63 replies to this topic

[Ruq]

1472Maryam, on 22 June 2012 - 07:55 PM, said:

Disclaimer:  I do not claim to speak for the people of Iran, because: a) I am not Iranian, and I don't know them all.  I am speaking from snippets of my own experience, much like the blind men and the elephant.  So, here's one snippet.

The Concept of Taarof - There is no word that corresponds to this in English, so a translation might be: the belief of a host that a guest is just being polite and really wants every piece of food in your house, and therefore one must browbeat him until he eats enough to make him sick, and the effort of the guest to avoid being trouble and eat as little as possible, whether or not he is hungry.  Well, actually I think taarof means more of the latter - the guest's trying to avoid taking it, but the two play sort of a symbiotic ritual together.  This can also apply to other situations where someone is trying to be helpful to another and the other person is trying to avoid being helped, but it reaches its apex in the realm of social eating.

When you visit an Iranian family, they will immediately begin preparing tea and dessert plates of seasonal fruit to serve you, and may also serve regional sweets and nut/seed mixtures.  You will politely accept the plates and then proceed to ignore them.  They will urge you to eat, and you will take a few grapes to appease them, but it doesn't.  They will pare a pear and offer it to you, and you can't really let it go to waste now once it's cut, can you?  And then, you really must try these peaches....they are very good.....and then I made this special cake today just for you....

There are certain people who are very good on the host end and others that are very good at avoiding the eating part.  For example, there may be a khaleh-jan (means "dear maternal aunt") who makes sure that you have eaten at least one of each kind of fruit in the house and each pastry, and if you don't want tea, she will make sure that someone brings you a sharbat (an -ade, made with fruit syrup and water, or with pureed fruit such as melons), and even though you have something in your mouth every second you are in her house, she is sure you are far too thin, and must have more, and take some home in case you get hungry in the 15 minute car ride home.  And then she has to give all the young people some money, and even if you're 55, you're still young in her eyes.

The ones on the guest side that are successful in avoiding eating just seem to have that force of will to politely take a bite and then offer things to others and strongly decline things for themselves.  Or they are quick at filling their plate so no one can put something else in it.  For example, if they are eating a meal at someone's house, then they eat all the yogurt in the small bowl by their plate, and as soon as they finish the plate with their main meal, they put the bowl on top of it, and make sure chicken bones fill any other available area of the plate and bowl.  Otherwise the host will be sure to put another huge kafgir (large flat serving "spoon") full of rice on the plate, because the guest obviously is wasting away and needs more.

An Iranian who arrives in the US and is not aware that Americans do not know how to taarof, may come away hungry the first few times they visit an American family, because the American will offer food, the Iranian will politely decline, the American will say, "Are you sure?", the Iranian will say they do not want any, and then that will be the end of it, to the great astonishment of the Iranian, who will not know what to do if they are not harrassed into eating.

What happens if you eat everything thats offered to you? will you never be invited again? i need to check this point, but so far im super looking forward to my first invite to an Iranian house.

[1472Maryam]

LoL! Believe me, you will never finish everything.  And yes, you will be invited back.

[1472Maryam]

Disclaimer again: I am not Iranian, nor can I speak for all Iranians, since I have not met all of them, but here is another snippet about Iranian Muslim culture (or I assume Muslims from other countries do something like this as well).  I don't know if Iranians of other religions do this or not.

Footware etiquette

There are three states of footware:
1) shoes that you wear for going out of the house

2) slippers that you wear inside the house on tiled floors (pictured above)
3) sock/stocking feet

When you visit the house of an Iranian Muslim, upon entering the house, you will immediately remove your outside shoes, and either be offered slippers if you are standing on tiled floors, or you will walk around in your sock feet if you are on carpets.  Since the person who wrote the initial question did not know anything about Iran, they may not also know that this is a general Muslim practice and it is also done in the masjid (mosque).  So, for example, if I come to my mother-in-law's house, I will put on slippers in the tiled entranceway, walk across the courtyard to the room where other family members are sitting, leave my slippers outside the door to that room, and walk in the carpeted room in my socks.  Then, I may leave the room by another door, claiming a different pair of slippers that I find there, so that I can go into the kitchen to help out. Sometimes, you get to one door and realize that there are no slippers left there, so someone has to go get you a pair, or for some reason only one of a pair is there, so you hop over to the next full pair.    Slippers are also worn whenever you go to the bathroom.

The reason for not wearing outside shoes or slippers on the carpet are to keep them clean for prayer purposes.  My mother, who is Christian, never did understand why she would have to take off her shoes in our home.  She could not see the difference between our two houses, since she vacuums and keeps her home clean.  However, I notice, when spending a day at her house, that my socks would get darker on the bottom at her house than they would at mine, even though you could not tell the difference just by looking at our floors.  Not wearing shoes in the house really does make a difference.

[1472Maryam]

Thank you for pointing that out.  I did not go into enough detail, obviously, and like I said, I am not speaking for all Iranians.  The men usually are barefoot inside the house on the carpet, but the women may or may not be depending on how conservative they are or what men are around.  In my in-laws' family the slippers are not for the carpet, but for the tiled areas of the house, although I do know some people who use indoor-only slippers for carpeted areas.

Yes, Christians often do walk inside their homes with the same shoes they use outside.

[aliasghark]

shadow_of_light, on 25 June 2012 - 01:09 PM, said:

Do christians walk with their shoes on the carpets (the same shoes they use outside of their homes)??!!!

It's not particular to Christianity or anything, it's just normal in parts of the West to walk inside the carpeted houses with the same shoes that are used outside (doesn't change if you're Jew or Atheist), just like non-Shias also often don't use the same footwear inside and outside the house in Iran.

[1472Maryam]

Thank you Shadow of Light.  I think that Iranians are so used to being Iranian, they may not realize what may be interesting to someone just learning about the country and its people.  Since I am not Iranian, though, I always say that at the beginning of the posts in this thread so people can correct any misconceptions that I may have.

Here's another snippet of information:

Hot and Cold Food

When Iranians talk about hot and cold food, they may not be talking about spicy vs bland,nor about steaming vs freezing.  What they are instead talking about is an ancient classification of the nature of food, and that diseases can be caused by an imbalance in one or the other nature.  For example, meat and sweets are considered hot, but many vegetables are considered cold.  However, people's opinion of what is hot and cold may vary by region, so if anyone disagrees with that last statement, I may not be surprised.  Some people say that this concept began with Avicenna, others that it is older than that and came through Zoarastrianism.  Not having researched the history, I am only reporting what people have said to me.

So, if you are visiting with Iranians who believe in this concept and begin not to feel well, they may carefully analyze what you recently ate, and anounce that you had too many hot foods (garmi) and that you must now eat some cucumber, or other food which has a cold nature (sardi) to offset that.

There are also many folk remedies for various ailments - teas, herbs, and such.  Of course, you can go to a doctor, and most people do, but the old remedies still hold on.

Which brings me to another subject...the Iranian "fear" of cool moving air.    In the US, we often say that we must've gotten a cold because we were out in cold weather.  In Iran, they take it to another level.  In the middle of the heat of the desert summer, the hosts that you are staying with will insist that you cover your hair after you wash it until it is dry, because you might catch cold (and believe me, this is not in situations that call for hijab).  They will make sure that fans are not blowing directly on you, and will use air conditioning sparingly.  Many times you may go to a home and find that they both have the air conditioning on and a window open.  This is to provide some relief but avoid the danger of catching a cold.

Now if you do catch a cold despite all their best efforts, the remedy is the same as ours in the US....chicken soup.

[mohammad_mahdi]

Haha, you know what i did, i read the first few reply posts about how many varied opinions there are regarding iranians, and then i flipped to the last few pages and lo and behold outside slippers and indoor slippers were being discussed in intricate detail. I love how these conversations evolve : )

I am part iranian, and have a very limited experience of iran from visiting family there over the years. i say my experience is limited cuz i don't speak persian (outside of knowing how to order food in a persian restaurant, but that's a necessity) What my take on iran is, for many years they lived under an oppressive government (the shah) and had no freedom to express their religious ideologies. once they overcame that government, their initial daily worries of how to have religious freedom was replaced by daily worries on how to make a living, get kids through school etc.. basically the shift of focus was moved to the more mainstream lifestyle of people in the world today. but is not a new phenomenon and has happened likely countless times in other countries. the generation today in iran have different priorities to what their parents' generation did, and as vague and general a term as it is, i will use the word 'westernised' when i say that was the change that occured with the new generation. with today's technology, you can clearly understand how it happened


Iran does not represent a religion, it has a man made government, which like all man made governments, tries to live up to expectations but inevitably is festering with flaws. festering's such a strong word eh.... riddled. that's it, riddled sounds more PC. there are government stands which are very much not in keeping with Islamic morals (for example many immigrants in iran who come from iraq or afganistan are counted as second class citizens, and it would be fine if they were citizens, but they don't even get any green cards after living there a whole generation! i know people who were specifically under such circumstances).


As for the sister who said she moved to tehran to study there and saw the reality of the situation there, i feel your pain. would you believe my parents tried to convince my sister to study medicine there?? thank God that never materialised, and my parents knew it was a fat chance of that happening after we already visited tehran before : ) but the fact that Imam Ridha is in Mashhad, makes it a plot of land which is of the dearest in the world in the hearts of all the lovers of knowledge and free speech, like how their Imam was.


And Allah knows best

[titumir]

Hello. I'd just like to say, Iranian culture is more widespread than you can imagine. I live in Bangladesh, and I've just returned home from an invitation at a friend's house. My stomach is full to its limits due to the repeated servings of food. That's because Bangladeshi Islamic culture is heavily influenced by Persian culture. In fact, Persian used to be the official language of Bengal, until the British came and displaced it. Most bengali Islamic terms, like Namaz, Roja, Khoda, etc. are Persian.

We don't have the cold air phobia though, nor the hot vs cold classification. Maybe because ALL of our food is hot!

[Marbles]

shadow_of_light, on 28 June 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

I didnt know that Bangladeshi people used to talk in Persian!

Farsi was for centuries the lingua franca of the whole of the Subcontinent including that of Bengal.

The Indian school of Farsi, as it was called, produced great poets and prose writers.

However, Farsi lost its grip with the emergence of new national language in Northern India. The process took speed when Britishers came to occupy those lands and replaced it with English.

Today no one speaks Farsi without making an effort to learn the language, and very few learn it.

[ABA]

Ja, on 26 May 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

I am an American citizen that has lived nowhere else in my entire life.  I hear a lot of things about Iran on the news and the like, but I want to hear about Iran from people who have much better knowledge than I do.  

It's easy.  First, don't watch mainstream news.
Second, go to IranianFacebook.com and read the articles and watch the videos.  
In one day you will learn about the real Iran as opposed to the nonsense you've been fed through the Jewish media your entire life.

[aliasghark]

ABA, on 28 June 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

It's easy.  First, don't watch mainstream news.
Second, go to IranianFacebook.com and read the articles and watch the videos.  
In one day you will learn about the real Iran as opposed to the nonsense you've been fed through the Jewish media your entire life.

And Ja'far try to ignore the places where simple-minded people portray Jews in negative light such as the above, because they haven't thought through what they're saying (instead of blaming the portion of racist Zionists responsible for the constant wars against and murders of innocent Palestinian people, some people find it easier to be intellectually lazy and blame 'the Jews' for everything (ironically that's what some of the western press does about Iran)).

[AliSaleh]

u can learn alot about Iran from Iranian.com.  they have good articles and many people post pictures of iran so u get a good mix of what iran is about.

[aliasghark]

AliSaleh, on 02 July 2012 - 10:08 AM, said:

u can learn alot about Iran from Iranian.com.  they have good articles and many people post pictures of iran so u get a good mix of what iran is about.

Wow this site is bizarre... seems like it's very anti-Islam and anti-Iranian government, and in a really hate-filled way.

[ABA]

aliasghark, on 02 July 2012 - 10:16 AM, said:

Wow this site is bizarre... seems like it's very anti-Islam and anti-Iranian government, and in a really hate-filled way.

Bahais and Jews have hijacked the name of the website "Iranian.com" -- they think they are fooling people.  Read about it here:

http://iranianfacebo...ahai-scam-site/