Turkish kids are a delight. Gaggles of them go on school tours of Topkapi Palace, see us, smile bigger and twitter, “Konichiwa! Konichiwa! Toshiba!” East Asian is spoken here, okay. (When I tell a girl I am not Japanese she takes a wide-eyed guess, “Turkish?” It must be my golden coat.)
All around Sultanahmet, the historic thus touristy district, Turkish men speak much more Asian. They usually try Japanese, then Korean, then Mandarin, all the better to tout restaurants.
Then there is the Turkish carpet salesman. We were minding our own business heading for the Blue Mosque one morning when a man – short, with long eyelashes – came over, made out our accent, “Chinese Singapore?” and advised us to hurry up to avoid the noon-prayer throng. He then showed us round the mosque, the bazaar beside it and his shop. He would sound upfront about this and that (he has a shop in Taipei 101; he hopes to master Mandarin; he has a Chinese ex-girlfriend; we haven’t been to Boracay in the Philippines? “They have the best beaches!”), then roll out his rugs. He would show us snapshots of a cousin in Tokyo, then roll out more rugs. By the time we walked out of the shop D had a new kilim and all I knew was: I didn’t know anything about the man behind those long lashes.
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