Yes, yes, this is a tired cliche that couldn't even be resurrected by the likes of Michael J. Fox. For those of you who may have forgotten, For Love or Money was the title of actor Fox's 1993 sappy but oh-so-touching romantic comedy that incisively depicted the inveterate consumerism of New York life. If you haven't watched it, do yourself a favor and look it up. You won't be disappointed. The film, however, may have been better situated in the bustling simit-selling metropolis of Istanbul--a city where the consumerism may be more recent but is well on its way to being just as entrenched as that of New York.
You see, for well over a year now I have been offering courses at the local dersane (a private academy for students to supplement the little learning they do in school with a little but equally as useless after-school learning). In my efforts to foster my students' English I often assign them simple writing topics to elicit their thoughts on a variety of ideas. One topic I always give is our aforementioned cliche. The results are always unanimous: money. It seems that no Turk in his or her right mind would ever be compelled to marry someone for such a silly reason as love.
I know, I know, this seems very odd to us Westerners but if examined with more scrutiny we can see where our two societies depart. First of all, in America we have the luxury of not worrying about money. Many a blue-collar worker can afford a house, a car and even a college education for a child--with the help of government assistance that is. And even if we can't afford the house, we buy it anyway and blame the rich bankers when we can't make the payments. We can even hide behind an all-giving government who promises to subsidize our payments for us when we come up a little short. But in Turkey, there is no benevolent government with deep pockets. A skilled laborer can hope, if he or she's lucky, to make a monthly salary of $500, a sum which doesn't go very far in a city as expensive as New York. Match this subsistence living to a culture with a deep-seated tradition of arranged marriage and its plain to see why money is always the champion in Istanbul. Its very rapacity may extend from the omnipresent paucity which encircles the city. Its now rampant consumerism may very well originate from this fiscal catastrophe. Economic need perpetuates this buying frenzy whose end is to secure a wealthy mate and thus ensure financial sufficiency.
A year and a half ago I stumbled into this pecuniary madness full of ideals. I scoffed at this consumerism but now I feel I may be "going Turk." Over these months of scarcity I have been gradually developing a sense of what money can do for a family. Thus, when I was offered a job last week in Qatar that would pay three times my current salary, I found myself all too ready to pack up our bags. I have grown to love Turkey, its people, and our little branch here. But is love enough for a family of five in Istanbul?
