‘Iran was our Hogwarts’
September 23, 2021 5:56 AM Subscribe
my childhood between Tehran and Essex SLTheGuardian
Even though I am a portly, red-faced person with beady, pale eyes, I recognize everything about this long read, and I suspect many MeFites whose parents were immigrants will too.
Oh gosh - thank you for linking this, mumimor.
posted by brainwane at 6:48 AM on September 23, 2021 [7 favorites]
Fascinating how much freer she felt under the formally enforced gender rules of Iran than she did under the informally enforced "gender and respectability norms of life in the UK". Perhaps things would've been different if she had gone to school in Iran rather than just vacationing, or if she had been Persian rather than Kurdish, but it's still a jarring reflection on English (and Anglosphere in general) pride in having more gender equality than all those colonial places out there whose customs and laws need reform.
posted by clawsoon at 7:14 AM on September 23, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 7:14 AM on September 23, 2021 [3 favorites]
Enjoyed this a lot; thank you for linking it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:29 AM on September 23, 2021
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:29 AM on September 23, 2021
It’s a startling idea that the UK is a country where ‘everything works so well’ - an assertion surely only made as a launchpad for the accusation of grumpiness (surely not actually all that inexplicable or groundless).
posted by Phanx at 7:40 AM on September 23, 2021
posted by Phanx at 7:40 AM on September 23, 2021
This is such a lovely unfolding of personal experience and relations into broadly relatable terms. I see she's going to be releasing a book, and I expect I'll enjoy that as well. Thank you for posting.
posted by Jack Karaoke at 8:08 AM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Jack Karaoke at 8:08 AM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: portly, red-faced people with beady, pale eyes who corrected your behaviour in icy, clipped tones
posted by mecran01 at 8:23 AM on September 23, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by mecran01 at 8:23 AM on September 23, 2021 [9 favorites]
Phanx, what countries have you lived or spent significant time in? And in particular, did you spend time in any countries 15-20 years ago with significantly different social or logistical infrastructure compared to where you live most of the time?
I have spent some time in the US and the UK, and I have spent some time in other countries. I have not spent time in Iran, but I have spent time in India, including visits over the past few decades, and I think my experience may translate. People with experience of Iran in particular, please refute me where I'm wrong.
Visitors from Western countries need to remember not to drink the tap water in India -- only water that has been boiled/filtered ahead of time -- for safety reasons. People in India get used to frequent power outages, even in luxury apartments in big cities. Road safety (e.g., lines painted on the roads which drivers actually use as guides), reliably getting a bank account or admission to university or a hospital without having to "know somebody" -- there's a lot of day-to-day reliability stuff that genuinely did work better in the US/UK than in India, and/or still does. And when you're a kid, some of this looms larger because it has to do with certainty and worry and what you can and can't do -- having to ask someone for boiled water instead of being able to pour yourself a glass of tap water, for instance, or missing a family favorite TV show because of a power outage. And the comfort and certainty of not having to worry about that when you come home can be a big relief.
(This is a bit of a simplification but I hope the point comes across.)
posted by brainwane at 8:38 AM on September 23, 2021 [17 favorites]
I have spent some time in the US and the UK, and I have spent some time in other countries. I have not spent time in Iran, but I have spent time in India, including visits over the past few decades, and I think my experience may translate. People with experience of Iran in particular, please refute me where I'm wrong.
Visitors from Western countries need to remember not to drink the tap water in India -- only water that has been boiled/filtered ahead of time -- for safety reasons. People in India get used to frequent power outages, even in luxury apartments in big cities. Road safety (e.g., lines painted on the roads which drivers actually use as guides), reliably getting a bank account or admission to university or a hospital without having to "know somebody" -- there's a lot of day-to-day reliability stuff that genuinely did work better in the US/UK than in India, and/or still does. And when you're a kid, some of this looms larger because it has to do with certainty and worry and what you can and can't do -- having to ask someone for boiled water instead of being able to pour yourself a glass of tap water, for instance, or missing a family favorite TV show because of a power outage. And the comfort and certainty of not having to worry about that when you come home can be a big relief.
(This is a bit of a simplification but I hope the point comes across.)
posted by brainwane at 8:38 AM on September 23, 2021 [17 favorites]
Mod note: One comment deleted. Phanx, this article is really not about your complaints about whether things work well in the UK; it's about the specific experiences of this author moving between cultures/countries. Take a day off, read our Community Guidelines about being aware of context, and explanation of microaggressions and why dominant-group members must take extra care when participating in a thread about a marginalized group's experiences, and seriously reconsider the way you're participating here.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:51 AM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:51 AM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
The thud when the plane hit the rain-speckled asphalt at Heathrow jarred us back into the glumness of life in Britain. The airport staff seemed to us like caricatures of Britishness: portly, red-faced people with beady, pale eyes who corrected your behaviour in icy, clipped tones.
It's funny, in some ways my upbringing is so very different from hers but a lot of this still rhymes for me and this gave me a howl of recognition of flying into England in early January after a winter break spent with my family in the Middle East. Of course it's different, I'm Dutch and so I was flying from a place where I was a long-term guest but always very obviously foreign *to* somewhere only a few hundred miles from where I was born. But that sense you get when you first see the airport staff on a rainy day...
My expat upbringing meant that wherever I was, I always had a mental Hogwarts somewhere else. When back in our "home" country, there was the sense that these people, our well travelled and educated families not excluded, were in some sense rustic hayseeds. That people who lived in the inner ring of Amsterdam reviewing poetry had nonetheless put away their denim overalls and banjos just before we came. Can you believe they were genuinely impressed by my ability to speak halting Arabic? But then, back in our temporary home, we would similarly feel when something went wrong that it didn't really matter, we weren't of this place either, really.
Knowing that you have other places, other homes, means that anything outside the family unit which moves between them is never *that* serious, it's only the muggles after all and the poor dears can hardly help themselves.
posted by atrazine at 10:07 AM on September 23, 2021 [7 favorites]
It's funny, in some ways my upbringing is so very different from hers but a lot of this still rhymes for me and this gave me a howl of recognition of flying into England in early January after a winter break spent with my family in the Middle East. Of course it's different, I'm Dutch and so I was flying from a place where I was a long-term guest but always very obviously foreign *to* somewhere only a few hundred miles from where I was born. But that sense you get when you first see the airport staff on a rainy day...
My expat upbringing meant that wherever I was, I always had a mental Hogwarts somewhere else. When back in our "home" country, there was the sense that these people, our well travelled and educated families not excluded, were in some sense rustic hayseeds. That people who lived in the inner ring of Amsterdam reviewing poetry had nonetheless put away their denim overalls and banjos just before we came. Can you believe they were genuinely impressed by my ability to speak halting Arabic? But then, back in our temporary home, we would similarly feel when something went wrong that it didn't really matter, we weren't of this place either, really.
Knowing that you have other places, other homes, means that anything outside the family unit which moves between them is never *that* serious, it's only the muggles after all and the poor dears can hardly help themselves.
posted by atrazine at 10:07 AM on September 23, 2021 [7 favorites]
I am perilously close to crying because I've read this article and am now thinking about the fact I will likely never see my grandad again. Never mind, I am crying. And certainly some of these tears are about the fact that I love my grandad, but I'd be lying if it's not also about his death meaning I'll never return to his house and the loss of that magical other place that the article talks about. I cried so hard the last time we left because I knew there was a good chance I'd not see him again and my mom's right, why would we even go to Britain, once he's dead? But he kept plugging along and we'd bought tickets for May of 2020 and, of course, that trip has been lost to the pandemic with no prospect for rescheduling. I don't even know where I'm going with this, but I should go back to work and now there is snot dripping out of my nose.
posted by hoyland at 10:12 AM on September 23, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by hoyland at 10:12 AM on September 23, 2021 [8 favorites]
That article made me homesick.
posted by dhruva at 11:46 AM on September 23, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by dhruva at 11:46 AM on September 23, 2021 [4 favorites]
This was lovely, and it made me want to read more Arianne Shahvisi. She contributes to the London Review of Books's blog, so I'm going to read her posts there.
posted by Scarf Joint at 4:52 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Scarf Joint at 4:52 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
Very nice, love the title. Reminds of a beautiful friend who used to speak casual Farsi to my dog. She had been born in Tehran and honestly only ever spoke about it charmingly. She herself had certainly been the same, it was easy to believe her.
It makes it truly feel like Hogwarts.
posted by firstdaffodils at 10:27 PM on September 23, 2021
It makes it truly feel like Hogwarts.
posted by firstdaffodils at 10:27 PM on September 23, 2021
I've been thinking about similar things lately. I grew up in a town on the outer ring of Atlanta suburbs. And despite living there for the first 18 years of my life, I never quite felt comfortable and never felt like I belonged. Whether it was my mom getting disapproving looks for letting me walk around the mall on my own, or the fact that many of my classmates didn't think that Catholics counted as Christians, or feeling trapped in miles of suburbia with no easy way to meet up with friends without a car, I was ready to leave forever when I graduated high school. I haven't been back to my home town for years and it feels less sad than it should.
But two weeks ago I impulse bought plane tickets to Miami and talked my husband into taking a 36-hour trip, and when we landed I was overwhelmed with feelings of home. My dad was born in Cuba, but spend most of his childhood in a squat house in Little Havana with a sapodilla tree in the backyard. I spent a few weeks there every summer with my Abuela, buying breakfast from the bakery on the corner, chasing lizards, eating cuban sandwiches at the beach, and watching endless Univision while waiting for Walter Mercado predict our horoscopes. My brother and I were the only ones in our generation for a long time, so we were always greeted with kisses from relatives and given gifts of money.
I remember strangers commenting that I looked "educated", but I was just a kid who read a lot. I was always called "linda", even when I didn't feel beautiful at all. I think I might have survived on the good vibes from family in Miami to get to the other side of puberty.
This is just to say that the essay crystalized some personal stuff and was much appreciated.
posted by Alison at 7:57 AM on September 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
But two weeks ago I impulse bought plane tickets to Miami and talked my husband into taking a 36-hour trip, and when we landed I was overwhelmed with feelings of home. My dad was born in Cuba, but spend most of his childhood in a squat house in Little Havana with a sapodilla tree in the backyard. I spent a few weeks there every summer with my Abuela, buying breakfast from the bakery on the corner, chasing lizards, eating cuban sandwiches at the beach, and watching endless Univision while waiting for Walter Mercado predict our horoscopes. My brother and I were the only ones in our generation for a long time, so we were always greeted with kisses from relatives and given gifts of money.
I remember strangers commenting that I looked "educated", but I was just a kid who read a lot. I was always called "linda", even when I didn't feel beautiful at all. I think I might have survived on the good vibes from family in Miami to get to the other side of puberty.
This is just to say that the essay crystalized some personal stuff and was much appreciated.
posted by Alison at 7:57 AM on September 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
Fascinating how much freer she felt under the formally enforced gender rules of Iran than she did under the informally enforced "gender and respectability norms of life in the UK". Perhaps things would've been different if she had gone to school in Iran rather than just vacationing
Thing is, she was always a guest in Iran and always a child of priviledge. Very nice article, and to me also interesting in the ways my experience diverges from hers - almost vice versa, to be honest. Plurality, fascinating and complicated. Thanks for posting, mumimor.
posted by glasseyes at 12:24 PM on September 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Thing is, she was always a guest in Iran and always a child of priviledge. Very nice article, and to me also interesting in the ways my experience diverges from hers - almost vice versa, to be honest. Plurality, fascinating and complicated. Thanks for posting, mumimor.
posted by glasseyes at 12:24 PM on September 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
glasseyes: almost vice versa, to be honest.
I'd love to hear more about your experience, if you're willing/able to share it.
posted by clawsoon at 6:54 PM on September 26, 2021
I'd love to hear more about your experience, if you're willing/able to share it.
posted by clawsoon at 6:54 PM on September 26, 2021
What a read -- "getting cleverer and cleverer because there was nothing else to do, buoyed up by the knowledge that special relativity takes metaphorical forms, too. Iran gave us the comfort that being special is relative, and we grew eagerly towards the light of other worlds."
posted by of strange foe at 6:02 PM on September 29, 2021
posted by of strange foe at 6:02 PM on September 29, 2021
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