The stories carried a lot of similarities to western ones. There was a lot of repetition (great for language learning!), and the characters were often personified animals and elements, reminiscent of Aesop's fables. Each story was centered on a message, a moral lesson for children. Though English stories are also usually teaching tools, the Iranian morals were a bit different.
The first story was about kindness and hospitality. An old woman welcomed strangers into her home on a cold night, and they turned out to have skills and became her family. I think Western fairy tales tend to be much more grim, like DON'T talk to strangers, because they'll mislead you and then eat your grandmother.
The next story had a similarly cheerful moral: everyone can be the strongest in his or her own way. It's interesting, this is a very modern message in Western standards, which makes me wonder when these were written. It gave the impression of being old stories everyone knew. I guess Beowulf, with his warrior prowess, wouldn't fit in to Iranian children's stories. The host commented after the story that everyone is endowed with strength and greatness, but "perhaps best kind of strength is that which comes from love and wisdom," because it benefits others. This is really telling - instead of strength in what I would call a traditional sense (i.e. brute strength), this strength is measured by its power to help the most people.
The host adds comments at the end, which happen to be religious things (like being strong is especially in spirit, or everyone is perfect in heaven's eyes). That either means that it's acceptable to teach children about religion on TV, or that the TV station isn't secular.
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