VET Community Services 2022

MY CULTURE

My culture is Persian, from Iran, and we have many values that we love and respect and that are important to my family. These include the way we greet people, no matter who comes to our home, we always greet them, it’s to show respect. For example, if we have guests over we all get up and wait as they greet everyone, sometimes most people hug and kiss on the cheek, two kisses or sometimes three, no matter what gender they are, but that’s only if the female feels safe and feel respected by the male. It's tradition that when we have guests over to have a full bowl of fruits and sweets and the most important thing is to serve tea, while most of the guest will bring gifts for the host like flowers, Persian sweets, or even personal gifts for the hosts. 

In my family, we love to spend time with each other and other families. We usually all get together at someone’s house, whoever invited everyone over would make dinner and multiply different type of foods and dessert even though there’s lots of food, they still have a BBQ going on that usually takes place before dinner, so they could have something small to eat before the big meals come out. We also have shisha for the grownups smoke and talk and make plans. In my family we always have dinner together so we can talk about how our day has been. We have a few holidays, like Nowruz which means New Year’s or New Day. Nowruz is one of the most important holiday that we celebrate with our loved ones. Nowruz is a holiday that marks the arrival of spring and the first day of new year in Iran. Just before Nowruz, we set up as table called ‘Haftseen Table.’ On the table,  we place a book of prayer from our beliefs, a mirror and candles which represent reflecting into the future, a goldfish in a bowl which represents life, painted eggs representing fertility, apples representing health and beauty, vinegar representing age and patience, garlic representing medicine. We also have ‘ samaun ,’ a sweet pudding made from wheat germ representing affluence and coins representing wealth and prosperity. We also have small lentil or barley sprouts growing in a dish to represent rebirth. We sit by the table a few minutes before the New Year begins to celebrate with our loved ones and usually the small children get money from the elders of the family and even from family friends.  After New Year celebration  is over, we all go out with our families and take the small barley sprouts with us and plant them so they can grow and become nice and big. 

Shima BAHARI ASL 12W