The Persian Club
by Marni Myers

aaaaf there is one thing I have learned in my study of the Persian language, it's that Americans know absolutely nothing about Iran. The most common responses I get when I tell people I am studying Persian go something like this: Is that related to Farsi? Where is that language spoken? So are you going to Iran? That's like Arabic, right?
aaaa(To answer the above questions, Farsi is the Persian word for the Persian language. To say you speak Farsi is like saying you speak "Espanol" instead of "Spanish", though, in all fairness, Farsi is used so frequently to refer to Persian these days that the two have almost become interchangeable. Persian is spoken only in Iran; a related dialect, Dari, is spoken in Afghanistan. Since the storming of our embassy in Tehran during the Iranian revolution of 1979, in which several of our fellow countrymen were taken hostage and held for over a year, relations between Iran and the United States have been a bit sour. In fact, Americans generally aren't allowed into the country. Hence, I won't be going to Iran any time soon. And finally, although the Persian and Arabic alphabets are essentially the same, with a few extra letters in Persian, and in spite of the sneaky 		a a
infiltration of many Arabic words-mainly religious words-into the language, Persian and Arabic are no more alike than, say, Polish and French. Linguistically, culturally and religiously, the Persians and the Arabs are quite distinct one from another.)
aaaaThen again, as Jay Leno proves consistently through his questioning of people on the street regarding current events and common cultural trivia, most Americans know nothing about the rest of the world, or even the rest of the nation. I actually saw one episode in which some of the interviewees couldn't name the Vice-President. In fact, I would wager that more than a few Americans think that Alaska is part of Canada. Why would they know anything about a seldom-talked-about country in that massive desert of so-called rogue nations we vaguely refer to as simply "The Middle East"?
aaaaThe other important thing I have learned in my study of Persian is that the Iranians in the United States are like members of a huge secret club, that keeps its culture, language, customs, and, to a lesser extent, even its food, all to itself, not allowing it to permeate American society like so many other cultures have done. What separates the Persian Club from other secret societies is its surprisingly simple initiation process: Anyone who speaks Persian can be part of the club, and the moment your Iranian hosts learn that you speak their language, they welcome you as if you are yourself Iranian, and you are then a member for life.
aaaaI first suspected the existence of this club as I was having lunch in a Persian restaurant one afternoon, when I'd been studying the language for only a few months. All the teachers and students had gone to lunch to celebrate the end of the semester. I remember distinctly gnawing on a chicken kabob, listening to one teacher teasing a student while another related a memory from his childhood in Iran, and feeling amazingly included, not like the outsider that I was in that setting. I had never before experienced such a feeling of complete acceptance by representatives of another culture. Even when I had lived abroad, in countries where I spoke the language, I had never felt as accepted by my hosts as I did at that moment in the restaurant by those Iranians.
aaaaThat day in the restaurant gave me an inkling of the implications of being able to speak Farsi in this country. It wasn't until some time later, however, that I became truly aware of the Persian Club-that didn't happen until I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning, when I was well into my study of Persian. My dentist
herself was not Iranian (though I must say, there are a disproportionate number of Iranian dentists in this country), but the other dentist in her office, as well as the receptionist and one of the dental assistants, were. As I settled into the lounging, contoured chair that afternoon, I noticed that the assistant who was clipping on my paper bib had a Persian-sounding name, and asked her where she was from. When she replied that she was from Iran, I said, in Persian, that I spoke a little Persian. She was so stunned to hear a blonde-haired, blue-eyed American speaking her language that she stopped the reclining dental chair, mid-tilt. We conversed briefly as she prepped me for my exam, she being so obviously thrown off-guard that she spoke half in Farsi, half in English. As soon as my teeth were clean, the assistant came back into the room and, still looking a little dazed and very excited, pulled me over the to the Iranian dentist, also a woman, who had just finished with a patient, and conspiratorially told her to "Go ahead, say something to her in Farsi."
aaaaWhat followed was a short but extremely ego-gratifying exchange between the three of us in Farsi, which mainly consisted of them expressing their 		   
amazement that I spoke Farsi, mixed with compliments about my pronunciation and speaking abilities. They wanted to know where I'd learned Farsi, how long I'd been speaking it, why I had started studying it in the first place. One of them suggested that since I knew Farsi, I should marry an Iranian man; then they both laughed heartily when I said I had heard (from one of my female teachers) that Iranian men are lazy, so I'd prefer an American.
aaaaWhen I went to see my dentist again a month or so later, this time for a fluoride treatment, the Iranian women seemed even more excited to see me. With huge grins on their faces, they introduced me to their new receptionist, who had arrived in the States less than two years earlier, and all of them seemed so thoroughly delighted to see and speak with me, I felt a little like a rock star who's just won the Grammy for Best New Artist. My dentist later told me that, after my previous visit, none of them had been able to stop talking about me, had mentioned me every day for at least a week afterward. For my part, I was flattered and, more than that, even more motivated than before to continue my studies. This was fun. I liked feeling like a rock star. And if a little Persian in the dentist's office could get me that much attention, imagine how much attention I could receive if I truly mastered the language.
aaaaMost people who speak a foreign language will tell you that in order to become fluent in that language, you need to go to the country in which it is spoken and immerse yourself in it. This was certainly true for me when I studied French in high school and college: It wasn't until I lived in Paris my junior year that I was truly able to speak French with confidence and ease, without translating every word in my head before it could leave my mouth. The problem with this method is that it's difficult to apply to Farsi. As an American, I didn't have the opportunity to go to Iran, couldn't go to the souq wrapped in a chador, couldn't listen for the hypnotic and strangely melodic monotone calls to Friday prayers broadcast over speakers in the streets of Tehran, couldn't take part in student protests at the university. The best I could do was read and listen to news in Persian on the Internet, watch copies of copies of low-budget, esoteric Iranian films, and, occasionally, try to plow my way through articles taken from Farsi-language newspapers printed in London and Tehran. For the cultural aspect, we celebrated all the important Iranian holidays in class, took field trips to Persian restaurants and bookstores, read books in English about Iran's history, and listened to our teachers talk about what Iran had been like before the Revolution. Most of them had left shortly after it began, when things were heating up but it was still possible to get a visa to come to America, before the situation turned really ugly.
aaaaEven with all this, however, I still wasn't in Iran, and I felt that somehow this fact limited my potential for fluency in Persian. And thus a field trip was born. If my classmates and I couldn't go to Iran, we would go to the next best place: Los Angeles, California. The highest concentration of Iranians in the United States is in L.A., which is often jokingly referred to as "Tehrangeles". We called the trip our "Persian Immersion," our chance to pretend that we were in Iran, speaking only Persian and surrounding ourselves, to the extent possible, with all things Iranian. We went in June, six students and three teachers, relying heavily on our teachers' connections with Iranian-Americans in the area to provide us with a full cultural experience.
a a aaaaWe stayed in a hotel in Beverly Hills, near Westwood Boulevard, the Persian commercial center in the Los Angeles area. All the shops on a long stretch of this road bear signs in Farsi and cater to ex-pat Iranians. To inaugurate our trip, we had an enormous dinner that first evening at a Westwood restaurant, where we were joined by Joseph and Miriam, close friends of our teacher Nassrin. Joseph and Nassrin had grown up together in Iran, both immigrating to the US when they were in college, shortly after the new Islamic regime began imposing the veil on women in their country. Miriam was Joseph's wife. Joseph spent the evening reminiscing with Nassrin and telling us dirty jokes and funny stories in Farsi, while Miriam wanted to know about our

backgrounds and made sure we tried each of the myriad of specially prepared dishes on the table. They were so friendly, so open and personable. Even the waiters and restaurant owner treated us as if we were regular customers. Although I didn't realize it at the time, that night I stepped into the private world of the Persian Club.
aaaaWe spent our days in Los Angeles exploring Westwood Boulevard, leisurely wandering from shop to shop in smaller groups, browsing every book store for hours, looking at Persian CDs and videos, commenting on the subtleties of the complex color patterns in the carpets in this shop, or the delicacy and flavor of the unique pastries in that one. We ate Persian food until saffron was coursing through our veins and tried to pretend that we had been speaking Farsi all our lives. Amazingly, no one asked us where we were from, how it was that we knew Farsi, nor did they treat us like the wannabe Iranians that we were. Joseph and Miriam, especially, accepted us as if we were family, inviting us to their home for brunch and tea, and buying us farewell gifts in memory of our trip. In all my travels I had never experienced such generous hosts. They devoted their entire weekend to us, ensuring we sampled the extensive array of Tehrangeles's charms. They had, whether wittingly or not, invited us into the Club.
aaaaI remember one afternoon in particular, when I recognized the scope of perks that came with membership in this club. We had parked the car at one end of Westwood Boulevard and then proceeded to meander up it, stopping frequently along the way, until we came to a small, out-of-the way bookstore, set back from the street and facing a little courtyard. We spent considerable time in the store, looking at books and drinking tea with the nearly toothless old shop owner. At last I said I had to go put money in the parking meter several blocks down. Hearing me ask another student for change, the shop owner offered to let us park our car in the alley behind his shop, where he had a reserved parking spot. We couldn't possibly, we said, it would be too much trouble. No, no, he insisted, it would be no trouble. Go get your car and you can leave it here, in my parking space. Truly, you must. Bring the car, bring the car. So we did. We moved our car, left it in his parking space for most of the afternoon. Talk about rock star parking! His gesture showed me just how big a rock star you become when you belong to the Club.
aaaaEvery evening of our immersion we went to a different cultural event in the area. The most memorable of these was the Cabaret Tehran, a Persian restaurant-night club that not only served dinner but provided entertainment as well, in the form of live music, belly dancers (who were actually more like a high school drill team with a little abdominal undulating thrown in) and even a comedian. As we sat down at the table that night, the native Persian speakers divided themselves among the students. I sat next to Miriam, with Joseph opposite me. I asked Miriam about her life, about how she came to be in this country and her experiences learning English. She told me about her difficult beginnings as a student in the mid-west, when she barely spoke or understood any English and, due to circumstances, was forced to go for months and months without speaking any Farsi at all. When I was really homesick, she said, when I was so frustrated from struggling with this language, I would write letters to my family, long letters in Farsi. She said that any time she'd had a task to perform around the house-cutting her nails, cooking, doing the dishes-she'd made her roommate tell her the words for everything she was using-nail clippers, hot pad, dish towel. Of course now, she added, because of my job, I speak English more than I speak Farsi. Indeed, more than once during our visit, Miriam had to force herself to describe something to us in Farsi instead of using English words that came more naturally. I could only hope that some day I would have the same difficulty.
aaaaAcross the table from us, unaware of what Miriam and I were saying, Sarah and Joseph were conducting a very serious political discussion about the history and future of Iran. At one end, Nassrin and Jen were laughing with tears in their eyes; at the other, Yasimin was teasing the guys. Next to me, Sam was telling Julie jokes while the others carried on their own conversations, though I don't remember what they were saying, or if I could even hear them over the noise of the band. We took our time eating dinner, listening to the music, laughing at the comedian-I admit, I didn't understand his jokes, even when they were retold to me in English-and singing along with one of the performers. After dinner, the belly dancers came out, three of them, only one of whom could possibly have been Persian. They wore slinky little two-piece outfits, fringed with rows of gold and silver bangles, which flashed under the stage lights as the girls shook their hips and wove their slender arms gracefully and seductively above their heads and around their bodies. When the belly dancers were done, the music started again. And then came the real dancing.
aaaaYasimin was the first to get up, followed quickly by Nassrin and Jen. In spite of an extreme lack of physical coordination, I eagerly joined in, knowing that it didn't matter in this group if I could dance or not. Time and space were suspended here, and we were no longer in our sedate, responsible lives but in a world where we could dance and laugh and have fun just for the sake of it. In fact, it was a requirement.
aaaaPersian dancing, done properly, is more complicated than it looks, involving a combination of foot and arm movements that would seem to be unrelated but are in fact carefully coordinated. Yasimin was the best, effortlessly moving her feet in a regular pattern to the beat of the music, shuffling and tapping, while her arms became both fluid and taut, moving front and back and around her head, weaving, undulating, at once supple and graceful, controlled and deliberate. The wave would start at her shoulder, then work its way down to her elbow while her upper arm lifted, finally reaching her wrist, which in turn gracefully rotated outward as if in supplication, before moving again in a different direction. At the same time, her upper body gently gyrated, connected to the snake-like movements of her arms and hands, complimenting her hips swaying in their own sphere, until her entire body slowly, nimbly, consciously rippled like a kite in the wind, with a poised yet seductive charm. It all looked like small, separate movements, requiring very little effort, when in reality it was an intricate, connected whole.
aaaaOf course, my rendition of this style of dancing was nowhere near the serene and delicate artistry so deftly exhibited by Yasimin. Rather, my version was more like shuffle, kick, scuff, flail. At one point, I managed to get the footwork down, thanks to several minutes of staring at Yasimin's feet and counting out the steps with my own clumsy feet alongside hers, but as soon as I tried to combine it with the rigid torso and flowing arm movements, I was back to scuffing and flailing. Finally, I gave up on the Yasimin-style footwork in favor of the ever-popular "little-step-in-place," practiced by uncoordinated teenagers and adults alike on dance floors all over the country. No one could really see my feet anyway, so I focused instead on being able to do the arm thing properly-again, harder than it looked. Nonetheless, after much careful observation and a bit more flailing, I finally achieved a passable likeness to the Persian dance, if only from the hips up.
aaaaNow I was a bona fide member of the Club: dancing, laughing, talking, taking my turn to dance solo in the middle of the circle and then moving to the side to make way for another, all the while not thinking about anything but the deliciously intoxicating feeling of freedom that comes from unfettered belonging. We were silly and giggling, making fun of ourselves, having fun, fully in the moment. The room was dim and the disco ball spinning above the dance floor cast colorful half-shadows along the floor and wall, across our twirling bodies. The theatre lights above the stage swung back and forth in their sockets, now flashing on the band, now lighting up our faces. We were indeed rock stars, the newest inductees to the Persian Club, with all the rights and privileges that membership affords.
aaaaLater that night, we were treated with the music of an apparent legend in the Iranian community, a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor and had apparently had as much plastic surgery as Michael Jackson. She wore a long white beaded gown, with long sleeves and a very modest neckline, and her fingers carried large rings. No one was quite sure how old she was, though everyone-that is, all those who'd heard of her-agreed she was at least in her 70s. She sang heavy, mournful songs, the words to which I mostly didn't understand, which had the audience swaying, almost hypnotized. We, the students, were made to understand that this was a very rare honor, to hear this woman sing, and that she was greatly revered within the Iranian community. One of our teachers was moved to tears by her singing.
aaaaIn the car on the way back to our hotel that night, we started singing English songs in Persian, creating quite a spectacle in trying to make the Farsi words, translated very literally from English, fit into the original tune. Now it was I who had tears in my eyes, from laughing so hard. This was actually one of our favorite pastimes, to put Farsi words to American songs. Anyone who speaks another language will appreciate the hilarity of such an exercise. Our favorite songs, both of which Jen had translated, were "Tomorrow" from the movie Annie, because it sounded so silly in Farsi, and Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean," which we didn't really know how to translate exactly, nor would all the Farsi words fit into the music, making it even funnier. It thus ended up being something like, "Billy Jean is not my friend, she's just a girl, blah, blah, blah, blah… and that boy is not mine." It had been a glorious, fun, and magical night.
aaaaOn our last afternoon in Tehrangles, we spent a few hours enjoying the sun and spectacle of Venice Beach, and there I learned, yet again, how tight the Persian Club is. As we were walking on the sand, I stepped in a patty of oil that stuck tenaciously to my foot and toes and refused to come off, no matter how much I rubbed and pulled and scraped my foot on the nearby grass. Finally we found a restaurant on the boardwalk where I could use the sink in the bathroom. I told everyone to go ahead, that I'd catch up. I must have been in there for at least 20 minutes, scrubbing my skin raw with paper towels and water in an attempt to get the oil off. When I came out, everyone else had moved on, except Joseph, who'd waited for me. Club members look out for each other.
   
aaaaThe next day we left Los Angeles, left the Persia we had come to feel a part of, and went back to our America. I knew, then, about the Persian Club, knew that I had been accepted as a member, simply because I spoke Persian, knew that I'd never felt such a part of another community, and knew as well that I would be hard-pressed to find such accepting friends and generous people again in my life. I wondered if they or others who learn English experience a similar feeling of belonging to an American Club, though my instinct told me no. Somehow I didn't think Americans, for all our rhetoric about freedom, tolerance, and democracy, would be as accepting of another simply because he or she spoke English.
aaaaNow I am back in my America, wondering how to sum up in a few words the experience of becoming part of another culture. I knew when I began studying Farsi that I would learn more than just a language. I knew that I would learn something of the history and culture of Iran, that I would likely walk away from my studies with a deeper appreciation for another group of people. I did not, however, expect to become one of them.
aaaaA true rock star never dies, but lives on through his music. Elvis, I am told, still earns a tidy $8 million a year, making him the highest paid dead person ever. Not bad. In the same way, though my study of Farsi has become irregular and my contact with Club members sparser than it once was, I know that my membership in the Persian Club endures, that regardless of time or geography, I will always be a rock star to them.