Free Iranian Rappers And Persian Porn by Jamie Maslin

mended, bread being cooked, and many, many other intriguing sights and smells. But most impressive of all was the size of the place—it just went on and on forever.
    Just when my brain was bursting with stimuli, Shahram led me to a little haven of tranquility in the form of a teahouse. Here, seeking respite from the frantic activity outside, were men smoking huge qalyans , or water pipes, and sipping little glasses of black chay at small wooden tables. I was given a complimentary glass with several sugar cubes but no spoon. Shahram demonstrated for me the Iranian method of drinking tea. Grasping the especially hard sugar cube between your front teeth, you then suck the tea through it. A little sugar then disintegrates into your mouth with each sip and thus sweetens the tea. It seemed a lot of effort but I gave it a go. It was far from easy, as the whole cube kept falling apart in my mouth so I had to keep getting new cubes. Where I might have had one lump, I now ended up having seven or eight. Shahram was a master of this technique, though, and made it seem effortless. He was also a master of the pipe and got stuck into this whilst blowing out huge clouds of smoke like a dragon. I gave it a go but was far from impressive.
    Even to a Brit, Iran is a nation of obsessive tea drinkers, and a whole set of social etiquette has developed around how you place your cup and saucer. If you place your cup upside down, you insult the person nearest to you. If you turn it on its side, you declare you’re gay. And put the saucer over the cup, and you might as well yell out, “I’ll take you all on!” as it’s a slur to the whole teahouse. And watch how you smoke the pipe as well. One big faux pas is to ignite a cigarette on the pipe’s embers, which can also lead to a spot of fisticuffs.
    Shahram explained that he liked teahouses very much but tried not to go to them too often because he tried to stay in shape for his hobby, karate. By way of coincidence, there was a seventies martial arts flick playing on a small crackling television in the corner. It was dubbed abysmally in Farsi and featured a big, fat, bearded white guy taking on a group of lean, hard-ass-looking, and nimble Chinese. It wasn’t the slightest bit convincing, as the bearded one was appallingly slow and moved about like the big fat white guy that he was. Seeing my interest in the movie, Shahram offered to take me to his karate class tomorrow. This was something I had to see, and the thought of getting involved in a punch-up, Iranian style, greatly appealed.
    Three cups of tea and what seemed like a hundred sugar cubes later, we hit the street. Once outside, we were approached by a European-looking guy, the first I’d seen in Iran, apart from the one in my hotel mirror, who pointed at my guidebook and said, “I am tourist guide on page 205 of that book.”
    And indeed he was. His name was Nasser Khan and he ran the local governmental tourist board office directly above where we stood. He gave me his card and offered me a “Nescafé” in his office whenever I had some free time. Interestingly, in Iran, instant Nescafé is rated above ground coffee, as if the absolute pinnacle of coffee excellence. If you’re offered Nescafé as opposed to just a coffee, then it’s to stress the fact that it’s not the cheap stuff. My dear mother, God bless her, would get on great with this social one-upmanship; whenever my folks have guests over for dinner, she slips in a discreet, “It’s from Sainsbury’s ‘Taste the Difference’ range,” in an attempt to elicit an impressed and approving, “Oh, Mary.”
    Oh, Mother.
    Finally, we arrived at a watch shop where Shahram bought a battery for a silver pocket watch. With all the excitement of the bazaar, I’d completely forgotten I was still wearing his wristwatch. I asked if I could now return it to him, and to my delight he said yes. I handed it over with great relief, but on doing so was immediately presented with