Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
And don't forget to pay the taxi driver…think of it this way: it would be bad form for the driver not to offer you
the trip for free, and worse form for you to accept his offer.
A glance at Iran's history allows another insight into the Iranian character. Despite sev-
eral devastating invasions, Iranians have always managed to keep their own unique cul-
ture alive and somehow subvert the invading culture and assimilate it with their own.
Thus the Iranian way is to bend to the prevailing wind only to spring back in time with re-
gained poise. Ever-changing fortunes have taught Iranians to be indirect people, unwilling
to ever answer with a bald negative and unable to countenance rudeness or public displays
of anger.
Iran's attitudes to the West are contradictory.
Most Iranians can talk at length about the
faults of Western governments, all the while
admiring Western attitudes. They will altern-
ately boast of Iran's superiority in terms of cul-
ture, home life and morality and then apologise
for Iran's inferiority. For travellers, it's an as-
pect of Iranian culture you'll encounter with regular questions of 'what do you think about
Iran?'.
Iranians are proud of their Aryan roots, and intensely dislike being classed as Arabs,
who they see as rough and culturally unsophisticated. The million-plus Afghans in Iran
are met with institutional racism.
In essence the Iranian soul is a deeply sensual one - perhaps the biggest surprise for
Westerners expecting religious fanaticism and austerity. What is universal in the Iranian
character is the enjoyment of the cadences of poetry read aloud, their wonderful food and
their admiration of natural beauty. They are tied absolutely to the land, although most now
live urban lives. Somewhere in every modern Iranian the desires expressed by Omar
Khayyam (
Click here
)
in his 12th-century poem
Rubaiyat
still resound:
A book of verses underneath the bough
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness
And wilderness is paradise enow.
Shiites were historically persecuted by the Sunni
majority and so developed a doctrine whereby it is
fine to conceal one's faith in order to escape perse-
cution.
