Iran: a close shave connected traveler

[democratic]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/travel/print/sfl-iranmay08,0,1310800.story?coll=sfla-travel-print

Iran: A close shave connected traveler to people eager for answers about US

By Matt Mossman
Special Correspondent
Posted May 8 2005

Iran may be part of the Axis of Evil, but you'd never know it talking to a typical Iranian. The Average Jelal wants to be friends and hang out with you at his favorite teahouse. But first he needs to make sure you understand that he and practically everyone else he knows hate the country's religious leaders more than you could ever imagine.

Beards are a sign of piety in Islam. Once I ditched mine, Iranians felt free to show me around, invite me to dinner, vent about politics and ask about life in a free country. I chatted into the night at the teahouses, exchanged e-mail addresses and snapped pictures of strangers who just wanted to be in an American photo album.

I knew before going that Iranians like us more than we think. Now, it's hard to exaggerate the point. Iranians pine after American freedoms and mimic our culture. They're like a self-conscious teenager hero-worshipping an older friend.

In the capital city, Tehran, "The Ultimate Fried Chicken Joint" is a popular restaurant. In Yazd, a southern desert town, a street advertisement for an optometrist shows the cartoon Charlie Brown holding an eye chart and his sister Sally in an eye patch. People wear stars-and-stripes shoes and stars-and-stripes shirts. There are achingly bad Iranian versions of American pop music.

Iran's government can't be happy about all this. Its anti-U.S. propaganda is easy to spot in public spaces: "Down with the U.S.A." painted on parking blocks, slogans on billboards, speeches and rallies. In Tehran, murals cover one side of the brick perimeter walls of the former American Embassy, where Iranians scaled the gates and kept American hostages for 444 days beginning in November 1979.