Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation

If you've been anywhere near Instagram in the last couple years, you will have come across Payam (also known as Peter) Banifaz's amazing videos depicting growing up in an Iranian American household with a very Iranian father. The father familiar is extremely relatable to a lot of us who grew up i...

Melody Moezzi is most recently author of the book The Rumi Prescription, in which she talks about how the poetry of Rumi became a lifeline for her, helping her to gain wisdom and insight in the face of a creative and spiritual roadblock with the help of her father, a lifelong fan of Rumi’s poetry...

Melody Moezzi is most recently author of the book The Rumi Prescription, in which she talks about how the poetry of Rumi became a lifeline for her, helping her to gain wisdom and insight in the face of a creative and spiritual roadblock with the help of her father, a lifelong fan of Rumi’s poetry. We covered so much in our Growing Up Irooni interview, from the controversy of Coleman Barks and why Melody is actually a big fan of his work, to learning Persian poetry in its original language, to becoming an artist in a culture that isn’t always the most hospitable to being an artist as a profession, to discussing mental health in a culture that isn’t always the most hospital to talking about mental health, and so much more. 

Links:

• The Rumi Prescription book at Book Shop
• Melody Moezzi Instagram
• Melody Moezzi Twitter

(Originally published May 12th 2020) In this Raising Neem-Roonis edition of Chai and Conversation, we talk to author, commentator, producer, professor, and many other hat-wearer Iranian-American Reza Aslan about passing on the Persian culture and language to the next generation. Reza has four neem-Roonis of his own, and talks about the challenges of teaching them the Persian language, but also why it is absolutely imperative to do so.

(Originally published May 12th 2020) In this Raising Neem-Roonis edition of Chai and Conversation, we talk to author, commentator, producer, professor, and many other hat-wearer Iranian-American Reza Aslan about passing on the Persian culture and language to the next generation. Reza has four nee...

In this Growing Up Irooni we talk to Omid Roustaei, better known as the Caspian Chef. In this conversation, we discuss the process of coming to the United States on his own and figuring out his own path for assimilating into American culture as a means of survival. Omid has has a very rich and varied path, first studying biotech engineering, and then becoming a personal chef and yoga teacher, to pursuing a career in psychotherapy, to returning to cooking and his Iranian roots only in the past few years.This was one of the most fascinating conversations I've had- and we really go into some territory that I think will resonate with so many of us- life is certainly not linear, and we can see that in Omid's story. We talk about career and pursuing your dreams- he first went down the ‘traditional Iranian path' of becoming a biotech engineer and worked in that field for a while, before pivoting to the perhaps more American notion of pursuing his passion- cooking and psychotherapy. We also talked about the process of assimilation as a coping mechanism- what it means to arrive in a country and need to fit in. And finally, what led Omid back to the path of rediscovering his Iranian roots- from cooking Persian food, to becoming reacquainted with the Persian language, and to ultimately seek out and become part of the Iranian diaspora community again.I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!

Related links:

• The Caspian Chef blog
• Ghormeh Sabzi blog post
• The Caspian Chef instagram page
• My Persian Corner instagram page
• English with Bardia instagram page
• Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali

In this Growing Up Irooni we talk to Omid Roustaei, better known as the Caspian Chef. In this conversation, we discuss the process of coming to the United States on his own and figuring out his own path for assimilating into American culture as a means of survival. Omid has has a very rich and va...

In this final part of the discussion of Bani Adam by Saadi, we go over the last two lines of the poem, and review the entire poem in its entirety as well. 

In this final part of the discussion of Bani Adam by Saadi, we go over the last two lines of the poem, and review the entire poem in its entirety as well. 

In this lesson, we'll go over the first part of the poem bani ādam and learn the individual words and phrases of this section of the poem.