Iranian Student Society’s Persian Night and their celebration of Norwuz took place Friday evening.
For Nowruz, the Persian or Iranian New Year, many Iranian students couldn’t head back to spend the holiday with their families.
So instead, they brought their home culture to Athens.
Iranian Student Society’s Persian Night and their celebration of Nowruz took place Friday evening.
Nowruz is very important to the nearly 70 Iranian students that reside in Athens, said •Fatemeh Khalili, an Ohio University research assistant and president of the ISS.
Taghi Sahraeian,vice-president of ISS and Ph. D student studying chemistry agreed. “Nowruz is a happy time. It is very important that we celebrate it here, for we cannot go home,” he said.
Iman Ghalehkhondabi, who helped set up for the evening, said that about 150 people were coming to celebrate Nowruz, some who were already immersed in the culture and others who were new to the celebration.
The night began with a small video on the history of Nowruz, the basic structure of the holiday and its many customs and traditions such as the Haft Sin table. The table was filled with many objects such as fruit, candles, vinegar, sprouts and a bowl of gold fish, all of which have their own meaning.
Shortly after that, a band set up and began to play classical Iranian music to a slide show depicting common Iranian instruments, most of which they were using. They came back after a call for an encore not fifteen minutes after they had put down their instruments.
A group of men got up during the second bout and began to do a traditional dance as the audience clapped out a rhythm for them.
“In our culture, you always appreciate guests and you want them to enjoy their time,” said Khalili, who was happy with the energy in the room. “I think it (Persian Night) is good, but we have lots of problems because the room is too small.”
Khalili said that the size of the space put certain restrictions on the band, made up of graduate students, and made it a little cramped.
But that shouldn’t be a problem next year, as she has reserved the Baker Ballroom for next year’s festivities.
“You have to reserve the room a whole year in advance,” Khalili said.
Planning for Nowruz is time consuming, with preparations spanning back to the last Nowruz, Sahraeian said.
“I am inviting all people, especially Americans, to study about the Persian culture,” said Sahraeian, “We like to be friendly with people, and we are not the perception of many who think we fight with others all the time. We like science, we like art. We are people who like to have fun. We are not people who like to fight. We respect other people and have a great tolerance of everything.”
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