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With a Little Help from My Friends (from Funny in Farsi)
- University of Arkansas Press
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With a Little Help from My Friends (from Funny in Farsi) H FIROOZEH DUMAS I was lucky to have come to America years before the upheaval in Iran. The Americans we encountered were kind and curious, unafraid to ask questions and willing to listen. As soon as I spoke enough English to communicate, I found myself being interviewed nonstop by children and adults alike. My life became one longrunning Oprah show, minus the free luxury accommodations in Chicago, and Oprah. On the topic of Iran,American minds were tabulae rasae.Judging from the questions asked,it was clear that most Americans in had never heard of Iran.We did our best to educate.“You know Asia?Well, you go south at the Soviet Union and there we are.”Or we’d try to be more bucolic, mentioning being south of the beautiful Caspian Sea, “where the famous caviar comes from.” Most people in Whittier did not know about the famous caviar and once we explained what it was, they’d scrunch up their faces.“Fish eggs?” they would say.“Gross.”We tried mentioning our proximity to Afghanistan or Iraq, but it was no use. Having exhausted our geographical clues, we would say,“You’ve heard of India, Japan, or China? We’re on the same continent.” We had always known that ours is a small country and that America is very big. But even as a seven-year-old, I was surprised that so many Americans had never noticed us on the map. Perhaps it’s like driving aYugo and realizing that the eighteen-wheeler can’t see you. In Iran,geography is a requirement in every grade.Since the government issues textbooks, every student studies the same material in the same grade. In first-grade geography, I had to learn the shape of Iran and the location of its capital, Tehran. I had to memorize that we shared borders with Turkey,Afghanistan,Pakistan,Iraq,and the USSR. I also knew that I lived on the continent of Asia. None of the kids in Whittier, a city an hour outside of Los Angeles,ever asked me about geography.They wanted to know about 56 FIROOZEH DUMAS more important things, such as camels. How many did we have back home? What did we feed them? Was it a bumpy ride? I always disappointed them by admitting that I had never seen a camel in my entire life. And as far as a ride goes, our Chevrolet was rather smooth. They reacted as if I had told them that there really was a person in the Mickey Mouse costume. We were also asked about electricity, tents, and the Sahara. Once again, we disappointed, admitting that we had electricity, that we did not own a tent, and that the Sahara was on another continent. Intent to remedy the image of our homeland as backward, my father took it upon himself to enlighten Americans whenever possible. Any unsuspecting American who asked my father a question received,as a bonus, a lecture on the successful history of the petroleum industry in Iran. As my father droned on,I watched the faces of these kind Americans, who were undoubtedly making mental notes never to talk to a foreigner again. My family and I wondered why Americans had such a mistaken image of Iran.We were offered a clue one day by a neighbor,who told us that he knew about Iran because he had seen Lawrence of Arabia. Whoever Lawrence was,we had never heard of him,we said.My father then explained that Iranians are an Indo-European people; we are not Arabs.We do, however, have things in common with Saudi Arabia, he continued:“Islam and petroleum.”“Now, I won’t bore you with religion ,” he said,“but let me tell you about the petroleum industry.” H Another neighbor, a kindly old lady who taught me how to take care of indoor plants, asked whether we had many cats back home. My father,with his uncanny ability to forge friendships,said,“We don’t keep pets in our homes. They are dirty.”“But your cats are so beautiful!” our neighbor said.We had no idea what she was talking about. Seeing our puzzled expressions, she showed us a picture of a beautiful long-haired cat.“It’s a Persian cat,” she said. That was news to us; the only cats we had ever seen back home were the mangy strays that ate scraps behind...