Taymaz: from Sydney homies to student activist and professional

Taymaz smoking hookah at a restaurant (my first meal in Iran)

I met Taymaz through my host. He’s 24, with thick, longish hair and light freckles across his nose and cheeks. When I met him, he came with a couple of Chinese colleagues and wore a hipster cap and horn-rimmed glasses, along with his casual work clothes, corduroy trousers and a white and blue striped shirt.

We clicked immediately. He spent two of his high school years in Sydney, so his English has a slight Australian twang. We’re both into music—he plays traditional Iranian drums and had a band in university—and both enjoy the “Harold and Kumar” movie franchise.

The beautiful home where I was hosted in Tehran

Laid back, Tay describes himself as a bit of a "hippie," unlike the more fashion-conscious Tehranis from whom he separates himself. At one point, while taking a shared taxi, the driver turned up his electronic pop song, leading Tay to shake his head in disgust, muttering: "pathetic." He's into traditional Persian folk.

Tehran, sprawling metropolis, shadowed by the Alborz mountains 

From 8:30 to 4:30 Saturday to Wednesday, he handles official customs for a Chinese construction firm that’s renovating one of Tehran’s largest towers: the Azadi Grand Hotel. At dinner, a traditional lamb kebab feast at one of the restaurants atop the Jamidiyeh Park that overlooks Tehran, we sat cross-legged on lovely, maroon-red Persian carpets. His colleagues, both from Beijing, were discussing their work here. Like me, their Farsi is minimal, and so they communicate with their Iranian colleagues in English.

Tay, pronounced “Thai, like the country,” is the only professional Iranian working on the project; the others are laborers. He expressed an admiration for the Chinese work ethic. Tehran's new, efficient metro system was built originally by Chinese workers, and contracting them to renovate the hotel, he thinks, will cut the project length from four to one years.

The clean, modern Tehran subway system (with optional separate cars for women)

“They built this toilet in only two days,” he pointed out, after we visited the hotel construction site, where the 200-odd Chinese workers, holed up in temporary dorms, rarely stray from. Their project managers are strict: when one of the others accompanied Tay home one night out of concern for his safety, he was penalized a month’s salary for leaving the site. And though Tay's been begging his foreign colleagues to come out and sample some Iranian culture over dinner, the two who came with us that evening were the first to accept.

I asked him how things fared in Sydney. I’d moved from Australia to the US around the same age, and know how painful a social landing pad high school can be when moving country.

“I had some trouble with the ‘homies,’” he laughed, referring to the Lebanese and Persian gangs around Sydney, who take their cue from the inner-city African-American ruffians of rap music and Hollywood lore. But he had a few close friends, including a Korean-Australian named Tim, who watched his back.

At first apprehensive, I was surprised when this security guard in Tehran allowed me to take a photo with him

After returning to Iran, Tay became involved in student politics, starting a group with a close friend that campaigned for improvements to campus life, such as better food and more qualified teachers. But after five months, the police cracked down, and a number of them were beaten and imprisoned. When I asked him about jail, he simply responded: “it’s not good.” I took his word. After that, the other students were too scared to participate and activities stopped.

Despite his experiences, whilst so many young Iranians are applying to emigrate to the West, Tay seems set on staying.

“Now, I have to think about my mum, my sister, my girlfriend...” he explained. Before he was working, he was studying veterinary science as a lab researcher.

“Now I have a good job. Maybe I’ll go back and do my PhD when I’m fifty!” he joked.

A street merchant selling recycled wire figurines