Iranian view

Life&death;my experience in Galveston

2008-08-04T21:30:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, we went to Galveston for a short trip with two of my friends, Aly and Mohammad. We joined to our host, Mary, who rented an apartment in Galveston and is spending summer vacation with her mother and her son, Ali. Mary married a Turkish man and I know her from Turkish dance performances at SMU.

Now, there were 3 Alis at a home and Mary had a hard time to call us. Finally, she came up with an idea and call us Ali M., Ali K. and Aly F. which second letter is the initial of our family names. Mary's mom was a sweet 85 years old grandmother who was quite healthy. I was wondering how life looks like in that age and a lot of questions raising in my mind and was looking for an opportunity to ask her.

Saturday morning we went to a beautiful beach of Galveston, I mean people who were laying down on the beach! we enjoyed surfing on the waves with the boards that Mary gave us for a while. we came back to home and got ready for lunch. Sea food was a natural choice and we went to a nice restaurant with Mary. I was sitting in front of Mary's mom and amazed that she can eat whatever she wants in her age. I asked her if she goes to gym for exercise and she said yes. "How is life in this age?" I asked."it's good, I try to live like a teenager everyday" she replied. "a lot of people in my age are afraid of death, but there is no choice" she continued.

Saturday afternoon, we went for crabbing while Mary's mom stayed at the home. we prepared the nets and stood up on the rocks near the beach and tossed the net on the wavy beach. Ali, Mary's son was lucky to catch 4 crabs, but I wasn't that lucky since the sea was to wavy. it was becoming dark and we came back to Mary's apartment. We saw some ambulances with turning lights."There are ambulances everywhere in this city" I said. Suddenly, Mary jumped off the car and ran towards her apartment. "Everything is OK" a man on the apartment door told Mary. They came out of apartment with Mary' mom with some blood on her body on the emergency chair. Everybody was terrified. Suddenly, I remembered our talk about life with her some hours ago. Apparently, she fell down on the floor and hit the wall on the head. We got the emergency room address from rescue team and went there which was at UTMB which stands for University of Texas Medical Branch. Mary's mom arrived in emergency room as soon as we reached there. we had a chance to talk to her and she looked fine, however her heart bits increased. we realized she was terrified a little since she was in emergency room and I thought it makes sense since it's not a friendly place. we saw a frustrated couple waiting for doctor hours and hours. I got to this conclusion that if you have a serious problem, I doubt they can help you, so just keep yourself healthy.

Fortunately, Mary's mom released that night and she could sleep in the apartment instead of that unpleasant emergency room. Tomorrow morning, we were having breakfast and were talking about last night. "do you know what my doctor's name was?", Mary's mom asked me. "I am curious to know" I replied." His name was Ali!" she told.

A proposal for facilitating of Iranian students travel to home

2008-06-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

The Honorable .........
I am an Iranian student studying at SMU towards PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering. As you may know there are a lot of Iranian students in Texas and US who are studying in graduate studies in different universities and academic institutes and I want to share one big problem in this community with you and ask for your help and consultation.
Iranian students are among a few nations who hold single entry visa(F1) while they are studying here which means if they want to visit their families back at home, they should apply for visa again and go through very time-consuming and difficult process. Since there is no US embassy in Iran, they should schedule a flight to third country, get an appointment for interview, wait for FBI check , pick up the visa to be eligible to come back to school again. Also, add the stress of visa rejection to these problems which make this trip very unpleasant for most of my friends such that a lot of them prefer not to visit their families, while their international friends go to their homes easily and this add some emotional pressure during their long period of studies.
I want to ask you if there is any way to facilitate this process and I have two proposals for that:
1- Iranian students, holding F1 visa, can go to a consulate office in Washington or somewhere in US to perform visa process if they want to visit Iran.
2- The embassy of Switzerland in Tehran is in charge of US interests in Iran. it would be great if this embassy do the visa process for Iranians on behalf of US government and send their documents to Washington for FBI check, in this way, students don't need to go to a third country and it facilitates their trips in a great deal.
I would appreciate if you consider these proposals and let me know if each of them is feasible.
I hope I see one day that the citizens of both nations visit each other's country freely and easily!
Thank you very much!
Ali Moslemi

Free discussion in Fluid lab

2008-03-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

In response to one of my readers, I start to update this blog again. When I looked at the last post's date, I found that one year has passed, and it seems that I update my blog each year! anyway, hopefully I change this routine.
1- I am teaching a fluid lab this semester and we had a long experiment which provided some free time and I told the students they can talk about whatever they like. students started talking about different things until they reached "teen pregnancy" topic. " I lived in Amarillo, Texas and it had a high rate of teen pregnancy in Texas", one of students said. " what is the rate?" I asked. " I had a class with 20 pregnant students" he replied." it's so many!" I said. I was deeply thinking who is going to take care of these kids."what is the solution?" I asked students. " I control myself." the same student answered. " do you think putting some restrictions would be helpful?" I asked. but it seemed that nobody liked this idea. so I concluded that everybody should have self-control. I was again thinking that personal freedom is very important for these people, even if it creates some problems!
2- " Do you think America is ready for female president?" I asked in other class from students. " America is ready for female president, but not for Hillary", one girl responded. Another girl with the eyes full of anxiety said" she stayed in the relationship with Bill because of staying in White house!" I t seems that Hillary has a lot of enemies particularly among Women!

The country for singles

2007-03-02T15:45:00.000-08:00

1-This is our mentality that when people get older they should go to school and graduate, then find a job and get married in their20's or 30's. They live for some decades, have some kids and finally pass away.

2- with this view I thought everyone should select this way of life! but it was not true. I remember it was a Thanksgiving morning and I was standing in a long line for a sale. There was a mature man retired from UT Southwestern Medical center and in his 50's. I started talking to him, "how many children do you have?" I asked."None", he replied." "How come?!", " I did not get marry!" Another day I asked this question from my English teacher and he said he is single and doesn't have girlfriend.

3-Statistics show that more than 51% of American ladies are single, showing the falling of marriage rate compared to some decades ago. Doesn't it make sense?Let's me explain; marriage has 3 functions: Sex, reproduction and companionship and this is a society everyone can get these things without marriage, so everyone should be crazy to get marry. The question is, how about negative effect on society? Negative birth rate can be a major threat but don't worry, we can import people from India and China!

4- There is no doubt that family is the foundation of each society, but I do not see a major support in media, although I saw some advertisemet to encourage people for having baby in Time magazine. There is a strong emphasis on freedom and individualism which confronts with marriage whereas your freedom and privacy should be shared by someone else.

Honesty

2006-08-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

1-Last year I started hiking on the mountains near Tehran with some of my friends,one time in a way back to home one of my fiends told"I heared the signs are very importanat on the roads and streets in abroad",at that time I did not realize what he said,but when I came here I got that completely, particularly after I bought a car and start driving here.I drove far away from my apartment couple of times and I got lost. In the second time I wanted to go to a company in Grand parie, I got the directions from google but I missed one point and I got lost totally,finally got to a lake and asked some people who were taking plots of land over there,fortunately they had map and could help me to find my way,also in the middle of way I asked some African-American guys and they were pretty helpful. It was an experience showed me I have to have a Dallas map in this occations.
2-last semester we had an exam,the teacher told us we can have one formula sheet or cheat sheet,my friend Tyler used two pages cheat sheet because he did not know he supposed to use one page sheet,after exam he emailed the professor and asked him if it is against rule I can retake exam,but professor said it is OK,I was surprised when I heared form him,but it is not all this summer semester we had a take home exam,and he even he did not say to me a word about exam, I did not expect to discuss about solutions but not about questions!
I thought these American guys take this issue too serious!I talked to Amarano, my friend from Sri-Lanka,he always has comments in different topics,he believes this is the way they are trained in their family to ease governing them,otherwise controlling this country would be difficult!

Language Imitation

2006-07-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

1- He was a typical of Texan people,tall and wearing cowboy hat from cow town(Fort worth). he was talking too quickly such that my translator compiler could not catch him and I was usually behind him some sentences.sometimes he said something and laughed and I started laughing with him pretending I underestand him.He looked 45 years old,I asked him"how old are you?"
"55"
"You look younger than your age!"
"My dad is 85 years old and he wanna start working. "
"Are you married?"
"No,I am single but I tried 3 times but it was not successful."
In my veiw most of people are younger than their ages and look happy,althogh the divorce rate is high and if you ask 2 people one of them would say I got divorced,bu still they are happier than people in my hometown country.sometimes when I am thinking about this fact it bothers me deeply.

2- A 10-12 years old Mexican guy came and told me"if you need any help my dad would help you.""No,thank you"I told.I started talking to his dad and he was a translotor.It was interesting that dad could not speak English but son could.

"How long have you been here."I told to dad

"3 years"

"what do you do?"

"I work on roof construction."

"which grade are you?"I told to his son.

"third"

"Was it hard to learn English?"

"No,after six months I learned."

This is true that learning any language is inveresly proportinal to age,in other word if we get older learning a foreign language becomes harder like this case for Mexican dad, and it is easy for son because he is much younger.In our age even if we learn English completely we still have an accent,but one of ways for eliminating accent is imitating native people,and everybody who is better in imitation he is more successful in this amtter.

City of God

2006-07-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

1-I saw my Rumanian friend who was very desperate on Friday evening,I asked him what is going on?

"I was waiting for a Laser equipment for One year,now it has come but the camera does not work,during this time I could not do so much and I can tell I wasted my time,I wanna graduate as soon as possible but I cannot,all my friends graduated except me,when I came here there was nothing here and I construct my lab step by step I came here I just thought this is America and I did not think about my research area,and now I am screwed up."

He advised me to tell anyone who is willing for graduate studies to pay attention to research area as well as research team.

2-I saw the Brazilian movie"city of God" some times ago,there is an area called "city of God" in Brazil capital which is famous for poverty and crime,this movie is a story of a gang leader who started murdering when he was 10_12 years old which was unbelievable to me,finally after a long fighting with other gangs he killed in his 20's.I thought this a fake movie and can not be true but it was made according a true story in Brazil have some area in Iran similar to some areas in movie but it is not comparable.

I saw my Brazilian college some days after watching movie and we talked about it.

"It is true,they are still exist and are very powerful and some times police cooperating with these gangs",Christian said.

"Brazil and United states founded nearly at the same time,what happened to you guys ,why here became America but you have a lot of problems?" I asked him.

"First Portuguese discovered Brazil and they usually exiled criminal people and uneducated people to Brazil which it is not the case for US,most people who immigrated to US were educated and you can see the difference."

Reply to a question

2006-06-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

1-One of my friends,Nader, asked me a question in Persian blog about my definition of immorality,In my view immorality or corruption is something which adversely affect individual and society,in this definition even if a single man who is under sexual pressure and is standing against his natural desire,is hurting himself mentally and this behavior can result in corruption vice versa if a married person who has a relationship out of marriage is doing immorality, if any relationship does not hurt individual or society,it can be considered as a healthy relationship,so if a single man and girl like to have any kind of relationship and their parents agree and there is no cheating,what is wrong with that,even in Islam(shiee version) the sex before marriage is legal with some conditions and called temporary marriage ,so Islam has opened a ground in this matter but our culture resists and still relationship between girls and guys are taboo.I am not saying the marriage is not the best way,but it is not possible for everyone in each time.
In Christianity since Jesus did not get marry and was born from a mother who did not marry ,the sex before marriage and even marriage is not so encouraged compared to Islam and some thinkers believe the current situation of immorality in west is a result of this view in Christianity which ruled Europe in past centuries.
Here boyfriend and girlfriend are accepted among families and they are considered as a family members,this relationship can end to marriage or not,but both sides take advantage of this relationship and they are not under the sexual pressure physically and mentally during this period. the problem in Iran is that parents usually do not agree with this kind of relationship and hidden friendships formed under table and far from eyes of family members,another problem is that most guys are looking for just sex and most girls are looking for marriage and these different expectations cause some problems, interesting point is guys have a relative freedom in intimate friendship but for girls this is a taboo.
Anyway this is the issue which whole society should decide about that and we can not blame other countries for their social decision, let's pay attention to ourselves!
2- Last week we went to the American Airline center for watching basketball game between maverick and Miami on big screen TVs,the half odf stadium was full and people despite me were excited about game,I was mostly excited about construction of this huge stadium,It has 4 stories and we were in third floors. 20,000 people can watch the game in this stadium.

Barber shop

2006-06-15T15:45:00.000-07:00

1- I went to barber shop last week,despite Iran most barbers do not really know how to cut hairs,they think people come to their shops just for shortening hair not for beauty,and you should explain for them how many inches of your hairs should be cut and how it should be done,anyway I think this a reason that George Bush has an Afghan barber.The guy who was cutting my hair asked me where I am from.I told him "Iran"
"I am so sorry for you guys!"Barber told.
"why?,maybe because we lost to Mexico in world cup."
"Yes"
"I do not know wht happend,but we played well in the first half time,but not in second half time."
"Where are you from?"
"I am from Thailand."
"Oh,good.you have a good team,whenever we need to beat you,you are very nice with us."
"Yes,this is true,we were beaten by Iran,several times."
"How long have you been here?"
"Since I was a kid,I want to save money and return to Thailand,I want to have my own business in my hometown,since I have been here for a long time,I can not work for another person.people make me fun if I do it"
"Same thing in Iran,People think everybody who goes to US ,would get some extraordinary characteristic and he should be so different,but in most cases it is not true."
2-I noticed here that people and women are very interested in having kids and media advertise for this matter,for example some times ago Angelina julie was pergnet and there was a huge advertisement about that in media such that she preferred to go to South Africa for birth of her baby. when each actress comes to TV show,she is asked about her baby and she enthusiastically explains about the baby like how the baby talk or walk,this a case which nobody cares about that in Iran.
Another point which I should tell is that the image of American women in Iran is like they are very loose in sex. on the other hand most people think that you can sleep with each girl you see which is not correct in most cases. I do not reject that there are some women who they do not care about sex morality but they are not in majority,mostly they are looking for a long term relationship which ends in marriage. I think freedom in relationship does not necessarily result in sex immorality. However this is a veiw which Iranian media and some movies has formed, and vice versa the real image of Iran is not the smae thing which American media show.

Values

2006-06-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

1-Christian is one of graduate students in our department who is from Brazil, he asked me "do you know what is gonna happen on Sunday at 10:30 am,"No" I answered.
"It is a soccer game between Iran and Mexico,how do not you know?!"suprisingly he said.
"When I was younger I used to be fan of soccer,but right now I am careless about it."I said.
I remember we had a class with one of our TA who was PhD student before a match of Iran and Australia which was an important game for going to France world cup in 1998.He was so careless about that game and we were so exited about that,I was wondering how it was possible to be like him,but now I feel like him!This is true that when we are growing our values change and I think in each priod of life we have certain concerns,childhood and adultness values are so different.
2-People in here are not fan of soccer but mostly they are interested in football, basketball, baseball and so on which some of them are not interesting in my view,so for this reason soccer world cup is not a hot topic in here.

Buddhism

2006-06-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

Last Monday was Memorial day and we had 3 cosecutive day off,Since this is my first year which I lived here I did not expect these holidays and did not have any plan for that.Most of my friends were out of town and I felt lonely at home. One day, Amarano called me and invited me to join him and his wife for walking at white rock lake. He is from Sri lanka which is famous for tea.
White rock lake is one of a few lakes in Dallas and has a beautiful park,Landscape in here is very beautiful compared with my home town ,Which I think this is the kindness of God to this people.
Amarano is buddhist and I started conversation with him about Buddhism. He said Buddhism is not a religion but a philosophy.
"What is your Basic ideas?"
"We have 5 principles,1- do not lie 2- do not steal 3-do not drink 4- do not rape 5- do not kill a live existence, we believe everyone who breaks these rules would face some problems and would get the reaction in this life,because there is a reaction for any action."
"If somebody doesn't get the reaction in this world what is gonna happen?"
"we believe in rebirth which means people will bear after death,if the person has been a good guy will have a good life otherwise he/she would face a lot of problems and pains.we believe there is a circulation in the world, things change from one form to another form.we do not believe in heaven or hell."
"Interesting!so you mean I have been another person before my birth!but I do not remember anything from my previous life?"
"You remembered when you were a child but you couldn't speak!"
"what does your God look like?"
"We have a lot of gods."
"There should be some conflict among your gods?"
"Yes,there is!"
"But the world is going well!"
"And he said something in response but I could not understand it because he has a strong accent,now I understand how much pain Americans have to understand people with different accents like me!"
"I asked about Buda statues in Temples."
"Buda is our teacher and statues are used because of remembrance."
"why Buddhism is not global like Islam and Christianity?"
"Because we did not force people to convert to Buddhism like you guys in past centuries."
"Iwas laughing!"
I was trying to understand some concepts of Buddhism,it does not make sense for me.I was thinking maybe different religions are different interpretations of this world,and this interpretation has being more reasonable when human beings has been more advanced.
Who knows?

Me and Tyler

2006-05-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

1-Tyler is my friend and colleague in my PhD project,one night After solving a tough fluid flow homework he gave me ride to home since it was late and there was no bus.
I told him:"How a nice car"
Tyler:"I worked in a gas station when I was a college student and earned good money and bought this car. I mowed grass when I was the high school student and I paid my expenses myself"
"Is it usual for everybody to work when he is student here?"I surprisingly asked
Tyler:"It is not a case for SMU students since mostly they are rich, when I started the high school my dad told me I am not gonna pay for your expenses and you should pay yourself
" why?"
"because my dad thought children could better appreciate their parents in this way"
"How did you start? "
"First my aunt suggested me to cut their grass for $10,then her neighbors suggested the same and my business started and I got famous in mowing grass in that area and I was really busy."
I was thinking there is big difference between here and my home country since the educated people in my country mostly ashamed to tell others that they did some low level jobs like working in restaurants and so on which I think we should change this attitude and consider all jobs as a valuable works.
2-I was speaking with Tyler about religion one day,I declared that I believe everyone who believes in each religion and act according his faith will get award and will go to heaven disregarding of religion type, we have some thinkers like Rumi(Persian poet and theologian who lived 800 years ago) who supports this idea. he says the difference between religions is like the difference between people who call God in different languages.
Tyler told me "I hope you will remain my friend but I think just Christians would go to heaven."
"what is your reason?"
"because this is written in Bible and I think whatever Bible says it is correct."
"So what is gonna happen to people who live in some area in Africa or China who even have not heared about Islam or Christianity?"
"We believe that Jesus will go to everybody and invites him to truth at least one time at life."
"I have aquestin for you,why am I the Muslim and you are the Christian?Because I was born in a Muslim family and you were born in a Christian family. we inherited the religion from our families,like the skin color and other attributes. I accept we can change our beliefs but it is not easy in case of religion."
Tyler did not say anything and was thinking deeply.

Preface

2006-05-27T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody,
This is almost 8 months which I have been in Dallas for pursuing my studies at SMU.I came from different culture and view ,I can say different world.During this period of time I experienced a lot of things,faced some challenges and learned so much from this new situation. Before I came here my friends in Iran asked me to tell them about my experiences here and I established the Persian weblog and I update it each week,people found my weblog interesting and I was thinking about writing the weblog in English but since I am a lazy guy I delayed it each time, but finally I made my decision and this is my first post.I hope this blog would be a place for interaction between people of different cultures and beliefs particulary my friends in here and Iran,maybe it makes the world a better place for life and I can make very little difference!Please feel free to put your comments,I would be more than happy to know your opinions about the contents of blog and even my mistakes in writing English which is likely would happen.
I will publish my second post as soon as possible.
Have a great time!