1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign ...

highly cultured city with a thousand-year history or more and a population that knew that
history and behaved in customary ways that were reflective of a highly civilized society.
What I mean by that is that the daily courtesies of life were highly stylized. Greetings
were expected and formalized, whether on the street or in arranged or formal meetings –
passing by on the street with strangers, comment on the weather. The discussion of
everyday events was carefully considered through formulaic language, which, when fully
understood, wasn’t simply a matter of rote, but could subtly convey very accurate and
direct feelings.
Q: Could you give sort of an example of this?
MILLER: Yes, a very popular thoroughfare in Isfahan was called the Chaharbagh, the
Place of Four Gardens. That’s what the word means. It was then and still is, as I saw
when I returned a year or so ago, a street several miles in length in which there are four
rows of plane trees, sycamores to us, London planes, to the British, some of which are
hundreds of years old. It’s a place where people promenade, really. In Persian it’s called
gardesh mikonan, “we will take a walk,” and people go in one direction or the other and
when they pass each other they nod heads and they have a salutation of at minimum, “Alsalaam
Alaikum, to your health,” comment would than follow on the weather, politics,
the health of family and friends and perhaps more. These are the patterns of daily ordinary
walks. Then there were conversations in the market if you’re buying fruit or vegetables.
At the other end of the scale of commerce, in antique or rug stores, for example, there is a
formal language, and patter that reflects not only the occupation of the day and the
feelings towards individuals or even countries.
This is a way of saying that Iranian society is very complicated. The language is very
precise and learned. There is a lot of room for discussion, not only banter, but deep
discussion within formulas. So for diplomats the use of language is ideal because you are
already working within mental frameworks – rules of the game.
Q: Did you have a problem beginning to pick up the nuances of this?
MILLER: No, and here is the importance of local staff who, in this case, were like
Oriental secretaries in the British sense. Our local staff were people of great standing in
the city, in this case, Isfahan, because of their family and educational background and
learning. They saw their jobs as being a host for the city; to the Americans in a way, and
as teachers to the Americans. So every step, particularly in the early stages, everything
was explained, what these encounters meant, what the meaning and intentions of the
linguistic back and forth was, what the depth of the bow or the rising or falling if you are
sitting on the ground, and hand to the heart and the stroking of beards – in the case of the
religious who were always bearded meant. Those clues to behavior were very important
for me.
Mr. Dehesh, Baquer Dehesh, was the principle senior assistant in the consulate, along
with another person named Abdol Hossein Sepenta, who was a poet and a filmmaker, and
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