Iran documentary - Motivation - Part 2

First thing to fight these ideas were to learn the realities myself, so I studied about my country, the culture, history and etc. I studied more and more, and as I was learning more, I felt more that I am right about my country, and it amazed me although all the information is in the internet, but a few people read them. So the problem was ignorance, not hatred or etc. I had to target that. When I was in Honduras and as my friends in Honduras asked me a lot about Iran, and after studying a lot, I decided to hold an exhibition about Iran. Since I had a great relationship with the management and staff, they gave me permission to use anywhere I want to do that.

So I started, I think it took me 2-3 weeks to finish all the work, and I held it, I have put so many pictures and information, with those information and photos I targeted ignorant things that I have heard of Iran. A very simple example was that most of the people thought that Iran is desert, so to answer that, instead of saying not its not, I put pictures of the nature of Iran, pictures of four season in Iran, snowing and etc. Or so many of them thought that Iran culture is very strict and solid, which again is not true, I have put information about how we celebrate New Year and other festivals, and their symbolisms, how we value happiness, and kindness in every one of them. So first I wrote their wrong ideas, and then I found out a reality of Iran which answers that, and I put it in there.

 My project was very successful, they asked me so many questions, and they were amazed with those information, photos and etc. It was so successful that I began to think to do it in a larger scale over there, so what I rented a spot in their largest mall for a weekend, I asked my girlfriend, and my two girl friends to help me out, I made fancier photos and information, I worked 3 more weeks on that, and finally it was ready, and I did it, it was amazing, so many people wanted to know about Iran, they were all coming to there and asking us questions (all of my friends became experts on Iran too).  I remember a gentleman who came by, and asked me “why didn’t you put anything about Persian-Roman Wars? Why didn’t you say that Persians always won the fights and etc”, I was really shocked that he knew a lot about Iran, when we talked, he said that he had an Iranian neighbor in USA, and once he ate Iranian food, and he was amazed with that, and because of that he decided to learn about everything that Iran has, and that’s how he knew that much. A few people said that its all lies and etc, but they never came to talk, they just passed, which at that time, I easily had the tolerance to listen to them and talk to them.

My Language Challenges – Part 2

So I went down, I tried to be as open as I can, because when you are learning, it helps you a lot. So I have so many memories, and observation. The first one was that although there were lots of students over there, but I was the only foreigner over there. All of the other people where from there,  so it got a little harder. Although people seemed friendly, but it was obvious that I m different, and I am not one of them. So I asked with my perfect Spanish, is this class …? The guy didn’t understand me, but he was patient, and I was persistent,  so after a little talk, I understood that I am in the right spot.

My first class was micro economy, the class began, I did not understand a word he was saying, and I knew that I am the only person with that feeling, but it was ok, I was ready for it, in pressure you learn better. I tried to communicate with some people, not so many people knew English, so I could not use English as much, but since I knew patterns, I tried to pronounce the words that I thought they are common between the two languages, only with Spanish pronunciation, and it was working, so at least I could deliver my message.  

My second class was Spanish, oh my god, I can’t believe it, what a stupid choice, although I did not choose it, when they matricularon or they registered me, they thought it’s a good choice for me. So that was the worst experience, which I can’t stop smiling when I remember it, it was really hard, even the native people had problem, it needed very detailed and deep understanding of Spanish, and it was very analytical. As always I am calm, I don’t understand shit, but I am calm, and relaxed, this is my best feature in my life, you put me in the worst situation with the soonest and worst deadline, you see me playing piano,  going out, drinking and .. , it’s because I believe that being calm and relax is very crucial to success. 

So again that class was over, the other class was philosophy, hahahah, it’s a joke right? To me it was not that bad, at least it was something common, like economy, it was better than Spanish. Again I did not understand anything, the last class was calculus, which again I did not understand a word, but I solved all the problems, I even helped a girl close to me to solve it, and it felt amazing, after being a dummy for a days, feeling intelligent was  amazing. So my first week in my life and in there as a dummy was over …

Iran documentary - Motivation - Part 1

I wanted to write about one of the greatest achievements of my life for a long time. I have made documentary about Iran in 2-3 years, it took me a long time, but the result was amazing, over a million people have seen it, and the comments and feedback was great. But since then, I was looking for an opportunity to talk about why I put 3 years of my life to make such a thing, although I have never been a history or film making major.

I was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. My closest friends are in Iran, my greatest experiences are from there, my personality shaped in there. So I know what Iran is and what it is not. When I came out of Iran, I went to Dubai, in Dubai I went to American College, which so many of the instructors were European/American. They were very nice, and I was friend with most of them. But over time, I learned that what they know about Iran is totally different from the Iran I know; they thought that people are all religious, they all hate USA and etc. So I used to talk to them a lot, and give them as much as information I had, but I was a computer science major, who had experiences in marketing too, and had so many experiences but not any in history and culture major. In this phase I was learning, and it was like an introduction to me, learning new ideas about Iran, which were not true. Once my Canadian teacher said, until the 1979 revolution in Iran, in all of our history books, we had so many materials about the great Persia, and how they helped others and etc, but after the revolution, it was all gone. This was the first awakening call for me to realize that their ideas is not from the reality of Iran, but it’s from politics and games.

I went to Germany, Italy, Honduras, USA and etc, and all of them for me was new and interesting experiences, I was learning new thing about myself and life and others, but I knew one thing, that they are all wrong about Iran, the Iran I was born in and raised in, was not the one they were talking about, and it was annoying me, because it was so hard for me to explain it to them, because of two reasons: 1. I did not have enough information to back up my thoughts and ideas, and I knew that there are so many young Iranians like me all over the world, who don’t know how to communicate the reality of Iran to others, and some who are so young who even don’t know which one is the reality of Iran? So I was thinking, what could I do ?

My Language Challenges – Part 1

In my English class, we have read a story about the challenges of people who learn a new language, when I read the story about Eva (I call her Eva, but I am sure her name was something else), and her challenges with English as second language, it reminded me of myself and my experiences, how many times I used English, or Spanish as my second or third language.

I remember when I had to go to Honduras for 2 years, I was looking for an English Speaking university to study over there, and transfer the units back to USA, but my best choice was a Spanish speaking university, a new language.  First my lawyer, my family and everyone were telling me to learn Spanish for six months, and then go to university, but I had a different approach, and idea about these kinds of situations. My personal quote for this kind of situation is: “If the chance of success is only one percent, I am that one percent”.  So I said no, just find the university, and I will learn the language by myself.

                After ten days being there, we found the perfect choice, UNITEC, which had contracts with US universities, so me and my cousin’s wife (she came from San Francisco to Tegucigalpa to help me out) went to UNITEC, and they told me that in mid January our classes are going to begin,  and I had one month to prepare, and on the other hand I took the math assessment test in Spanish, which was so funny, because I could not understand a word, but I got 81 and I got into Calculus class.

 So I had one month to learn as much as I can, I started with words and pronunciations, it was pretty easy, because unlike English, Spanish writing and reading is mostly followed by rules, and there are few exceptions, then I found out that the best way for me to get an idea of Spanish, is to find the patterns between Spanish and English ( I have studied English since I was 6 in Iran), there were so many patterns, and similarities, then I studied the verbs, and grammar. My 20 days learning period was up, and I had to go to school tomorrow…

دموکراسی ایرانی‌، سال ۲۰۱۲

  اگر مخالف شاهی، تو یک بچه مسلمون و خط امامی هستی‌

اگر طرفدار شاهی، تو یک عقب مونده ذهنی‌ هستی‌ که ۱۰۰ سال است از دنیا

اگر طرفدار موسوی هستی‌، نفهم، بیشور و احمقی

اگر ضّد موسوی هستی‌، تو یک خارج نشین ، لوس آنجلسی هیچی‌ نفهم هستی

اگر ترکی‌، نفهمی، و اگر فارس، بچه سوسول‌

اگر طرفدار کمونیستی یا ضدش،
اگر اصلاح طلبی یا بر انداز، اگر بهایی هستی‌ یا مسلمان یا  بی‌ دین،
اگر استقلالی هستی‌، یا تراکتوری یا پرسپولیسی، هر چی‌ هستی‌، در صورت مخالفت با من ، لقبی دارم که به تو بچسبانم، و ریشه تو را بزنم ، این است دموکراسی مدل ایرانی‌، سال ۲۰۱۲

دموکراسی ایرانی‌، سال ۲۰۱۵

من ایرانی‌م، تو هم ایرانی‌ هستی‌، من موسوی چی‌ هستم، تو شاه دوست، من مسلمانم، و تو مسیحی‌، من کردم، تو لٔر، یا شایدم

من ترکم و تو فارس، و دوستم عرب، چه فرق می‌کند، تو و من ایرانی‌ آزادی خواه هستیم، هر دو ایران را دوست داریم، و سهمی هر چند کوچک، ولی‌ برابر از آن داریم ..

تفاوت اگر داریم، باهم حرف می‌زنیم، بحث می‌کنیم، ولی‌ زبان توهین و تهمت را همان سال با جمهوری اسلامی خاک کردیم، مسلمانی یا مسیحی‌ یا بی‌ دین، یا بهایی، برای من یک ایرانی‌ محترمی ..

یادم میاید، اواخر سال ۲۰۱۲ بود، من موسوی چی‌، با دوست موسوی چیم بودیم، که تو طرفدار شاه آمدی، دوستم به تو توهین کرد، و من گفتم این راسم سبز بودن و ایرانی‌ بودن نیست ..

آری ، آن سال ها،  با امید و اتحادمان ایرانی‌ نو ساختیم، و امروز در سال ۲۰۱۵،  به هم فحش نمیدهیم، توهین نمی‌کنیم، تهمت نمی‌زنیم، در تفاوت‌ها با هم حرف می‌زنیم، بحث میکنیم، ولی‌ در آخر همه یکی‌ هستیم .. یکی‌ از جنس ایران و برای ایران ...

  من از امروز ، هر روز این نوشته را خواهم نوشت، و خواهم خواند ، تا ۲۰۱۵

ایرانی‌‌های همیشه ناراضی خموش، آفرین کی‌روش

روی صحبتم با دوستانی هست که همیشه ناراضی هستند، از جمله امروز.

 ایران عالی‌ بازی کرد، با این امکانات کم، یه بازی دوستانه درست حسابی‌ نداشتیم ، مربی‌‌های عوضی‌ باشگاهیمون، بازیکناشون رو اصلا در اختیار تیم ملی‌ قرار ندادند، تیم ملی کامل کمتر از یک هفته تمرین کرده ...

 با این شرایط، بعضی‌ می‌گویند اوه چرا مثل اسپانیا بازی نکردیم با تیمی که توی ژاپن, ژاپن رو برده ! چرا باهاش هجومی بازی نکردیم :د یکم بیشتر فکر کنید دوستان ,بعد از تیمی که یک هفته تمرین کرده انتظار داشته باشید ازبکستان را در ازبکستان بدون تمام این مشکلات هجومی و با بازی لذیذ ببرد.

 ... هر وقت مدتی‌ بازیکن هامون رو در اختیار کی‌روش گذشتیم، و چند بازی دوستانه درس حسابی‌ براش گذشتیم .. و خلاصه امکانات حداقلی به کی‌روش دادیم، بعد اجازه داریم از ا‌و حداکثر توقع رو داشته باشیم. با این امکانات، و اینهمه مشکلات تیم ملی‌ عالی‌ بازی کرد.

رئیس جمهور من پیام مقاومت و آزادگی میدهد، و فرهادی پیام دوستی محبّت، این است ایران من

رئیس جمهور من پیام مقاومت و آزادگی میدهد، و فرهادی پیام دوستی محبّت، این است ایران من