Iran’s Aristotle searches for his Chinese wife

The stature of China in Iran has arguably risen to new heights this Ramadan, judging by the unusual plot line of a popular Ramadan television series, Paytakht (Persian for “capital”). Now into its fourth season, Paytakht tells the story of the Mamoulis, a bumbling family from an ordinary village in northern Iran.

This season focuses on the journey of blundering truck driver Arastou (Aristotle in Persian), in search of his missing Chinese wife, whom he had married in Season Three. She had apparently boarded MH370, the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared in March last year. Arastou’s search will eventually lead him to Beijing, and leaked selfies of cast and crew at the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square indicate that at least a few episodes have been filmed in China, Iran’s largest trade partner — through a complex barter system — despite international sanctions since 2006.

For the sceptics among us, it should be noted that there is no evidence of any Chinese sponsorship for this series, which had already won a popular following since its inception in 2012. The Chinese element dates from last year, when Arastou’s wife first appeared, played by a fluent Persian-speaking Chinese student from the University of Tehran. For a made-for-domestic-consumption Iranian TV series, such emphasis on China both last season and this season, with cast and crew travelling to Beijing, is unprecedented and significant on a few levels.

First, Iranian TV dramas tend to cater to local contexts and local tastes — foreign elements were generally rare occurrences, and when they occurred, they tended to be Indian characters. Second, Paytakht is airing on IRIB TV1, Iran’s first national television channel, at 10pm during the month of Ramadan — a prime-time slot. Ramadan is the busiest and most profitable time of year for TV stations in the Islamic world. As families habitually watch TV every night after breaking fast (Iftar), channels tend to launch their best dramas to compete for viewership, which also drives up advertising rates.

Finally, Paytakht’s embrace of China is counter-intuitive considering that China’s omnipresence in Iranian society still generates some degree of resentment. The influx of cheap Chinese consumer goods has long threatened the livelihoods of local manufacturers and many have been forced out of business. Iranians often joke that everything they use is “made in China”, from mundane kitchen utensils to mobile phones (read: Huawei) and even the Tehran subway train carriages that cater to two million commuters daily. As international sanctions bolster China’s bargaining power in its barter agreements with Iran, many of these were imported out of necessity, not by choice. In exchange for cheap merchandise, Iran exports oil to China, its largest oil customer. For the first five months of this year, China imported an average of 573,100 barrels of oil per day (bpd); in 2012, the average figure was 440,000bpd.

This rise parallels the increased number of Chinese students at the Persian language centre I attend, and which has led administrators to provide teacher evaluation forms in both English and Chinese for the first time this year. Many of the Chinese studying Persian here have been sent by their companies; a Chinese schoolmate told me those on the Iran desk in her company all have to learn Persian, but those handling businesses with Egypt and the Arab world do not have to learn Arabic because professional translators are employed.

Some of the Chinese here are undergraduates, like my classmates from Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU). At BFSU, Persian is a relatively new programme (only six years old), compared with the much older and more established Arabic programme, which now exists within the university as an independent department. All this suggests that while China enjoys a longer history of contact with the Arab world, its engagement with Iran is comparatively younger, and most probably intensified by opportunities created by the sanctions.

INVITING THE FOREIGN HOME

Despite this relatively recent, yet intense, economic marriage of convenience and all its problems for ordinary Iranians, the relationship between China and Iran has arguably progressed to a sociocultural consummation, if the Paytakht series is to be taken seriously as a social indicator.

It is tempting to read into the transformation of the Mamouli residence (where much of the action takes place): Caricaturistic paintings of pandas, Chinese maidens and calligraphy lurking in the Chinese-New-Year-red background, lanterns dangling about, and the giggling, newborn baby of Arastou and his missing Chinese wife swinging in and out of frame, bouncing about in its hammock.

In spite of her absence, the spectre of China has not diminished in the fictional world of Paytakht. An episode a few weeks ago with kung fu-fighting Chinese people enthralled my Persian language teacher.

He said, slightly incredulously: “The actors were actually speaking in Chinese, so they had to put Persian subtitles for people to understand what was going on.” Judging by his amused demeanour, it seems Paytakht’s creators have succeeded in addressing what may once have been a disconcerting elephant in the room (Chinese omnipresence) with characteristic Iranian hospitality — by inviting the foreigner home.

Even if the sanctions are eventually lifted following the conclusion of the Iranian nuclear talks, perhaps this guest will stay on as part of the family in the Iranian psyche, a legacy of almost a decade of international isolation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Koh Choon Hwee is a PhD student studying the history of the Middle East.