At dinner last week in a restaurant heated by a wood burning stove the temperature rose and rose until I could no longer dismiss my flushed cheeks as a side effect of the unexpected hot pepper mistakenly ingested. Felling the same on the other side of the restaurant a waiter rose and opened the door into the still night air just as İ opened the window about six feet behind us. Ten disapproving Turkish heads swiveled simultaneously, looking at each aperture in turn, as if following a slow moving tennis match. The dreaded had occurred, two openings on either side of the room had appeared and the unthinkable could now occur...we were about to be subjected to ‘ceryan’. Despite the distinct lack of any moving air outside and regardless of the fact that it was warm enough to walk without a jacket there was now the possibility that a menacing draft might be created. 

Exposure to said draft would render us all insensibly ill the following day as any form of stirring air is how one gets a cold in Turkey. The entire population believes that germs are created spontaneously from cold air or in fact any air below twenty five degrees. Anmeophobia, the extreme fear of draughts is prevalent throughout the nation and wherever you are you will always be enjoined to (ready.....deep breath) put your vest on, pull your shirt down, tuck your t-shirt in, don’t sweat, wrap your neck up, put on slippers, wear a cardigan, put another layer on, don’t go out with newly washed hair, change out of a wet swimming costume, don’t drink water with ice in, close that window, shut the door, move away from the fan and turn the air conditioning down. The litany of risky behaviour is endless and every ailment is inevitably the consequence of having sat in a draught. The rejoinder that cold air in a cold room is a draught but that cold air in a warm room is a breeze carries no weight here. 

Of course at one time the fear of draughts was widespread and until the early twentieth century it was believed in England that an open window would produce the great British Chill. The French still complain of an ‘un coup de froid’ (literally a blow from the cold) and while they  may sit outside in cold weather they are loath to allow even the slightest hint of fresh air into their homes. Turks are at their happiest in warm stuffy rooms where the oxygen has been thinned by the fire in the stove and then reused and moistened by the assembled extended family until the actual O2 content is negligible. Over the centuries an almost neurotic aversion has arisen to wafts of cool air coming through windows and doors. The idea embaced all over Northern Europe that fresh air is good for you has made little headway here and you can look all over a hospital or health centre and never find an open window. 

Turks even regard the air blown out of a fan or an air conditioning unit as a draught and stern warnings have been issued to me that to sit or lie directly in the path of an operating fan, even on the hottest days, can induce paralysing stiffness or (at the very least) a bad cold. İ’ve struggled to understand where the fear of catching cold comes from in an area where the climate is unusually clement. İt is concievable that the body’s defences are weakened by cold but surely one would need to be weak to begin with or the cold more severe than what we get here which usually only warrants a light jacket. Perhaps it is the fact that your throat and lower back and kidney area have a lot of blood circulating through them near the surface of the skin and that if your body temperature is lowered here you might be less resistant to a virus? Maybe it is something more primeval and dates back to a superstition that draughts are associated with movements of undead spirits. After all Ebeneezer Scrooge invested in heavy curtains to keep out draughts and ghosts.  

The ultimate microcosm of this attitude is a ride in a dolmuş bus. Stuffed to the gills with people and their attendant germs and bacteria and with the internal temperature ramping up from each person’s body heat and the hot air fan working incessantly any attempts to open a window will be repelled immediately. Disgruntled mumblings will be followed by swift action and the offending window slammed emphatically shut. Woe betide if there’s a swaddled infant whose life you have endangered by exposing them to the vigorous eighteen degree lukewarm air from outside. Turks would rather sit in the stifling vehicle breathing in each other’s conmingled breaths, coughs and vaporous spittle. The paranoia about getting cold and the resultant negative attitude to any form of ventilation actually create an unhealthy environment where one is actually much more likely to inhale an air born cold virus.  

My favourite theory though, and one derived from sitting on these stuffy buses playing push me-pull me with my fellow passengers and the window is one based on close observation. İt all comes down to their teeth. As they say in the Sensodyne ads ‘painful sensitive teeth?’, well most Turks have appalling dental hygiene and most people have a mouth full of rotten or rotting teeth. The general population only go to the dentist when they have a toothache (and then they are convinced that the toothache is caused by having been in a draught). Anyone who has experienced the painful sensitivity caused by a change in temperature in the mouth will understand why a Turk might not want a cooling draught of air blowing over their damaged molars and raw roots. People, you need to brush regularly, floss twice a day and open the bloody window!