This article argues that even as Chinese
imports occupy an increasingly large percentage of
the space in Mashhad’s bazaars and marketplaces,
such goods are interpreted not only as being of
poor quality but, critically, as insufficiently
“worthy” of the Iranian middle class who
positioned themselves as “deserving better.” In
attempting to assess why this is the case, the
article suggests that such framing both reveals
much of, and requires us to consider, the pivotal
role of status in Iran. It holds that this concern
for status is expressed at multiple levels: that
of the family, as a class, and finally, of the
nation. At each of these levels of expression, it
is possible to trace different post-revolutionary
social phenomena. These include the reification of
the family as a moral unit, major shifts in the
demographics of education and urbanization, the
rise of a consumer culture and the perilous
decline of the fortunes of the middle class, and,
finally, imaginings of national exceptionalism.
This article then uses such readings of Chinese
goods as a window into middle class ideologies of
worth and deservingness.