The Capital It’s been a week that I've been staying in my dorm, on the easternmost part of Tehran, the capital of Iran. No matter where you come from, you feel like a complete outsider when you put yo

Masoud

The Capital It’s been a week that I've been staying in my dorm, on the easternmost part of Tehran, the capital of Iran. No matter where you come from, you feel like a complete outsider when you put your first step in this enormous city. You can’t bring your everything-is-fine mentality with yourself to this city, because you have to face it as an adversary first. Not only because people are somehow ethnocentric (but of course nice like everywhere else), but also because you can sense that an ecological disaster is taking place right in front of your eyes on its grandest scale. For a city that lacks enough water resources and is ranked among the top 100 most polluted cities in the world, all you see is giant scaffoldings built on the outside of high buildings, on a ground that many seismologists warn that a quake of at least magnitude 7 is inevitable, instigating the catastrophe of the 21st century with at least 1 million fatalities. The Lifestyle in here is neither comfortable nor simple and it’s not that authentic way you would expect from a city with such a history. Tehran, with its connotation of cold winters, Damavand (the highest peak in Iran), unique subway system and fresh water, is now by definition, a city where you have to tolerate every difficulty to get paid for a living. Yes, the denotation of encyclopedias is not similar to what I wrote, but it’s a fact. You just need to ask someone, of course when they are not wolfing down, because otherwise you may find out a primal fact about the people: many of them are not real inhabitants of Tehran, coming here in the hope of a good work. To hit the point, the problem with people migrating to Tehran is the preconception welded into their minds that it’s the city to work and not to live, and it’s true to a certain degree. The overall management of the city seems to be promising, but they've been unable to harness the powers of nature in a satisfactory manner, failing in many of them. To paraphrase what I said, you may have a whale of good time if you just want to stay here for some time, but I, personally, refuse any invitation of staying here for the rest of my life out of hand, because it’s hard to love the negligible peace you may find in Tehran, without renouncing your innermost feelings of amenability and wholeheartedness.

Sep 18, 2014 5:43 AM

Corrections · 7

The Capital

It’s been a week that I've been staying in my dorm, on the easternmost part of Tehran, the capital of Iran. No matter where you come from, you feel like a complete outsider when you take your first step in this enormous city. You can’t bring your everything-is-fine mentality with yourself to this city, because you have to face it as an adversary first. Not only because people are somehow ethnocentric (but of course nice like everywhere else), but also because you can sense that an ecological disaster is taking place right in front of your eyes on the grandest scale. For a city that lacks enough water resources and is ranked among the top 100 most-polluted (1) cities in the world, all you see is giant scaffoldings built on the outside of high buildings, on a ground that many seismologists warn that a quake of at least magnitude 7 is inevitable, instigating the catastrophe of the 21st century with at least 1 million fatalities.

The lifestyle in here is neither comfortable nor simple, and it’s not that authentic in the way you would expect from a city with such a history. Tehran, with its connotation of cold winters, Damavand (the highest peak in Iran), unique subway system and fresh water, is now by definition, a city where you have to tolerate every difficulty to earn a living. Yes, the denotation of encyclopedias is not similar to what I wrote, but it’s a fact. You just need to ask someone, of course when they are not wolfing down a meal (2), because otherwise you may find out a primal fact about the people: many of them are not real inhabitants of Tehran, coming here in the hope of a good job. To hit the point, the problem with people migrating to Tehran is the preconception welded into their minds that it’s the city to work in and not to live in, and it’s true to a certain degree.

The overall management of the city seems to be promising, but they've been unable to harness the powers of nature in a satisfactory manner, failing in many ways (3). To paraphrase what I said, you may have a whale of a good time if you just want to stay here for some time, but I, personally, reject out of hand any invitation to stay here for the rest of my life, because it’s hard to love the negligible peace you may find in Tehran, without renouncing your innermost feelings of amenability and wholeheartedness.

(1) 'Most-polluted' is a compound adjective, so it needs a hyphen.

(2) You need a noun here

(3) It was unclear what 'them' referred to

Your English is very good. It needed only a few minor corrections, and few usage changes to make it sound more native.

September 18, 2014

Maybe it's still a rough prejudgment for me to say the pros and cons of a city like Tehran, but it's really a matter of personal opinion. Some people like crowded cities that its lights are always on and you can go shopping and ... every second you like; which is not the case for me. Maybe if I liked a cosmopolitan city, I would see the city with another point of view.

September 26, 2014

Tehran is really special. A crowded gray city with severe air pollution but also damn lovely! But totally I agree with you: it’s the city to work/study in and not to live in, except when you live in a family with high earnings.

September 23, 2014

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