Post from Tim:
I waited for our next bus on the curb a small station, watching people and killing time. I was particularly engrossed in the chatty conversation of some old Turkish women when a boy carrying a basket of goods approached me.
He waved four packages of facial tissues into the air and said something I didn't understand in Turkish. I tried to brush him off by shaking my head side to side and saying, "No thanks." But he persisted by waving the packages closer to my face. When I responded with a second nod and "No," he started making finger gestures for cost. This boy just doesn't take "no" for an answer I thought.
But then I recalled a fact about Turkish body language. Shaking the head from side to side as we do to indicate "no" actually indicates the expression "I don't understand" in Turkey. The boy continued bothering me not because he was doggedly persistent, but because he thought I didn't know what he wanted. (In other words, he thought I was an idiot, which in hindsight, I guess I was.)
With my realization, I laughed out loud in an enlightened yet slightly demented way that changed the boy's expression from helpful to cautious.
One says no in Turkish by raising one's eyebrows and tipping the head back. I attempted a poor freakish facsimile of the Turkish version and the boy swished away.
He waved four packages of facial tissues into the air and said something I didn't understand in Turkish. I tried to brush him off by shaking my head side to side and saying, "No thanks." But he persisted by waving the packages closer to my face. When I responded with a second nod and "No," he started making finger gestures for cost. This boy just doesn't take "no" for an answer I thought.
But then I recalled a fact about Turkish body language. Shaking the head from side to side as we do to indicate "no" actually indicates the expression "I don't understand" in Turkey. The boy continued bothering me not because he was doggedly persistent, but because he thought I didn't know what he wanted. (In other words, he thought I was an idiot, which in hindsight, I guess I was.)
With my realization, I laughed out loud in an enlightened yet slightly demented way that changed the boy's expression from helpful to cautious.
One says no in Turkish by raising one's eyebrows and tipping the head back. I attempted a poor freakish facsimile of the Turkish version and the boy swished away.