Corinne's Blog

Turk

Scenerio 2: Turkish Dialogue: “Meeting the Parents”

In this second situation Adalet Kaan an independent working female is bringing her first boyfriend home to meet her parents. Adalet is Turkish-American and was raised in the cultural traditions of both her Turkish culture at home and her American culture outside of the household. Her parents are immigrants from turkey who are still living with the values and traditions of their homeland. Adalet is dating Anthony her coworker, he is not familiar with any of the Turkish traditions and he prides himself in his American Irish background. Anthony invited me to come along as a third wheel because he felt that he’d not know what to talk about during dinner and I’m a very social person. Regardless of my being there Anthony is going to try to do his best to impress Adalet’s parents tonight but he is extremely nervous.
This is how some of the night’s dialogue went:

Adalet- I’m so excited that you have finally agreed to come home with me to meet my parents Anthony, I’ve never brought any guy home to them and they’re really excited to meet you.

Anthony- Anything for you babe, as long as your dad doesn’t give me the second degree. I remember I was taking a girl out to a dance once in high school and her father grilled me for an hour about everything I knew about driving safely and safe sex…that was an awkward night!

Corinne- Wow Anthony too much information!

Adalet- I don’t think my father will be that bad.

Anthony- From what you’ve told me about him I’m expecting the worst, you talk about him as if he’s some sort of king.

Corinne-When I go home I have to call my mom and dad sir and mam it’s just how I was taught to address them. I would never call my mom by here first name it would be rude.

Adalet- That’s just our way of showing our parents respect.

(ADALET, ANTHONY and I walked up the walkway and get to the door ADALET rings the doorbell. A man comes and opens the door a woman is standing right behind him)

Adalet- İyi akşamlar! (good evening!) Hello dad I would like you to meet my friend from work Anthony, the manager I told you about. And this is his friend Corinne that I told you would also be joining us for dinner.
(MR..KAAN waves his hand up and down at ADALET and ANTHONY, palm towards the ground and ADALET enters the house, ANTHONY takes her cue and follows her in, I just follow the group.)

Anthony- It’s very nice to meet you Mr. Kaan, and might I add that you are looking quite lovely this afternoon Mrs. Kaan (Walks up and gives Mrs. Kaan a huge hug) I would have suspected that you were Adalet’s little sister rather than her mother. (ANTHONY turns and extends his hand for a handshake with MR.KAAN)

Mr. Kaan- (says nothing and does not take the hand right away he looks from Anthony to his wife, he takes ANTHONY’S hand and then nods)

Mrs. Kaan-(After a long pause) Thank you Anthony.

Corinne-(I whispered this into Anthony’s ear) Way to get all personal and touchy with your future mother in law.

Anthony-(Whispers back) That’s how I treat my own mom…it’s fine.

(I walk up to MR.KAAN introduce myself to him again and I receive the 2 kisses on the cheeks that he offers me, I do the same to Mrs. Kaan.)

(Later while leaving)

Anthony- I had a great time Mrs. Kaan thank you so much for everything, your meal was great! And Mr. Kaan thank you for inviting me into your home and thank you for your hospitality.

Corinne- Yes it was a really great meal thank you Mr.Kaan for inviting us into your home. Mrs.Kaan you did a wonderful job cooking.

Mr. Kaan- (After a long pause) Drive my daughter and your friend back safely.

Anthony- I sure will, My driving skills are A okay (Anthony makes the okay gesture with his fingers and Adalet laughs turns to me and whispers something and I begin to laugh too, MR.KAAN frowns) we’re exhausted and I want to get back to our hotel room before it gets too dark you know how it is when you have a hard day of work tomorrow and you need to get a good nights rest right Mrs. Kaan? What do you do by the…

Adalet- *interrupts* I will see you later Papa Bey…mom the meal was wonderful I’ll call you when I get back to the hotel room that I’m sharing with Corinne and I’ll tell you when I am going to bed okay mama hanim?

Anthony-But I thought you said you’d…

(I step on Anthony’s foot to interrupt him)

Anthony-Ouch! What was that for?

Corinne-Yes, thanks again for everything especially the meal Mrs.Kaan.

Mrs.Kaan- (Nods her approval just as a bell rings in the background)

Mr.Kaan- (Walks away from the door without closing it or saying another word he walks down the hallway takes off his shoes, washes his hands in a basin and enters a room without saying goodbye)

Mrs.Kaan- (Walks to the door and hugs her daughter goodbye then closes the door and heads in the same direction as her husband)

(The couple and I leave, LATER IN THE CAR…)

Anthony- I don’t think your father liked me much, did you see that way he looked at me when I first came into your house? I was only giving your mom a compliment! Did you see how when we left he didn’t even say goodbye?

Adalet- He doesn’t not like you, you just did some things that he’s not used to.

Anthony- Like being polite, he probably doesn’t know what that means. And why did you introduce me as your work friend and not your boyfriend is it that hard to admit that you could like a guy like me? Do they even know we’re dating?

Corinne- I don’t think it was a good idea for you to be all touchy feely with Adalet’s mom. Then you told them that you guys were sharing a hotel room? Wow if I was dating you I’d never bring you home!

Adalet- (Laughs) I have a lot of explaining to do to you.

Anthony- I don’t know what you want to teach me, all I know is that I’m happy to be away from that serious stare of his. I feel bad that I didn’t understand what he meant when he was talking about football and meant soccer. It took me forever to understand why he kept saying goal and not end zone. Remind me not to talk about sports with your father again.

Corinne- I told you it wasn’t a good idea to talk about anything before remember…that was my job. Never mind, I think he was staring at you to get a feel for how you acted and carried yourself, I might be wrong. Other than that, I thought your parents were really nice Adalet!

Adalet-That’s just kind of the way they are.

Though this second hypothetical situation might seem like the average scenario of the daughter bringing her boyfriend home to meet the skeptical parents. There are many reasons why this scenario may be interpreted as an intercultural communication gone the wrong way. The Turkish are famous for making their guests feel welcome. The majority of people a tourist might meet in a place such as Turkey will be friendly and courteous to strangers whether they’re foreign or not. Adalet is making the assumption that her family will welcome her new boyfriend with hospitality because she was raised to expect this cultural communication trait. Personally I had no problem with the situation because I was raised in a similar background and I was comfortable going into the environment. Turkey is a battle between tradition and progressive thought, between Islam and the WASP club of the European countries. The role of women in the society is a tug-of-war, fought with varying degrees of interest and success in different parts of the country. Adalet being a Turkish girl raised in America means that she was given a lot more opportunities than she would have if she had been raised in Turkey as her parents were. In turkey women are not employed in restaurants, cafes and bars. Chefs, waiting staff, and bar staff are almost all male. As an independent working woman Adalet is already part of the Turkish reform for woman. Adalet is bringing home a nontraditional male who knows almost nothing about her Turkish culture that is another problem in this situation. Strangers aren’t allowed to address a wife without addressing and greeting her husband first. When Anthony address Mrs.Kaan before addressing Mr.Kaan he failed to acknowledge the hierarchy of the household, I addressed the couple correctly because I knew this about Adalet’s culture. The Turkish society is definitely a masculine male dominated society. When Anthony addressed Adalet’s mother Mrs. Kaan first before addressing Mr. Kaan, Mr. Kaan took that gesture as a blunt insult. It was only with Mr. Kaan’s permission that Mrs. Kaan was able to talk to Anthony before Mr. Kaan could. Adalet spoke of and to her father with a lot of respect because of her fathers power distance above her. Adalet was raised to show respect for male figures in her Turkish household. Male dominated areas are quite intimidating to woman in Turkey. Adalet wants to introduce Anthony according to what he does for a living because a person’s job is very important in determining their worth in Turkish society. Adalet makes a point to mention that Anthony is a manager at her workplace to her father from the very beginning. In Turkish culture it is common to discuss what may be considered personal information to an America such as what job you do and how much money you make. Anthony feels that Mr.Kaan doesn’t like him when Anthony offers his hand for a handshake. In Turkey where Mr. and Mrs. Kaan are from the handshake is not the most common greeting among friends. A man will greet another man by kissing him on both cheeks. A man will greet a woman also on the same way as I was shown. Anthony also felt uncomfortable with Mr. Adalet staring at him over dinner Turks tend to stare at one another and foreigners more than Western Americans are used to. I thought that Mr. Kaan was just trying to examine how Anthony carried himself; it wasn’t great that Anthony eats like a slob. Anthony did not recognize the gesture that Mr. Kaan gave the couple when they first came to the door that gesture of waving a hand up and down with the palm facing toward the ground is the gesture to come. Adalet did not inform Anthony that the gesture for fine or okay when a circle is formed by touching the forefinger to the thumb does not mean “ok.” in American culture is the gesture for homosexual in Turkish communications. This gesture is seen as offensive by most Turkish men and woman. Adalet laughs at Anthony’s mistake but Mr. Kaan is not pleased by the action and frowns. Adalet is embarrassed by Anthony’s behavior when he shared that the couple is sharing the same hotel room. Bad subjects such as hard work should be avoided during first meetings in a Turkish household because a household and the subjects of the honored guest are considered a place of harmony. A guest in a Turkish household should refrain from asking personal questions of their host. When Anthony asked Mrs. Kaan what kind of jobs she had he was right about to cross a major boundary line in appropriate conversation especially since a woman such as Adalet’s mom would be expected to be a stay at home mother and have no job in Turkish culture. Turkish conversations are often about more recreational and masculine subjects such as sports. The game of soccer or Football is a popular subject; Anthony made the mistake of confusing the sport of American football to the Worlds definition of football. Much of these traits are common sense that aren’t so common in Anthony’s culture. Adalet should have educated Anthony better one what to talk about and how to carry himself in her household. The last communication problem that I saw here in this dialogue is Adalet’s father walking away from Anthony and dropping everything that is going on when a bell timer went off. Almost all of Turkish culture is Muslim and most of the Turkish recognize different times of the day to stop everything that they are doing to pray. Adalet’s father was simply doing what he normally did and he did not mean to be rude when he went to go pray he was simply recognizing his religion. Anthony someone who is Catholic doesn’t recognize different times of the day to pray but he does have the ability to pray when he wants, even then he might not have stopped everything that he was doing to recognize the act.
Solution:
Adalet should have educated Anthony about her culture and some of the things that were taboo in it. And Adalet’s parents should have tried to understand that Anthony did not know all the aspects of their culture and they should have learned to not be offended by that his actions were. It wasn’t necessary for me to be there.
Dialogue 2
(In the Car)
Me : Holding a large bouquets of flowers and a wine bottle
Adalet: I told you not to bring that to my grandparent’s house if you want to do business with my grandfather it’s best if you just go and try to be yourself.
Me: I thought you said to be respectful and nice and to bring something that they can use
Adalet: Something personal that they can use a good personality trait. Why did you think my grandparents would use wine? And why did you wear that bright skirt?
Me: Whenever I go out with my grandparents I bring wine I thought yours were the same. I love this skirt it has all my favorite colors, what’s wrong with my Skirt?
Adalet: Just leave it here and we’ll go. Do you remember what I said about that word you have to address my dad by?
Me: Efendim?
Adalet: Yeah, don’t forget to say it.
Me: I looked it up online and that word means master you know!
Adalet: okay so?
Me: How do you not find that offensive?
In Turkish business situations it is very important for the guest not to bring any elaborate gift with them. The establishment of personal relationships is considered first and foremost. I made the mistake of bringing a wine bottle and flowers to my friend’s grandparent’s house because I thought that they would live by the same traditions as my own grandparents. My friend meant to have me bring something that they could use in business that was part of my personality. The problem with my dress is that it was too extreme for the situation I was going into, Turkish business wear is very conservative.
In the next time I need to meet someone who is Turkish for business I should write down good things for us to discuss so we can better get to know each other. I can ask questions but I should avoid prying into the family’s privacy. The Turks are proud of their country and will enjoy answering questions on their culture and history although be sure to avoid political history so it would be beneficial if I wrote questions that pertained to Turkey and asked questions about the culture. I could learn a lot and improve my own communication at the same time I would be practicing active communication with the Turkish person. Active communication is getting someone into a topic they are interested in to spawn great communication. The next time I decided to meet someone new for business I should have set up a neutral outfit that would not distract or take away from my personality. When addressing men it is appropriate to end sentences with the word Bey (bay) and with woman to end with ‘hanim’. A common phrase said by Turks is ‘efendim’ (literally ‘my master’). You may hear this from waiters, secretaries, taxi drivers, doormen, shop staff and many others. It is simply a polite way of addressing people you are not familiar with.

Dialogue 3
Adalet-Hi my name is Adalet I will be your trainer for this position here at camp.
Me- Hi my name is Corinne.
Adalet- Are you comfortable in your current residence?
Me: Yes
Adalet- (Steps closer) Have you Had a decent meal today?
Me: (Leans back) Yes
Adalet-(Steps even closer) Can you tell me something interesting about yourself and something you’ve done this last summer?
Me: (Backs up) well, I went on a small family vacation, that’s about it, what will I be learning today?
Another person in training- I thought we were coming here for training not for ‘lets get to know Corinne time’
Adalet- We’ll find out about that in a moment now we are talking about more important things…What is your favorite color?

When you are being trained by a Turkish person discussion may start slowly, with many questions that may seem irrelevant to the purpose of your visit. It is extremely rude to insist that your colleagues get to the point. I made the mistake of asking why she was asking all the different questions. Another problem is that the person who was training me Adalet is a close talker and I was not used to that.
Instead of jumping to get what I want done I should patiently wait till my coworker has finished asking me questions because I should do the research and know that the only reason for the questions is to improve the business relationship we have. I could have even prepared questions of my own to ask in return, Instead of growing impatient. Instead of backing up when Adalet got into my personal space I should have used the social scene to help me grow more comfortable with inviting people near me without an ulterior motive. Many people only allow people into their personal space when they see benefit in it for themselves.

Works Cited
Findlay, Michael Shaw. Language and communication a cross-cultural encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1998.
O?zk?r?ml?, Umut. Tormented by history nationalism in Greece and Turkey. New York: Columbia UP, 2008.

I had a written paper I had to do where I picked some culture and wrote dialogue about it. Then I was supposed to write paragraphs about what I did wrong in the situation and then another paragraph about how I would fix the situation. I was supposed to write on only 1 culture in many situations when I wrote about many cultures in many different situations. I was given until 9pm to rewrite and resubmit the assignment :) Silly me ;)

Dialogues

African dialogue

Indian-Dialogue

Turkish-dialogues

It’s all looking good so far…
-I’ve worked out my transcript to send to my study abroad program.
-I’ve gotten my final papers written and they are now being corrected.
-I’m finding a place to live this summer because my family is moving and I will not be moving with them.
-I am working on the Delta Tau Yearbook to finish off my school year with DT.
-I’ve figured out how to get rid of a mistake on my old transcript and add a new class on my new transcript.
-I’m really excited because pretty soon I will be able to see Craig again.
-I’ve been working a lot and soon I will be able to afford to pay off my phone bill
-I only owe about 92 dollars to DT still.
-My mom has made me a hair appointment (thank God!)
-I found a camera when I was cleaning up the smokeroom in the Delta Tau house and I think I’m going to keep it to replace the Fuji Film that broke.

I have A ton on my plate right now with the end of the School year slowly drawing near. It’s amazing how much I can push myself to do when I have the motivation to do them. The crazy thing is that I haven’t had the motivation to do any schoolwork until I think it’s totally and last minute solution.

For school Due this week I have 2 papers and I have to do a presentation in front of class. Just today I finished most of my work for orchestra when I did the Final Spring Concert. Tomorrow I will be attempting to join the orchestra on a piece that they’ve been working on in sectionals. I am unable to attend sectionals during the week because I have the scheduling conflict with working that I can never get out of. Vavaldi’s Concerto for four violins looks easy but I’m hoping that my luck tomorrow will change when I try to play ‘easy’.

Outside of school I am working on a yearbook for the members of my sorority and it seems to be costing me an arm and a leg in Printing costs. I wish that my pay in some of my jobs could be toward free printing. I was hoping to get the yearbook done last week but I did not recieve personal pages and bios from all the ladies yet.

On top of working on something for the Delta Tau I have been trying to be the best social chair in IGC i possible can be. Sadly my passion and hardwork has been seen by some of my fellow members as a push of micromanagement and has been taken negitively. Just this past week was a huge week for the Hamline Greek community as social chair I was supposed to be ‘put in charge’ of the annual Greek Week that Hamline goes through. Not only was I sick the week before all the events were supposed to happen, I was left in the dark about what the times that the events would start would be. I was really nervous because I hate to deligate unless I completely must. I’m happy that I have people around such as Matt Hill who can pick up the pieces. The week before I got sick I think i’d been pushing myself too thin trying to get everything in my life straightened out i wore myself down so thin that my body began to suffer. Greek Week’s Events had been decided the week before I had gotten sick and 2 weeks before the events were actually supposed to happen. I wasn’t exactly nervous about what the events would be I was just wimply nervous about how they would be run and scheduled and whether or not all that components would get to the sites on the right days at the right times.

This is How the Week was supposed to go.

-Monday: May 4th Game Night and Pancake Dinner
-Tuesday: May 5th Philathropy Event and Bonfire
-Wednesday: May 6th Movie on the Lawn Night
-Thursday: May 7th Bowling Night and Voting for Greek awards
-Friday: May 8th Pig Prep Night
-Saturday: May 9th Greek Annual Luau Celebration.

Every event went well except some of the locations were changed at the last minute due to potential rain and failures at the Hamline Scheduling office. I felt so responsible for the events that I made sure that I was there to all of them. The only event I had a hard time going to was the canning door to door event that we had as a philanthropy event on Tuesday. I was working, I did bring cans from my dorm though when I finally got to the event.

I made Eggs on Monday the first day that I felt a bit like myself. Sadly my voice didn’t recover from the stress of my sore throat and terrible fever until Wednesday.

I felt disappointed in the Theta Chi when they had a great attendance at the Canning but failed to show up at the DT bonfire after that canning event was finished. It seemed as if they were taking ‘revenge’ for the lack of Delta Tau at the philanthropy event.

The attendance to the events in general was poor but I don’t think it took away from the overall atmosphere of the events it was just really disappointing.
I think the attendance was bad because of the scheduling of Greek Week itself and my lack of ability in promoting the events to both the houses as Social Chair. Hopefully next semester I can get the same position in order to try to do a better job encouraging members of the Greek community to attend. It’s embarrassing to have a lack of Greek on a week that is so open to the Hamline Campus community. I think it’s terrible for Greek Life’s Public relations and reputation as a good socail environment.

Regardless of the negitives of the Week I had a lot more positives and I met alot of wonderful people.

On top of Schoolwork, DT Yearbook and Inter-Greek Council I have my responsiblities in church and my responsibilities as a partner in the relationship I am currently in with Craig McCreath.

In Aldrich Avenue Presbyterian Church I participate as a member of the Praise and worship team…this requires me to be present at Sunday morning rehearsals every Sunday. Being sick a week ago was terrible for me because I was unable to sing to the best of my abilities I felt weak and I wasn’t completely 100% in listening to Matt Johnson’s Sermon. I feel that this responsibility on my plate is one that I take willingly and that I hope to continue with in the future as long as I am able and welcome. I think that the support of my friends and family in the Aldrich community really helps me get through my stressful weeks I really appreciated the chats I was able to have with people who I know really appreciate me and my talents and willingness to learn and ambition to do better. Though many of the people in this community think I am unique for being ‘so young’ and in such a mature position I feel that I have a calling and that they have grown to understand that I praise my best when i am singing and leading others in Praise. At Church I was supposed to be joining the New Members group to finally find a place that I could call my Home Church after having left New Creation, I think I need to get to that …but that’s another thing I am adding to my plate.

When it comes to my relationship I found myself testing the waters quite a bit recently because I wanted to be able to define where I sat in Craig’s life. I lack understanding of how much of Craig’s time he spends working on schoolwork and how much time it takes him to design and code a website. I feel terrible that I am not able to judge this time because of the distance between us and I realize that I do not recognize and appreciate the many hours a day Craig sets aside at ANYTIME of the day to talk to me[or to hear me ramble on about my day's problems]. Craig doesn’t get enough thanks for stopping everything he is doing to answer my phone call or respond to my text message…I know that at times I get frustrated when he ‘multitasks’ and does his work while he is talking to me even though I often interupt Craig as he is working. I hope  Craig can tell how much I am obsessed with him…maybe the more proper word for that obsession would be…Love.  I can’t make a decision about my own life without thinking of how it might act to help or hinder us. I’m truely not a full and complete person without Craig. I wish Craig knew how much I love him and think about everyday. I want to close the literal gap in our relationship so I can spend more time proving to him how much I care about him. I hope he sees that I am not trying to test his love for me, but rather I am trying to make myself feel more secure in our relationship. When I ask a question that may be testy I am not looking for a reason to call Craig unfaithful or to mock him for being shy or moody at times. I do not want to show him that he is a bad boyfriend because he is the best one a girl could have and the perfect one I have wished for. Rather I am trying to prove to myself that I am worth keeping around even with all the terrible things I find that I do to Craig to the point where I’ve brought him to tears. I love Craig and I hope that when he thinks of our relationship and the fights that we’ve had recently he thinks about how those fights have contributed to our healthy relationship…and if he has to put a finger on it I hope he just labels it Sexual Tension caused by the distance between us these past few months. I constantly find myself closing my eyes and pretending that Craig was in the room or hugging a pillow trying to imitate the feeling of having that one perfect person to cuddle with and chat with late late at night when everyone around is sleeping. I long for the personality and the smiles and I miss the tickling and the simple act of holding a hand as I walk down the sidewalk (or pavement). I can’t wait till I am able to get back to Scotland or till I can get MY MAN in Scotland to come to me. I miss my best friend above all the physical things… Craig is the only person besides my mother who knows me better than I know me. I just wish that I could get the opportunity to become that same person for Craig someday. It’s like he knows me so well but I don’t think I live up to his standards and title of Awesomeness. In order to prove my own self worth I found myself turning to self help quizzes and trying to read books on ‘understanding men’s emotions’. As a last resort I turned to asking Craig directly and it came to discussions that caused arguements…I’m sorry about those and I’m happy that we both know what a stupid arguement is and what is not. I wish school would end tonight and that I had more money so I could fly back to Scotland and go back to that little place up in Elie and make up for lost time.

I think I take for granted how blessed I really have to be where I currently am. It’s Crazy how I’m constantly ranting on about my lack of ‘friends’ but when I think back to blogs like this where I reflect on what’s going wrong and right in my life It’s amazing that I can list a dozen people who are my true hopefully life friends. Those who I really appreciate and who I will love Forever regardless of what we may be going through.

Easter was really wonderful this year. Not only did Good Friday bring me a great prayer and the introduction to an old new friend that I haven’t considered but Easter went smoothly and the church was pretty full for it. Everyone and their mothers showed up on Easter Sunday and I was more than thrilled when even Jimmy and Sheena showed up with Collin and Caylie. We sang two traditional songs and some contemporary music…I didn’t feel uncomfortable wearing a skirt and I got some compliments from the woman of the congregation on how I looked…that made my confidence in myself go from the 3 that it’s been recently to a 9.5. After church [which went smoothly] I was ushered back home where I played Trivia Pursuit with Tiffany, her boyfriend Seth, My mom, Cynthia, and Tyler. We played guys against girls and the guys only won because when the time came for Tiffany and Seth to leave they were in the lead. I got to finish my Easter night with a fun half an hour chat with Craig. He told me that he would call me again around 3 or 4 in the morning so I spent the night after I got back home working out by dancing in my room to whatever song that was playing on my iPod. When Craig called I wished him a safe trip…hopefully nothing bad happens to him this week. I realize that his being on this trip is a good thing, it will help us both have time away from each other to think about things to talk about. With our relationship being simply Long distance at this point I feel that the conversations we are having are being formed on the basis that we both just want to hear each others voices because we miss each other…therefore the subject matter is kind of boring and becoming more and more routine.
In University I’m getting to the final push of the semester. I have a test tomorrow in intercultural communication and I’m in group projects in Schools and Societies and Christian Ethics. I think I’ve been becoming lazy about my work in those classes and I’ve failed to get any of my work done with my groups. I hoping to be productive this afternoon when I work with Melissa on my Schools and Societies project.
When it comes to greek life everything is going well. I’m in the process of planning the Greek Summit with other members of Inter-greek council and because Craig is out of town and will be away and not able to come and be my date for DT formal I have asked Matt Hill to accompany me. Everything on the social front seems to be working out.

Sadly at work one of my favorite chefs was fired for stealing for stealing a woman’s purse at work. I’m getting to better know the other people who work in Sorin but sadly outside of work I’m not allowed to associate myself with them because of Student Hamline Worker relations policies. The people I work with are really cool though.

I have class but that’s a quick run down.

Craig…I miss you have fun in Egypt!

I am going to focus on the Oikonomous (or the House hold rules) Oikonomous: official in charge of managing the estates and finances of an ecclesiastical foundation; steward of a monastery…And how they determine Christian Ecomonic decisions.