Promises of home
Jul 15, 06:27 PM
This recording was taken with an iPhone-mounted mic in a late spring afternoon, just before the supper time as I was walking along a beautiful narrow pedestrian-only passage along the mountain and the river carving through the mountains in norther Tehran. Along this road many restaurants line-up one after the other on the edge of the mountain and the river. Popular amongst the citizens to escape from the hustle and bustle of Tehran, hosts of these restaurants standing in front of them deliver a short 5 second pitch on why the passers-by should go to their restaurant, repeating it for each group walking by. Free wi-fi, great view, proximity to the river and the waterfall, the number of floors, freshness of food, etc.
Visiting Tehran 19 years I left as a teenager; these words had much deeper connotations for me than just a pitch for food. The language, familiar yet fleeting as I knew I wouldn’t be hearing it in public in a week time upon my return to Montreal. The mere act of sounding and talking to attract customers, a lost art in the west, with different intonations and pitches, like a polyphony of promises. Promises of a home trying to make their way through the white noise of the river, having little chance to keep its people from fleeting it for the promises of a better life elsewhere, from being torn between here and there. It felt like a home calling, an innocent attempt to re-gain its son. All of this in a beautiful setting washed by the massive sound of the river making it so tactile yet so unattainable.
Recorded by Saadi Daftari.
Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration.
For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration
Visiting Tehran 19 years I left as a teenager; these words had much deeper connotations for me than just a pitch for food. The language, familiar yet fleeting as I knew I wouldn’t be hearing it in public in a week time upon my return to Montreal. The mere act of sounding and talking to attract customers, a lost art in the west, with different intonations and pitches, like a polyphony of promises. Promises of a home trying to make their way through the white noise of the river, having little chance to keep its people from fleeting it for the promises of a better life elsewhere, from being torn between here and there. It felt like a home calling, an innocent attempt to re-gain its son. All of this in a beautiful setting washed by the massive sound of the river making it so tactile yet so unattainable.
Recorded by Saadi Daftari.
Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration.
For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration