Azreen vs Chador

My first time wearing chador. It was so hard to keep it still on head. Sorry maman to make your chador dirty. I will practice more :)

1 Sal Gozashte (Its Been A Year)...

...since my last time in Iran.

I miss Iran so much, particularly one particular person inside it. How can I not miss a country that I really like? In the 6 ++ years I've been involving myself in "Iran" related matters, I never experienced any thing that makes me hate Iran, yeah maybe sometimes there are Iranian that pissed me off but the country itself never make me unhappy, even with all the bad deeds the world is talking. By the way, is Iran really a not good country for living? Because there are people said I never live there that's why I don't have bad impression about Iran. But for me, I don't think I will hate Iran if I live there as well. I don't know. Maybe. That is my instinct.

Its been a year. I wish time will pass by faster for my next visit to Iran. I want another paiz if not zemestoon in Iran. For the mean time, here some photos of my last year visit. Taa daafe baad...moraghebe khodetun bash. Hava aloode shode.

Baame Tehran

Parsian Azadi Hotel Tehran

Sortome

Tamasha Buffet restaurant

Imam Reza Holy Shrine, Mashhad

Underground Imam Reza Holy Shrine, Mashhad

Nowshahr, Shomal

Luch stop on the way to Namakabroud

Caspian Sea, Nowshahr

Mazyar Fallahi concert, Milad Tower, Tehran

Leggings or Support?

Support is what Iranian women refer to leggings. How to spell it? S.U.P.P.O.R.T or S.A.P.P.O.R.T or any other spelling? I don't know why they called it support. Is it because the material nicely support legs muscles/fats? Is it because it support their need to wear something sexier without being detained by the moral police? I really don't know. Who started to call leggings support? Hmm..well well well. 

During my visit to Iran, I saw this is the "in" trend currently. Well I would say that in Malaysia too. For me wearing tight pants or leggings will make a woman looks neat. In Iran normally women wear mantou or long dress in fllowing the dress code. When it's being match with leggings which is tight, it will make you look fashionable.  It is contrast if you wear leggings and tight short shirt which is for me unacceptable because you will show all your body curves/fats/butts whatever you have. Of course in Islamic dress code leggings is not suitable but for me it is ok. I wear tight pants with long dress for which I don't over showing my body. However, in Iran somehow i saw that the girls trying to push the boundaries of dress code by wearing very thin leggings that when she bend her knee, you can see the skin color. And for me it's an eeeeewww fashion. You wear hijab, nice. You wear mantou/long dress, nice. But you wear a  socks with that? And you think you are one of those supermodels with long skinny legs?It is so unacceptable for me.

When I went to Mazyar Fallahi concert, there were some moral polices at the entrance of the hall. They checked dress code. In front of me there were 3 girls. Suddenly the police asked one of them out from the line and I heard what the police said. Ya mantou bepush ya shalvar bepush. (Wear either mantou/long dress or pants). I looked at that girl. She wears a very tight, thin leggings with tight, short mantou (above knee). I don't know whether she was allowed to enter in the end or not. Never play with Iranian polices. They arenot like Malaysian polices :-P Yes, me passed the police checking with flying colors of course haha.

I understand how hard womens in Iran have to face the reality of dressing and fashion. They have very minimum rights to wear what they want. But for me, they all look nice with their fashion in Iran. Modest and neat. If I have to live in Iran, I will have no problem with the dress code. In fact I love to wear mantou even in Malaysia. For leggings, it's ok to wear as long as you know the boundaries especially for woman ho wears hijab and with condition that make sure your legs are nice and lean. If you have that chicken drumstick leg just stay with your normal pant or else you will look like a chicken wrapped. 

Taa daafe baad...khoda negahdar

For more info about Iran and leggings: click here

Azren and support

Foods in Iran

If you know me well, you'll notice that I am a "foody" person. I love cooking particularly and of course I love eating. Who doesnt like eating tho? ;P The only problem is that the metabolism rate, why it's declining? And the fats get stuck at some parts of body. Oh my..I do care of course but I decided to ignore the fact that I am on eating clean during my trips to Iran. How can I resist to eat yummylicious foods that I can only get once in a blue moon? So here are some of foods that I managed to capture its photo before its gone I had while in Iran and it still take me times until today to lose the gained kg!!

Kaleh Pacheh

Lotsa fruits and so cheap!!

Some buffet foods. 

Shir Pesteh

Kabab

Forget its name. But it tastes like mahicheh

Persian polow

Faloodeh

Ash Reshteh

Adasi. I dont like much

Torshi Sir

Mahi va juje kababs

Soup e jo

Mirza Ghasemi

Mahi (ghazalali?) Sorkh Kardan

Jigare gusfand-o bokhoram :)

Shirini Darmakhi 

Haida Berger

Assorted Bastani

Havij Bastani (Zaffron)

How Sanctions Affected Iranians' Life

I believe that the entire world know about sanctions in Iran. In fact, that was the first question my brother asked me when I came back from Iran. I experienced how sanctions had affected Iranians' life. Bausch & Lomb soft lens multi purpose solution 120ml was sold double price as it is in Malaysia because it is considered medicinal thing and there's no over counter (except pharmacy) cough lozenge such as strepsils or fishermen's friend that easily can be found at groceries shop or petrol station in malaysia. *I don't know if it's available only I didn't find it. I am so sad. The reality is that sanctions had affected humanity. Just imagine that this sh**t happens in our country. How our normal life will affected? It won't be better but surely harder. 

Today I stumbled upon this website http://ajammc.com/ and my tears dropped upon reading one of its current article about sanctions in Iran. The 15th point really hurt me to know that my country's airline, Air Asia stopped its KL-Tehran route to comply with sanctions. What a shame! I copy paste it here. Not sure whether it is allowed or no but I think I have to share this. The link 

15 Ways Sanctions Hurt Ordinary Iranians

POSTED BY AJAM MEDIA COLLECTIVE ⋅ OCTOBER 3, 2013 ⋅ 2 COMMENTS

FILED UNDER  DIASPORA, HUMANITARIAN, IRAN, IRAN-IRAQ WAR, LIFE, MIDDLE EAST, OBAMA, PHOTO ESSAY, PHOTOGRAPHY, POLITICS,ROUHANI, SANCTIONS, SANCTIONS ON IRAN, TEHRAN, TRAVEL, UNITED NATIONS, USA, WAR

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been placed under increasingly harsh rounds of sanctions by the US, the European Union, and theUnited Nations. The latest and strongest round of these sanctions were enacted during the early years of the Obama administration, and have made life increasingly difficult for average Iranians. Although a few sanctions were lifted this summer, the remaining sanctions continue to have a destructive effect on the ordinary lives of Iranians.

Sanctions have an especially tragic history in the Middle East. Their devastating humanitarian impact upon Iraqi society caused proponents of sanctions to begin advocating for a supposedly “smart” variety intended to “target” only governments; in this case, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet their increasingly widespread effects upon Iranian society today show this rhetoric to have been disingenuous, as ordinary Iranians bear the brunt of these sanctions. We are once again reminded of the inhumanity of collective punishment; of the fact that sanctions ultimately don’t “target,” they spread and ensnare instead.

These sanctions have significantly affected the lives of Iranians living in Iran as well as in the diaspora. Life essentials, such as the capacity for travel, education, the sending of remittances, and even access to medicine are increasingly limited for average Iranians.

Yet it can sometimes be hard to appreciate the impact of these sanctions in everyday terms. We’ve compiled a list of 15 photographs to help illustrate these impacts.

1. Sanctions have sent the Iranian economy into a series of shocks, causing massive inflation.

This has lead to a serious devaluation of the rial that has wreaked havoc on the purchasing power of ordinary Iranians.

2. Sanctions have created medicine shortages in Iran, leaving hundreds of thousands without access to vital medications.

Those medicines still available, meanwhile, are often prohibitively expensive due to the currency collapse. The result has been many easily preventable deaths.

Manouchehr Esmaili-Liousi is one of them. He didn’t have access to his hemophilia medicine and was reported as the first death directly caused by sanctions. He was fifteen. Many medicines for hemophilia and thalassemia, and other serious diseases have become extremely rare and highly expensive because of sanctions.

3. Due to sanctions, birth control pills – once available, accessible, and affordable – have become virtually non-existent.

Instead, cheaply made and sometimes dangerous substitutes have flooded the markets.

These include brands like Yaz and Yasmine, the same pills that are facing multiple major lawsuits in the US because their use has been linked to heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, and blood clots in women.

4. Iranian veterans of the Iran-Iraq war and survivors of chemical weapons attack increasingly don’t have access to vital treatments needed for their survival.

Iran is home to 100,000+ victims of chemical warfare, more than any other country in the world. While thousands of Iranians died instantly following the chemical weapons attacks, Iran’s tens of thousands of survivors face a wide range of long-term effects, including extremely high rates of respiratory ailments, skin and eye problems, fertility and reproductive disorders, and cancer.

5. Basic medicines such as Advil and Tylenol are increasingly out of reach and difficult to find in Iran.

So instead of taking gifts, in many cases Iranians abroad have resorted to filling their luggage with over-the-counter meds to take their families in Iran.

6. Because of sanctions, Tehran has been experiencing the worst pollution it’s ever had.

In 2010, US sanctions were implemented against Iranian imports of refined gasoline. This meant that the country had to immediately come up with a way to refine its own. The ad hoc replacement is of a dramatically lower quality, and as a result levels of air pollution (and deaths from respiratory diseases) have skyrocketed in cities across the country. In Tehran, there were less than 150 days of “healthy air” in 2011, down from 300 in 2009.

The pollution has gotten so bad that Tehran’s governor has even at times shut down the city for people’s safety and health. This dramatic decline follows years after which air quality in Iranian cities was getting better, due to a combination of increased government investment in public transit, cleaner fuels, and better industrial technology.

In major cities, smog has gotten so bad that people often resort to wearing face masks in public to protect themselves.

7. Some ideas in Iran are literally not worth the paper that they are printed on! 

Many can’t afford simple things, like the cost of paper. What is more, the cost of imported paper has risen sharply due to the devalued rial and led to what Iranian media have termed a “paper crisis.”

This has been linked to the bankruptcy of an estimated 100 independent publishers. The government continues to subsidize many publishers, but the widespread shutdown of independent publishers means that that the variety of ideas being published is increasingly restricted.

Never thought paper would be such a precious commodity, did you?

8. Want to be an Iranian AND have your money in a bank account? Some banks say no. Many bank accounts belonging to Iranians in the US have been closed due to sanctions.

Iranian students studying in the US have been especially targeted by banks over-enforcing sanctions. Often, banks will go far overboard in their enforcement for fear of being targeted by the United States government for non-compliance.

This is an especially sensitive issue because Iran’s banks have been completely cut off from the global banking system, forcing Iranians to rely on foreign banks if they travel or live abroad. Even a minor procedure like buying a plane ticket or shopping online is an arduous process, as Iranian credit cards and bank accounts are blocked from making international transactions.

9. Bank accounts belonging to Iranian-Canadians have also faced random closures due to sanctions.

In mid 2012, for example, TD Canada Trust began to close the accounts of numerous Iranian-Canadians and Iranian residents of Canada, apparently without allowing them an opportunity to contest their cases. These closures were widespread; in a single fact-finding meeting held by the Iranian Canadian Congress, about 100 Iranian-Canadians who had been affected showed up to voice their concerns. The episode even prompted the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to suggest that the closures may be violation of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. More recently, Canada’s Royal Bank seems to be following suit.

10. Iranians have been denied university entrance to European universities, especially in the fields of mathematics, science and technology (STEM), but also in social sciences and humanities.

Czech Technical University, for example, outright rejected a student based on her Iranian citizenship.

11. Even if Iranian students are admitted to American universitiesthey may be barred from obtaining the financial services, such as student loans, necessary to afford it.

As Discover Student Loans, put it in a rejection letter: “Unfortunately, we cannot approve your application for the following reason(s): the country of residence you provided on your application is on the OFAC sanctioned country list.”

12. Despite changes to visa laws for Iranian students studying in the US, many students still face the problem of the single-entry visas, which means that they cannot visit home without having to go through the burdensome and costly process of re-applying for their student visa.

This is especially true for students in fields of science, engineering, and technology who cannot obtain multiple-entry visas.

13. Airbnb is reportedly denying service to Iranians seeking to sign up.

Photo credit: Ehsan Norouzi (@Ehsanism on Twitter)

14. Want to go to Iran?

You can’t if you want to book it through Trip Advisor, Kayak.com or many other US-based travel companies, who ban any bookings involving Iran.

15. Even if you manage to find a travel agent who will book a flight, some airlines have boycotted the country altogether.

KLM and Austrian airlines, among others, have stopped flying to Iran since the latest rounds of sanctions came into effects. Malaysia’s Air Asia, which previously offered cheap flights from Tehran to Kuala Lumpur and vice versa for hundreds of thousands of Iranian students and immigrants every year, has also canceled all flights to and from Iran since October 14, 2012 to remain compliant with sanctions. Recently, President Rouhani has suggested the possibility of having direct flights from New York to Tehran, but sanctions would have to be lifted before this can be a legal reality.

These are just a few examples of the effects of sanctions. The consequences of these sanctions have seeped into every aspect of life in Iran and have negatively impacted the social, cultural, and economic fabric of society, and are felt by Iranians in some very real ways. By no means an exhaustive list, this was merely an attempt to recognize and remember those affected by sanctions.