Happy October !
In my show and tell blog, blog numba five, I would like to tell you about my community: Persians. Note: also known as Iranians but frankly, Persians sounds a lot cooler. Think about it, Persia vs. The Islamic Republic of Iran…clearly, no competition.
Even though I was born in America I’ve always considered myself a Persian. After all, literally my entire family is from Persia. Now I won’t talk about any of the icky politics because it’s quite the grrr-inducing topic. Instead, I want to tell you all about the best thing about being Persian…celebrating the Persian New Year, Nowruz! Now I have nothing against our new year, I myself am a huge fan of watching the ball fall, screaming, and playing with those party noisemakers. But seriously, Nowruz is grrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat. It’s also much more logical than ours. The Persian New Year takes place on the spring equinox, March 20th. As the Earth welcomes spring and the cycle of rebirth, Persians welcome their new year.
The whole celebration starts on the last Wednesday night of the year, aka Chaharshanbe Suri. Based on the ancient traditions of Zoroastrians you jump over a fire (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it) singing zardi-ye man az to, sorkhi-ye to az man. Which means, my sickly yellow paleness is yours, your fiery red color is mine. This is meant as a purification rite.
Above, is a picture of the haft-sîn or the seven S’s another pivotal tradition in Nowruz. They are a collection of seven items starting with the letter s, each of which symbolizes something significant. They are: sabzeh (wheat – symbolizing rebirth), samanu (sweet pudding from wheat – symbolizing affluence), senjed (the dried fruit of the oleaster (sounds funny) tree (symbolizes love), sīr (garlic – symbolizing medicine), sīb (apples – symbolizing beauty and health), somaq (sumac berries – symbolizing the color of sunrise), serkeh (vinegar – symbolizing age and patience). Isn’t pretty? There are many more things you can put on the table like fish, candles, a mirror, etc. but they are optional while the haft-sīn is mandatory.
Now there’s one song that always makes my stomach full of Persian butterflies (terrible metaphor but whatchya gonna do), it’s called Nowruz and here’s the link to a clip of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7TfZJ7V3yc . He’s basically saying: Happy New Year everybody! I wish your New Year is full of happiness, success and downright awesomeness. Whenever I hear this song I always start jumping up and down, getting all excited, singing and dancing a long (not very well I might add). In fact, we have established a rule in my house that the song can’t be played until Nowruz is close because then I get so excited and crazy, driving my whole family berserks and all in vain because the wondrous day is months a way. Even though I sort of maybe, broke the rule when writing this blog…but shhh.
