TURK’S DOUBLE LIFE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 289, 10 November 1925, Page 5

TURK’S DOUBLE LIFE.

WHERE EAST MEETS WEST

LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE.

Notwithstanding Kipling, that “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” Constantinople is an apparent exception. In Cairo—which is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world—East and West jostle together, do business and take their pleasures in common, and yet the line of demarcation is clearly defined (says a writer in an English paper), for if East meets West there it is only a detached meeting, and in differing personalities. In Constantinople, however—that most polyglot of all cities —East meets West, and one person—the Turk—is the embodiment of both.

Pera, meaning the overflow, is the European and main business part of the city. It is to Pera the Turk perforce repairs to do his business, going over in the morning from Stamboul or Scutari, and returning in the evening. One can scarcely recognise Pera from other cities of Europe, so Western is it, with its tramcars, electric lighting, clear streets, daintily arranged shops with “fixed prices,” its motor cars, Embassies and Western customs.

Across the Galatea Bridge, however, at Stamboul, or 25 minutes’ steamer’s sail to Scutari, the Asiatic suburb—whither the Turk returns in the evening—all is changed. It is now exclusively Eastern, with its open bazaars—where prices are only arranged after a battle of wits twixt vendor and purchaser—its numerous mosques, its oxtransport, and its sordid areas. The Levantine, the Greek and the Armenian are the same personalities whether residing East or West of Galatea Bridge. Not so the Turk. One hardly recognises the Turk at home after seeing him at business at Pera. He is another personality.

THE PUBLIC NOTICES

One sees the Turk in Pera, as a true Westerner, smoking a cigarette, dashing past in a motor, and conversing in French only. French is practically the only language used there. Even public notices appear in that tongue. “Jetez vous ordures dans la casso” is the command attached to the rubbish basket, on the lamp standards, and at the termini of the solitary underground railway is the warning: “Mefiez vous les pickpockets.” “Why is it,” the writer asked an influential Turk, “that your public notices here are in French? Don’t you like your own language?” “Certainly,” ho replied. “We love our own tongue, but, alas, everything is Western in Pera, and we must conform to it to be able to do our business.”

“And why the one English . word, ‘pickpockets’ ?” I continued.

“Because there is no counterpart to that word in French,” he added. “I suppose all pickpockets orginally emanated from England.” The writer did not feel flattered at this piece of history, but did not contradict it. The article proceeds:— “I met my friend Izzet Bey in the Grand Rue de Pera. He was smoking a cigarette, and with a cheery nod of his head, and a “Bonjour, monsieur,”

passed me. He was the embodiment of an Occidental. Eight hours later I saw him again, sitting outside his residence in Stamboul, and could scarcely recognise him. There he sat, dreamily smoking a marghileh. He arose on seeing me, and touching his knees, lips and forehead in succession, greeted me with “Salaam aley kum,” (“Peace be with you”). He was now purely an Oriental. “The Turk is the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde of the East. He may read the Orient News, with its date June, 1925, of the Christian calendar, in the mornmg. He will certainly read the Tanin, with the date 1343 of the Hejra, in the evening. Most Turks carry two watches. One with European time, and the other with Turkish time when the day commences at sunrise and ends at sunset.

MANY DUAL PERSONALITIES.

“Not only is the well-to do business man a dual personality, but the lesser fry are also. The milkman, whom I observed taking his milk from door to door in Pera, and shouting ‘du lait,’ I was astonished to find later in Stamboul, leading a goat and hiccoughing ‘Slid sud,’ in a raucous voice, anc milking his goat,on the doorstep of his customers. He was now an Asiatic. “The Turk does not love the West, nor Western institutions or customs. He adopts tnern only from necessity. Inwardly he despises the Perotes and Levantines. His heart is in old Stamboul. There ho worships, is married, (educates his children, and is finally laid away to rest. Amazing changes have, and are, taking place in lurkey, but they are on the surface °n y, and arise from necessity. Coupled with these is an increase of national spirit which is not so obvious, but which runs deep. Many new laws prove this. . “In. outward appearance the Turk is much more Western than before the war Actually in the depth of his heart, he is more Eastern.”