tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799914692887174209.post616532016239857578..comments2024-01-15T21:30:40.609+03:00Comments on Istanbul's Stranger: How I Completely Suck At Life, Part I: Further Adventures With DoctorsStrangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933997864575809110noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799914692887174209.post-69252474868220545052011-11-01T21:45:36.983+02:002011-11-01T21:45:36.983+02:00@ Cook, I wish that was our muhtar! I've never...@ Cook, I wish that was our muhtar! I've never actually been to our new one. I found this picture by searching "burası Türkiye" in Google images. That's where the other "burası Türkiye" picture came from too...<br /><br />@ Anonymous, this was my first chest x-ray, though I've had an MRI for back pain before. Guy didn't even look at it. I've found the trick with hospitals is to go to ones that are just a step or two above state and don't let on you have private insurance until it looks like it's getting expensive.<br /><br />@ Bülent, that Sir and Ma'am works kind of the same in the States too (unless you're Southern-- for some reason it sounds genuine coming from them). It totally infuriates people but they can't do anything because you're being polite. It often makes them do what you want if they think their superiors are listening... Once in the airport there was a man walking ahead of me whose backpack was coming open and his laptop was on its way out. I started after him calling "Sir! Sir!Excuse me, sir!" because I couldn't think of another way to get a stranger's attention from behind, and he whipped around all pissed off. So the first thing I did before telling him about the backpack was apologize for calling him "Sir."<br /><br />Anyway, I'll try it in Turkish if I end up having to sort out some terrible bureaucratic mess. LE's getting to big to get us bumped to the front of the line...Strangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933997864575809110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799914692887174209.post-13894050459699619112011-11-01T18:05:10.623+02:002011-11-01T18:05:10.623+02:00Folks, some of this is the same for natives. It t...Folks, some of this is the same for natives. It took me five days (7 calendar days) of part time running around just to convince the state that I am who I say I am and that I live here. Even my dad got resurrected at some point (I thought was being smart and saving a lot of hassle by going my old muhtar until I saw whose paperwork I was just given with my picture on it). All throughout the various hassles, my muhtar was cheerful and as a dubious bonus he showed up at my door and kissed me when he was campaigning for re-election. <br /><br />For health stuff, antibiotics can be had OTC here (perhaps this changed?). I haven't checked recently but a couple of years ago when my throat was swollen and I ran a fever for a few days, I just went to a pharmacy and asked the pharmacist what cheap antibiotic the MD's had been prescribing that season. Took about five minutes and sth. like 5-10TL. <br /> There's also an odd mechanism you can sometimes trigger by calling people hanimefendi or beyefendi (perhaps with a tone? dunno). I don't fully understand how it works but it seems to produce an effect similar to being explicitly disrespectful (as in 'hadi hadi ugrastirma beni, yap sunu'). The difference is that if you fail to credibly imply that you are powerful through the I-can-treat-you-like-a-dog attitude you can get in trouble. The other option is safe even if it doesn't work. Note that being formally polite in the way outlined is different than treating people well. I have heard it called "ust sinif cekmek." I don't know if it'd work with a non-native accent though.<br /><br />Oh I also remember, from years ago, going to the post office here with an Englishman (who spoke Turkish well) and being instructed by him to keep my mouth shut and act foreign. He acted as though he spoke no Turkish at all and magic happened: the guys there who started with 'olmaz' 'blah blah eksik' and met our blank stares and stupid grins somehow got things to work and gave him his books. Having gone through a similar process that took me hours (perhaps days, I seem to remember the books needing to go to a different office to be checked) I was amazed.Bulent Murtezaoglunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799914692887174209.post-57509540998406740592011-10-30T20:51:20.513+02:002011-10-30T20:51:20.513+02:00Oh, dear Stranger, I hope you are feeling better. ...Oh, dear Stranger, I hope you are feeling better. 'Tis the season to get ill. Working in a school does not help. I hope you have your heat turned on in your building!!<br /><br />Commiserations:<br /><br />I got a new place back in June, and went to see the muhtar three times. Because every time I thought I had completed the paperwork, she asked me for something else. Neither of us ever lost our humor, but I told her the last time, very meaningfully, that I hoped this was our last visit, because I was *finished* and flying away very soon. She was all smiles and I can't tell if the runaround was purposeful or not. But I do think she liked me. She certainly got to know me.<br /><br />Funny, the electric and water people just thought I was a hopeless case, though I managed to make myself understood in my pidgin Turkish. They bumped me up to the front of the line on my second visits, and while I normally am embarrassed by such benefits, I rolled with it. I was flying in days and wasn't too particular about making my needs known. <br /><br />About hospitals, all of my Turkish neighbors laugh at me. Because I go to private hospitals and tell them "My head has been full of snot for six weeks; I need some medicine" and they take an x-ray of my head to show me that my head is, indeed, full of snot. Why thank you! I certainly needed that radiation to the brain.... I go to the emergency room and say "I have a gut inflammation for the fourth time in four years, please, please prescribe me Cipro!" and after ruling out appendicitis with a sonogram, x-rays, and an MRI (seriously, WTF?) and making me drink all kinds of liter-bottles of enamel-dissolving, unlabeled fluids, they tell me that I have a gut inflammation and prescribe me Cipro. Radiating my body seems to be inflating the coffers of all the private hospitals in Istanbul. I'm just not sure yet how to get around that. Like I said, it's entertainment for the neighbors. In the end, as a foreigner, I could be at the mercy of much worse people than Turkish doctors and muhtarcis, who, if anything, can only be accused of being rather too thorough....<br /><br />*sigh* Never mind my stories; it's your blog for your stories. I just needed to commiserate for a few minutes. I do hope that you both are feeling better very soon....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799914692887174209.post-9109311646068391022011-10-29T10:27:47.690+03:002011-10-29T10:27:47.690+03:00I've been laughing all the way through your po...I've been laughing all the way through your post - how We Who Live Here can identify with it all. Love the pic of your muhtar though - I thought that type had disappeared. Mine is a mother-daughter combo and they are very modern! Geçmiş olsun to you both.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12220863323015658310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799914692887174209.post-16943775371328174172011-10-28T10:57:29.221+03:002011-10-28T10:57:29.221+03:00@renai, thanks!
@Vicky, oooh, the smirky glancing...@renai, thanks!<br /><br />@Vicky, oooh, the smirky glancing around. It hardly ever ends up good. Sometimes I resist the urge to point back and forth with two fingers at our eyes, saying, "Come on now, focus, that's it, work with me here, you can do it..."Strangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933997864575809110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799914692887174209.post-67239279918978896412011-10-28T10:47:21.148+03:002011-10-28T10:47:21.148+03:00I forgot to say, when our water man comes to give ...I forgot to say, when our water man comes to give us the white paper which gives you a few hours before he comes back to cut it off, he hides the paper in the water meter cupboard without telling me it's there so the first i know about it is when I turn on the taps and nothing comes out. I then go and pay the bill yet no one comes to turn it back on so my husband takes off the lock so we can use it again (highly illegal). The last time this happened, the guy came to turn our water back on a full 7 days after he'd turned it off and 7 days after the bill was paid. What on earth did he think we were doing in this time?! Hmmm.Vicky, Bursanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799914692887174209.post-32541878226408567382011-10-28T07:25:53.242+03:002011-10-28T07:25:53.242+03:00you are so right about the banks and how people de...you are so right about the banks and how people deal with you there. Do you ever ask someone a question in a shop and see them glance around to their friends, smirking, then giggling and nervous and think to yourself, 'please just listen to the words I am saying as I know I'm going to have to repeat them all over again once you've got over your shock at being asked a question by a yabanci'? I was also explaining to my husband how unnerving it is to hear these murmurings of 'yabanci'behind me when I leave shop or even walk down the street - it's like a greek chorus and I'm sure it's not just in my head. I love the people who ask me where I'm from, though - they are engaging me in conversation instead of treating me like a dangerous pregnant alien. Although I miss turkey when i visit family in the uk it is rather lovely not to be a yabanci for a while.Vicky, Bursanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2799914692887174209.post-45591000247031627302011-10-27T22:52:38.217+03:002011-10-27T22:52:38.217+03:00I guess I shoud be very Turkish and say 'geçmi...I guess I shoud be very Turkish and say 'geçmiş olsun'. Not to add insult to illness, but I had a good giggle at your post as I totally can relate to the antics with the doctors, the SSK/Bag-Kur run around the automatic bill paying hoplessness! I guess geçmiş olsun applies to all of those things really. Feel better soon.renaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01923518688808195214noreply@blogger.com