#12 - The 7 "Sin"s of Persian New Year

Back from the City of Eternal Spring in time for spring

Mar 21, 2024

Buenas! After a month in South America I’m back in England and finding it slightly hard to say yes instead of sí1 🙃

After Buenos Aires I went to the ever-green city of Medellín, in Colombia’s Antioquia region, and absolutely loved the time I spent in the beautifully tropical (and rich) neighbourhood of El Poblado. 🌴

With so many things to see and new friends to go out with, it’s no surprise this issue is about a week late. 😅

🏛 Culture

Nowruz, the Persian New Year, and its 7 “sin”s

You may be wondering what the Persian/Iranian New Year celebration has to do with that sick2 David Fincher movie with Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and John C. McGinley3.

Well, nothing.

Allow me to explain…

Nowruz (pronounced No-rooz), meaning ‘new-day’, is the 13-day new year celebration based on the spring equinox and is the most important time of the year for Iranians and other ethnicities. You could say it’s the Iranian Christmas.

Nowruz is usually always on March 21st, though this year it was the 20th as we had a leap year.

And yes, unlike the retarded Gregorian calendar, which starts in the middle of frickin’ winter, has the shortest month as its second month, and four thirty-day months scattered around the year4, the Persian Solar calendar is much more logical.

The year starts when the seasons restart (spring = new life, rejuvenation...) and finishes as the cycle comes to an end (winter = death, ending...), and the months are much more organised too: the first six months have 31 days, the next five have 30 and the last one has 29. Simple. Logical.

Anyways, back to the matter of “sins”. Sin (pronounced almost like ‘seen’) is the letter ‘s’ in Persian/Farsi, and haft is seven.

A huge part of Nowruz is sofre-ye haft sin, the “seven S spread”5.

And what are the ‘seven sins’?

Sabze – wheat, barley, mung bean, or lentil sprouts grown in a dish
- The most important - the name means [something that’s] green
Seeb – apple
Samanu – wheat germ slightly sweet pudding (the brown stuff)
Senjed – oleaster
Serke – vinegar
Seer – garlic
Somagh – sumac

Some people also use coins (sekke), hyacinth (sonbol) and a clock (sa’at). Other symbolic items that typically accompany haft-sin include a mirror, candles, painted eggs, goldfish and traditional confectionary.

Families will dress up in nice new clothes and wait by their glamorous haft-sin tables (obviously taking loads of pics to post on IG) until the exact astronomical second marks the turn of the new year. Then everyone will hug, kiss and give each other presents and “eidi” money to the kids.

And then, if it’s before 7 am like it was yesterday, go back to sleep until later. 😂

🕳 Random Rabbit Hole

The story of the longest marathon completion ever!

I came across this via the awesome depthsofwikipedia IG account and enjoyed it so much that I had to share it. 😃

The story is about Shizo Kanakuri, Japan’s “father of marathon”, who was the first Japanese athlete to qualify for an Olympics.

To get to the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, he embarked on a difficult 18-day-long trip, first by ship and then by train all through the Trans-Siberian Railway. When he finally arrived, he was weak from the long journey, struggled to sleep during the white nights and also had problems with the local food. The team coach was bedridden with TB and failed to give Kanakuri sufficient pre-race training. 🤧

The race was held near Stockholm amidst a heat wave. Dozens of competitors dropped out, including Portuguese runner Francisco Lázaro, whose mid-race collapse and subsequent death made him the first Olympic fatality. ☠ The reigning Olympic gold medallist Johnny Hayes called the event a "disgrace to civilization."

Kanakuri, too, experienced hyperthermia and about 16 sixteen miles into the race, he left the course out of exhaustion and stumbled into a nearby garden party, where he drank orange juice for an hour. Embarrassed by his failure, he silently returned to Japan without notifying race officials.

Kanakuri's disappearance spurred humorous stories in Sweden about a lost Japanese runner. Sweden added Shizo Kanakuri to its missing persons list and his name remained there for fifty years ❗

A Swedish reporter discovered him working as a geography teacher in Southern Japan and in 1967, SVT (Sweden’s BBC) offered him the chance to complete his marathon, which Kanakuri accepted. On March 20, 1967, he finished the marathon. His official time was 54 years 8 months 6 days 5 hours 32 minutes 20.3 seconds. He commented, "It was a long trip. Along the way, I got married, had six children and 10 grandchildren.” 🤣

While in Sweden, Kanakuri returned to the garden villa where he had drank orange juice. He met Bengt Petre, the son of his original hosts and, while drinking orange juice, Bengt explained that one of the family's heirlooms was the Japanese scroll Shizo had given to the family. Upon inspecting the scroll, Kanakuri sadly told him, "It’s just an old customs form.” 📜😅

Funnily enough, Kanakuri had been selected for the Berlin 1916 Summer Olympics (cancelled due to WW1) and competed in both Antwerp 1920 (finished 16th with a time of 2:48:45.4) and Paris 1924 (did not finish).6 🎌

**It’s never too late to finish what you started.**

🎶 Music & Art

Thanks to my sister (and her minor TikTok addiction 🎵😁) for this awesome recom. Epic: The Musical is a modern adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey by Jorge Rivera-Herrans that’s garnered tens of millions of views across social media. Here’s the first song of the first saga mini-album:

(and here’s the YT link for those who don’t have Spotify)

Huh, I just noticed something…

The word marathon comes from the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), fought between the Persians and the Greeks. And here, the marathon story above has bridged topics about those two cultures again. Uncanny 😎

Before you go…

If you enjoyed today’s post, please remember to SHARE it with ONE friend, family or colleague ❤️ sharing is caring and all that 😄

Share S-P-A-M

And, did you particularly enjoy any of the sections today? Would love to hear from you in the comments!

S-P-A-M