being the Arabic "Eid al-Adha." Kurban Bayrami commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son as a demonstration of his obedience to God. As many of you might remember from Sunday School, God stays Abraham's hand and sends him a ram to sacrifice instead. Therefore, on Kurban Bayrami, every household that is able selects a ram and sacrifices it on the first day of the four-day festival. The meat of the ram is then distributed to the poor. 

The "bayram" (holiday)  lasts for four days, which is typically extended to include a week with weekends on both sides. Everyone usually travels back home and is obligated to make several visits to relatives. Explaining what actually happens during the festival is complicated because in Turkey the religious practices vary depending on how rural or urban the location, and traditions and laws regarding the event have changed over the decades. When I was first told about the holiday, I was freaked out and yet morbidly curious. I was told that years ago blood would literally run in the streets of Istanbul. Makeshift sheep markets were set up in large 

open spaces in the city, typically in front of a mosque, and the head of the household would go and select a ram a few days before the festival. (left) I can't help but wonder if the men of the families sit around and argue over the physical merits of the rams when making their selections, just as my brother and I bicker every Christmas in the parking lot of Chamberlain High School over the merits of a particular Douglas fir. After the ram has been selected in the market, it is taken home, and tied up to a post or a tree until the big day. On the first day of Kurban Bayrami, the local butcher makes the rounds, cutting the throats of the animals. The actual killing of the animal sounds very much like the procedure for kosher meat, where a person has to pray before and after a kill, and cut the animal's throat in a specific way that is thought to make it suffer the least. 

In Istanbul, I unfortunately, or fortunately, saw little to no physical evidence of the festival in terms of the animals being killed. Several years ago, the Turkish government passed laws to regulate the practices during the festival. First, the markets are now in designated areas that are not exactly in big touristy areas. Also, in order for a household to slaughter their own ram, they must have an appropriate outside space that is closed from the public. These rules prevented people in apartments or homes with no yard space from killing the animal in public, offending children, the faint of heart, and ex-pat vegetarians. Also, I was told that the Turkish government has also banned people from distributing raw meat to the poor themselves because it is not sanitary, but I heard people do it anyway. My Fulbrighter friends who are living in more rural Turkish towns seem to have had a more traditional Kurban Bayrami experience, witnessing trucks full of rams humming down the street in preparation for the holiday. That is why so many of them came and visited me in Istanbul during the festival, because they are not as curious as I to see this holiday go down in less urban areas. One interesting thing that I did notice was that, at least in Istanbul, the religious practices are being packaged and regulated in a more modern way. At many large shopping centers like Carrefour and Migros, or on the street in large public areas, I saw tables set up for NGOs that basically offer Kurban Bayrami services for the holiday. For a fixed price, the NGO will do all the dirty work for you of selecting a ram, killing it, and distributing the meat. The advantage of these packages is that a family does not have to do the work of finding a ram and killing it, and arguably these international NGOs are much more organized and have identified communities of great need who would benefit from the donations the most. Sacrifice by proxy probably still won't comfort PETA enthusiasts, but at least it is convenient!

Zeus Bar

From Thursday, December 4, to Thursday, December 11, I had a steady stream of Fulbrighters staying with me for the religious holiday Kurban Bayram. Cat was visiting some friends, so I was on my own to shuttle people about. All five of my Fulbrighter guests are teaching English in universities around Turkey. As some of you may or may not know, there are several different kinds of Fulbright grants available. On my grant, I am a student conducting independent research. But we also have Fulbrighters here working on their dissertations, taking a sabbatical from their jobs as university professors, or, like my friends, teaching English at various universities around Turkey. Some of my friends are living in pretty remote places, with populations in six digits, and no other native English speakers to talk to, so they were all happy to escape to Istanbul for the break. 

One of our discoveries was  Zeus Bar in Kadikoy, on the Asia side. My friend Tracey found it last year with some friends. It is a bar that specializes in blasting heavy death metal into your ears from speakers installed in every possible corner of the establishment. The decorations are impressive, with old record covers lining the walls, pictures of great rockers hovering over the bar, nails protruding from the ceiling, and even a little "love loft" for couples to snuggle in while being serenaded by Black Sabbath. The DJ is also the bartender, managing the phat beats from his iTunes playlist. And, the coup de grace is a massive stuffed eagle over the bar. 

<- Me in front of the bar. What is with my elbow? Tyra would be pretty angry about that pose!

The Zeus Cafe is apparently a three star establishment, but it makes five in my book! ->

<- Tracey and Ceylan rocking out.

Ceylan with the sweet eagle. ->

Back in Business

Dear Everyone,

I am returning to writing the blog after a long hiatus. I have prided myself thus far on posting fairly regularly, however, in the month of December I had several guests and took many trips outside of Istanbul. These adventured yielded a lot of material for the Blog, but they also prevented me from finding the time to record our adventures. Luckily, I am now spending Christmas in Florida for about the next two weeks, and I will have the time to catch up and post about all of the crazy stuff that happened. Unfortunately, my posts will probably not be as chronological as they usually are. So stay tuned! Also, thank you to everyone who checks in on the Blog. I am always surprised to hear how many of you do. Your responses and contributions enhance my experience abroad, and encourage me to write more. Thank you!

Out of the Office

I will be away from my desk until I go home to Florida. I have had guests in Istanbul for the past week, and I have another guest until I leave in 9 days, which makes for very exciting adventures, but not much time to leave blog posts. Once the dust settles and I am at home, I will do my best to catch up and fill all of you in on the craziness that has been the last week and a half. Sorry for the delay!

Chucks

I don't know if Converse is a big thing in the rest of the world right now, but it has certainly taken Istanbul by storm. I can't walk down the street or ride the bus without noticing a scuffed white-tipped shoe peeping out from underneath someone's jeans. Istanbul has a way of destroying your footwear in about half the time of many other major cities, because you walk everywhere. I needed another pair of walking shoes, so buying me a pair of Chuck Taylor's seemed to be just the thing. I pondered for half a second about buying some sketchy knock-offs from under the bridge, but then I decided that they probably wouldn't be as comfortable as real ones. So Ceylan and I trotted down to Istiklal Street and headed into this shoe store that basically seemed to specialize in just Converse. There were a myriad of colors, and I was thinking about going for something really exciting like red, purple, maybe even green paisley. But I remember my friend Wu mentioning that she had just bought a pair of gray Chucks back in the States, and she loved them because they went with everything. Utility beats out excitement for me every time. I now am the proud owner of some gray Converse high-tops. I was worried that Wu and I would match, but I figured that it didn't matter so much, since we are not currently living on the same continent and all. This marks the first time I have donned a pair since my days as a third grader. Have I reached an age where styles are starting to recycle themselves, or am I just dressing like an 8-year-old? I will leave that up to my audience to decide. 

Eating is a Dangerous Game

So I got food poisoning on Monday. Or at least, I think I did. After the ney lesson on Sunday, we all went out to Istiklal Street and had some delicious but incredibly greasy borek, which is basically a layered pastry with feta cheese and whatever else you might want like potatoes or spinach. I thought everything was fine until I woke up in the night and had sharp shooting pains in my stomach and felt really nauseous. I eventually fell back to sleep but tossed and turned for the rest of the night, dreaming of evil borek attacking me. The next morning, quite stupidly, I decided it was a good idea to go about my day as normal without taking some rest. I went to the museum, where my co-workers kindly informed me that I looked like death, but I actually powered through my shift there, mostly just to show off. I then went to my private Turkish lesson, determined to get through it because I have been canceling our sessions the whole week before because of some other obligations. My tutor, Bekir, also was a little concerned. For some reason, my Turkish gets a little better when I am slightly delirious. I have heard other people say that they can speak other languages better when they are drunk, and I think this might be the same principle, that you can just achieve more fluency when you are out of your head. In Turkish, you just say "I was poisoned" to indicate that you got food poisoning. The fact that the poisoning was done by food is usually implied. When I uttered this phrase to Bekir, he looked concerned and asked without skipping a beat, "Oh? Which hospital did you go to? Istanbul has many good ones." I looked confused and told him that I had not been to a hospital. At this point Bekir's eyes bulged and he gasped, "WHAT?Are you crazy? What do you mean you didn't go to a hospital?" He then looked me over nervously as if I might die on the spot. Bekir grabbed a notepad, tore off a page, and wrote the numbers "112." He stuffed it in my hand. "That is the Turkish version of 911, just in case," he said. I noticed that for the rest of the lesson Bekir's grip on his cell-phone tightened slightly every time I assured him that I was fine, really, while I sagged lower into my chair. I thought it was interesting that Bekir automatically assumed I had gone to a hospital. Perhaps he is extremely fastidious in his own medical care. I managed to get through the rest of the lesson, even though I insisted on just doing a Turkish crossword puzzle for the last 30 minutes. That evening, I developed more flu-like symptoms, like aches and feeling very tired. Today and yesterday I feel tons better, which leads me to believe I may not have had food poisoning. But I prefer to say it anyway because it sounds so much more exotic than "a minor cold." "24-hour flu" doesn't even sound as cool as food poisoning. After it is over, food poisoning is a red badge of courage you can proudly boast to the world. In the end, the silver lining out of all of this is for the moment I cannot stand the site of anything remotely greasy, which is a plus because that stuff is not good for me anyway, even though I have a terrible weakness for it. I usually only try to treat myself to that stuff when on vacation, or just once in a while, but unfortunately living in Turkey feels like a vacation, just one that goes on for a whole year. This frame of mind can lead me down roads of delicious but bad food that I probably shouldn't go down. Luckily, my little lethal borek adventure should keep me away for now. Also, I consider myself lucky that I have gone three months without having an intestinal problem of any kind, compared to the wondrous range of bacteria thriving in the food of Egypt. Istanbul gets two thumbs up for hygiene!

Music Lesson

On Sunday, Ceylan and I were invited by a fellow Fulbrighter to attend a special music lesson. Our friend is a PhD student in ethnomusicology (an anthropologist specializing in music) and she is here working on a thesis about Ottoman music. Anyway, she is a musician herself and has quite a few friends in the "classical Ottoman" music community here. Our projects run along similar lines, because the areas we study, music and calligraphy, were both cultivated to an extremely high standard  during the Ottoman period, and continue to have active communities of followers even after the establishment of the Turkish republic, a time when religious-related activities were discouraged. Ottoman music and calligraphy are also similarly taught through a master-apprentice relationship. This music lesson was for the ney, an ancient instrument that is similar to a flute. It is made out of some kind of reed, and is very difficult to play because one blows the air from the side of one's mouth to make a sound. The ney was used very often in a Sufi (Islamic mystical communities) context. I am including some pictures of a famous Egyptian ney player and a sculpture of a Sufi playing the ney just to give you an idea of what it looks like. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures during the lesson, because I felt that it might not be appropriate. The lesson was held in the Golden Horn area, at the Hakim Oglu Ali Pasa Mosque, which was built almost 300 years ago. The students meet in an extremely old stone library adjacent to the mosque. The library itself was very impressive, situated above the mosque complex's gateway. The library was square in shape, and all sides were lined with benches decorated with comfortable cushions. In the middle of the room were the book shelves forming a kind of cube, which was standing on four strong pillars, high enough that you could walk under the cube itself if you ducked slightly. I assume the books were reached by a ladder. The plan was ingenious, making the best use of the floor space, while also making room for the books. When we entered the library, a group calligraphy lesson was just finishing up. These mosque libraries seem to be used to teach a whole range of activities, from calligraphy to music, and I assume at times paper marbling or Qur'an recitation. We all found a space on the benches, and our friend's acquaintance the ney master began the lesson by passing out music sheets for a song. It was done in Western musical notation. Our friend explained to Ceylan and I, who know very little about music, that Italians first introduced the Ottomans to Western musical notation years and years ago, but even if done in Western notation there were still notes and ranges that did not exist in Western music. The master began by giving short talk on the ney player who wrote the song, demonstrating as I mentioned before, the importance of biography in music and calligraphy. Then the master played the song, had the students recite the song's notes with the "Do-Re-Me" method, then the students split up into groups of two or three to work out the song. After that, the groups came together and the master asked each one to play for him. He would make individual comments while the student was playing and after the student was done. After this, pacing back and forth, the teacher lectured the students on the importance of diligent practice, and asked the students what this passion would require. One talkative student ventured, "Love?" The master latched onto this idea and launched into a whole speech comparing playing the ney to being in love. A good ney player should show the signs of being in love, like not wanting to sleep or eat, etc. It was very poetic. What I found so interesting was how these musicians clearly considered themselves practicers of an Ottoman art form, with no break in the tradition. I think some people from the outside looking in can't help but think of these musicians as "modern Turks" practicing an "Ottoman" form that is somehow becoming more historical than a thriving tradition because the context from which it originated, the Ottoman court, is now gone. You could probably make the argument, however, that the ney tradition was passed down through Sufi lodges, which were always on the fringes of society anyway. This question of identity and the role of the artist figures prominently in my research of Turkish calligraphers as well. Before the lesson, the master ney player asked me who my favorite calligraphers were. I asked him if he meant modern or Ottoman calligraphers. He gave me a wry smile and replied that there was no such thing as a "modern" calligrapher.