Traveling with a male friend, in the guise of a couple on their honeymoon, Wearing set out on her own at every available opportunity. She went looking for what lay beneath the media's representation of Iran and found a country made up of welcoming, curious, warmhearted, ambitious men and women. Through her, we meet the ordinary and extraordinary people of Iran - those whose lives extend beyond Western news stories of kidnappings, terrorism, veiled women, and Islamic fundamentalism. She introduces us to a gregarious young opium dealer who dreams of America, policemen who bring tea, a stranger waving hello in his pajamas, a playful eight-year-old girl only a year away from the possibility of marriage, and an irrepressible, heroic Anglican minister.