Reza Zandi, a freelance writer who has covered oil and energy issues for Shahrvand-e-Emrooz (Today’s Citizen) weekly magazine in Iran, is the first Iranian journalist to join an East-West Center media program.
At the end of his participation in the Senior Journalists Seminar earlier this year, Zandi wrote down his impressions of America during his first trip to the United States. His personal reaction to America’s friendliness and beauty contrasts with the testiness of U.S.-Iran relations.
Yet, he also sees shortcomings, and appeals for closer ties between Americans and Iranians, particularly journalists.
Zandi took extensive notes during his 47 days in the U.S., covering visits from his base in Hawai‘i to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York City, and Nashville. For this social travelogue, however, he relied mostly on his memory, saying, “I decided to discard my notes and put what I have in my mind on paper because the mind is where humans always keep their most precious memories.”
The first time I saw America
By Reza Zandi
Hats and boots are remnants of cowboys that can be bought by tourists who want to take home a souvenir from Nashville or pose for a photo.
A stone monument helps the nation remember George Washington. No building on the western side of the capital city can be built to exceed its height.
Marlon Brando, Charlie Chaplin and hundreds of other famous actors are now but names on cobblestones in Hollywood that tourists can trample on.
If yesterday’s New York gangs challenged each other, today they have given way to skyscrapers in Manhattan.
Twenty-first-century clothing brands have been substituted with Western attire.
It seems that from the time of gangsters to the time when the American people voted for “change,” it has been only a twinkling of an eye, yet many important things have happened in the world during that time.
I am in the United States of America.
The first American I met
At Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., a lovely grandmother with her engineer husband sat beside me. She was from Pennsylvania. We talked about everything and she showed me a photo of her grandchildren.
She helped me to fill out a form, and it was then that I realized that former President George W. Bush does not represent all Americans. The more I talked to the American people, the more I realized that many were against his warmongering policies.
Elsewhere in my journey, I met a long-time Republican woman who had voted for Bush, but after four years was sorry for her vote. I think it is incorrect to think that Bush and his way of thinking stand for the whole American nation.
People’s kindness and religion
Wherever I went, people treated me kindly, even after I introduced myself as an Iranian. It was like the hospitality that Iranians show American tourists. My warm personal encounters with people are something that I will never forget.
Americans and Iranians have different cultures and traditions, but Americans are in many ways similar to Iranians. With some exceptions, Americans seem to be more religious than their European counterparts.
Chinese monopoly in the American market
When I visited The Wall Street Journal, everyone was rocked with the news of Chrysler’s bankruptcy. I don’t want to talk about the complicated economic crisis which has engulfed the United States and the world.
One point is enough to show why that crisis likely will become more complex over time. Most commodities seem to come from China, India, Bangladesh and other countries, despite the fact that unemployment is soaring in the United States.
I wondered, can’t the U.S. government provide conditions through tax exemptions so that America’s jobless could be employed to compete with the inexpensive Chinese labor force?
Media colleagues
Making the acquaintance of colleagues from five Asian countries, in addition to six seasoned American journalists, was one of the main attractions of my trip. My experiences and conversations with other journalists gave me the impression that big media hold great power in the United States.
Tears in ‘Tehran-geles’
In Los Angeles, I walked along a street nicknamed “Tehran-geles.” Everything smacks of Iran. Some shops still have the air of 40 years ago.
I will never forget the tearful eyes of an African-American woman whom I saw praying in the corner of a Los Angeles cathedral. She had raised her hands toward the heavens and was calling to God without anyone paying attention to her.
The cathedral had play equipment to occupy the children while their parents worshipped.
Tennessee Islamic Center
A great memory of the trip was my visit to Nashville, center of American country music, and to nearby Columbia, a small country town where there is an Islamic Center run by an American woman and her Palestinian husband. I felt that both of them and others who go to the center are free to carry on their religious rituals.
I only wished there was a playground at the center for the children of worshippers, like the one at the Los Angeles cathedral.
The center of government
For me, a visit to the museum of American news, known as the Newseum, was the most enthralling part of my tour of the nation’s capital. The museum employs cutting-edge technology, and is a jewel of Washington, D.C. It includes articles from Iran and a photo of the leader of the Iranian revolution.
We also visited the hotel where the Watergate scandal unraveled. Students from well-to-do families could be seen sauntering about at nearby George Washington and Georgetown universities.
The District of Columbia hosts the White House, Congress, government departments, the FBI, and international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Despite it being the center of American government, residents have no voting representatives in Congress.
Remembering 9/11
In New York City, cranes and bulldozers still work at the former site of the Twin Towers. The World Trade Center sight brings back the painful memory of the 9/11 attacks. Although the towers have been gone since the attack in 2001, New York continues to be the capital of the world economy.
My visit to the United Nations somehow saddened me. A big and very precious Iranian carpet was hung in a corner off the usual tourist routes. If I had not asked the tour leader, I could easily have missed it.
Iranian civilization in Hawai‘i
In addition to its superb natural beauty, Hawai‘i is home to a miniature version of Iran. Shangri La is an ornate house on the coast of the main island of O‘ahu, built by the late American heiress Doris Duke, who came to love Iranian civilization.
Her Hawai‘i mansion, modeled after the Chehel Sotoun (Forty Colomns) Palace, is now a museum. I could see Quranic inscriptions and the prayer altar. It is Iranian civilization represented in the heart of Hawai‘i.
Yearning for the homeland
I saw many Iranians, most of them educated and upper class, most of whom wanted to pay a visit to their homeland. I think Iranians will show their Iranian traits anywhere in the world, regardless of their personal beliefs. They have been admired by American society.
The mayor of Los Angeles visited the city’s Iranian neighborhood for the Iranian New Year’s celebration. I think the Iranian community in the United States should be introduced to the people of Iran and vice versa.
Humiliating behavior at the airport
One unfortunate memory of my trip was the humiliating behavior of security forces at U.S. airports. Although some caution is understandable after 9/11, the extra pressure put on certain nationalities, including Iranians, is unjustified.
I saw a wealthy Iranian businessman at a Hawai‘i airport who was vacationing with his wife. He told me that he was so disappointed in the insulting treatment by U.S. airport security that he regretted his trip to the United States.
Staying in touch
I think governments can disagree, but nations should stay in touch. Contact between nations can solve many misunderstandings. I have the impression that some U.S. media do not accurately report the facts about my country. This is to some extent true of Iranian media reporting about the United States as well.
Most Americans I met wanted to see a change in their country’s relations with Iran. Iran should hear their voices.
I know it was not an easy decision for an American institute to invite an Iranian journalist at a time of tense relations between the two countries. Perhaps this is part of the change that President Barack Hussein Obama has promised. Accepting the invitation was also a risk for me.
As a journalist specializing in oil and energy, I took the risk because I wanted to make an Iranian voice heard in the United States, while remaining impartial, as a journalist should be.
50th anniversary surprise
I know that President Barack Obama’s mom and dad met at the EWC programs and that next year would be the EWC’s 50th anniversary. What a nice surprise it would be if the first interview between the president of the United States and the first Iranian journalist to have participated in EWC programs took place in the context of this 50th anniversary. I hope both sides could make this happen.
Farewell
I leave the United States with good memories, and I ask God to bestow peace and tranquility on the good American people.
I hope Iran and the United States will take a new course of mutual respect that allows both U.S. and Iranian journalists to travel more easily between the two countries. I think the combination of ancient Iranian civilization and modern U.S. technology can help human civilization move ahead.
The best beginning for this could be dialogue on equitable terms. And what better beginning than a beautiful spring in Hawai‘i?
_ East-West Center/Honolulu
