preserve of wizened old men with much time on their hands and weighty issues to discuss. I have only glimpsed this anti-harem from the street; I would dearly love to go in one day and join in the topic at hand but I can predict the appalled silence that would fall like a guillotine and, frankly, I don’t have the nerve.
The berber is different; a place of work, it is bustling with men in white overcoats wielding trimmers and combs, customers pinioned beneath towels and the impending razor. Often I come with visitors from London for whom I have to translate, although I cannot resist abusing this power and instructing the barber to leave a modest goatee. By far the most dramatic part of the shave is the finale, when the barber jabs a stick of flaming cotton wool into his victim’s face to burn off fine cheek hairs, swiping mercilessly into ears and nostrils, and leaving a delicate whiff of hair brûlé . By the time a rough head massage and the dousing of hair in copious amounts of lavender cologne have been performed, the previously gung-ho English traveller is a perfectly coiffed shell of his former self.
The barber is yet another example of an old-fashioned tradition which is still very much going strong, regardless ofthe invention of Gillette disposable razors and 8 a.m. office starts. Of course, not every Turkish man visits the berber every day, but there are a huge number of them about, and I have never seen one empty. Most are packed. Why?
The berber is basically a social club in another guise; for most regular customers, it is not so much the shave they go for but the camaraderie. It is a time-honoured, gently macho ritual: Turkish men like to groom themselves, but they like to do so in the company of other men: tea is consumed, politics discussed, wives complained about. It is another example of the wonderful Turkish appetite for sharing life with peers, a kind of unassuming assertion of the right to be sociable, a quiet stand against the individualism of our times.
Much of what is now, to the Western eye, old-fashioned, is for a Turk timeless, because it is rooted in a sense of community that is here to stay in the teeth of encroaching modernisation. Neighbourhoods in the middle of Istanbul still have a village-like feel; I remember being woken by the hoarse cry of a street seller on my first morning in Istanbul: ‘ Sarımsakçı geldi, sarımsakçı geeeldiiii! ’ (‘The garlic seller has arrived!’) I had no idea what was being said at the time. A young man was slowly pushing a hand cart through the street, full of garlic as advertised, and interested old biddies were poking their heads out of windows above. Regular customers started lowering coins in baskets from fourth storeys, while the more sceptical waddled down in their brightly coloured şalvar (baggy trousers) to examine the cloves at closer range. A similar scene greets the arrival of the cucumber seller or the hurdacı (rag-and-bone man), who gathers unwanted old knick-knacks from anyone decluttering their home.
Some hawkers have hijacked technology in disturbing ways. I was alarmed one day to hear what I thought must be the police addressing someone – potential terrorists? – through one of those megaphones that, to a Londoner at least, mean serious trouble. Looking anxiously through my window, I saw in the street below a beaten-up van, decrepit megaphone perched precariously on its roof, colourful blankets piled in the back and inside a very portly old codger speaking incoherently through the handset: ‘Blankets fifteen lira only, yes sisters, fifteen lira, don’t miss them!’ Another unexpected arrival was that of the deterjancı (detergent seller), his truck piled high with unmarked bottles of Cif and Domestos decanted cheaply from wholesale containers.
Supermarkets are a relatively recent craze in Turkey, challenging a very strong culture of specialised something-sellers in the street, or the regular, ubiquitous farmers’ markets.
The berber is different; a place of work, it is bustling with men in white overcoats wielding trimmers and combs, customers pinioned beneath towels and the impending razor. Often I come with visitors from London for whom I have to translate, although I cannot resist abusing this power and instructing the barber to leave a modest goatee. By far the most dramatic part of the shave is the finale, when the barber jabs a stick of flaming cotton wool into his victim’s face to burn off fine cheek hairs, swiping mercilessly into ears and nostrils, and leaving a delicate whiff of hair brûlé . By the time a rough head massage and the dousing of hair in copious amounts of lavender cologne have been performed, the previously gung-ho English traveller is a perfectly coiffed shell of his former self.
The barber is yet another example of an old-fashioned tradition which is still very much going strong, regardless ofthe invention of Gillette disposable razors and 8 a.m. office starts. Of course, not every Turkish man visits the berber every day, but there are a huge number of them about, and I have never seen one empty. Most are packed. Why?
The berber is basically a social club in another guise; for most regular customers, it is not so much the shave they go for but the camaraderie. It is a time-honoured, gently macho ritual: Turkish men like to groom themselves, but they like to do so in the company of other men: tea is consumed, politics discussed, wives complained about. It is another example of the wonderful Turkish appetite for sharing life with peers, a kind of unassuming assertion of the right to be sociable, a quiet stand against the individualism of our times.
Much of what is now, to the Western eye, old-fashioned, is for a Turk timeless, because it is rooted in a sense of community that is here to stay in the teeth of encroaching modernisation. Neighbourhoods in the middle of Istanbul still have a village-like feel; I remember being woken by the hoarse cry of a street seller on my first morning in Istanbul: ‘ Sarımsakçı geldi, sarımsakçı geeeldiiii! ’ (‘The garlic seller has arrived!’) I had no idea what was being said at the time. A young man was slowly pushing a hand cart through the street, full of garlic as advertised, and interested old biddies were poking their heads out of windows above. Regular customers started lowering coins in baskets from fourth storeys, while the more sceptical waddled down in their brightly coloured şalvar (baggy trousers) to examine the cloves at closer range. A similar scene greets the arrival of the cucumber seller or the hurdacı (rag-and-bone man), who gathers unwanted old knick-knacks from anyone decluttering their home.
Some hawkers have hijacked technology in disturbing ways. I was alarmed one day to hear what I thought must be the police addressing someone – potential terrorists? – through one of those megaphones that, to a Londoner at least, mean serious trouble. Looking anxiously through my window, I saw in the street below a beaten-up van, decrepit megaphone perched precariously on its roof, colourful blankets piled in the back and inside a very portly old codger speaking incoherently through the handset: ‘Blankets fifteen lira only, yes sisters, fifteen lira, don’t miss them!’ Another unexpected arrival was that of the deterjancı (detergent seller), his truck piled high with unmarked bottles of Cif and Domestos decanted cheaply from wholesale containers.
Supermarkets are a relatively recent craze in Turkey, challenging a very strong culture of specialised something-sellers in the street, or the regular, ubiquitous farmers’ markets.
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