I work very hard to inspect my own preconceived biases and assumptions, and I find it very uncomfortable when someone just drops one right in front of me that I had never even realized I held... Uncomfortable doesn't mean bad. But dammit, how am I in a picture I didn't even know the photographer of existed?
I knew a girl in college (was pursuing a girl in college) who said she was Persian. When I was confused, she explained that her family came from Iran but, the political climate being what it was in the late 1980's, she found it safer to say she was Persian.
I think the difference here is Persian is ethnicity while iranian is nationality. Don't know about safety but I knew Iranian and he said he was Kurd, mostly because he didn't associate himself with Iran.
Maybe. She specifically told me she told people she was Persian because we (the US) was in an active conflict with Iran at the time, with people getting killed and all that.
I’ve always pictured it more as “Tacky luxury, maybe with Mediterranean flair.”
ie: gilt everything, over-decorated, looks expensive for the sake of looking expensive.
As an Eastern European American, to me, spoken Persian phonetically sounds like Russian (perhaps same sounds and phonemes, but, of course I can't understand it)
Honestly so do I but more like culturally rich rather than literally. Islam would be Hella dim if it wasn't for Persian influences, and I say this as a non Persian.
Basically all of Europe (and a fair few places outside of it) has at some point decided that it'd be cool if there was some way to play a woodwind instrument without having to pause for breath. The Scottish ones are just the best known ones, and even then those Great Highland pipes are only one of four types of Scottish bagpipes
Desert level music is nice, real middle eastern music is nice as well.
You should know about "light in babylon" they are great and somewhere in between those two.