Not Going to Miss the Smoker’s Paradise…
At any given moment (except on the bus), I can look around and see at least a dozen smokers in view…first glance. Every other person walking in Taksim, up or down the cobbled streets, is lighting up. The local bar is awash in a cloud of smoke, dangling above the patrons heads. Between that, and the obsession with dairy products (no meal is complete without yoghurt, creme, milk, or cheese), I started to wonder if Turkey was a death trap for cancer and cardiovascular disease. Before I found myself with a headache from staring at a computer screen, I pulled a few facts.
It is estimated that 50-60% of Turkish males and 40-50% of females smoke, which includes 20% of high school students (14-17 years) and 14% of youth (7-13 years). The WHO (World Health Organization) states in a 2006 survey that the mortality rate of Turkey is 18% compared to the United States (13%). The leading killer is related to smoking (ischaemic heart disease) not to mention other cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Sure, the United States has it tobacco-smoking population, but it’s been on the decline. Nowhere along my travels including my past life in California have I seen so many smokers and raised my sweater over my nose so many times. Bleh.
Which brings me to the not-going-to-miss discussion of my stay in Turkey…
1) Smoking
2) Incessant cell phone conversing and texting (Italy was a close second)
3) Uneven sidewalks which disappear, suddenly appearing steps and drops, missing pavers, and other objects to dodge, proving there’s no way you can look up when walking except in the street.
4) The sales personnel in shoe shops, drugstores, cosmetics counters, etc. that hover over you, watching your every move from two feet behind you, which inevitably makes me LEAVE without buying anything. It’s akin to someone watching you pee (drug testing at work, for example)…I get buyer’s fright and suddenly could care less about the healing powers of retail therapy.
5) The nasty comments men have made toward me in Turkish, all dealing with what they’d do to me since I am [fill in the blank -German, Russian, Greek].
6) The obsession with cheese, creme, and yoghurt – I avoided dairy before my relapse to assimilate here. I was lactose intolerant before I
came, and will still be when I leave. Indulgence was no cure, but it did net about 1-2 kilos of added insulation.
7) The fact that I am living in an apartment without an oven or a microwave. ‘Do you know what those do to you?’ ‘Sure…I know it gives off radiation,’ I assure my roommate with the cigarette dangling from her lips, ‘but I’m going to die from a multitude of things I do (occasionally drink), am around (my smoking father of 51 years), or eat (organic costs more), so why spend the little time I have left standing around a burner waiting for my coffee and pastry to heat or washing pans and dishware?’
8) The fact that I don’t speak Turkish limits my buying power, my insulting power, and my ability to positively interact with people.
9) Dreary, rainy, dull gray skies and black-clad professionals make this place more depressing than Seattle’s gloomy climate.
10) The men who scream at the top of their lungs in Turkish ‘Shirts, 5 Lira, Buy my shirt….fill in the blank…’ and as well the ones who walk the residential neighborhoods with their oxcarts crying out to the apartments.
Of course there is the going-to-miss category which is very short.
1) My roommate. If I ever wanted a little sister to nag about going to school, fight over doing the dishes, split cooking duties, and translate for me, she is it.
2) Her twisted cat. If I don’t get writer’s cramp from writing too much, it’s because a black and white Persian keeps laying over my wrists while I try to type. Scratching on my door in the middle of the night because she wants to sleep with me, random crying during the day when she isn’t facing me and thinks she’s alone, and crawling underneath the covers while I sleep are all such redeeming qualities really. I’m becoming soft in my old age. I’ve even listened to “Patience” by Take That, an adult-male boy band from the UK.
3) The immense amount of history, architecture, and beauty of a place so physically and emotionally dark from a turbulent past.
Tags: Death, Istanbul, Smoking, Turkey, Tag Index
cristi.farrell