I was in Iran 5 years ago and the "3rd place" was the tea/coffee places full of men mostly talking and playing chest during the hotter part of the day. Women gathered at home on their huge sofas. At Friday/Saturday night (IIRC) all the cities families go out and gather in public parce for night picnics. It's a fantastic experience to have. People make music, kids plays together, and families talk to each other over the shoulder. There's many wrong things with that country but ho boy they know of to gather. People bring their huge carpets and some food/drinks. Sometime they're walking merchants or a small kiosk.
I now live in suburb of Paris, there's probably more muslims that in the average French city (but they're still a strict minority) but no coffee place neither an alcool one and definitely not collective picnics at night.
From may to October, you should go to the 'quai de seine', between the Seine and Jussieu/jardin des plantes. It's young, but you'll see families, a lot of people learning to danse and picnic. With the occasional rose/wine seller. Probably the Parisian place I hate the less, with 'Chez Amel' near Canal st Martin (La station is fine also but too snob for me).
Canadian Iranian here , yes it’s a common name, even my dad was called “Ali” short for his full name “Alireza”.
Also I agree with everything parent said, we always go out, we even have trips with the 2-3 families and sometimes friends join as well.
Chess and Soccor are huge in Iran, you see kids running around in the street playing all the time and in the evening we have “parties” where people come to share food and then go out.
It’s very different from the West, I don’t even know what western nations would look like with that setup, it can get chaotic and there are many regulations that prevent these anyway like making noise outside after dark or kids being lowed to run in the streets with cars passing; not to mention the subtlies of not invading people’s personal spaces or coming off as a “creep” / annoying person here. In Iran no one cares and you just chat with anyone..
Really interesting stuff - also goes some way to explaining the absolutely massive gatherings you see on Iran on occassion.
As a probably permanent expat with kids, I've been looking for some sort of more social and family oriented culture to raise them, and stuff like that sounds amazing. If we could just pick and choose the parts that each culture excels at!
Though with Alireza I was referring to Alireza Firouzja - a top 10 chess player in the world who also ended up in France like the earlier poster.
I now live in suburb of Paris, there's probably more muslims that in the average French city (but they're still a strict minority) but no coffee place neither an alcool one and definitely not collective picnics at night.