A Note On Youth Culture...

We found them drinking red bull, play fighting in the
yard, and running around like psychos. They were
bursting with life and excitement and energy. It was
so thrilling to be around exciting girls, finally. My
cousin’s school friends took quite a liking to me as
well and I felt that for the first time, I had
actually found people that were like me. Her other
friends (these were her closer friends) were slightly
more subdued. They didn’t seem to like me at
all…maybe it was because I was American, or maybe I was
because I am totally strange. In any case, I didn’t really
bother with them. It was clear to my cousin that I
preferred the crazy ones to her closer friends so she
just left me alone with the crazies for the rest of
the day.

Their school was like a Hollywood movie set.
Everything was covered in marble from floor to ceiling
and there were marble fountains on every floor as
well. They had their own swimming pool and a huge
prayer room lined with Persian carpets for whoever
chooses to pray during school hours. They go to the
most expensive school in Teran, and I was there for an
exhibition of their work – like parent’s day and a
science fair melded into one except without the
parents. Curiously, the students were there looking
at each other’s work and displaying their work to
other students instead of their own parents. There
was food and delicious cakes in every room we went to.
In the religion room, the cakes were made to look
like open Korans. On a side note, all the students
are taught Arabic, so that they might be able to read
the Koran, and English too, because it comes in handy.
The artwork was utterly breathtaking. These high
school students were working at the level, and with
the materials, of the graduating college students at
my university. There were these amazing pieces of
stained wood and black paint, and intricately indented
copper pieces. Likewise, the science projects far
surpassed those at my high school. I found myself
genuinely “oooh-ing” in wonder. I’ve never seen such
a quality facility with such a level of education
before. My cousins tell me that though their primary
and secondary schools far surpass the level of ours,
our universities are far better than theirs. I’m not
so sure about that though.

On another note, nose jobs are all the rage here. Men and women alike,
run around sporting mummy-like bandages on their noses
as if it’s a fad. I don’t know why. I didn’t think
that Iranians had especially big noses but I guess I
was wrong. The procedure is ridiculously cheap
compared to other countries. To quote my sage little cousin, “In
America, they get boob jobs; here, we get nose jobs.”


As for street life, traffic here is insane. It is everywhere, even in
residential side streets. Somehow, it’s even worse
than LA. The lines for gas are about an hour long and
it goes for less than forty cents a gallon here. The
cars don’t seem to follow any kind of order on the
road; meaning, they don’t have or obey any lane
separators. They just go where they can fit their
cars and will drive in between two lanes for longer
than they will in one actual lane or they will drive
with 80% of the car in one lane, and 20% in the other
lane for the whole time. The honking is interminable and
people will walk on the side of, and sometimes
through, the freeways. It’s total chaos. One day,
our taxi actually drove on the wrong side of the
street downtown to forgo traffic. Some streets in the
middle of downtown are blocked off to all cars except
for buses and taxis because there is so much traffic.
Tehran has a permanent cloud of exhaust looming over
it, and the city is so huge, that the size, as well as
the pollution, prevents you from seeing to the other
end of it. Thankfully, most of the cars are small,
prius sized vehicles. My cousin, six of her friends,
and I, managed to pile into one of these cars,
miraculously, with our heads hanging out the windows
and people strewn about on top of one another, it was
insane.

The motorcyclists are the craziest though. They follow no
rules whatsoever. In addition to weaving through
traffic at all hours of the day and quite dangerously
too, they run red lights, ride on whatever side of the
street they want to, they even ride on sidewalks.

This is not an easy city for a pedestrian. Cars won’t
stop for you and you have to worry about getting run
over on the sidewalk. Once I waited to cross the
street fifteen minutes and even then no cars stopped
for me, I just stopped caring and walked right out in
front of them. People get their cars scrapped all the
time but they usually just yell at each other in their
cars and keep on going. This type of accident is more
common than a full on fender bender because cars are
always trying to squeeze into places they clearly
don’t fit in, as opposed to just not paying attention.
It’s too much trouble to stop in the middle of
traffic to get someone’s insurance info. They’ve made
talking on cell phones illegal in cars though, not
even passengers can use their phones, apparently.
What I don’t understand is why they don’t use a small
portion of their police force to control the crazy
traffic here, or at least to stop motorcycles from
riding on the sidewalks. These guys get to ride
around lawless as if Tehran were their own personal
playground but if I have to worry about being seen
with a man in public? It’s totally ridiculous.