Cleaning your nose in Turkey

My favourite issue. Why? Because my doctor once told me I am allergic to cold. What does it mean? I basically can´t take one step without a tissue, no matter if it´s winter or hot summer. What more? I am sensitive to spicy food which reflects on my nose again. A problem? Kind of, in Turkey, everything is spicy.

First I definitely should explain that it is considered digusting and a sign of bad education to clean your nose in public in Turkey. I even have the impression that the problem is the tissue because I saw the act without the tissue many times (to be fair to Turkish, I saw it in other countries, too, especially Portuguese can be highly disgusting).

To me this issue actually became a sort of science. How to deal with it since it is badly seen by the society. Where it´s ok to deal with it and where not. Am I more tolerated as a foreigner?

Before going to Turkey for the first time, I already knew it is a faux pas in there, still I won´t forget my first sightseeing day in Istanbul when I saw my boyfriend´s cousin´s reaction to that. The girl saw some tourist, a man older than us, cleaning his nose the way we do it. With a tissue, as the most natural thing in the world. I was astonished at her reaction. She acted as if the man had just vomited or something like that. I guess that was the moment when I decided that no matter what, I am not going to repeat the man´s mistake in Turkey. Let´s do it the Turkish style.

But well, what is the Turkish style? I am not a 60 years old man to be spitting on the pavements, am I? But come on, I can make it somehow, can´t I?

Since that, I spent a lot of time snuffling. In the street, in the bus, at the table. I was all the time doing something that is considered highly disgusting in my country. I was doing something that I hate when somebody does it. Every time I see someone doing it in my country, I am fighting myself not to pass him my tissues.

Still, I could make it, couldn´t I?

Dinner with all his family. In a nice restaurant. One million kinds of food on the table as usual. A nice view from our saloon. What do I do? Run to the toilet. For how long will it help me? Not much.

Help in the street? Any corner where I can hide at least a little bit.
In the bus? No help. Although my boyfriend is almost two metres, still he can´t hide my blowing nose.

Sometimes the people try to be nice so they tell you to do it, that it´s ok. But I just got into some paranoic phase with it. I am always wondering if they are testing me. When a man in the restaurant offers me napkins because of my snuffling, he makes me confused. What for if I can´t clean my nose? How come that the woman sitting next to me in the bus going to Istanbul has just cleaned her nose? Is she trying to show me that in the case of need I can feel free to do so, too?

With time, I discovered that the problem is not that the people can see you, the problem is the sound. Good, I can blow my nose silently. My father, on the other hand, he would possibly have to leave Turkey immediately if they heard him.

The funny thing about this is that I feel nervous to clean my nose even here whenever I have my Turkish friends around. I guess that without realizing it, I am actually entertaining myself with a cultural difference that for me in fact is quite complicated. Anyway, it is interesting to see that if necessary, one doesn´t need what they usually can´t live without.