Notifications before visiting Tehran
"Bzzz, Bzzz" My cellphone vibrated in my pocket while I was taking Persian conversation class. After checking the phone number 02-2173-XXXX, I came to know that it was from HUFS. As I was expecting the result of internship application that I applied for, I jumped out of the class and hurriedly clicked the green button on my phone to answer the call.
"Congratulations! Won-joon, you're going to Iran next year!" It was Dong-cheol, a friend of mine, who was working as a teaching assistant in the Department of Persian Language. On hearing the news, I was so excited that it almost felt like I was already on a flight to the city Tehran.
However, after hanging up the phone call, I realized I had nothing prepared to go to Tehran. All I knew was that I was scheduled to work and study there for six months. So, after class I called back to Dong-cheol and asked him. "Is it okay if I visit your office for asking some questions?" I was intending to get some information from him not just because he was a teaching assistant but because he had lived in Iran for four months last year as an exchange student. Then he replied, "Feel free to come here after 4 O'clock. I'm not busy at all then."
I prepared some questions and visited the office at 4:30. When I got in the office no one except Dong-cheol was in there and it seemed like he was just surfing any websites for killing time. Dong-cheol said, "I looking forward to seeing you. An hour before leaving the office always makes me doubt the clock if its battery went out." I laughed and sat down on the chair on the opposite side of him. It was a perfect condition for a bored interviewee to become interested in my questions.
I began an interview with my first question. "Which airline do you think is the best to go to Tehran?" He replied, "Until now, there is no direct flight from Korea to Iran. So, you need to transfer in Dubai, Kuala Lumpur or Istanbul etc. Choosing the airline is up to your choice, but I recommend visiting Tehran via Kuala Lumpur because it's costs almost half the price of others. Though, you need to give up shorter flight hours. Via Kuala Lumpur, it takes about twenty hours which means it takes four hours more than other airlines. Time or money, it depends on your situation."
After his recommendation, it became hard for me to choose through which city I should go. Before, I was thinking of going via the city Dubai that I wanted to look around just for a few hours. However, his word "half the price" made me agonize.
Then I moved on to the next question. "What about the food? Did you cook Korean food in the dormitory or go to Iranian restaurants?" Right after the question, he sighed and answered. "In my case, that was the real problem. I couldn't get used to their food because of the unusual smell. I think it's because of the mutton smell and it feels like a man who didn't take a shower for a year. I just couldn't eat. So, I bought materials there and tried to cook for myself. But meals that I cooked were even worse. Inevitably, I was forced to go on a diet. Meanwhile, there was one thing that I liked to have there. It was the pizza in the restaurant Pizza Khaneh(Pizza House in Persian) near the university you're supposed to go. I strongly recommend that restaurant."
I told him that there was nothing to worry about mutton smell, as I like mutton more than pork or beef. Then he frowned as if he smelled the mutton foods again and intensely said no with his hands. But Pizza Khaneh became the first restaurant that I know and I felt like going there before long.
Another important question was left. "What about the clothes?" As I knew that Iran had a regulation for clothes even for foreigners due to religious disciplines, I needed to ask for details about it. And he replied, "Compared to girls, boys don't have strong regulations. Girls have to wear russari, kind of hijab, and cannot wear clothes that are short or tight to their body. However, you just need to be careful not to wear shorts and neckties. But as you are going to live there from January to June bring appropriate clothes for their weather. Until February, it's colder than Korea and after May it will feel like your skin's going to burn out in the fierce sunlight. Be ready for that."
Thinking that I must buy a large travel bag for clothes, I asked the last question. "Were there anything that made you exhausted in Iran?" For a moment he whined while recalling his memory and started to say. "Yes, there was one thing that I hated than mutton there. For the first month when I visited Iran, I was really enthusiastic to experience every cultural difference in there. So, every weekend, I went for a trip to nearby places in Tehran or other cities. However, I don't know why but people's eyes were always staring at me as if they were monitoring a stranger and some people yelled at me "Ching Chang Chong!" It was really awful and irritating that I quitted traveling around. I was going to get mental diseases if I persisted to hang around more."
While I was working in the embassy of Islamic Republic of Islamic Iran, I had already heard about Iranian people yelling or whispering "Ching Chang Chong" to Chinese people's ears. What "Ching Chang Chong" meant was making fun of the pronunciation of Chinese. And as Koreans look similar to Chinese, they have been doing the same thing. While worrying, I made up my mind not to become agitated and just to ignore that kind of people.
When I was thinking by myself like this, he himself came up with another thing to tell me. "You'd better bring some kind of vitamin pills or nutritional supplements. Because the altitude of the land there is higher than Korea, students tend to feel tiredness easily and some of them suffer from headaches like high altitude sickness."
"Oh, I didn't know that. You gave me lots of new information," I said. Then he left me his last words that I can't forget. "To be honest, for me it was like a jail to study in Iran for four months because of that smelly food and "Ching Chang Chong". At the last fourth month, I just waited for time to pass away but it almost stopped. It went much slower than waiting for an hour in this teaching assistant's office before coming back home in Korea again."
After the interview, I got useful and practical information but lost my excited feelings. I felt like my dreams were torn apart into minute pieces. However, I appreciate my friend Dong-cheol for breaking my dream. Without him, I would have grown my dream-like expectation and in the end become totally disappointed and depressed. Thanks to him, I could be realistic.
No comments:
Post a Comment