This may help you understand about living amongst TC's and Turks!

Texas


Joined: 22/09/2009
Posts: 634

Message Posted:
27/11/2010 19:53

Quotes from the full article:



"On good days, I love Turkey. But I have long since learned that its people are apt to go berserk on you for no reason whatsoever, and you just can’t trust a word they say. As one Turkish friend put it (a man who has spent many years in America, and thus grasps the depth of the cultural chasm), “It’s not that they’re bad. They don’t even know they’re lying.”



They don’t even know they’re lying. In Turkey, it is normal and expected to say that you will do something, have done something, or agree with something when, in fact, you won’t, haven’t, or don’t. This is so common that no one thinks of it as lying, in the sense that it is not viewed as unethical. It is just being polite. They assume you know they’re not being truthful, and they expect you to be lying as well, so it all evens out. I remember precisely the moment it dawned on me that this is how things work here. I’d asked a Turkish friend to send me an e-mail before noon. (cont'd)

Texas


Joined: 22/09/2009
Posts: 634

Message Posted:
27/11/2010 19:55

(cont'd)



I don’t remember what it was all about now, but it was business-related. Knowing that time here is also a highly plastic concept, I’d pressed the point quite firmly: Before noon. Before the big hand and the little hand are pointing straight up. I had elicited multiple, firm promises that the information would be sent before noon, and that he understood the importance of this. I communicated the reasons why, should he fail to do this, it would cause quite a number of serious problems, not just to me, but to him, because it concerned a joint business venture. (Terrible idea in the first place, but that’s another story.) He agreed at least three times that he would send it.



When he didn’t, I was vexed. “Why,” I asked, “did you say you would send it if you didn’t mean it? If I’d known you weren’t going to do it, I would have known to plan things differently.”



He took umbrage at my tone. “You should have known I didn’t mean it,” he said angrily.



(cont'd)

Texas


Joined: 22/09/2009
Posts: 634

Message Posted:
27/11/2010 19:55

(cont'd)



“How should I have known?”



“Because,” he exploded, “I didn’t want to!” He was enraged, I think, that I could be so obtuse.



http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/articles/2010-JulyAugust/full-Berlinski-JA-2010.html

Fawsley


Joined: 01/05/2010
Posts: 59

Message Posted:
27/11/2010 20:27

Brilliant link, I now understand, I think.



“Long-term thinking,” however, is not really a Turkish trait. If something works for the next two hours, many a Turkish repairman has assured me, that’s good enough. Foreigners here have a word for the kind of jerry-rigged system Turks like to construct rather than building something that might still work in ten years’ time: Turknology. My apartment is full of Turknological wonders: wires that for the moment seem to be conveying electricity, even if I dare not touch them; windows that at least serve to keep the rain out, though they cannot be opened".

No1Doyen


Joined: 04/07/2008
Posts: 16617

Message Posted:
27/11/2010 20:54

An interesting comment from one reader.

A very nice articulation of what it does indeed take years to comprehend about cross-cultural relations. Every culture has its pathologies as I have learned living in Britain, Germany, Russia, and Central Asia, and as visitors to the US learn about its citizens as well. However it's true (as one commentator has pointed out) that the Bush administration invasion of Iraq was based to no small extent on a confusion of truth with emotion along with an ad hoc approach that closely resembles what Berlinsky calls Turknology. Great foreign policy analysis on the basis of anthropology; more of that should be done as the US toys with fantasies of remaking the Middle East in its own.

No1Doyen


Joined: 04/07/2008
Posts: 16617

Message Posted:
27/11/2010 20:55

However one such reader wasn't pleased at all.



This is a really offensive piece. It is not based on any evidence other than the author's subjective impressions it simply reproduces (not even very effectively) stereotypes and, - since World Affairs saw fit to publish this dreadful thing - gives such rants a certain legitimacy. Shame on all of you.

Lilli



Joined: 21/07/2008
Posts: 13081

Message Posted:
27/11/2010 22:46

Jeaz boys your deep tonight xx

No1Doyen


Joined: 04/07/2008
Posts: 16617

Message Posted:
27/11/2010 22:49

A great link from Texas.

Jeannie


Joined: 04/08/2009
Posts: 3283

Message Posted:
28/11/2010 01:52

Just seen/read the 'Texas' link, which made me smile.



It would probably have been even more amusing, were it not so near the truth



Ah well, when in Rome.......................... (it's either do that or send yourself mad).

booitsme


Joined: 04/02/2009
Posts: 667

Message Posted:
28/11/2010 06:47

I have to admit that whenever I'm assured of something here I always add that well used word "belki" - it works for me but there again I never had high expectations of things happening after living inthe north of England for 8 years!

rocking


Joined: 05/11/2008
Posts: 421

Message Posted:
28/11/2010 15:20

When I have asked why they knew they would not turn up for a job on time or place arranged - they tell me they wanted to keep me happy by saying tomorrow when full well knew it would be another week - tried explaining that it doesn't work like that they look bewildered. On the other hand another story I have is that 30 years ago you had to have furniture made no shops here - my husband explained (TC) that for the settee and 2 chairs wanted very plain, no twerls and knobs just straight - drew them. Came back and they they were covered in knobs, twerls etc., a nightmare - the carpenter just looked at me and said 'I do those carvings as a present for you' - so you smile and say 'how kind'.