Marriage: Meeting each other

When two people want to get marry in my country they have two different ways of finding their soul mate.

1: Suitor

This is the traditional way of marriage which is still preferred by most parents. In this way boy and girl don't meet for a long time. The story is like this: 

A boy announces to his parents that he wants to marry and asks them to  find a good girl for him! So his mom and sisters try to look for a good girl ( I know how lame it is). They ask their friends and neighbors, etc. to find her. Some people give the phone numbers of some girl's families who they know. Then the boy's mom calls girl's mom [ these two moms have never met in real almost always]. Boy's mom says to girl's mom that they are a suitors family and if girl's mom is interested she will ask boy's mom further questions on the phone. These questions are: 1- how old is boy? 2- what's his job? 3- if he had a university degree and if the answer is yes what is his degree (e.g. B.A., M.A.,etc)? 4- how many brothers and sisters he has? 5- is his salary enough to provide a family?

If the girl's family is ok with the answers they will schedule a date for boy's family to come to their home to visit the girl ( in my city boy doesn't come first and this is why i hate to marry a suitor, because i feel like a piece of cloth. most of the time the boy's family may never come again because his mom may doesn't like the girl! Imagine that! All of these can happen without boy and girl meeting or even talking to each other ever!)

2: Dating

This is the modern way of marriage in my country which is new and people still barely talk about it. If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend you'd better keep it a secret! Yes. Here we don't live together with our partners. bfs and gfs usually just talk on the phone (most of the time when parents are not home) and text each other. They don't meet outside too much. They may sometimes go out to have a pizza or something. On their bdays and Valentine's Day and any other occasion, they buy each other gifts of course but by playing a lot of trick for their parents! They even usually hide the gift from parents. So I think you can guess now that bfs and gfs don't make love too. Because a girl MUST be virgin before marriage.

P.S. on the next post I will tell you more about how boy's family come to girl's to suit.

All of these are things which are usual not only in my city but also in my country generally. There are exceptions all the time you know.

I am 25 years old!

I am finally 25! I didn't have too much plan to do on my birthday but things came a long themselves! First thing in the morning I cleaned every corner of the home and had my lunch and left to cooking class. It was my first section and I was in the class from 3 to 7. I've leaned some about cooking and also about how to cook three different things this section! YES! Then I came home and had some fun times with my aunts and cousins. I had a cool day.

25 things I want to keep in mind on my entire 25 year old 

Mother's Day

Mother's day in my country is not on May 13. Although we are not Arabs and our calender is solar calender but Iranians celebrate mother's day according to Arabic month on Prophet Mohammad's daughter, Fatemeh's, birthday. As you may know Arabic months are shorter than Christian and solar months (about 28 days a month as far as I know) they are not stable. For example 25 years ago when I was born in May according to Arabic calender it was Ramadan while this year Ramadan is not May and is on August!
I hope I could explain how different Arabic calender is! I love Christian and solar calender the most.
This year Mother's Day according to Arabic calender was only one day before May 13!
In my country we call the day both Mother's and Women Day. This year I made a beautiful card for my mom and i printed one other and colored it like a kid! hehe. Then I put one card in the fridge and the other on microwave, put two stick notes into mom's English books as I know she is going to go to English class in the morning. Put an other stick note on the door and hung her gift from door all after we went to sleep to surprise her. She was so excited in the morning and I am so happy I could make her happy. Oh and I also put something on the fridge too. I don't know what do you say to it in English so I'll put a picture of it. It's written "Happy Mother's Day" on it into Farsi (Persian).
Happy Mother's Day to all of the mother's in the world. I hope I can someday be a mother too! Even if I can't be I will not stop loving kids. They are the miracles of our lives of course.

The thing on the fridge!

Funerals: Part Two

After one dies his/her family don't do make up (women) and shave (men), don't wear light color clothes (they usually wear black and dark ones)and they don't hold or take part in parties. { As my dad is not one who is strictly limited to traditions and is so open minded he let me go to my friend's wedding party and said that I even didn't need to ask for his permission and that I should keep on my life and be happy. He is so great.}These traditions doesn't last for a long time recently. But how do we put an end to this? Well, a close relative usually takes men and women to a barbershop or a beauty salon and buys some piece of cloth in light color.
After the first 40th day of one's death, the family of the dead one should go to his/her home on some occasions. These occasions are: On first holiday and on first new year that one is dead family of his/her go to dead one's home and host the guest who come over to let the dead one's family know that they are sad in their sadness and that they are not alone. As these occasions are happy events the family of the dead one host the guests with date, tea, walnut, sweetmeat and fruits.
First Ramadan (this one is a bit different usually most of the close relatives give parties each night for the dead ones family, a month is 30 days but maybe only a few people invite the dead one's family for breaking their fast).
And first anniversary of death. First anniversary of death is again so expensive and time consuming. Because as the first day of death, the dead one's family, relatives, friends and neighbor go to the cemetery, mosque and give dinner to a lot of people.
If the dead one is young his/her family may host people at home with tea, date and walnut every anniversary. This will not last forever of course.
Now can say that the second part of the long story of one's death in my country is done by doing all of these!

Funerals: Part One

As a person who is interested in culture and cultural differences I would like to share some about my culture and customs. First I begin with the sad one which is "funeral" for respect to my late grandma.
Funerals in my country are a long story, there are some differences from city to city so I will tell you about my city, Tabriz. Something else that you may better know is that I live in a Muslim family so all customs are about Muslim ones.
When a person dies people take the body to ablutionary. The body has been washed there. Then they put the body in a white cloth which has no sews and no buttons. Then they put the body in a bag instead of coffin to took it to the cemetery to bury. All of the people who are there pray for the dead before leaving to cemetery. They don't bury the body with the bag. I think they put the body in a black plastic too which I have no idea what it is so.
After they bury the body while all relatives, family members, friends and neighbors are there. People move to home all together to go get ready for going to a mosque. It is very important that people take part in the funeral. After mosque the family of the dead person should give dinner to all of the people who took part in the funeral and even to whom they know and wasn't there for any reason. The number of guests sometimes is about 500 people! Then the close ones of dead body go back to dead person's home to pray more for him/her on his/her first night in the grave.
On the second day close relatives of the dead one go back to his/her home to get ready for the third day which is also so important.
On third day, people go back to cemetery first in the morning, to pray some more for dead then the story of mosque and dinner starts again! Again the number of guest can be even 500!
On the first Thursday and Friday of the dead body people have two choice: 1. at home 2. at mosque. People go to one of these and to pray for the dead one which can take all afternoon long and the relatives of the dead should host the guests of course with some date, sweets (i didn't find the exact word for this in English), tea, coffee and walnuts.
Some people hold this every Thursday and Friday until the 40th of the dead person arrives. But my family doesn't because my aunts and uncles live in other cities and can't stay for 40 days in the city.
Then it comes the 40th day of the body. Note that the family of the dead person can change the 40th day tradition to a little sooner because of lots of reason. For example if the exact 40th day is on Monday they hold it on Thursday or Friday when other guests are on their weekend and don't have to take a day off from work.
On 40th day of the dead person again EVERYONE takes part in cemetery, home, mosque and dinner thing again! It really costs a lot of money and time for the dead person's family to give dinner for about 500 people three times in 40 days only!
After 40 days we are done just with the first part of the funeral!
P.S. I didn't put more pictures for this post because I didn't want to make you sad. Something is on the grave, by "sweetes" I meant that one!