I failed

Dear Readers,

Yes, it’s true. I failed. After 6 years of university, never having failed anything, having a credit average, I managed to fail my last ever subject at uni. As I stared at the cold, static computer screen I could not believe my eyes. 47. Those two digits staring right back at me. 3 marks god damnit.

This was my reaction:

The irony, failing my very last subject! If any of you wish to send me flowers or other presents to cheer me up, please do.

Ok so they’re not real tears, it was very staged. It wasn’t easy to keep a straight face, see:

But I was upset so please send sympathy!

 

photos

Hi everyone,

Just letting you know I’ve posted 2 slideshows – one under the post “village people” and the other in a new page (go to the tabs at the top of this page) entitled “photos”.

Enjoy

 

Tarof

Taken from my previous blog

Tarof is something Iranians do by nature. It can be best translated as “excessive politeness”. Let me give you a few common examples.

* you see somebody you know, in any situation, be it at someone’s house, on the street, etc. You invite them to your house, in very vague terms, because you actually usually do not want them to come to your house.

* if somebody invites themselves to your house (rare), you reply with “ghadamet roo cheshmam”, which literally means ‘i invite you to walk on my eyes’, ie, i’d be so happy that you could walk across my eyes to come to my place.

* you go to pay for something, be it goods, food at a restaurant, anything, and the person you pay will most certainly say “ghabeli nadaareh” which means, literally, “it is not worthy of you”, basically, ‘it’s on the house’. But just try leaving without paying!

*You go to someone’s house and all the time your there they keep telling you to eat, keep bringing you tea, fruit, etc. At the dinner table they forcibly put food on your plate (this is extremely annoying, and explains why i will come back to Aus  10 kilos heavier).

*When you are leaving someone’s house they say things like “i’m extremely sorry that you didnt enjoy yourself”, and you say things like “i’m very sorry to have disturbed you”. lol.

*You must offer everything at least 3 times. And you can never accept anything after one or two offers either.

*If someone compliments an item of clothing/jewellery, you must offer to give it to them although they can never accept.

Well, it’s not all fake. Some of it is quite endearing, and you definitely get a level of hospitality that you wouldn’t in Australia. But since I’ve been here I have overdosed on it. It’s so ritualistic, you have to have the right answer for every tarof. It’s quite tiring.

 

You’re fat and you need a nose job

We have something in Persian culture called “tarof” – basically you are careful to be polite to everyone. However, there is a degree of frankness about certain things that would even offend the sensibilities of your average Aussie.

Comments on your appearance are part of this. It is very normal for someone to comment that “wow, you’ve gotten fat”, they may then add a “mash’allah” which is a positive exclamation which would only be used if you have gotten REALLY fat (as if it adding the word turns your sudden obesity into a positive change).

Also not considered rude is asking someone how much money they make, how much rent they pay, or how much they payed for their house/car/shoes (though saying someone is fat is still more polite than asking these questions).

Another thing that is often commented on is a person needing a nose job. This is not considered rude. It is simply a fact of life that you have a big, ugly nose (it really is for many Iranians) and that there is a solution available! More on nose jobs soon!

 

Domestication

Well dear friends, what am I doing here?

I was disappointed to hear many of you ask me if I am here to find a husband. And of course, since I arrived, everyone here has been asking me when I’m going to get married. So I thought, just so I’d have some sort of response to give everyone, as long as I am here, and I have a fair bit of time on my hands, I may as well take the first step and learn how to cook I am happy to announce that so far I have learnt 2 new dishes and am well on my way to domestication.

As for all of you who were waiting for this day, no, I will not marry you now :p

 

Village People

Over the weekend (which here is just Friday, but I’m including thursday arvo too), we visited my aunts’ parents holiday house in a small village in the foothills of Mt Damavand – the tallest mountain in Iran, just North of Tehran.It’s cute little old fashioned village, with old style houses which have big gardens with all types of trees and plants. They’re all dry now but we did eat, straight from the tree, pears, walnuts and zereshk (dogberry? sorry don’t know the English name).

It was bloody freezing! Under zero the whole time we were there. We sat outside next to the fire, drinking endless cups of tea and smoking gheylyoon which is the thing in the photos that looks like a giant bong (you may know it as shishe or agile or just plain old hubbly bubbly).

On Thursday night we went for a little walk. It was a bit scary – you could easily set a horror movie there. Small little corridors surrounded by old buildings and clay and stone walls. There was also an old graveyard beyond a big hill. It was so dark that you could see thousands of stars in the sky. There were also many stray dogs… white ones. But they only come out at night and are scared of people.

On Friday morning we climbed part of the mountain… I didn’t make it to the top because my mother could not handle it… if you note in the photos the slope is crazy. My aunt said once she climbed for a few hours, much further than where we went, and she saw a family of nomads who had set up their tents there! They’re from the South of Iran and migrate to the North in the Summer.

Damavand Photos

 

Clear skies ahead!

Tehran is extremely polluted. Last time I was here I only saw brief glimpses of a blue sky a couple of times straight after it had rained. Many days were declared public holidays and schools were closed for weeks because of the extent of the pollution.

This time it is much better, I have been continuously seeing blue sky for a week now, hurrah!

Last time they had come up with this ridiculous plan to let cars with licence plates ending with an even number out one day, and those ending with an odd number out on alternate days. Well, this extremely inconvenient plan is still in force and apparently working.

 

Trouble with the popo

I had been hearing since the begining of the year that they are getting tough on dress in Iran. Ever since the new president came along. But being back in Iran I felt that everything seemed the same. The same crazy hair styles exploding out of tiny head scarfs, the same extreme make up that you’d need a chisel to remove, the same tight overcoats that did more to accentuate curves than to cover them, etc, etc.

So you can imagine my surprise when two of my cousin’s friends who we were meeting up with today were arrested…

This morning I headed out with my cousin, also named Parisa, to celebrate her friend’s birthday. We were meeting two of her friends near their former university which is in one of the richer, trendier parts of Tehran. We were running about an hour late (normal by Iranian standards) when Parisa (the other one) received a text message from her friend informing her that they had been arrested.

We were worried at this point. Parisa called one of the girls’ mothers. She had already heard the news. We went and picked her up and drove to the police station. The vans of the police unit responsible for enforcing Islamic dress were parked outside. Parisa removed her make-up and donned a chador (a long black piece of cloth that covers from head to toe – not including face) and went in with her friend’s mother. I waited in the car.

One of her friends emerged to tell the story. One had been arrested because her pants were tucked into her ankle boots. The other because her headscarf was the type that has holes in it as it is one of those knitted ones. Others had been arrested because their overcoats were too short (above the knee). You probably don’t need me to tell you at this point that this stuff has nothing to do with Islam.

They let them go. They just needed someone to come in and give them “proper” clothes. The girls were saying that everyone in the station was laughing and telling jokes. They all found it so ridiculous. They were calling each other “big criminals”. The girl whose birthday it was was taken in with a box full of sweets. She joked about distributing them to everyone to celebrate being set free. The other girl was joking that she hopes to get asylum in America now that she has been a political prisoner. But they now have police records, though I’m not sure that there is any real charge. They got fingerprinted and photographed – just like in gaol photos!

The rest of the day Parisa and I were paranoid about being caught aswell. The fact is that there is no real law. If they want to take you in they will pick on something. When we were shopping later on in the afternoon we heard some yelling. It was a girl being arrested for the same thing. We fled the shopping arcade!

It was a bit of an adventure for sure. But just plain stupid. People mostly think that they are cracking down on dress in order to distract everyone from the real problems with the government and the running of the country (youth unemployment and inflation are just ridiculous). Another theory goes that they sell the files they establish on these people to international police (they love conspiracy theories here!).

 

In search of… strobe lights

My father used to say:

A boy is like snake venom, when he goes out into the street, everyone moves out of his way.

A girl is like a diamond, when she goes out into the street, everyone looks and goes after her.

This always made me laugh at how old fashioned and out of this world it seemed. Then I visited Laleh Zaar Street. Yes, this was the street he was talking about.

I was with my cousin Mahsa who is also female and my age. We were going in search of strobe lights. Why did I feel the need to buy strobe lights whilst in the Islamic Republic of Iran and not just back in Oz? I don’t know.

Shopping in Tehran is generally organized into districts. You have your little corner stores that sell everything then you have certain districts where you can find a whole range of whatever it is you’re looking for. One district for shoes, another for men’s suits, another for women’s evening wear, another for jewellery.

We started in the central bazaar disctrict and as we asked around to see where we could buy strobe lights from, we were directed to Laleh Zaar which is the mechanical and hardware district.

You can imagine what type of a scene we were in. Rows and rows of mechanics’ shops, security and electrical goods stores. All attended by men. The street itself was packed, again, all men. At one point I looked up and realized that Mahsa and I were the only females in the whole street. We began to feel a bit anxious. There were men everywhere, young, old, ugly and uglier. And every second one that we walked past had something to say to us. From the harmless “hello”, to the typical “ladies!”, to the mysterious “I’ve got big ones, I’ve got small ones” to the just plain rude *omitted*.

 We began to fear for our lives. In the middle of all this I was asking Mahsa “what did he just say? What does that mean??” (my Persian is not the best). Then we saw another woman. We felt a bit of relief until we realized she was schizophrenic, carrying her bags and shouting obscenities at anyone and everyone.

We had no choice but to soldier on in pursuit of our goal. Finally we found the strobe lights. We were so disturbed by what we had just experienced that we did not even bother to bargain with the shopkeeper! We took the goods and left quickly, back down Laleh Zaar. We tried to not attract attention. It didn’t work. The staring and comments from young and old alike continued. Finally we began to emerge from that parallel universe. We saw more and more women around us, and stores selling home wares and shoes. We had made it out alive. We embraced each other and felt an enormous sense of relief. We vowed never to go back to Laleh Zaar.  

When I spoke to my dad later I learnt that Laleh Zaar is notorious, from back in the day, for this intimidating atmosphere.

 

What did we learn last time?

I visited Iran for 2 years ago. I kept a web-log called “Adventures in the Islamic Republic”. You can visit it @ http://parisagolchi.spaces.live.com/

What did we learn?

Iran is like another world. It’s an interesting and often contradictory place.

 

Also we discovered that I’m not very Persian. I have been totally corrupted by the West, etc, etc.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my blog and I’ll endeavour to keep you all procrastinating.