The Prince of Persia

The Prince of Persia restaurant opened for business with all the fanfare fit for a king. Posters announcing the “Prince’s” arrival had gone up weeks before along the underground passageway leading to the Dongchang Road metro station and inside the lobby of the World Mall on the floor above. They were done up in gaudy red and yellow colors and featured Conga line of swaying figures in garish robes led by an outsized character with purple turban– the Prince presumably – whose mustache was so wide that it threatened to extend out over the edges of the frame. It seemed the inspiration for the Prince and his retinue came from Ringling Brothers, Barnum, and Bailey rather than from the Iranian Cultural Ministry. Certainly not the face of Iran the government was trying to promote. A face of Iran that government officials would have found politically incorrect and religious leaders would have found blasphemous. Anyway, this was Shanghai, a place where rules, even those imposed by the Republic of Iran, are suspended or just thrown out entirely commercial success winning out over revolutionary zeal and political correctness.