Iranians on the Plane Talk About Life in the US

I had a lot of fun sharing my trip to Iran with you, my devoted and beloved blog readers. I can’t think of anything that’s more fun than having good stories to share with friends and readers who will become friends some day. Hi Peter!

On the plane I sat next to two Iranians who live in the US, and got a chance to query them about the country from an expat’s point of view.

One man said he moved to the US in 1996, and now he lived in Toledo. “What do you do there,” I asked. “I worked in a plastic packaging plant, but they closed it down,” he answered. His reaction was to travel in July back to Iran and help with his father’s vegetable and chicken farm. He said the business was doing well, and that it might just be a new career. A few months over in Iran, and then months in the US.

He asked me about which sites I saw, and I recited Shiraz, Esfahan and Kish Island. “But I didn’t see the citadel at Bam, or Moushad. “Well Bam was destroyed in the 2004 earthquake. Totally flattened, the ancient part was just wrecked,” he told me. So I guess that destination won’t be on the next trip’s intinerary.

I asked him about what my friend Orchid had told me about how harsh it was with the morality police chasing down women for showing too much hair or other social rules. “It’s getting better,” he said, “much better than it used to be. But people do still get in trouble, and they do confiscate satellite dishes and even the TV if they find you watching foreign broadcasts. It happened to my mother, and she got a fine of $2000!”

Just past this friendly man was a woman with a black headscarf who had been glancing over at us while we talked. “Where are you going?” I asked her. she smiled and said she lived in San Francisco, and that she was hairdresser. She had just come back to Iran for a short visit. “Were people a little jealous of you since you can go back to the US and they can’t get a visa to come over?” I asked. “Yes, they were she said, adding that she loves being in Iran, and someday she may return there to live when she’s older.