UNC-CH’s Persian Cultural Society celebrates the rebirth of spring

By Mitra Norowzi

The year is 1397. Hundreds gather in the Great Hall to feast and be merry. Lively music reverberates throughout the vast room, ringing out into the hallways.

Guests embrace one another, celebrating spring’s long-anticipated arrival. Just days before, they had chanted before fires, coaxing it out of winter’s darkness.

As they stop to admire the decorations, they reach for their smartphones to snap a few quick photos.

While 1397 has just begun in Iran and Afghanistan because they follow a solar calendar, the majority of the world following the Gregorian calendar is already well into 2018.

The new year was marked by the spring vernal equinox on March 20, and was celebrated by about 300 million people around the world, including the Triangle’s Persian community at the UNC-Chapel Hill’s Persian New Year party hosted by UNC-CH’s Persian Cultural Society.

The Persian New Year, or Nowruz, is the biggest holiday of the year for Iranians. Translating to “new day” in Farsi, the Persian language, Nowruz is a celebration of the rebirth of spring and the new possibilities it brings.

Reflecting on Nowruz

Fatemeh Sadeghifar, a student at North Carolina State University, moved to North Carolina from Tehran, Iran, about eight years ago. As a child in Iran, the anticipation of Nowruz buzzed weeks before the actual day as families prepared for the holiday, much like the frenzy felt here in America the entire month of December before Christmas.

She remembers the excitement she felt waiting for the exact moment of the equinox. It changes every year, and the different timings were fun for her, especially the years where the equinox was in the night, and she’d be allowed to stay up late.

In Iran, she recalls, this moment would erupt in outpourings of joy and celebration felt and heard by everyone, whether they were at home, out in the street or at school or work.

“The first day of Nowruz [here], I just went to school,” Sadeghifar said. “No one else knew what it was.”

As a kid, she would receive eidi, which are gifts and often money. And her family would set the Haft-Seen table, which is central to the celebration of Nowruz.

The Haft-Seen setting includes seven objects beginning with “seen,” the Persian character for “S,” with each representing a hope or aspiration for the coming year. Many Haft-Seen tables, like the one attendees of UNC’s Nowruz celebration were greeted with, also include books of Persian poetry, live or fake goldfish and a mirror.

Guests flood into the Great Hall

Entering guests were welcomed by tables serving hot, black tea and baklava, a sweet and flaky Mediterranean pastry. The baklava line remained unclogged and in motion, but the line for tea quickly grew until it snaked along two adjacent walls of the Student Union’s massive Great Hall. For people from a tea-obsessed culture, this line might have represented the only axis of evil that Iranian-Americans will recognize.

While the rest of the night’s guests arrived, those already seated at their tables enjoyed conversation with friends new and old over Persian sweets served family-style such as tiny rice flour cookies topped with small, black poppy seeds, sweet and chunky walnut cookies and delicate paisley-shaped coconut cookies.

Iranian guests, particularly the adults, served their seatmates by passing around the platter of treats, practicing the tradition of ta’arof, a practice of courtesy that involves excessive offering and deference. To non-Iranians, this looks a lot like arguing, but ta’arof is considered the proper conduct to demonstrate respect.

Tables also had fresh fruit and dried nuts, typical pre-meal refreshments at Iranian events or dinner parties for snacking before the performances and dinner.

Students were present, but the majority of seated guests appeared to be local families. UNC-CH junior Rose Jackson, a member of the school’s Persian Cultural Society and an organizer of the night’s festivities, said although the annual celebration is a student-led event, the larger Iranian community is active and is eager to be involved.

“So what was initially a student event had a lot of community support, so it became this kind of intergenerational setup,” Jackson said.

Throughout the night, Jackson and her peers scuttled about like worker ants to make sure everything ran smoothly. Jackson served double-duty as a master of ceremonies and a food runner. She even had to step in last minute as a backup DJ. But the hard work had a high payoff, she said.

“I’m Iranian, so it’s important for me to celebrate my culture myself, but also it’s important for me to create a place where other people can celebrate my culture whether it’s other Iranians or people who aren’t familiar with the culture but want to be,” Jackson said.

The celebration begins

The night’s program began with an introduction by Jackson and her fellow UNC-CH students explaining the history of Nowruz for those unfamiliar with the holiday.

The performances honored Iran’s past traditions, but also honored the contemporary culture of Iran’s present, where youth outnumber the old.

A haunting rendition of the contemporary Persian love song, “Soltane Ghalbha,” was performed on piano, violin and guitar. The music began softly at first, but soon became sweeping as the vocals entered the mix.

But those looking for a more authentic musical performance were not disappointed with the lively tanbur solo of the traditional song, “Ey Sareban,” performed by Mohsen Bahrami. The traditional long-necked string instrument crooned and trilled, thumping at the heart of the audience. Many of the audience’s older members waved their arms slowly, quietly singing along.

Jackson said many older Iranians were either expelled from the country or made the difficult choice to leave due to unrest.

“It’s an important event when you aren’t allowed to go back to your own country to be allowed to celebrate this still,” she said.

Fostering understanding

Sara Hosseini, a student at Campbell University, traveled all the way from Buies Creek, North Carolina, to Chapel Hill to perform a traditional poetry reading alongside Duke University professor Amir Rezvani.

The pair demonstrated Iran’s rich history of poetry and literature with their recitation of “Spring is Here,” a classical poem by 13th-century poet Rumi. Each verse was read first in Farsi by Rezvani, and then in English by Hosseini.

“The Persian Cultural Society president asked me if I could do it, and I gladly said yes because Dr. Rezvani is a wonderful man, and the poem was very beautiful, too, about two flowers speaking,” Hosseini said. “I jumped at the moment to do anything to help. Every year, I always come. UNC’s Persian Cultural Society does an excellent job — by far the best in North Carolina — and I wouldn’t miss it ever.”

Hosseini, who is half-Persian and half-Polish, said Nowruz is the time she feels most connected to her Persian roots. Celebrating the holiday and contributing to it by performing was also important to Hosseini to foster more understanding among Americans.

“There’s so many stereotypes and misconceptions about Persian culture and Iran,” Hosseini said. “And if people could just take a second to try and connect and understand and learn about the culture, they’d be pleasantly surprised, and I think they’d really enjoy Persian culture as well.”

The welcoming dance floor

Following the performances was a dinner of aromatic parsley and eggplant stews, searing lamb kabobs and fragrant rice flavored with saffron catered by Flame Kabob, a Persian restaurant in Raleigh.

Then, the lights were turned off in favor of a disco ball, and Persian pop music boomed out from speakers. Everyone took off for the dance floor.

Non-Iranian student Joshua Pontillo came to the celebration with some Iranian friends to learn more about their culture. He felt awkward being dragged out onto the floor and dancing to unfamiliar music in an unfamiliar style, but he found the dance floor full of Iranians to be welcoming.

“One older gentlemen told me I was a natural,” he said.

For Pontillo, observing the Persian New Year as an American was a rewarding experience, and he hopes other Americans will engage with Persian cultural traditions, too.

“I think people can come out and learn a lot, especially when modern politics is so critical of Iran,” he said.

His one disappointment?

“I was upset that I couldn’t try the Persian baklava, which I’ve heard is better — apparently they served more Greek-style baklava,” Pontillo said.

Edited by Adam Phan

Increasing light pollution wreaks havoc in the sky — and on our health

By Anne McDarris

Back in the ’80s and ’90s, Doug Lively of the Raleigh Astronomy Club could peer through the lens of his telescope and see the Whirlpool Galaxy in rich detail. The galaxy was clean and symmetrical, a pretty silver spiral that looked like a glow-in-the-dark ceiling sticker.  Lively could see one of its wispy arms reaching for the unassuming blob of its sister galaxy, M5195, and the details of the dust bridge between the two galaxies.

Now, on a wintery evening along the edge of Jordan Lake, Lively squints through his telescope lens at the Whirlpool Galaxy and M5195. The thin spirals look fuzzy and faded.  He can’t see the dust bridge. Newborn stars — which aren’t so new anymore because the light traveled for 25 million years to reach Lively’s eye — are only suggestions.

He sighs.  The light pollution is getting worse.

He can see it in the same way that the lights of Raleigh, Durham and Apex burn like suns pinned just below the horizon, a sunset that never fades. The way that they cast a white-orange fog that dims the starlight, the light of the Whirlpool Galaxy and its sister.

Light pollution, the bane of Lively and the Raleigh Astronomy Club, is the result of undirected light from artificial sources like streetlamps and buildings. The light reflects off clouds and small particles in the atmosphere, which creates a hazy glow that obstructs the view of the stars. For the past two decades, this has become a problem for North Carolina astronomers as people have flooded into the area seeking jobs and high living standards.

Mass migration carries quiet consequences.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Durham County grew by 16 people per day while Wake County grew by 67 people per day in 2016. With this mass migration into central North Carolina comes more roads, developments and lights that illuminate those places at night. This growth carries quiet consequences.

“I’ll never forget that night that the mall over there in Durham… completely obliterated our northern horizon,” Lively said, referring to the Streets at Southpoint, which opened in 2002. “Objects that are in the northern sky that you could see really well, it’s pretty well washed-out now.”

New development isn’t the only source of light pollution — LED lights have wreaked havoc on the night sky. While great for energy efficiency and city budgets, blindingly bright LEDs are terrible for light pollution. And because they’re cheap, some cities overlight areas because they can afford to, despite studies showing that more lights do not always mean less crime.

The crux of the matter is using light efficiently and taking advantage of the technology we have. It’s addressing light design more than light usage.

Although many cities have developed lighting ordinances that decrease inefficiencies, they’re not exhaustive. In Raleigh, the lighting ordinance does not affect streetlights, a major source of light pollution. This means that these lights do not need to be shielded like many others do and can shine in all directions — even up.

Our health is at risk, too.

Light pollution doesn’t just affect astronomers — it can affect the health of city dwellers across the globe. In large cities like Hong Kong and New York City where night is more like twilight, residents have decreased levels of melatonin production, a regulatory hormone that the body produces at night. Scientists have linked low levels of melatonin to breast cancer.  Light pollution also messes with the circadian rhythm, and the inconsistent ticking of the biological clock is linked to depression, cardiovascular disease and insomnia.

Many aspects of environmental change can feel intangible, seen only through long-range reports and scientists’ earnest articles and lectures. Melting glaciers and desertification are far-off issues that plague a minority. But with light pollution, the change is something that people can observe in their lifetimes. It’s something that affects our health and our ability to look at the stars. To see it, all that a person has to do is look up.

Amy Sayle knows this all too well. An educator for the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, Sayle teaches about the night sky under a dome of virtual stars. There is a light pollution feature that she can turn on during shows, and when she turns it off, people gasp and murmur at the difference.

“Lots of people have never seen a truly dark sky, but a lot of people don’t realize it,” she said. “They think they’ve seen a very dark sky but don’t even know what one looks like because there are so few places that are not light polluted anymore.”

But Sayle has found one of those few places in Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah, where she volunteers at its annual astronomy festival.

“It’s pretty darn close to a perfect sky,” she said. “It’s dark. It’s amazing.”

One night, she forgot her flashlight in her cabin when she went to go to the bathroom. She tried to walk along the paved road that curves around the campsite. She knew the area — she had come to this event 12 years in a row. But in the consuming darkness without a light, she stumbled into a ditch, reoriented herself, walked a few more feet and then smacked into a tree.  When she found the bathroom, she gravitated toward the light, relieved.

Light pollution continues its tour of the U.S.

On a recent data collection trip to Bryce Canyon, Chad Moore, the head of the National Park Service Night Sky Team, showed Sayle the new map of light pollution in the area. There appeared to be some detectable from Las Vegas, Nevada.

Las Vegas is 270 miles away.

“It’s just one of those things that I think is just thoughtlessness,” Sayle said. “Taking care of light pollution is a win-win-win-win-win situation.”

Sayle said astronomy is one way to get people interested in science and how it works.

“To be an informed citizen in a democracy, you have to understand how science works,” she said.

Far from Bryce Canyon, the Raleigh Astronomy Club continues to go to Jordan Lake, even as the glow creeps closer with each passing year. They’ve seen the light pollution maps. They know it’s only getting worse.

“At least for the next 10 years, we’re going to continue to use Jordan Lake, unless it gets absolutely bad,” Lively said. “Probably the next place we could go would be north up around Castalia, Rocky Mount and Medoc Mountain State Park.”

Medoc Mountain is just under a two-hour drive from Jordan Lake.  It’s a long way to go for dark skies. And like Jordan Lake, it’s not immune to the creeping fingers of light pollution.

So they grit their teeth. They bear it.  They don’t have much of a choice.

Edited by Adam Phan