Saturday, March 27, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Going to see Azi
The trip that I have been waiting for so many years to take is, finally, going to take place, my family reunion and more importantly my reunion with, my sister, Azi that I have not seen since I was seventeen years old. The sister that I thought was my mother for the first five years of my life and have always loved so much. I have dreamed about the moment that I will see her and embrace her for many years. I have never been able to think about that moment and visualize it without crying. I cannot believe that I will, finally, see her in two weeks.
The family reunion is going to be in Dubai. I will leave on April 1st and will be back eleven days later. Different members of my family are coming to Dubai from four different countries. Six of them are coming from Iran. It took nearly two years to organize this trip and find the location that worked the best for everyone. Some countries don’t issue visas to Iranian citizens, so we had to find a place where everyone could go. We had to take into consideration everyone’s school and work schedule. So finally everything is coming together. I so hope that nothing will go wrong in the next two weeks. My heart could not take it.
I have been so emotional about this visit. I cry every time I remember that I will see Azi and my family in just a few weeks. I know there will be a lot of tears and hugs. We will share our joys and pains and shower each other with the love that has been bundled up for so many years. I will be around people who love me and I, also, love so much. My heart and soul need this.
My blog entry of Sunday, May 10, 2009 is titled, “My sister Azi”. It will explain the reason for my deep attachment to her.
The family reunion is going to be in Dubai. I will leave on April 1st and will be back eleven days later. Different members of my family are coming to Dubai from four different countries. Six of them are coming from Iran. It took nearly two years to organize this trip and find the location that worked the best for everyone. Some countries don’t issue visas to Iranian citizens, so we had to find a place where everyone could go. We had to take into consideration everyone’s school and work schedule. So finally everything is coming together. I so hope that nothing will go wrong in the next two weeks. My heart could not take it.
I have been so emotional about this visit. I cry every time I remember that I will see Azi and my family in just a few weeks. I know there will be a lot of tears and hugs. We will share our joys and pains and shower each other with the love that has been bundled up for so many years. I will be around people who love me and I, also, love so much. My heart and soul need this.
My blog entry of Sunday, May 10, 2009 is titled, “My sister Azi”. It will explain the reason for my deep attachment to her.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The Immigrant
I went to the Denver Art Museum last weekend. I hadn’t been there in about two years. The floor that had artifacts from Asia had quite a number of items from Iran. That surprised me. The oldest piece of relic that I saw in the museum was from 3500 B.C. and it was from Iran.
The floor that had the contemporary art had two sculptures that touched me. One was called something like “Psycho Shirley Temple”. I don’t remember the name of the artist. The sculpture was a porcelain doll standing in a crib with a devilish smile on her face and frizzy, messed up hair. All around it in the crib and on the floor were torn up toys, baby blankets and clothes. It was a huge mess. The description said something like, “She is angry and aggressive, but she is very vulnerable, because she is made of porcelain.” I thought that was something that many people can identify with. A lot of people carry with them the pain of what life has dealt them feeling vulnerable and at the same time protective of oneself. I liked the way that the message was conveyed. It was creative and the visual imagery was powerful.
The second sculpture moved me to the core of my being. It was done by a Cuban born American named Enrique Martinez Celaya. The roughly made sculpture was the naked body of a man where both legs were cut off below the knee and instead two pieces of metal were placed where the rest of the legs should have been. One of the hands was also cut off at the wrist. I looked at it with confusion until I saw the description next to it. It simply said, “The Immigrant.” I felt a tightness in the pit of my stomach and tears came to my eyes. Suddenly, I had the urge to find a quiet place to sob. I walked around for the next thirty minutes holding back my tears. I understood the symbolism clearly.
As an immigrant from Iran living in the States, I have felt at times that there were parts of me that were missing. During the early years, I struggled with English and was not able to express myself. I felt like half of a person at times. I remember my struggles with the new culture and my identity. I felt lost not knowing how to deal with different situations. Perceptions and the meaning of right and wrong were so different here from where I had come from. I missed my home, my family and friends terribly, but due to the political situation and persecution of the Baha’is, people of my religion, I couldn’t go back to Iran. I missed my language, my music, the street where I lived, my house, my school, smell of the bakery on my way to school. I missed the lilac tree in our yard, the grapevine that my father had planted, the view of the sunset from my bedroom window, the quiet way that it rained in fall, the mountains that I used to hike and so much more. I missed the smell of burnt wood that was always in the air when we visited my mother’s ancestral village. I missed the schoolboy who was in love with me. I had left behind so much. I had given up so much. I longed for so much. I was lost in an unfamiliar culture. Sometimes it felt like I had lost a limb.
As difficult as the early years were for me, they were a thousand times more difficult for my parents. They were so much older and learning English was extremely difficult for them. They had lost all that they had worked for all their lives. They were living in a culture that not only was different than theirs, but in many ways it was the opposite of theirs. They had been intelligent, accomplished and prosperous people back home, but here they were reduced to people who could not talk and didn’t know anything about how to live in the new country. They looked odd and misplaced. Life’s misfortunes had forced them to leave home. They lived in sorrow and poverty with a desperate longing for the past. Due to language problems, they depended on me for everything. The loss of their abilities was as though they had lost their limbs like the sculpture.
It is difficult to be a first generation immigrant to any country. Our story is not uncommon. The transitions, adjustments and feelings of loss and disconnect are experienced by many who have been forced to leave their homes. It is the second generation that reaps the benefits of the new country and becomes totally integrated in the adopted culture.
After many years of life in the States, learning the English language and adjusting to the culture, I no longer feel like I have a missing limb. At this point in my life, I’m happy to be living in the U.S. although I’m not sure if I want to live here forever. It isn’t that I want to live in Iran, because that is not where I want to be anymore. It is just that I want to live where I feel I belong. I live with the feeling that I don’t entirely belong to any particular place. I find what I am, often to be so different from what other people are. I have influences of multiple cultures and ideologies within me. I have taken what I have liked from each and in the process have become someone who doesn’t entirely fit in any culture. I’m not dissatisfied with it. It is just the way it is.
The floor that had the contemporary art had two sculptures that touched me. One was called something like “Psycho Shirley Temple”. I don’t remember the name of the artist. The sculpture was a porcelain doll standing in a crib with a devilish smile on her face and frizzy, messed up hair. All around it in the crib and on the floor were torn up toys, baby blankets and clothes. It was a huge mess. The description said something like, “She is angry and aggressive, but she is very vulnerable, because she is made of porcelain.” I thought that was something that many people can identify with. A lot of people carry with them the pain of what life has dealt them feeling vulnerable and at the same time protective of oneself. I liked the way that the message was conveyed. It was creative and the visual imagery was powerful.
The second sculpture moved me to the core of my being. It was done by a Cuban born American named Enrique Martinez Celaya. The roughly made sculpture was the naked body of a man where both legs were cut off below the knee and instead two pieces of metal were placed where the rest of the legs should have been. One of the hands was also cut off at the wrist. I looked at it with confusion until I saw the description next to it. It simply said, “The Immigrant.” I felt a tightness in the pit of my stomach and tears came to my eyes. Suddenly, I had the urge to find a quiet place to sob. I walked around for the next thirty minutes holding back my tears. I understood the symbolism clearly.
As an immigrant from Iran living in the States, I have felt at times that there were parts of me that were missing. During the early years, I struggled with English and was not able to express myself. I felt like half of a person at times. I remember my struggles with the new culture and my identity. I felt lost not knowing how to deal with different situations. Perceptions and the meaning of right and wrong were so different here from where I had come from. I missed my home, my family and friends terribly, but due to the political situation and persecution of the Baha’is, people of my religion, I couldn’t go back to Iran. I missed my language, my music, the street where I lived, my house, my school, smell of the bakery on my way to school. I missed the lilac tree in our yard, the grapevine that my father had planted, the view of the sunset from my bedroom window, the quiet way that it rained in fall, the mountains that I used to hike and so much more. I missed the smell of burnt wood that was always in the air when we visited my mother’s ancestral village. I missed the schoolboy who was in love with me. I had left behind so much. I had given up so much. I longed for so much. I was lost in an unfamiliar culture. Sometimes it felt like I had lost a limb.
As difficult as the early years were for me, they were a thousand times more difficult for my parents. They were so much older and learning English was extremely difficult for them. They had lost all that they had worked for all their lives. They were living in a culture that not only was different than theirs, but in many ways it was the opposite of theirs. They had been intelligent, accomplished and prosperous people back home, but here they were reduced to people who could not talk and didn’t know anything about how to live in the new country. They looked odd and misplaced. Life’s misfortunes had forced them to leave home. They lived in sorrow and poverty with a desperate longing for the past. Due to language problems, they depended on me for everything. The loss of their abilities was as though they had lost their limbs like the sculpture.
It is difficult to be a first generation immigrant to any country. Our story is not uncommon. The transitions, adjustments and feelings of loss and disconnect are experienced by many who have been forced to leave their homes. It is the second generation that reaps the benefits of the new country and becomes totally integrated in the adopted culture.
After many years of life in the States, learning the English language and adjusting to the culture, I no longer feel like I have a missing limb. At this point in my life, I’m happy to be living in the U.S. although I’m not sure if I want to live here forever. It isn’t that I want to live in Iran, because that is not where I want to be anymore. It is just that I want to live where I feel I belong. I live with the feeling that I don’t entirely belong to any particular place. I find what I am, often to be so different from what other people are. I have influences of multiple cultures and ideologies within me. I have taken what I have liked from each and in the process have become someone who doesn’t entirely fit in any culture. I’m not dissatisfied with it. It is just the way it is.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
I finally saw Avatar.
I finally saw Avatar. It was better than I had expected. There were obvious and clear parallels between the story and the Bush era war on terror mentality, lingo and actions. The same exact words were used. No subtleties were intended here, that made it funny. Also, there were parallels between the treatment of Native Americans and the aliens in this movie as well as other colonized nations in the world. The word savages was used a good number of times among other similarities. I liked the world and life of the aliens. It was beautiful, holistic and complete within itself. They had done a good job in creating a different kind of life and reality. The movie was visually amazing. And the love story brought tears to my eyes. I think, I'm liking James Cameron. He is not bad looking for an old guy either!
One of my followers who reads everything I write told me today that he thought this entry was terrible. He said that I had reduced myself to writing the obvious about some blockbuster movie. I totally agree with him on this. I told him, I was writing this on FaceBook, but I ran out of the allowed number of characters to write, so I posted it here for my FaceBook friends. My next entry will have more depth. I will reach into the depth of my soul to write my next post! That might be scary! :)
One of my followers who reads everything I write told me today that he thought this entry was terrible. He said that I had reduced myself to writing the obvious about some blockbuster movie. I totally agree with him on this. I told him, I was writing this on FaceBook, but I ran out of the allowed number of characters to write, so I posted it here for my FaceBook friends. My next entry will have more depth. I will reach into the depth of my soul to write my next post! That might be scary! :)
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Man in the Mask
I was 19 years old. My parents had moved to Kansas to live with me the year before. We were officially refugees in the US. My parents’ property and belongings in Iran had been confiscated by The Islamic Republic of Iran, because we were members of the Baha’i Faith. My father had advanced prostate cancer that had spread to other parts of his body. My mother was still recovering from a major heart attack. We were terribly poor and my parents’ medical bills were piling up. Neither one had health insurance. The little bit of money that they had managed to bring to the US was depleting. Those years were terribly difficult for my parents. I was young, and I had hope, but they had lost all that they had worked for all their lives and were living in a foreign country in poverty.
We lived in a cheap and roach infested apartment in the worst part of Lawrence, Kansas with a lot of really scary neighbors.
One day when I came home, my parents told me that a young man, named Tom, who worked as a maintenance man for the apartment complex had told them that there was a way that their medical bills could be reduced. Since my parents didn’t speak much English, they wanted me to talk to him and find out what could be done. I talked to Tom. He told me that he knew a man who was a humanitarian, always helped people, and was also very rich. He said that this man could help us by paying some of the medical bills and also making arrangements with the hospital in reducing the amount of the total medical bills. It sounded great. I was eager to meet this guy and see how he could help us, although I thought it sounded too good to be true. Then Tom said that this man always wore a mask, because his face was burnt in some kind of accident and no one had ever seen his face. That was kind of odd, I thought, but I agreed to meet him at our apartment with my parents present if he wanted to talk to us.
A few days later, Tom came and said that the guy who was going to help us wants to have breakfast with me alone one morning at 6:00 AM and discuss my parents’ medical bills. I should be ready to be picked up by him at that time. Neither my parents nor I were comfortable with this arrangement. I had never met this guy and was not about to get into his car at 6:00 AM and go somewhere for breakfast. I asked Tom why he wants to meet me at 6:00 AM anyway. He said because he has to wear a mask and he is not comfortable in crowds. He only goes out when it’s dark. The story was getting more bizarre.
On the appointed day, right at 6:00 AM the doorbell rang. I opened the door. What I saw was scarier than I had expected. I saw a relatively tall man who was wearing a rectangular tin mask with two holes for eyes and one hole for the mouth wearing a black cape with purple lining and black boots standing in front of me. My heart dropped, but I maintained my composure. My mother had a horrified expression on her face. In Persian, our native tongue, I told my mom to maintain her composure. We invited him in. He asked me if I wanted to go with him and talk to him while having breakfast. My parents said that they have prepared breakfast, and we can eat and talk at home. Then he said that he was fine and didn’t want anything to eat. My mom insisted on bringing him some tea. He said that he would never eat in front of others, because that would require him taking off his mask. I wondered how he was going to have breakfast with me if he never takes off the mask in front of others. He apologized for the particular mask he was wearing saying that his other mask was dented recently, so he had to wear this one. All I could see from his head was his strawberry blond hair. From his voice I could tell that he was a young man, maybe about 30 years old.
The guy talked to us for about 20 minutes. He looked at my parents’ medical bills. Wrote down some information and told us that he could help us and would get back to us.
Not surprising to us, we never heard from him. My parents and I agreed that this guy wanted to take advantage of our desperate situation and get me to go with him to God knows where.
About two months later, I heard on TV that the leader of a satanic cult in Kansas City had been arrested. They had found human remains in his basement. It was a cult involved in human sacrifices. A photo of him, showed him sitting on a big chair, wearing a crown and a black cape. Chills ran down my spine remembering the guy who came to our apartment wearing a similar cape.
We lived in a cheap and roach infested apartment in the worst part of Lawrence, Kansas with a lot of really scary neighbors.
One day when I came home, my parents told me that a young man, named Tom, who worked as a maintenance man for the apartment complex had told them that there was a way that their medical bills could be reduced. Since my parents didn’t speak much English, they wanted me to talk to him and find out what could be done. I talked to Tom. He told me that he knew a man who was a humanitarian, always helped people, and was also very rich. He said that this man could help us by paying some of the medical bills and also making arrangements with the hospital in reducing the amount of the total medical bills. It sounded great. I was eager to meet this guy and see how he could help us, although I thought it sounded too good to be true. Then Tom said that this man always wore a mask, because his face was burnt in some kind of accident and no one had ever seen his face. That was kind of odd, I thought, but I agreed to meet him at our apartment with my parents present if he wanted to talk to us.
A few days later, Tom came and said that the guy who was going to help us wants to have breakfast with me alone one morning at 6:00 AM and discuss my parents’ medical bills. I should be ready to be picked up by him at that time. Neither my parents nor I were comfortable with this arrangement. I had never met this guy and was not about to get into his car at 6:00 AM and go somewhere for breakfast. I asked Tom why he wants to meet me at 6:00 AM anyway. He said because he has to wear a mask and he is not comfortable in crowds. He only goes out when it’s dark. The story was getting more bizarre.
On the appointed day, right at 6:00 AM the doorbell rang. I opened the door. What I saw was scarier than I had expected. I saw a relatively tall man who was wearing a rectangular tin mask with two holes for eyes and one hole for the mouth wearing a black cape with purple lining and black boots standing in front of me. My heart dropped, but I maintained my composure. My mother had a horrified expression on her face. In Persian, our native tongue, I told my mom to maintain her composure. We invited him in. He asked me if I wanted to go with him and talk to him while having breakfast. My parents said that they have prepared breakfast, and we can eat and talk at home. Then he said that he was fine and didn’t want anything to eat. My mom insisted on bringing him some tea. He said that he would never eat in front of others, because that would require him taking off his mask. I wondered how he was going to have breakfast with me if he never takes off the mask in front of others. He apologized for the particular mask he was wearing saying that his other mask was dented recently, so he had to wear this one. All I could see from his head was his strawberry blond hair. From his voice I could tell that he was a young man, maybe about 30 years old.
The guy talked to us for about 20 minutes. He looked at my parents’ medical bills. Wrote down some information and told us that he could help us and would get back to us.
Not surprising to us, we never heard from him. My parents and I agreed that this guy wanted to take advantage of our desperate situation and get me to go with him to God knows where.
About two months later, I heard on TV that the leader of a satanic cult in Kansas City had been arrested. They had found human remains in his basement. It was a cult involved in human sacrifices. A photo of him, showed him sitting on a big chair, wearing a crown and a black cape. Chills ran down my spine remembering the guy who came to our apartment wearing a similar cape.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
A Picture
This picture was taken of me by a friend when I was talking to him on Skype. It is the picture that he could see on his monitor. He then emailed it to me. All this technology is so amazing.I have been sick and also very busy and, therefore, have not posted anything. But I'll have something in about a week.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Genghis Khan
I, finally, went and saw the Genghis Khan’s exhibit in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It was a fascinating exhibit with many relics from that period. I knew a little bit about Genghis Khan, since Iran was one of the countries that was invaded by him in 13th century. I had read about the death and destruction that the Mongols brought to Iran. It was a dark period in the Iranian history. But I learned so much more yesterday.
Genghis Khan was a brilliant man and a great politician who unified the nomadic Mongolian tribes and created this amazingly well organized and highly skilled army. They conquered what would constitute 30 countries in today’s world in the span of 25 years, far greater than the areas conquered by the Romans, Greeks and the Persians. I learned a lot about medieval warfare, weapons and war tactics, unusual topics, but quite interesting. What a different and violent world they lived in.
Genghis Khan also promoted freedom of religion and brought the first written language to his people by borrowing the script used by people in western Mongolia. Although he was a shamanist but his main wife was a Christian. He had many wives and also had the pick of whomever he wanted in lands that he conquered. A recent study has shown that the ancestry of 16 million men in the world today can be traced back to Genghis Khan, which means one in every two hundred men in the world today is his descendent. It was said that he spread his DNA 800,000 times more than the average man.
Many cities were destroyed and population wiped out by Genghis Khan and his army. The combination of his brilliance, drive and inhumanity has made him the greatest conqueror the world has ever known.
Genghis Khan was a brilliant man and a great politician who unified the nomadic Mongolian tribes and created this amazingly well organized and highly skilled army. They conquered what would constitute 30 countries in today’s world in the span of 25 years, far greater than the areas conquered by the Romans, Greeks and the Persians. I learned a lot about medieval warfare, weapons and war tactics, unusual topics, but quite interesting. What a different and violent world they lived in.
Genghis Khan also promoted freedom of religion and brought the first written language to his people by borrowing the script used by people in western Mongolia. Although he was a shamanist but his main wife was a Christian. He had many wives and also had the pick of whomever he wanted in lands that he conquered. A recent study has shown that the ancestry of 16 million men in the world today can be traced back to Genghis Khan, which means one in every two hundred men in the world today is his descendent. It was said that he spread his DNA 800,000 times more than the average man.
Many cities were destroyed and population wiped out by Genghis Khan and his army. The combination of his brilliance, drive and inhumanity has made him the greatest conqueror the world has ever known.
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