There is a story we tell to new arrivals to Turkey; so settle down quietly, drink your tea and listen well gentle traveller because it holds the key to your time in this strange land.
When you come to Turkey you may wish to buy a carpet. In the carpet shop the smiling proprietor, whilst pressing numerous glasses of sweet tea on you and bedazzling your eye by casting rugs about with a virtuoso skill, will extol the virtue of his wares to you. Whilst waxing lyrical on the subject of his wares it is perfectly permissible for him to, by your definition, lie.
He can tell you this rug you are about to buy is ancient, made from the finest wool of six week old goats, which has been combed by hand by an aged, arthritic but expert grandmother far away in the hills of Persia, woven by the milk white hands of virgins, hand knotted, dyed with the finest, rarest natural ingredients. He can tell you it is immensely valuable and unique and it breaks his heart to sell it. He is sure it will gain value in years to come, guaranteed to become an heirloom to treasure through the generations. Even if the said carpet is six days old, was made on an electronic loom in Konya and is worth less than a quarter of his starting price this is acceptable behaviour.
He is expected to praise his goods to get a high price, you are expected to know what is truth and what is artistic license or artifice or just plain incorrect.
Once the price is agreed it is assumed that you made the decision of your own free will, with the benefit of your knowledge and your expertise, after all you were the one holding the money!
If you have paid three times what the rug is actually worth then this is not robbery, it is the game of business and in this particular instance you lost.
This isn’t personal, this isn’t fraud, this isn’t wrong, this is trade.
Now, when you get up to leave the rug shop and its happy owner should you accidently drop your wallet on the floor and not notice the owner of that shop will follow you across the entire town and move mountains in an effort to return it to you.
To take the wallet and what it contains is theft. It would be dishonourable behaviour and shameful in the extreme to keep it. No honourable Turkish person would do that and he is an honourable man.
Do you see the problem here? We come to this country and we don’t understand the cultural rules. We don’t realise that all business transactions are trade and we as individuals are responsible for verifying the veracity of what we are told.
Trade is the oldest game in the world. For century after century the role of the seller has been to get the best price for his product and the role of the buyer has been to agree to that price. The successful did their homework and fair prices were agreed, the unsuccessful didn’t know the true value of what they were buying and so lost out.
It is business stripped to its basics and in every town and city across Turkey every day this ancient game is played and Turks are very, very good at it.
Particularly for visitors from the West the reality of the trade game in Turkey is a hard concept to grasp. To a member of a highly regulated society like the UK or USA where advertising standards and trade descriptions inoculate the buyer from the worst pitfalls of a silver tongued salesman Turkey can seem like a minefield of misinformation, guile and exaggeration of potential return on investment.
Certainly in the real estate sector there have been loud protestations from poorly prepared western investors who paid over the top prices for shoddy properties or were convinced of high returns on off-plan property that then failed to materialise.
The only way to work in this environment is to do your homework or don’t enter the game. If you research your market and enter negotiations in Turkey with your eyes open, ready to be entertained and challenged by the game of negotiation and secure in your knowledge base then buying in Turkey can be a highly rewarding experience.
In the six years I have lived in Turkey I have bought only one rug but I have been tempted by hundreds. I bought that rug because it was cheap enough and I liked it. I am still happy with it. I haven’t bought others because I don’t know enough about rugs to be sure I am getting a genuine rug at the right price – I don’t have the knowledge to enter the game. I have however bought more than one house, because I do understand property.
Oh Karen, you do make me smile! Andalucia is like a very pale and watered down version of what you describe but there is a little of that Moorish (could that be the root?) culture left here in that all shopkeepers ‘up’ their goods in a way that is very different from …say, Huddersfield! It’s not in the same league as the one you describe – I don’t think I could cope with Turkey – but do love reading your stories and seeing things through your eyes. Axx
It is all very similar throughout the Southern Med, and to be honest I think many of those cany old Spanish farmers think in exactly the same way when they flog a ruin out on rustica land. Personally I am totally rubbish at bargaining and while I know the score I am crap unless I am on safe ground which to me is houses which I understand, I’d get so ripped off if I tried to buy a handbag!
Hope Cesar gets well soon and doesn’t dish out too much of a guilt trip 🙂
K xxxx
like the ‘Mines’ game on a computer – apply that incredibly rare commodity, logic (read ‘common sense’) and you can complete the game and have fun doing it – take a rash gamble and you might get away with it but most likely ‘Kabooom!’ J and I work on the basis that if we are happy with the price at the time, then it was the right price. If we find we’ve paid over the odds we’ve learned to smile and learn a little from the experience.
I’ve posted a link to this to Tripadvisor, as their is a discussion there at the moment about a gentleman who thought he bought a Hereke Carpet from the first rug shop he walked into in the Grand Bazaar, and now is fretting.
Hi Dina, those of us who spend half the day absorbed in our web stats already noticed 🙂 Thankyou.
It is a horrible shame when people feel so badly let down by their buying experience but personally I think it’s probably not the best idea to go and get something formally appraised under the circumstances. If you’re not a collector and you bought it as a keepsake just enjoy the thing. I know I couldn’t call the ball on loads of things because I just don’t have the knowledge base and so I avoid coughing serious money on them. Everything from Baklava to Motorbikes I leave the buying of to experts!
Hope you had a good season on the sea.
K xxx
karen
you explained this so well, I have never bought a rug in Turkey unless Koctas counts. My rather beautiful handmade rug I bought in Tunisia, I got it made to my specifications in duck egg blue, ordered in school girl french and mime, much to the bemusement of the vendor, his brother, cousins and uncles… an episode in miming that only came to an end when granny intervened and brought me a swatch of wool dyed in the perfect shade of duck egg blue. I have been perfectly happy with my purchase shipped and delivered within 6 weeks of my return home, forgot that I had to pay VAT and duties at customs, however I was happy with the price and quality but under no circumstances would I have it appraised, it would take the shine off if I thought I had paid too much….
I had to read that three times because I got so stuck on the whole miming of duck egg blue image. It was a tough image to get past 🙂
I totally agree, buy it, love it, never think it will save you from bankruptcy, that would just be a bonus.
K xxx
We also find shopping in Turkey a bruising and alien experience so avoid it as much as possible. Browsing is all but impossible when you’ve followed around by KGB trained assistants. As we go back to Blighty so often we try and pick up what we need there with meaning guarantees attached. As for property, not in that that game, never will be. Unless, of course, we had the dosh to buy your gorgeous pile. This would be an entirely different proposition. I agree that Turks outside the realm of sales and trade are honourable and honest. It’s a contradiction we all must master.
Fortunately our village shop stocks everything we could possibly need (and some stuff we really don’t – sheep truss anyone?) and if they haven’t got it they will go and get it and I don’t have to carry it, a nice little boy with an Elvis quiff will delivery it.
I am also blessed with Nick who can enforce any guarantee as if it had been signed in blood, he is KocTas’s nemesis! Never have I had so much stuff replaced out of guarantee as since Nick moved over. The man knows chapter and verse of the Code of Obligations!
Can you send him our way?