Huang 1 Qiwen Huang Feb.

28, 2014 Dance & Culture 1010 Professor Hathaway Life History Interview Iraq: Persia Iraq has the oldest culture history in the world. Their music and arts are very traditional, since passing on from ancient time. Iraq has the oldest guitar, also invented lute as the major music instrument. Iraq has variety ethnic groups, the major groups include Arab and Kurdish. The person I interviewed was Persian, it is the small ethnic group live in Iraq. She is an international student in my English 1010 class. She is very interactive in the class, so I try to ask her for the interview; she says yes to me immediately. The interview went smoothly; she was very patient and nice during the interview. But the interview is short, because she only have an hour break before her next class start. I didnt get into much details about her culture. But that still a nice interview. In the interview, she told me about her music, dance, foods and religion they have. In this short interview, she told me that family is very important to them.She feel surprise that in United State, all the young who is 18 years old are very independent and moving out from their parents house. Because in Persia, young are still living with parents. All their family members are living in one house and often have party in the house. Especially during their wedding party, music and dance are essential. Usually, they dance from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. in the morning. All the Iraqs music are rhythmic. When I hear the music, the first image pop in my head is a woman with fancy dress and making soft but fast motion. The rich rhythms in their

Huang 2 music are all make by their special instruments called lutes. Lutes is to adding fifth string for the rhythms. In Iraq, they have different kinds of lute; for example, the setar and kamanch. Lute is spray out through the world; some of the countries I know are China, French, and Italy. In China, lute was called Pipa, it mostly play for the traditional songs. In Iraq, music and dance are combine as one individual. Since Iraq have variety ethnic groups, each group have different dance culture. The most dance in Iraq is call Lezgi dance. The other local dance have Turkish dance, Badari dance, Ghafghazi dance, and Gilaki dance, etc.. Because she is Persian, so they have Persian dance. The dance they have is to use their all body parts to wave and shake. For example, they will move their head back and forward or left or right; the waving just like the movement as snake. When they dance, they usually wear traditional clothes; fancy dress with long sleeves and dress length was long to their feet, beautiful scarf with fancy embroidery use to cover around their head. It was very interesting when she show me the video she have record in the party. The hand move so softly, the hip sometime moves slow and fast follow by the music, the feet sometime pointing the floor, sometime put it up to make shape, sometime changing direction to move around. The movement in their dance shows their culture and relate to their religion. She was lives under the democratic government. She told me that she cant choose her religion by herself. If her family believe in Muslim, she cant change to Islam. It is a generation problem. Somehow, the government choose the religion to their people. She told me that most people in Iraq was Muslim. If their citizen change their religion, the government would put them in jail or death. It is a very straightly religion country. I was shock with this rule about religion. I know that people lives in mid-east country, they have strong belief in their religion, but I never hear about the straightness they have for religion change. At that time, one conclusion pop in my

Huang 3 brain was: death is not fear, fear is come from peoples mind. Religion put people in a depress corner. When I interview her about their food, I asked her about the way they eat. Are they using their hand to crab foods to eat? She laugh so loud at me and say no! She said, that doesnt happen in her country. The major foods in Persia or Iraq was rice. They usually using spoon to eat rice, and knife for meat. She told me when she first come to United State, she see people using fork for rice, and she put question mark for it. Why dont American use spoon to eat rice? Then she founds out, American was very directly only use spoon for soup. The other things that surprise her was all the vegetables in Utah was frozen or not 100% organic. All the vegetables in Iraq were fresh and 100% organic took from the garden and farm. All their foods are delicious, but the waiting time are so long. She said, mostly you need to wait 30 minutes for the foods; sometime it takes 3 hours too. I was joking to her, so I can order my foods and then go shopping, later I could come back for my foods. We both laugh. It was an easy, joy, and relax interview on Iraq, Persia. Because the time was short, so I didnt have much of chance to focus on the depression questions. But I do get a lot of details about her culture. It is very fun talking with her. Most things I learn about was her religion. That is a shock for me. In my culture in China, we dont really focus on religion or belief. We do have Buddhism to believe on, but we wont force people to be Buddhism. Iraqs people have many power, energy and full of passion, may be because they have a lot of party; starting from night to the morning. Before I went to the interview, I have some stereotypes on the Middle East people; they are all tan skin color, passion, skinny, scarf around their head, and long dress with long sleeves. But when I make a close interview with her, I understand I was wrong. They are not all

Huang 4 the same; their culture, dance, music, arts, foods, and literature, etc., all of these are different. However, they do have one thing that are same, Passion and beautiful smile.