This is Planet Money from NPR.
Ali goes back to Iran every few years.
And in those visits, he always notices how it's changed.
Every once in a while, for the better.
Like when he was just there in December, he went to a restaurant and looked around.
I was like, wow, I cannot believe I'm sitting at the restaurant and no one is wearing hijab.
None of the women were covering their hair.
They were riding a motorcycle bikes.
women were not allowed to ride a motorcycle bikes, but they were choosing to do it.
But other changes he's noticed have been more ominous.
Like this trip, people were way more worried about money than they used to be.
He says a decade ago, people were more open.
They didn't have struggled.
They didn't have to think about their businesses.
They didn't have to think about their struggles, like the financial struggles and all that.
The financial struggles, that has been a huge part of the change that Ali's been tracking.
Like he says,
things changed even over the course of his short visit in December to see family and friends from childhood,
the view that stayed.
One simple indicator was the price of egg.