Hot Cuppa

What is this Weblog About?

I hope to write here on mainly three major themes: Iran, Economics and Religion. Hum! a quite well matched triangle.
Let me first tell you about my motives. As a young Iranian living abroad I am monitoring the events related to my country very carefully. My perception is that the current picture of Iran in the media is not that much realistic or may be better to say is mainly biased toward some aspects while the other aspects are usually neglected. As a reaction to it my main goal is to report what I call “the real face of Iran” through looking into the day to day life of the people, the institutions, the policies and the structure of the power system. Beside that I may write some posts on Islam and the debates around it in the Muslim societies to give you a better and more detailed knowledge of. Finally the Economics is one of my major intellectual concerns and I can not stop myself going into that from time to time.

About Me:
I am Hamed, 28, and I am living along with my sweet partner Maryam ,26, in the beatiful city of Vienna. We moved here when I got a job offer at the HQ of a UN affiliated organization and afterwards decided to stay longer for a couple of years to finish some university educations. At the moment I am studying a post-graduate programme of economics in the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) and Maryam is doing her "Magister" (MA) , as it is called in German, in English and American studies in Vienna University.

The History of Blogging:
Actually this is the third time I have started writing a weblog. The first two were in Farsi and the later one succeeded to become somehow popular among Iranian readers with an average record of 600 visitors per day. It was focused mainly on the economic issues and envisaged to provide the readers with some simple explanations for the phenomena around them with an economic logic. Add to that some personal posts and occasionaly something on religion or to be more precise on the philosophy of religion.

Why This Weblog?
Having written the previous weblog for more than 18 months and looking into its effects and the feedbacks from the readers it turned out that I would better switch to, or at least start in a parallel way, a new one for a different group of audiences and in a more global fashion. As a consequence of such decision I stopped the Farsi one for the time being and opened this one. This is mainly to practice writing in a language which is not my mother tongue and to write for the readers coming from a different background than me.

What does the "Hot Cuppa" Imply?
Cuppa is the short from for “Cup of Tea” and tea , as you may know, is the most popular beverage among Iranians. Although I have got used to drink lots of coffee in the Europe nevertheless tea is still my highly preferred drink. My friends usually are surprised seeing the special big bowl, yes bowl not a cup, which I drink the tea in. This blue clay bowl proves that I am absolutely dependent on consuming lots of Tea. In fact tea is one driving force of writing for me and therefore I named the weblog "Hot Cuppa" to emphasize its oriental roots in one hand and the way me and perhaps some readers would write and read it on the other hand! So please help yourself with a Cup of Iranian Hot Tea!

PS: I would be gratefull if you comment me on the style of writing in English. It is not embarassing at all rather would be highly appreciated.