Six Months (Part 1)

From and old email sent to friends in 2006:

I am obliged to give some information to those of you who asked for a glimpse into life in Iran in case you were going to try it as well or have simply forgotten about all the absurdity. Absurdity is so prevalent that I just can’t get away from it, so that’s all I can tell you about. It can be a positive and fun phenomenon or a negative and nerve shattering one. That only depends on the eye of the beholder. Or the day of the month. I am still trying not to pass any judgment or make comparisons and only look at things as they are. But sometimes I think a small dose of amnesia would help. So I think that I’ll send along some images as they can do the talking much better than me. Inevitably some notes have been included because it’s really difficult to hold back.
After being outside of Iran for quite some time, upon returning I found some things to be completely new and at times shocking and others quite old and familiar. Naturally. For instance, you might not know that Iranian TV has a program similar to c-span that shows the happenings in Majles, while there’s still an abrupt break in all programs for Azan. By the way, Huch the Honey Bee was sighted not long ago on one of the channels still searching for his mother. Or for example the apparent hideousness of our new president might not be a shock to most of you as it falls in the familiar and expected category, but the fact that an ape has learned to speak, and with eloquence for that matter, is another story. (Finally Koko the Gorilla has been beaten.)
But in general, although the craziness, and the extreme contradictions, that shroud Iranian life and culture are among those aspects that are old and familiar, I still find them new and bizarre regardless. So, you already know what is expressed here. Let it serve only as a reminder of how things were, perhaps with a touch of newly imported post-modernity. How things have always been.

Without the quintessential motorcycle, Iran would shut down. In traffic-ridden Tehran everyone relies on someone’s bike everyday. Yes that includes you too. Bikes deliver everything in Tehran now. Everything, literally. From chicken’s milk to human life. On a personal level you normally have your food delivered on bikes. You can shop via phone and have a bike deliver the goods as well. That’s how I get most of my software here. Commerce depends on them as you can see from the photo. Bikes deliver wholesale bread, meat, eggs, clothes, rugs, Pentium CPUs, shoes, soft drinks and bottled water, live chicken, cabbages, furniture, monitors, and refrigerators (small ones). They deliver blocks of ice too. They can get creative with their craft as well. We spotted two guys on a bike with the passenger having his back to the driver and holding a television set in his lap. Bikes are also used as a tool for public transportation. You can hop on one and go to work in the morning. They almost charge what cab companies (ajans) charge. They are faster for sure. I should note that the health care industry has also found use for them as well. We realized this when a relative’s call to the emergency dispatcher resulted in them sending a motorcycle ambulance to the scene. Just yesterday we also spotted a fireman riding a red bike with two fire extinguishers attached to the side.  Some say motorcycles are a major cause of traffic. There’s merit to that claim but we sure can’t live without them.

Yep, KFC it is. We also have MacDonald’s, Carl’s Junior, Subway, Burger King and many more. Well, variations of them anyway as it is evident from above. For some strange reason Iranians think of fast food joints as luxury. I’ve eaten in a number of these places. One thing that’s for sure is that they are not fast at all. You first order your food, and then you will be seated by an attendant. Another one brings you your drinks and then you wait fifteen minutes for the cook to make your burger and fries. I’m not complaining. I’d rather eat slow food, but the crazy thing is that the decorations inside are fast food styled, and people think it’s hip. The yellow and the red and the blue everywhere. Large counters with four to five cash registers. Cheap styrofoam and paper wraps. Plastic tables with bolted chairs. You can even get a junior’s meal.

Speaking of eateries, this is probably one of the best places we’ve eaten this trip.

And if you’re curious about the inside, well here it is:

Yes that’s where you are served. Actually there’s a terrace upstairs that’s nicer. But hey, the food’s what really matters.

Ah, another Iranian essential. How can you live without tea? Our craving for tea is so intense at times that these kids have made it their business to serve us our tea while we’re walking around shopping at the mall. This happens to be in Tajrish and we gladly sat on some random stairs and sipped away all that shopping fatigue. I’ve come to believe that tea is also responsible for all the rush and hurry Iranians have in their daily lives, especially behind the wheel. In a flash of a second, theycutoffthreedrivers,zoombyyouanddisappearinthedustbecausetheyhavetogettotheoffice, only to sit and…sip…their…tea.

If you think there’s a lack of choice in products available to the Iranian think again. We have low fat, we have no fat, we have 3% fat, we have 2.5% fat, we have 2% fat. If you think you want to get away from a consumer society, think again again.

These mysterious things are everywhere (you should be able to spot another one in this document). It’s quite eerie, as if left over by another distant alien civilization, but they have now developed a life of their own and have grown in every terrain across the country. The few that I managed to check were fairly empty. Either they are ignored, or there are still operatives of that old civilization that actually drain them regularly.

I’ve included this photo for those of you who are really nostalgic. I’m sad to say that production of Peykan has been halted. Some say that when we tried to sell the line to some wretched country across the seas they rejected it, and some say they took it. Who knows, news in Iran can be quite blurry.

And another bit of nostalgia with a twist. Above is the old Zamyad (now Saipa) after being mutated by the self-sufficiency virus.

Please forward this photo to George W., so that he might stop criticizing our budding democracy. I must say that the election campaigns were quite amazing; the money that was spent, the advertisements that we saw and all that Jazz. Some night we passed by one of the candidates’ campaign headquarters. They had recruited 18-25 year olds, boys and girls, dressed ultra-fashionably, mingling and eating food and drinking soft drinks, while the earth was shaking to the beat of some techno DJ. It was all quite dizzying. Of course we got so dizzy in the end we don’t know what happened. We just woke up with a bad hangover and a foul taste in our mouths.