Chaneh Zadeh: Lessons in the Persian Art of Bargaining

By Heidi Noroozy

A couple of years ago, I started out a blog post with the statement that Persian culture is not for the socially lazy. At the time I was writing about taaroff, the Persian practice of extreme etiquette, but my observation also extends to shopping In Iran. Especially when it comes to the bazaar, where prices are negotiable and vendors keen students of human nature. At a glance, they can tell which customer will be an easy sell, which a tough bargainer, and when they can squeeze yet another few thousand rials out of an exhausted foreigner unused to the rigors of a typical Persian business transaction. You can read about my adventures in buying carpets here.

That shopping trip was an early lesson in the fine and often confusing art of Persian bargaining, which in Farsi is called chaneh zadan. Roughly translated, this means to "hit with the chin,” a reference to the way person's chin moves up and down while talking—or negotiating a business transaction. Naturally, I wanted to practice my new skills. The number one rule: Never let the vendor suspect that you are in the least interested in his wares. Even if you have spotted an item you simply know you can’t live without, the proper attitude to assume is one of distain. Pretend that another shop two doors down carries far superior merchandise. Otherwise, the price will soar into the stratosphere.

Rarely, though, do I get a chance to practice chaneh zadan. My husband’s Tehran relatives consider it a serious breach of hospitality to let me do my own dickering at the bazaar. What’s more, they know I would crumble in the face of a seasoned bazaari’s far superior skill. And when I watch the locals engage in this fascinating Persian ritual, I have to admit they are right. I lack the requisite finesse. But that doesn’t stop me from studying the art on every trip to Iran.

On a recent shopping venture, this time to find a pair of earrings at the Tajrish gold bazaar, my sister-in-law and I trekked through its dazzling halls for close to four hours before we settled on the right pair of danglers. It really does take that long to shop for gold, which is why we leave the men at home. They lack the stamina needed to do a proper job of it.

We popped in and out of postage stamp-sized shops, examining various styles and models, holding them up to my ears (careful not to dislodge my headscarf and reveal too much hair). Each time, my sister-in-law would thank the merchant and drag me out of the store.

“But I liked that one,” I’d protest.

“That man would never give us a good price,” she’d reply. How could she tell? Had I missed the demonic gleam of greed in the man’s eyes, or had he spotted the longing I couldn’t quite keep out of mine?

When we finally found the perfect combination of gold filigree earrings and bazaari to sell them to us, the chaneh zadan could begin.

The vendor named his price.

“Gerooneh (that’s too much)!” my sister-in-law said, the upward lift in her voice conveying just the right amount of mild outrage. (I need to practice that.)

The bazaari typed a number into his digital calculator and pushed it across the counter.

My designated negotiator cleared the screen and entered a slightly lower number in return.

The two of them pushed the calculator back and forth a few more times, adjusting the numbers up and down. Finally, they reached a figure both could live with. It was only about 30,000 rials lower than the original price, a difference of just a few dollars, but that had a lot to do with the way gold is sold. It has a two-tiered price. The larger, non-negotiable portion, is determined by weight, based on the global market price of gold on the day of sale. The variable portion is the cost of workmanship and the merchant’s profit.

They both turned to me to approve the final figure, which I did with a mix of admiration and relief. To me, an American used to fixed prices and quick sales transactions, the slight price reduction hardly seemed worth the effort that went into the deal, fascinating as it was to watch.

Which brings me back to that statement from my earlier blog: Persian culture is not for the socially lazy. Even a shopping trip is an opportunity for lengthy social interaction. Without the give and take of chaneh zadan, neither party can feel completely satisfied with the deal they’ve struck. I have some lovely new earrings to prove it.

The Architecture of Iranian Bazaars

Imamzadeh Zeid at the
Grand Bazaar in Tehran

By Heidi Noroozy

A trip to Iran is never complete without a visit to one of the country’s many bazaars. These marketplaces date back to the fourth century C.E., when they were built along major trade routes, often at the intersections of several thoroughfares. Cities had areas reserved for trade, where small stores and merchant stalls grew into sprawling covered markets. The term comes from the Middle Persian word, baha char, which meant “place of prices.” Bazaars have long been commercial and financial centers as well as a focus of social and religious life.

In its simplest form, a bazaar is defined as two rows of shops facing each other on either side of a street and connected by a stone roof. This definition hardly does justice to the enormous complexity of these structures, with their labyrinths of streets and multiple levels. Iranian bazaars combine typical features of Persian architecture: arches, domes, and vaulted ceilings, brickwork, decorative tiles, and even paintings.

Historically, bazaars were organized into sections, each dedicated to a specific trade, and this layout is still largely preserved today. You seek out one area for spices—to find it, just follow your nose—and another for kitchenware, a third for gold coins and jewelry. The stores are tiny, sometimes only large enough for a small sample of wares, the bazari (merchant), and two or three customers. Often, each section forms a self-contained “neighborhood,” with its own teahouse, mosque, public bath, and Hosseinieh, a space for religious ceremonies.

The Bazar Bozorg, or Grand Bazaar, in Tehran, is the largest in the world, although it is far from the oldest. Only 200 years old, it features 6 miles of covered space. This central marketplace is a must-see stop for any visitor to Tehran, but it’s best to take a local guide along. Having grown haphazardly over the course of two centuries, it has no uniform architectural style but consists of a jumble of covered corridors, open streets, courtyards, and caravansaries. As far as I know, there is no map to help you navigate the place, and even asking for directions can be of little help. A lot of bazaris and laborers working here only know their part of the labyrinth well and have no more than a vague notion of what lays beyond.

Carpet section of the
Grand Bazaar in Tehran

Tehran’s Grand Bazaar was once the center of financial and even political power, and its bazaris played a significant role in the Islamic Revolution. Today, much of its financial clout has shifted to the northern part of the city, but you can still see the money changers along the streets, sitting among stacks of dollars, euros, and rials.

One of the most fascinating features of an Iranian bazaar is the caravansary, a spacious, domed hall often located at the back of the marketplace but sometimes at its very heart. This chamber was once a place for caravans of traveling merchants to put up for the night or set up temporary stalls for a few days before moving on to the next town. The advent of motorized vehicles has now displaced the horse-drawn carts of earlier eras and put an end to this function. Today, a caravansary is known as a sarai, or sometimes timcheh, and forms a central courtyard surrounded by shops (as opposed to the long hallways in the rest of the bazaar). The goods sold here are often the finest luxury items, carpets, and works of art.

Caravansary in the Kashan Bazaar

The Vakil Bazaar in Shiraz is one of the most beautiful in the country. Built by Karim Khan Zand, who ruled Iran from 1750-1779, it has a largely cruciform shape, with arched columns, decorative brickwork, and openings in the vaulted roof that bring in light and fresh air. Its former caravansary, the Serai Mushir, is located on the south side, where vendors sell traditional handicrafts, many of them made by the local Qashqa’i tribes.

Handicrafts on sale at the
Sarai Mushir in Shiraz

My favorite bazaar, though, is the one in Esfahan, which departs from the usual labyrinthine layout. It is mainly rectilinear, built around the perimeter of the city’s enormous Naqsh-e Jahan Square with shops on the ground floor and storage space and offices upstairs. Like Vakil, it features typical Persian architecture with arches, vaulted ceilings, and decorative brickwork. But it dates back several centuries earlier to the time of Shah Abbas I of the Safavid Dynasty. All around the main entrance at the north end of the square, you can still a series of fading frescoes depicting Shah Abbas’s wars with the Uzbeks. In the arch between the paintings, stretches an ornamental structure known as stalactite work—a series of small niches layered on top of each other like a honeycomb.

Frescoes and honeycomb arch of the
Isfahan Bazaar

The Esfahan bazaar is famous for its handicrafts, made right on the premises. The workshops are located in the back corridors, where you can watch artisans stamp colorful patterns on cotton tablecloths or hammer intricate designs into copper and bronze bowls.

To truly experience an Iranian bazaar, with its riot of colors, cacophony of sounds, spicy scents, and crush of humanity, you have to visit one in person. Just watch out for the carters pulling their wagons piled high with goods through the corridors. They don’t stop for pedestrians!

Or check out this panoramic view of the Esfahan Bazaar.

The Unbearable Politeness of Being

Persian culture is not for the socially lazy. Take this scene:

Several years ago, at a Tehran bazaar, I was flipping through a pile of small handmade carpets as a portable gift for a friend back home. I spotted a lovely gabbeh, like the one in the photo, hand knotted by Ghashghai nomads. The carpet had striated shades of green, with a man astride a donkey in one corner.

My sister-in-law hovered at my shoulder. “Don’t let the bazaari see how much you like that,” she instructed. “Glance casually through all the carpets and try not to admire any one piece for too long or we’ll never manage to negotiate a good price.”

The gray-haired vendor eyed me sharply, lips curled into a knowing smile, and I realized that with decades of experience selling his wares, there wasn’t a customer trick he couldn’t detect a mile away.

I made my selection with what I hoped was an air of absolute indifference. As though the only reason I was purchasing the item at all was to spare him the embarrassment of offering such mediocre merchandise.

We settled on a price: 100,000 rials (around $10). I counted out a neat pile of green-and-blue 10,000 rial notes and handed them to him. He counted them again, smiled at me and just as I thought the bills would disappear into his metal cash box, his demeanor changed abruptly.

He tossed the money back at me with a dramatic flourish. “Ghabeli nadareh!” he exclaimed. “I cannot take your money for such an ugly, worthless little rug.”

I stared at him and, after a moment’s hesitation, turned to my sister-in-law. “He doesn’t really mean that, does he?” The problem was that I couldn’t be sure. In Iran, people are always giving me things—even bazaar shopkeepers. But not usually merchandise worth more than a few cents.

“He wants more money,” she said. Apparently the negotiations, which I’d considered concluded, had just been reopened.

We were engaging in a peculiarly Persian custom called taaroff, a complex social ritual that serves many different purposes, in the above case a business transaction. For no social interaction between Iranians is ever simple or straightforward but enveloped in layers of symbolism and implied meaning.

Anyone who has had even the most superficial relationship with Iranians has likely encountered taaroff, even if it was such a simple matter of offering them a glass of tea and seeing it politely refused. For the rules of taaroff dictate that it is rude to accept hospitality right off the bat. An elaborate show of politeness must ensue, with one party urging insistently and the other refusing until both people have established that the offer is meant sincerely and can be accepted with grace.

My biggest personality flaw when it comes to taaroff is that I tend to take everything at face value. So if a dinner guest says she couldn’t possibly eat another bite, I tend to believe her (while my Iranian husband will simply spoon another helping onto her plate). And if a bazaari tosses my payment back into my lap, my instinct is to say “How very generous of you. Thanks!” I think this could easily cause a small cultural war.

So back to my original point: Persian culture is not for the socially lazy. Every interaction, even a simple carpet purchase, is a social event. The goal is not just to pick out an item, hand over the cash, and go your merry way. That would be too cold and impersonal a transaction for Iranian sensibilities. There has to be a challenge, a pitting of wits and negotiation skills for both parties to feel they have gotten their money’s worth.