"Iranian good?"
Its true. What they say. About the traffic.
I'm not sure I'm in possession of the words to adequately describe it. "Free-for-all" doesn't really do it justice. Everyone has a car and there's basically no law. Doesn't mean they're bad drivers - far from it.
Tehran is a city of over 12,000,000 people. In order to get some sort of handle on the traffic flow, cars that end with even number license plates are restricted from certain parts of the city at certain times, same for cars with odd numbers. Simple solution: buy another car.
*
My guide won't start until Friday, so I'm largely on my own in Tehran my first day. H has recommended the Glass and Ceramics Museum near my hotel; a wise choice, one of the finest museum buildings I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of museums.
They let me use my video camera and go out of their way to turn on the beautiful chandelier hanging from the second story. Persian glassware preserved for thousands of years is on display. I linger on the front steps after I'm done and three of the museums directors join me, though they speak little English.
I sense they know the answer when one of them asks, "From?"
>"Amrika."
"Oh! Iranian good?"
>"Bale, bale."
"American good. Bush no."
>"bush nistam."
They all laugh.
*
"Is it obvious that I'm American?", I ask H & A as we're wandering around Mt. Darand later that evening.
"Yes." Later, we get some bastani - delicious Iranian ice cream made with saffron.
I was waiting in the hotel lobby for them to pick me up when I had my first classic Persian encounter. Two men - burly and barrel-chested - are hanging out. Nourali is an Azeri from NW Iran, Ali from Esfahan. Their smiles fill the room and their hearts burst from their chests. They're very excited to find out I'm from the States.
Nourali comes and sits next to me. My Farsi isn't good and neither is his English, but we manage to make a piecemeal conversation. He tells me about his hometown, near the Iraqi and Turkish borders. He loves America. He tells me of his business - exporting apples and importing bananas. We talk about the area he lives in, one that I would very much like to visit. Without hesitation, he gives me his phone numbers and e-mail address.
He's approaching middle age and has seen a great deal of change in his country. Knowing his province was heavily hit during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s that killed anywhere from 500,000 to 1,000,000 people - wiping out a generation of Iranian males - we discuss his memories. With each question, his answers seem to slip him deeper into something like a trance. He talks about the daily bombing of his city. He closes his eyes and says "chemical". His hands clench and soon he switches entirely to Azeri-Farsi, but its clear he's talking about thousands of dead friends and neighbors. His eyes open and before exhaling, he returns to English long enough to say:
"Saddam is... animal."
H & A arrive for our evening out.
*
Just as they've told me he would, the young man who will serve as my guide for the duration of my trip shows up at my hotel at 9am the next morning. H2 is 25 and wants to make it clear that he is my guide, not my protector - which is not to say he won't protect me, just that I will make the decisions about where we will go and what we will do, that I can be alone when I want and that he will do everything possible to ensure I get the utmost satisfaction during my stay. His genial and polite nature fits every description I've read about the Persian character. I figured our first day would be spent doing traditional touristy things like visiting the National Museum, maybe the Carpet Museum.
Yeah, right. He's brought his car and hooks up his car stereo. I mention I've brought some music from America and he's overcome. I pull out a CD and tell him I'd like him to have it. He immediately puts it into the player and as the opening strains of Birken's 2003 live set at Human Condition kick in, we're off.
He takes me to Tochal, a popular destination in the mountains. Its Friday and a holiday, so the traffic is clogged and his gearbox is failing. He tells me there's a football match that afternoon and whatever 'traditional' plans I had for the day are out the window. We go to his parent's apartment in western Tehran where he lives. His mother has made me a home-cooked meal - my first (of what will certainly be many) Iranian kebab. Its delicious and I'm afraid it will spoil all other kebabs for me. His older sister is also there; she and her husband studied in the US for a year. I have a hard time believing I'm worthy of their effortless hospitality. H2 and I head off to the stadium.
H2 explains some of the Ashura remembrance that is in full swing, commemorating the martyrdom of the Shia Islam's Third Imam, Hossein. He says he will tell me the story of Shia's 12 imams little by little during our trip.
Football clubs Persepolis and Estaghlal both play in Tehran and share Azadi stadium. That's where the commonalities end. Their rivalry is on par with the Vikings-Packers and their annual derby fills the arena's 100,000 seats. Today, H2's team - Persepolis - will face last year's league champs Fulad, a team from Ahvaz, a city in southern Iran that has seen repeated bombings in the last year - activity the Iranian government blames on Arabs being coerced by the British.
We arrive at Azadi. This is pretty much the prime time scenario, innit?, the moment we've all been waiting for: me and 40,000 ramped-up Iranian men surrounded by dozens of soldiers armed with semi-automatic weapons, the images of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khameini looking down from above the stadium.
I've told H2 to get the best seats he could find - they cost a buck apiece. We're under the awning at midfield. The players are warming up. H2 points out the participants who are on the national team, about four from each side. As each of the Persepolis starters are announced, the partisans cheer "Lion!"; during Fulad's turn, the crowd yells something akin to "A**hole!" H2 explains the pre-game ritual. Normally, there is music piped in over the PA, but since its Ashura, a performer sings sad songs dedicated to Hossein. Throughout the day, H2 and I have discussed Iranian culture and its outside world perception. Its not the first time I'll hear someone say "We know - we *know* - the rest of the world hates us".
The singer wails into the mic as H2 describes the songs and the life of Hossein. Members of the crowd being to stand. Hossein was trapped in the Arab desert with his followers about 1300 years ago, after the Sunni and Shia split that has influenced Islam to this day. Sunnis have never recognized Hossein as an imam, Shia feel passionate about him because he was one of the most oppressed of their leaders. Most of the crowd is now standing. H2 explains that Hossein and his followers were near Karbala when they were surrounded by thousands of their enemies. The crowd begins beating their chests with their fists to show their allegiance to their imam. Late at night in their encampment, Hossein told his followers he would extinguish all the lights and that anyone who wanted to leave could do so. The chest beating at the stadium starts to sync as the sad songs continue. When Hossein turned the lights back on, there were only 72 of his followers left. They were all killed the next day. "Those followers were true Moslems", H2 says, "not like nowadays." The crowd is enflamed. "Being Moslem doesn't mean you can't have fun. It doesn't mean you can't have a girlfriend." The singer is in rapture. "Iranians hate terrorists. That's not real Islam." The crowds self-flagellation is in perfect cadence as they sing along to the sad songs. Below the din, H2 is gently holding my arm, looking me straight in the eye, almost pleading, "Real Islam is for peace. Real Islam is for love."
The performer sings the Qu'ran. The match begins.
*
The partisans' vitriol toward the opposing goalie is unabated. It grows more obscene as the match progresses, crescendoing into maternal insinuation of a sexual nature. A cop shows up and tells the crowd to stop saying such nasty things. The crowd turns back to the match and repeats their chant. The cop comes down into the crowd and stares at the offenders. They switch up and begin suggesting that the goalie "should dance". When Persepolis' star scores, they begin yelling that "Cozumian has f***ed you!"
Though they control the action throughout, Persepolis falls 3-2 due to a marginal call that leads to a penalty kick in the final 5 minutes. Now the 40,000 return to their cars depressed. H2 and I cross the freeway - yes, the freeway - to hail a cab.
As luck would have it, H2's father knows a great deal about travelling in Iran and helps us map out our itinerary over tea, pistachio treats and, of course, fruit back at the family apartment. His father tells me not to buy anything in Esfahan, "They're sharks. You could steal something from their store, sell it back to them and you'd still be cheated." H2's brother-in-law shows up with their kids, precocious and shy and curious to see an American in their midst. H2 and I make plans to begin our adventure the next morning at 8. He drives me back to my hotel.
*
Nourali is hanging out with a couple of the night clerks. A server brings H2 and I some tea. I ask if I should pay, and H2 says - even though I haven't spoken a word with this server - "No, he likes you." H2 heads home and Nourali wants to talk. He's very candid.
In the middle of our discussion, one of the clerks comes over with another man and says, "My friend would like to ask you a question." His friend is an airline pilot who wants very much to visit America, which is virtually impossible for an Iranian given the present global political situation. Perhaps his uncle in the US can send him a letter of invitation, though even he realizes its probably hopeless, and his countenance turns grim.
Nourali says he will go to his room to write me a letter in Farsi that I might have a Persian friend translate when I return home. The other clerk disappears and I'm alone with the thin bespectacled clerk who announced earlier in the evening that he has lost his sense among his emotions. He would like to talk with me.
"I love a girl." The clerk's English is fragmented, though he communicates that Iranians do not understand the Nietzchian ideal of love. He would also like to visit America, but "we know America hates us." He feels trapped. I can't make it out, but there is a great obstacle to his love for this woman. I'm not sure what has happened, but its clear something has happened, traumatic enough that he missed work two nights ago, something no Iranian in his position can do. He goes around the counter and produces a calculator. He multiplies two numbers and multiplies that by another. Then another and adds one more to come up with 846. "This is how many days I have loved her." Some combination of religious law and family intervention has made it impossible for them to be together. His desperation is quiet but palpable. He's afraid God doesn't love him.
Day Two ends. I sit in my room with the lights off.
*
If everything that happened on Day Three had taken place over the course of the entire trip, I would have considered myself very fortunate.
H2 arrives at 8, we exchange money and rent a Paykan (an old Iranian auto that is no longer in production) to take us to Qom. At regular intervals in the sides of mountains along the highway, the government uses white stones to spell out prayers, sayings from the Qu'ran and aphorisms like "You should learn to behave like Imam Ali." Its only broken up by a secular football fan who has interjected "Esteghlal is better than Persepolis."
Qom is the second holiest city in Iran after Mashad. Ayatollah Khomeini kept a residence here. Ayatollah Sistani, now living in Iraq, has an office here. Thinking it conservative atmosphere might make me a target for derision, I never really considered a visit. Thankfully I'm a fool and H2 has convinced me to put this on the itinerary.
Respect for the hejab in Qom is absolute - chador, scarf, everything - compared to Tehran where many women barely have their head covered, which would certainly lead to punishment in a place like Qom. We're here to visit a great Shrine. Non-Moslems aren't always allowed and can never enter the mosque on the premises. H2 brings our bags to a security station and speaks with its supervisor, who asks where I'm from. "Amrika". He asks another question and upon H2's answer, lights up. H2 takes my hand and we enter the shrine. "I'm sorry", H2 says, "I told him you were Moslem."
H2's father has arranged for us a meeting with a director of the shrine. We take off our shoes outside his office and wait patiently for him to finish conducting a worldwide chat of Shia adherents. He sits down and asks, "You're Christian, aren't you?" I nod. "Okay, is good."
Not only does he give us approval to tour the grounds, he allows me to video tape what I see - a rarity for any foreigner, even a registered journalist, and with an armed guard for protection. My camera doesn't stop rolling for 15 minutes.
We find a car to take us to Kashan. The driver knows where the government has put the traffic cameras, so as not to be stopped when he's going 200 kph.
After checking into the hotel, we head to the glorious Fin Gardens. During our visit we run into a group of Esfahani college students making a field trip to see where the beloved former prime minister Amir Kabir was assassinated in the 19th century. Some young girls want to practice their English with me.
H2 and I grab a bus, Teddy Murphy's Persian doppleganger among its riders, and head across town to the legendary Qajari traditional houses. They close at dark and its dark. The site supervisor shows up and graciously leads us on a personalized tour after hours, going into great detail about the incredible engineering of this remarkable homey palaces. He refuses to accept our money and, like many before him, wishes me a good trip in Iran.
This is Day Three.
I'm not sure I'm in possession of the words to adequately describe it. "Free-for-all" doesn't really do it justice. Everyone has a car and there's basically no law. Doesn't mean they're bad drivers - far from it.
Tehran is a city of over 12,000,000 people. In order to get some sort of handle on the traffic flow, cars that end with even number license plates are restricted from certain parts of the city at certain times, same for cars with odd numbers. Simple solution: buy another car.
*
My guide won't start until Friday, so I'm largely on my own in Tehran my first day. H has recommended the Glass and Ceramics Museum near my hotel; a wise choice, one of the finest museum buildings I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of museums.
They let me use my video camera and go out of their way to turn on the beautiful chandelier hanging from the second story. Persian glassware preserved for thousands of years is on display. I linger on the front steps after I'm done and three of the museums directors join me, though they speak little English.
I sense they know the answer when one of them asks, "From?"
>"Amrika."
"Oh! Iranian good?"
>"Bale, bale."
"American good. Bush no."
>"bush nistam."
They all laugh.
*
"Is it obvious that I'm American?", I ask H & A as we're wandering around Mt. Darand later that evening.
"Yes." Later, we get some bastani - delicious Iranian ice cream made with saffron.
I was waiting in the hotel lobby for them to pick me up when I had my first classic Persian encounter. Two men - burly and barrel-chested - are hanging out. Nourali is an Azeri from NW Iran, Ali from Esfahan. Their smiles fill the room and their hearts burst from their chests. They're very excited to find out I'm from the States.
Nourali comes and sits next to me. My Farsi isn't good and neither is his English, but we manage to make a piecemeal conversation. He tells me about his hometown, near the Iraqi and Turkish borders. He loves America. He tells me of his business - exporting apples and importing bananas. We talk about the area he lives in, one that I would very much like to visit. Without hesitation, he gives me his phone numbers and e-mail address.
He's approaching middle age and has seen a great deal of change in his country. Knowing his province was heavily hit during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s that killed anywhere from 500,000 to 1,000,000 people - wiping out a generation of Iranian males - we discuss his memories. With each question, his answers seem to slip him deeper into something like a trance. He talks about the daily bombing of his city. He closes his eyes and says "chemical". His hands clench and soon he switches entirely to Azeri-Farsi, but its clear he's talking about thousands of dead friends and neighbors. His eyes open and before exhaling, he returns to English long enough to say:
"Saddam is... animal."
H & A arrive for our evening out.
*
Just as they've told me he would, the young man who will serve as my guide for the duration of my trip shows up at my hotel at 9am the next morning. H2 is 25 and wants to make it clear that he is my guide, not my protector - which is not to say he won't protect me, just that I will make the decisions about where we will go and what we will do, that I can be alone when I want and that he will do everything possible to ensure I get the utmost satisfaction during my stay. His genial and polite nature fits every description I've read about the Persian character. I figured our first day would be spent doing traditional touristy things like visiting the National Museum, maybe the Carpet Museum.
Yeah, right. He's brought his car and hooks up his car stereo. I mention I've brought some music from America and he's overcome. I pull out a CD and tell him I'd like him to have it. He immediately puts it into the player and as the opening strains of Birken's 2003 live set at Human Condition kick in, we're off.
He takes me to Tochal, a popular destination in the mountains. Its Friday and a holiday, so the traffic is clogged and his gearbox is failing. He tells me there's a football match that afternoon and whatever 'traditional' plans I had for the day are out the window. We go to his parent's apartment in western Tehran where he lives. His mother has made me a home-cooked meal - my first (of what will certainly be many) Iranian kebab. Its delicious and I'm afraid it will spoil all other kebabs for me. His older sister is also there; she and her husband studied in the US for a year. I have a hard time believing I'm worthy of their effortless hospitality. H2 and I head off to the stadium.
H2 explains some of the Ashura remembrance that is in full swing, commemorating the martyrdom of the Shia Islam's Third Imam, Hossein. He says he will tell me the story of Shia's 12 imams little by little during our trip.
Football clubs Persepolis and Estaghlal both play in Tehran and share Azadi stadium. That's where the commonalities end. Their rivalry is on par with the Vikings-Packers and their annual derby fills the arena's 100,000 seats. Today, H2's team - Persepolis - will face last year's league champs Fulad, a team from Ahvaz, a city in southern Iran that has seen repeated bombings in the last year - activity the Iranian government blames on Arabs being coerced by the British.
We arrive at Azadi. This is pretty much the prime time scenario, innit?, the moment we've all been waiting for: me and 40,000 ramped-up Iranian men surrounded by dozens of soldiers armed with semi-automatic weapons, the images of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khameini looking down from above the stadium.
I've told H2 to get the best seats he could find - they cost a buck apiece. We're under the awning at midfield. The players are warming up. H2 points out the participants who are on the national team, about four from each side. As each of the Persepolis starters are announced, the partisans cheer "Lion!"; during Fulad's turn, the crowd yells something akin to "A**hole!" H2 explains the pre-game ritual. Normally, there is music piped in over the PA, but since its Ashura, a performer sings sad songs dedicated to Hossein. Throughout the day, H2 and I have discussed Iranian culture and its outside world perception. Its not the first time I'll hear someone say "We know - we *know* - the rest of the world hates us".
The singer wails into the mic as H2 describes the songs and the life of Hossein. Members of the crowd being to stand. Hossein was trapped in the Arab desert with his followers about 1300 years ago, after the Sunni and Shia split that has influenced Islam to this day. Sunnis have never recognized Hossein as an imam, Shia feel passionate about him because he was one of the most oppressed of their leaders. Most of the crowd is now standing. H2 explains that Hossein and his followers were near Karbala when they were surrounded by thousands of their enemies. The crowd begins beating their chests with their fists to show their allegiance to their imam. Late at night in their encampment, Hossein told his followers he would extinguish all the lights and that anyone who wanted to leave could do so. The chest beating at the stadium starts to sync as the sad songs continue. When Hossein turned the lights back on, there were only 72 of his followers left. They were all killed the next day. "Those followers were true Moslems", H2 says, "not like nowadays." The crowd is enflamed. "Being Moslem doesn't mean you can't have fun. It doesn't mean you can't have a girlfriend." The singer is in rapture. "Iranians hate terrorists. That's not real Islam." The crowds self-flagellation is in perfect cadence as they sing along to the sad songs. Below the din, H2 is gently holding my arm, looking me straight in the eye, almost pleading, "Real Islam is for peace. Real Islam is for love."
The performer sings the Qu'ran. The match begins.
*
The partisans' vitriol toward the opposing goalie is unabated. It grows more obscene as the match progresses, crescendoing into maternal insinuation of a sexual nature. A cop shows up and tells the crowd to stop saying such nasty things. The crowd turns back to the match and repeats their chant. The cop comes down into the crowd and stares at the offenders. They switch up and begin suggesting that the goalie "should dance". When Persepolis' star scores, they begin yelling that "Cozumian has f***ed you!"
Though they control the action throughout, Persepolis falls 3-2 due to a marginal call that leads to a penalty kick in the final 5 minutes. Now the 40,000 return to their cars depressed. H2 and I cross the freeway - yes, the freeway - to hail a cab.
As luck would have it, H2's father knows a great deal about travelling in Iran and helps us map out our itinerary over tea, pistachio treats and, of course, fruit back at the family apartment. His father tells me not to buy anything in Esfahan, "They're sharks. You could steal something from their store, sell it back to them and you'd still be cheated." H2's brother-in-law shows up with their kids, precocious and shy and curious to see an American in their midst. H2 and I make plans to begin our adventure the next morning at 8. He drives me back to my hotel.
*
Nourali is hanging out with a couple of the night clerks. A server brings H2 and I some tea. I ask if I should pay, and H2 says - even though I haven't spoken a word with this server - "No, he likes you." H2 heads home and Nourali wants to talk. He's very candid.
In the middle of our discussion, one of the clerks comes over with another man and says, "My friend would like to ask you a question." His friend is an airline pilot who wants very much to visit America, which is virtually impossible for an Iranian given the present global political situation. Perhaps his uncle in the US can send him a letter of invitation, though even he realizes its probably hopeless, and his countenance turns grim.
Nourali says he will go to his room to write me a letter in Farsi that I might have a Persian friend translate when I return home. The other clerk disappears and I'm alone with the thin bespectacled clerk who announced earlier in the evening that he has lost his sense among his emotions. He would like to talk with me.
"I love a girl." The clerk's English is fragmented, though he communicates that Iranians do not understand the Nietzchian ideal of love. He would also like to visit America, but "we know America hates us." He feels trapped. I can't make it out, but there is a great obstacle to his love for this woman. I'm not sure what has happened, but its clear something has happened, traumatic enough that he missed work two nights ago, something no Iranian in his position can do. He goes around the counter and produces a calculator. He multiplies two numbers and multiplies that by another. Then another and adds one more to come up with 846. "This is how many days I have loved her." Some combination of religious law and family intervention has made it impossible for them to be together. His desperation is quiet but palpable. He's afraid God doesn't love him.
Day Two ends. I sit in my room with the lights off.
*
If everything that happened on Day Three had taken place over the course of the entire trip, I would have considered myself very fortunate.
H2 arrives at 8, we exchange money and rent a Paykan (an old Iranian auto that is no longer in production) to take us to Qom. At regular intervals in the sides of mountains along the highway, the government uses white stones to spell out prayers, sayings from the Qu'ran and aphorisms like "You should learn to behave like Imam Ali." Its only broken up by a secular football fan who has interjected "Esteghlal is better than Persepolis."
Qom is the second holiest city in Iran after Mashad. Ayatollah Khomeini kept a residence here. Ayatollah Sistani, now living in Iraq, has an office here. Thinking it conservative atmosphere might make me a target for derision, I never really considered a visit. Thankfully I'm a fool and H2 has convinced me to put this on the itinerary.
Respect for the hejab in Qom is absolute - chador, scarf, everything - compared to Tehran where many women barely have their head covered, which would certainly lead to punishment in a place like Qom. We're here to visit a great Shrine. Non-Moslems aren't always allowed and can never enter the mosque on the premises. H2 brings our bags to a security station and speaks with its supervisor, who asks where I'm from. "Amrika". He asks another question and upon H2's answer, lights up. H2 takes my hand and we enter the shrine. "I'm sorry", H2 says, "I told him you were Moslem."
H2's father has arranged for us a meeting with a director of the shrine. We take off our shoes outside his office and wait patiently for him to finish conducting a worldwide chat of Shia adherents. He sits down and asks, "You're Christian, aren't you?" I nod. "Okay, is good."
Not only does he give us approval to tour the grounds, he allows me to video tape what I see - a rarity for any foreigner, even a registered journalist, and with an armed guard for protection. My camera doesn't stop rolling for 15 minutes.
We find a car to take us to Kashan. The driver knows where the government has put the traffic cameras, so as not to be stopped when he's going 200 kph.
After checking into the hotel, we head to the glorious Fin Gardens. During our visit we run into a group of Esfahani college students making a field trip to see where the beloved former prime minister Amir Kabir was assassinated in the 19th century. Some young girls want to practice their English with me.
H2 and I grab a bus, Teddy Murphy's Persian doppleganger among its riders, and head across town to the legendary Qajari traditional houses. They close at dark and its dark. The site supervisor shows up and graciously leads us on a personalized tour after hours, going into great detail about the incredible engineering of this remarkable homey palaces. He refuses to accept our money and, like many before him, wishes me a good trip in Iran.
This is Day Three.
posted by s. at 12:20 PM
0 Comments:
<< Home