Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(and want to practise) English. These conversations are a great way to get a little further inside the Iranian way of
thinking, and way of life, and for Iranians to better understand your way of life.
In contrast a middle-class couple may leave their modest apartment together in the
morning after the typical Persian breakfast of bread, cheese, jam and tea. Their children, if
small, will mostly be looked after by grandparents while the couple go to work. One or
the other may make it back for lunch, unless living in Tehran where distances are greater
and traffic hideous. In the evening the family meal will be taken together, often with the
wider family and friends. Iranians are social creatures and many visits occur after dinner.
In poorer or more traditional families it is likely that the woman will stay at home, in
which case her whole day revolves around housework, providing meals for her family and
shopping (in ultraconservative families the men may do the shopping).
Iranian meals take time to prepare and though supermarkets exist and some pre-pack-
aged ingredients are available, many women spend a decent chunk of each day just buy-
ing, cleaning and chopping the herbs served with every meal. Working women generally
see to these tasks in the evenings, when they may prepare the next day's lunch. Perhaps in
more enlightened families men help with the cooking and housework, but as both the
mother and grown sons of one Iranian family told us: 'men who cook are not real men'.
Mostly it is safe to say that men's role in the home is confined to appreciating the quality
of the cooking. Which they do well, Iranians being true gourmets.
Family Life
Family life is of supreme importance to Irani-
ans and often a family will include children,
parents, grandparents and other elderly relat-
ives. As a result Iranian society is more multi-
generational than Western society, something
that's most obvious on holidays and weekends
when you'll see several generations walking,
laughing and picnicking together.
Living alone is extremely unusual and unmarried children only leave home to attend
university in another town or for work. Although the young people of Iran long for inde-
pendence and their own space, just like their Western counterparts, there is not much cul-
tural precedence for this. Those who do live alone - mostly men - are pitied. Women liv-
Iran has more than one million drug addicts, even
though drug dealing and even drug use can be pun-
ishable by death. Iran also has enlightened policies
for treating addiction, including methadone pro-
grammes and clean needles for addicted prisoners.
 
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