I love having guests! A part of this has something to do with my being Iranian. And the great culture in which I was grown up.

An important update:
If you have smallest prejudgement about my gender, nationality, or things like this, it signifies that I can't be a suitable host/guest for you. :)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Hosting some good guests (or maybe being guest of some good hosts), getting to know some interesting people.

Music, Movies, and Books

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Music
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My taste for music is a bit ... well... I think I like folk music the best! Afro-cuban, Jazz and Reggae are some other types that I like as well.
I also like some Iranian and Turkish pop singers. I think my childhood especially connects me to Turkish pop music.
When it comes to hip-hop and rap, I can say it is not the type of music that I enjoy. But there are few exceptions. Very few. Maybe less than ten songs which address the political and social condition of my lovely [but badly ill] country Iran.

Iranian Singers:
* Ebi: Aaaaaah Ebie azizam! Ebi is love! I like Ebi the most. ... Actually I love him! ... I even put one step forward and say he is my most favorite singer! Not only because of his songs, also [and more] because of his lovely character.
* Mohammad-Reza shajarian: When it comes to Iranian traditional music, his name is probably between the best three. I don't listen very often to Iranian traditional music (unfrtunately!). But anytime I listen to him, I enjoy.
* Shahin Najafi: I don't like his voice!!! And also I am not sure we could have been good friends if we were classmates! Haha! But regardless my different taste than his music and difference in our personalities, I have a huge respect for him for one reason: Nobody like him stood against islamic ignorance in Iranian society. His way of confronting ideologic stupidity is sharp and assertive and careless! I am a huge fan of some of his music and videos. For example: "Mammad nobari" and "Shah".
* Keyhan Kalhor: He is a great musician (Kamancheh player) and I had the chance to attend in his concert in Europe several times. His ability in mixing Iranian traditional music with the music of other nations is outstanding.
* Mohsen Namjoo: I love his voice. And several of his songs. But I normally don't listen to them. I don't dare! Haha! Because they make me sad and then I have to miss my country or old loves and then I have to sit and cry!!! Haha.
* Reza Sadeghi: A singer-songwriter from south of Iran. I had the chance to live in south of Iran for seven years, four of which in Bandar-Abbas, his hometown. So I understand his music and can connect with it. It is simply amazing. One of my wishes is to attend in his concert, not in Europe, but in Bandar-Abbas, hopefully when there is no Islamic Republic of Iran anymore, seeing the lovely "Bandari"s dancing with his songs. And me dancing with them.
* Hayedeh: Khanoom Hayedeh! No words! There will be only one Hayedeh in persian music.

Turkish singers:
Between Turkish singers I like Ibrahim Tatlises, Bülent Ersoy and Tarkan the most. One of my wishes is to attend one of Tarkan's concerts in Europe! haha.

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Movies
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* House of sand and fog
* Lord of war
* Fight club
* Sin city
* The family man
* My best friend's wedding (I like this movie just for a small particular reason!)
* Meet the Fockers
* Chicago
* Sin nombre
* 21 Nights with Pattie
* Woman at war (Director: Benedikt Erlingsson): This movie is simply amazing! A woman with two very different faces: partly a yoga trainer and taichi and meditation. And partly a warrior against giant industrial companies and their harmful activities. The whole atmosphere of the movie is surreal. Serious but in funny way. I recommand this movie.
I don't have much to write in here. I am not a big fan of Hollywood movies. The german TV channels ARTE and Das Erste sometimes show amazing movies which are more interesting for me. In general unfortunately watching movies is not what I usually do in my spare time.
* "A Hairy Tale" by Homayoun Ghanizadeh. (نام ایرانی فیلم: مسخره باز) This is a very different film in Iranian movie industry. The whole movie is filmed in a barber shop. Something like a theater. The whole atmosphere is very surreal. I just wanted to watch the first five minutes of the movie, but I couldn't stop watching till the end.
* Fritzi - Eine Wendewundergeschichte. An animation which beautifully reflects the time in DDR while narrating the story of a young girl who tries to reach her friend's dog to her in west Germany.
* Change of Address (Emmanuel Mouret) (2006): Is the story of a young musician who moves in Paris. There he finds a room in a shared appartment. His relationship with his roommate, a daydreamer, and his falling in love with his pupil makes the story very interesting.
* Die Reise mit Vater (Anca Miruna Lazarescu) (2016): The story of two brothers and their father from Romania in the turbulent time of Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, who find themselves in west Germany. In Germany they get to know young people with left tendencies. The older brother is policitally active against Romanian communist regime. The younger brother is less radical. The death of father makes their situation in Germany even more complicated. I like this movie because all the contradictions the two brothers were perceiving between young German left activists and their experience of living in a communist country, somehow is similar to my thoughts or questions or confusion about left movements (we are not even talking about right wing! Their case is clear: dark and dirty!). There is no doubt in good intentions. It is more the huge gap between what we achieve and what we aimed to achieve.
* "Lindenberg! Mach dein Ding!" (Hermine Huntgeburth): Such a wonderful movie about the story of german famous singer Udo Lindenberg. The movie has been made very nicely. I didn't realize how two hours passed. Several phases of his life are narrated almost simultaneously. Udo, probably like many other famous singers, had a very interesting life full of stories. His family background, his lovers, his friends and of course his music. This movie shows some from all these parts and illustrates a wide view of his life.
* "Pure" (Directed by Aneil Karia and Alicia Macdonald): This is a british TV series with six episodes about a girl who suffers obsessive-compulsive disorder and is plagued by disturbing sexual thoughts. This series probably would not attract the attention of intellectuals. But it was for me a rather realistic reflection of nowdays social interactions, friendships, and more. The story is interesting and sometimes funny. I watched all six episodes at once until about 04:00 AM, although I had to wake up early in the morning.
* "Green Book" (Directed by Peter Farrelli) (2018): The movie is about the life of an african-american musician, Donald Shirly. I like this movie especially because it focuses on the development of a bound, a friendship, between two totally different characters: a highly educated musician and his driver. At the same time the movie reflects the hardships of being black in the US society in 60th. Very entertaining movie.
* "Die Jagd" (Directed by Thomas Vinterberg) (2012): This is a psychological drama. It is the story of a nurturer in a kindergarten in a village in Denmark, one of those villages in which everyone knows everyone. His best friends four-years-old doughter, Clara, goes also to this kindergarten. The problem is that the little Clara develops a crush on her nurturer. She, without exactly knowing what she is doing (for example once trying to kiss the lips of her nurturer) searches ways to get close to her nurturer. Although the nurturer rejects her attempts and tries to teach her that some behaviours are inappropriate, but the story doesn't end in here and gets some crazy dimensions. This is such a beatiful yet sad drama.
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Books
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Well, many! But I have decided to write a line in here everytime I finish a book. Soooo:
"Dear Life" by Alice Munro. A collection of short stories that the author had written in newspapers and etc. I found this book boring till I finished it, but later on I liked it! It showed me how inspiring our normal lives can be. Our lives are full of stories. We just need to recognize them, and even better if we can narrate them.
"Gambler" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Exactly converse of "Dear Life"! Stormy beginning, full of happenings, full of surprises! The major character of the book is a young private teacher who starts to gamble and surprisingly becomes very good at it. How his falling in love to a lady makes him a gambler and how he destroys all what he builds. I just loved this book so fiercely!!!
I had a guest from CouchSurfing, Henrike, who thought me something amazing: It IS possible to read several books at the same time! I thought about this a bit more and now I am happily implementing this thought. The fact is that some books are not easy to read and finish. The strategy of reading more than one book at a time works perfectly with these types of books. At the moment I am reading below books:
"Kalila and Dimna": Is an old Iranian book. It has roots in the Indian fables Pañcatantra. This book interests me for several reasons: its beautiful, but difficult, text, and the subjects, which reflect the values of those times and is an example of how human changes during centuries.
"The Shah" by Dr. Abbas Milani: This book is about the last king of Iran "Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi".
"Postwar (The history of Europe since 1945)" by Tony Judt: A thick heavy book! It is not easy for me to read this book at all. For its difficult language, and for its topic. I ask myself if I will finish it before I die?! I consider each chapter of this book as an independent book. I read a chapter, and I leave it aside for a while!
"Good Economics for Hard Times" by A. Banerjee and E. Duflo: The last sentence of the book says why we should read it: "Economics is too important to be left to economists"! The whole idea is to give us some information about biggest topics of today's world from the perspective of academic economics: Immigration, Unemployment, Global warming, Welfare systems,... The last chapter of the book, on welfare systems, is the best.
"Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" by Prof. Carol S. Dweck (Professor of Psychology at Stanford University): The gist of this book is very simple, yet powerful argument: "Talent can be developed". This book says humans either have "fixed mindset" or "growth mindset". Then tries to elaborate what each of these phrases mean and why it is important for us to avoid fixed mindset and teach ourselves to have growth mindset. In growth mindset you don't focus on your intelligence or whatever is "gifted" or "not gifted" to you. The focus is to learn and develop the skills. As Germans say "Leichter gesagt als getan", this is simple to say, but very difficult to apply in daily life. We have been grown up by fixed mindsets. We want to prove ourselves all the time. We want to compete and win. We define our "success" in proving our "talent" to others. This can lead in forgetting the fact that we can work on our abilities and let them grow... Anyway! The book has been written by a scientist, but has a very simple language. It has a lot of examples to help understanding the topic. I personally found a couple of chapters in the middle somewhat boring and escaped reading one chapter. But the last chapter of the book turns out to be the best one in my opinion. In this chapter the author explains in a very practical way how we can develop our growth mindset. I think this is a book that everyone should read. It definitely can help everyone by introducing the concept of "growth mindset" and how to gain it. I highly recommand this book especially to anyone who has some doubts about his/her abilities or suffer lack of self-confidence.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Once my boss wanted me to implement a method from a paper. I was amazed by it. The paper suggests a hypothesis on the pattern based on which, humans learn languages, memorize vocabularies. You could see how the performance evolves as time goes by. And then you think this may be the way you memorized vocabularies when you were a baby!

Teach, Learn, Share

If you are learning Persian, I gladly can teach you some.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I try to have something with me when I am guest somewhere. Iranians do that, and germans as well. But what I choose depends on many factors. I also may cook, if it is possible.

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Iran