Wednesday, 4 November 2009

"No, no, you must stay." - 30 years on

The NIAC blog has a link to a video which includes a great exchange between US Ambassador Limbert (at the time a hostage in the US embassy in Tehran) and Ayatollah Khamenei. Here's the money quote:
For non-Farsi speakers, the exchange between Limbert and Khamenei here is incredibly interesting. To paraphrase: Limbert politely welcomed Khamenei, who was being treated as a guest since he was visiting the hostages at their “residence” where they were being held. Limbert remarked about the Iranian cultural quirk known as “taarof,” which characterizes the uniquely Iranian version of hospitality, saying: Iranians are too hospitable to guests in their country, when we insist that we must be going, you all tell us “no, no, you must stay.”

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments with links, feedback, etc. greatly appreciated. Spam will be deleted.

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.