Very proud of you Hello,
My name is Babak. I am an Iranian but currently live in the US. I've been living abroad for 11 years. I usually check this sites to read about peoples' experiences visiting Iran. But then I came across your story. Working in a hotel in Iran for an Aussie. So i decided to title my comment "I am proud of you". I think in this day and age what you've done is a courageous act and I applaud you. I am not sure if you are still in Iran. but it was very true when you talked about your experiences at work and compared it to immigrants' lives when they live in countries like yours. Anyways kudos to you. I hope you enjoy your work and life in Iran. Iranian people really crave interacting with people who are from other countries when they visit Iran which sometimes becomes overwhelming but I thing in general they can be classified as hospitable. They sometimes make comments that they don't process (this only applies to less educated people not all Iranians) them first before uttering them but that's how they are even with one another and I am sure they didn't mean to offend.I lived all my life in Iran before immigration and if there is anything I can help you with (any advice with culture or anything like that) I would be glad to help.
Take care and have fun.
Cheers
Babak
SALAM DUSTE AZIZAM!(Hi dear friend) Salam ,man khubam ,shoma chetorid?
Thanks for your answer,I wrote "...change the sentence into the reality..."I thought maybe you was sad when heard something about your weight so I wrote that to put you in a good mood and I'm sure that you are honesty and frankly person and never write lies.
I'm 19 years old and live in Shiraz.let me tell you about my plans,I 'm going to travel this summer alone!
I'm going to travel to Lebanon or Syria so I'm study arabic words when I'm in a taxi or bus etc.I study "Le Francais"(France)by myself too and try to review my English words.
I study civil ,and I've a lot of work to do.(God will help me like before.(inshaallah))
This is an small gift from me to you:
Come and let's strew flowers and fill up our cups with wine,
Tear apart the azure ceiling and carve a new design.
Hafez
Omidvaram dar Shiraz behetoon khosh gozashte bashe!(I hope you had nice time in Shiraz,of course I know you worked in the Hotel) Rasti khub Farsi baladid.
Soheil.(My address is: Shiraz,Gas crossroads,Abrishami street)
Salam Soheil! Shoma chetorid? Shoma Shirazi hastid? Kheyli bahal e...dust daram Shirazi, o baraye chahar mah dar Shiraz zendegi kardam. Thanks for your comment!
I was just writing the truth when I wrote about the comment that the guy said to me about "my belly being like pregnant" - I never write lies or invent things, I simply write about the truths that I observe and can vouch for from personal experience. In fact, many Iranians of all ages, both male and female, made half-joking comments to me about my weight, not just this one guy in my post. They would repeatedly say things like "Soon you will be so fat, you won't be able to fit through the door-frame!" and "Lazem varzesh mikoni!"
But it was all in good fun, I learned to not take it to heart...I'm not a person who gets offended easily, so instead I would just laugh along with them when they made such comments. I concluded that being thin is obviously a big priority for most young Iranian women...so when they see a big tall women like me with a belly, I stand out a lot, so they feel the need to comment. So I took the comments the same way I would take it if they said something like "Whoa, your nose is really thin!", "Man, you're SO tall!", "You have very pale skin!", etc. That is, like it was no big deal.
Pas, yani 'nigaran nabash', dustam!
Hi dear friend Hi dear friend
I hope you had nice time in Iran.I read your beautiful reports and was shocking when read the sentence that was:"you're very beautiful except ..." Know that your not very fat,please change the sentence into the reality.
Best wishes
Soheil.Iran - Shiraz
Hey Dave! Thanks for the encouragement - it means a lot to me, my friend!
And yes, you're right, there's no excuses to not visit Syria: incredible landscapes/ruins, awe-inspiring history, nice welcoming people, easy-visa-on-arrival for Aussies for AUD $75, and it's very cheap in this country as well (e.g. your own room with bathroom in a budget hotel in centre of town AUD $12-16, felafel street food AUD 0.60 cents, sit-down meal in an eatery frequented by locals AUD $6, for every hour of bus travel AUD $1). The only thing not cheap about Syria are the flights to get to this country :-(. Therefore, many travellers I met said that they got a cheap flight to a Turkish airport from Europe, and then took a bus down to Aleppo from there.
Re your clothing comments: people are completely free in Syria to dress as they please...there are local girls in the Christian Quarter of Aleppo wearing knee-high boots, painted-on jeans, tight tops and a ton of make-up (reminiscent of Beirut)...in the Old City of Aleppo, the Muslims tend to dress very conservatively (MUCH more conservative attire than in Iran...but more on that later...) with women often being if not fully veiled than frequently just showing their eyes under their loose black robes, and men wearing their own type of long robes or Kurdish-style baggy pants and keffieh on their heads.
And often with the women, there's an amusing mix between the two styles, in that a young Muslim woman will be dutifully covering every strand of her hair with her headscarf and have long sleeves, BUT she'll be wearing a short top that shows off her bottom hugged by her skintight jeans and high boots! Or the other example is a Syrian Muslim woman wearing headscarf and long loose coat, but she'll have donned a short skirt that showcases her bare legs!
So my point is, that many people wear Western clothes in Syria - it's not frowned upon. The only definite public no-no I've found is cleavage! (Which is why I've taken to draping a scarf around my neck, lol). I mean, since it's cold-ish weather in the time I'm here, I can't say how the local people of Syria dress in the summertime e.g. whether tank tops, short shorts or singlet tops are normal to wear in public. I'm sure skimpy clothing such as that would be fine in liberal Mediterranean Lattakia...but in other parts of Syria, I'm not sure.
NB: For anyone reading this who is not Australian, the AUD (Australian dollar) is on a par with/virtually the same as the US dollar :-). This makes me very happy, as I remember well the days of travelling back in 2008, where 1 Australian dollar was woefully worth only 0.55-0.65 US cents!
Feedback? Another awesome update Sharni. :) You should definitely do more of them, if not for others then at least for yourself, while it's still fresh in your mind.
I had already seen the photos of the kids but your vivid description really brought the experience to life even better. I already had Syria up there at the top of my Middle-Eastern countries to visit but you've really sold it to me all the same. :)
Oh by the way, I noticed that you were dressed in fairly western clothes in some of your photos in Syria, they aren't so uptight about that?
I'm Sharni, a 26 y.o. Australian from Melbourne. My goal is to never stop learning from as many people as I can from all the countries I hope to explore one day. If I can be free to travel, laugh, learn, joke and share with people from many different cultures, viewpoints and backgrounds for the rest of my life, that will make me a happy woman :-)
"All we have to do to be free is to drop the anxieties and tools of control, and set out into the world..."
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... full info
Babak
non-member comment
Very proud of you
Hello, My name is Babak. I am an Iranian but currently live in the US. I've been living abroad for 11 years. I usually check this sites to read about peoples' experiences visiting Iran. But then I came across your story. Working in a hotel in Iran for an Aussie. So i decided to title my comment "I am proud of you". I think in this day and age what you've done is a courageous act and I applaud you. I am not sure if you are still in Iran. but it was very true when you talked about your experiences at work and compared it to immigrants' lives when they live in countries like yours. Anyways kudos to you. I hope you enjoy your work and life in Iran. Iranian people really crave interacting with people who are from other countries when they visit Iran which sometimes becomes overwhelming but I thing in general they can be classified as hospitable. They sometimes make comments that they don't process (this only applies to less educated people not all Iranians) them first before uttering them but that's how they are even with one another and I am sure they didn't mean to offend.I lived all my life in Iran before immigration and if there is anything I can help you with (any advice with culture or anything like that) I would be glad to help. Take care and have fun. Cheers Babak