The Amsterdam Airport

It looks like a mall. Shops everywhere and lot and lots of people waiting around for their next KLM flight. Funny annoncements made every 5 minutes: “Ms. Jackquilne Johanssen on flight from London to Munich, you are delaying the flight. Please show up or we will remove your luggage.” It makes you ticked off at Ms. Johanssen as much as the airport is. But now i know that much more info about this person, which could be considered a privacy issue.

Bombaran

My first full day in Iran i hear bombs. It was a great day.

Let me explain. The last Tuesday night before the Persian New Year is a holiday we call ‘Chahar-shanbeh soori’. I’ll call it CSS for short. Traditionally, CSS is the night we remove all our bad spirits, all the negative things that happened in our lives this last year, and replace it with positive energy. It’s a night of cleansing. Dating from Zoroastrian traditions, CSS uses fire to do the cleasing. We start up a huge bonfire and the act of jumping over it is the act of our spirit being cleansed. We state, ‘zardee-yeh toh az man, sorkheeyeh man az toh’, which means ‘give me your vibrant, life-filled red energy, and take my sickly yellow energy.’

Now, back to the bombs. The Islamic Republic of Iran government, the IRI for short, made CSS illegal for a while. One can speculate about the reasons, but i think people’s perception was that the IRI wanted to get rid of the Iranian people’s Zoroastrian roots and traditions. They failed miserably; the people still celebrated the holiday. Now CSS in Iran seems to be more than just a traditional holiday before the Persian New Year. It’s the people gathering together for one night and making as much noise as possible to let the IRI know that this holiday, and other non-Muslim holidays, are not going away anytime soon. Kids buy various kinds of fireworks and explosives. Some are harmless, they light up the sky with one second of colorful rainbow flames, others make quick loud noises. But throughout the night, i heard enormous bombs go off that rattled windows. Narenjaks are bombs that kids can make in their rooms given the right equipment. I don’t really understand the need to go this far and make such things, but I guess that’s becasue I’m not a big fan of bombs.

Amsterdam->Tehran

Gate E2 at 15:15. Lines not very orderly, and security checkpoint slow. But otherwise all is good. Pasta was good. Listening to Phil Collins’ ‘Take Me Home’. I think Phil Collins had a great understanding of what the immigrant communities feel when they are living in a land that is foreign.

 

 

Ghesmat

(Ghesmat means ‘destiny’ in Farsi)

I stayed up all night last night so that I can start preparing for the time zone shift ahead of me. 

I’ve been thinking about the concept of ghesmat, and its importance and usage in Iranian culture. Its the idea that we don’t really know ever for sure where our life will lead us, that God has chosen a path for us and our realization of that path is what our life is about.

For example, what are the chances that my flight will arrive on time and leave on time? It could depend on weather. What controls the weather? The shift of the moon, the alignment of the Earth and the Sun, these have factors into our weather, but as we see with our weathemen, it can be impossible to predict the weather with 100% certainty. Let’s call that mysterious element that controls the weather God. God controls what the weather will be like, thus God will control weather my flight gets delayed or not. In the end, when one wants to explain reasonings behind such incidences, one can’t. Thus, Ghesmat.

Passport

It took me over a year to get my Iranian Passport. I had orginially bought a ticket to go last year, but the Passport took so long to get that I had to cancel the flight. As soon as I got the passport, i booked my ticket. I got real lucky becasue there was very little space left. It is the Persian New Year, after all.

Some are curious as to how I can be a dual citizen. Well, Iranian-Americans are currently stuck in a situation where neither country has an embassy in the other country. I won't go into the politics here, but suffice it to say that neither governments are happy with the other right now.

One issue I needed to deal with was serving time in the Iranian Military. All Iranian male citizens are required to serve two years Military Service. Yet I got an exception in my Passport which allows me to visit Iran for 3 months without the need to worry about military service.

So I've got my U.S Passport in one hand, and my Iranian Passport in the other. God willing, I'll make it through customs without any issues.

Bita

I have a good idea what my cousin Bita is like. When I've seen her videos, I can see she's got the same sense of sarcastic sense of humour that I do; she loves to joke around and smiles a lot. I was hoping to see her along with the rest of my family, but i found out today that she probably won't be in Mashhad for Norooz because she just got married and her and her husband are looking for work in Ukraine. Here a picture of me hugging her when i was just a kid. She's the one on the left. I have no idea who the girl on the right is, and she doesn't seem too happy about me hugging her! Guess not everyone likes the mac-daddy.

I'm taking a Trip

I’m taking a trip to where I was born. I’ll be looking at this land from a unique perspective: as an Iranian-American who loves his people and the traditions and cultures which have been passed on to him.

My first priority will be family. Being that this is my first time in Iran as an adult (I was ten years old that last time i went), I have a duty, an obligation to see my family. And this duty for me is an honor and something I deeply have wanted to do for a long time now. I see videos coming back from Iran when other family members of mine go back. I see the faces and the characters of my family members there and am astonished at the immediate connection I feel with them just by seeing their picture and their movements. It takes years to develop friendships with previous strangers, but with family, there is this immediate connection that I feel.

But will I feel that with all my family members? Probably not, but that is to be expected as well. I’m from a different cultural upbringing than they are, so my habits and my attitudes may surprise them and be strange to them. This is cool though, in fact its the best way to learn more about how I think, by reflecting off of others and our differences. Diversity of thought is something to be cherished.

Two more weeks, and I’m gone.