Now we've been here almost a year (eek!), most of the time we manage to get 'life admin' tasks done by ourselves. When I needed to get blood tests done and realised that the price for the tests at a state-run outpatient clinic was 1/6th of the price quoted at a private hospital, I managed to navigate the whole process by myself. When our toilet started leaking, L found a plumber and arranged for him to come and fix it (which was considerably quicker and cheaper than finding a plumber in the UK!). We can cope with calls about deliveries of online orders, making appointments, getting various pieces of paper for our ikamet applications etc. by ourselves - though usually with asking the caller to repeat themselves at least once in the conversation and not always with a clear idea of what will happen next!
But when we needed to negotiate our next year's rent with our landlord this week, we admitted defeat (slash recognised the limitations to our current linguistic and cultural abilities) and asked L's friend to help us.
I think it's fair to say that the British don't generally like bargaining that much (although we like getting a bargain!). We don't like asking for things that we might not get or putting people in situations where they might say 'no' to us (I wrote more about this in this post on asking vs guessing cultures), which is what bargaining is all about. I used to have to do some negotiating over price in my previous work and while I can do it to some degree in a British context, it takes a certain type of personality or cultural background to enjoy the bargaining process.
To bargain (in Turkish, pazarlık yapmak) is the norm here for many things, particularly when they are high value - buying houses and cars, when buying (non-food) items in the markets, even medical fees sometimes. And not only is it a specific skill, it also comes with a whole host of cultural nuances.
We're steadily learning the language and culture here and I'm sure that bargaining will become much more normal and natural to us at some point, but I don't think we've reached that stage yet!
And when we heard L's friend talking to our landlord, we were definitely convinced that at this point and for this task, we were wise to get some help. They had a good-natured and friendly conversation in which they talked about their families, their common experiences as landlords, and inflation, amongst other things. L's friend, being Turkish, of course managed to strike just the right tone, in line with all the cultural conventions. And, in the end, after some haggling, they came to an agreement.
The next day, L was relating the event to his class at language school and the teacher's response was basically (half joking, half serious), "if you don't bargain, shame on you!". Which I guess sums up the Turkish attitude towards bargaining!
