Literary Essay

Funny in Farsi

In the book Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas tells an anecdote about when she found it necessary to change her name when living in America. In Persian her name Firoozeh means “Turquoise”, in America it just means “Unpronounceable”, or “I’m Not Going to Talk to You”. Therefore, as a teenager, she was so tired of her name getting in the way of social interaction that she went to the last resort of changing her name to “Julie”. This might seem as an extreme measure, but could such endeavors sometimes be necessary to make living in a foreign country easier, or even bearable?

We live in an increasingly multicultural and globalized world and we are faced with a lot of challenges that are far greater than unpronounceable names. People who live closely together come not only from different social status and family backgrounds, they come from different cultures. An exiting and diverse environment is the possibility, as well is a world of misunderstandings and frustration.  In this essay I will discuss two of the intercultural issues that arises when people move across continents, face-saving and collectivism. First I will define these terms, and then I will try to shed a light on them, using some examples from the book Funny in Farsi.

To begin with, I have to define culture. When I use this word in this text, I use it as it is defined in the Oxford dictionary; “the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group”. In this text the countries (and groups) in question are mainly Iran and The United States of America.

Globalization is happening on a grand scale, and it is happening faster and faster every year. Said in a simple way, the world is getting smaller. Samovar, Porter and McDaniel sees globalization as “the increasing interdependence among national governments, business firms, nonprofit organizations and individual citizens” (p. 2). In Dumas’ book it is the international business that is the basis for the family’s move from Iran to America, but the focus in the novel lays mostly on the personal experiences between individual citizens of different cultures.

According to the Oxford Diary face-saving is “the intention to protect the subject’s reputation and to avoid embarrassment”. In some cultures this is extremely important, in others not.

Collectivism is a philosophical and political principle, most often referred to when talking about a system with centralized social and economical control. In addition, I would say it is the interdependence of every individual in a group where the group goals are more important than the individual goals. The group that is in question in this essay is the family.

Family is an important thing in many people’s lives, but in Iranians lives it is absolutely essential. In many ways I feel after reading this book that for Iranians it is the family that defines the individual, and not the other way around. Mrs. Dumas’ book emphasizes family a lot, and in the chapter “It’s All Relatives” she says that while the Inuits have more than twenty words for snow and Californians have an endless amount of nuances regarding the word “tan”, the Persian language is overflowing with different definitions of family ties. She explains that in the English language, an uncle is an uncle, but in Persian there are a lot of precise word describing an uncle, everything from which side of the family he is on, to where he is in the family hierarchy. Furthermore, Mrs. Dumas writes: Without my relatives, I am but a thread; together, we form a colorful an elaborate Persian carpet (p. 103). 

Living in America, where the ideal, the American Dream, is the success of the individual, this could have been a problem. In spite of this, I don’t see this issue to pose as a problem for Firoozeh Dumas and her family. On the contrary, the family, or the collective, function more as a security. The Iranian relatives of the girl that felt she had to change her name to fit in are the ones that cheer her on no matter what, that makes the food she loves and which defines her as a human being. I feel that this is one of the main themes in the book, and I think that the author realized this after reaching adulthood, maybe even while writing this novel. With such a loving collective behind her everything is possible, no matter where in the world she lives.

I have already stated that face-saving is “the intention to protect the subject’s reputation and to avoid embarrassment”. I have also described one of the most apparent examples of this from Funny in Farsi, the author’s name changing. To protect her reputation and to avoid embarrassment, Firoozeh actually changes her name to a more American sounding name. One of the most personal things we have, the first thing we learn to use as a symbol of our self, is our given name. So to change it is a big step! And she is not alone, many of Mrs. Dumas close and extended family experience problems in America with their names. The names are mispronounced, misspelled, misunderstood and sometimes even mocked. I don’t think this is a problem that is exclusive to Iranian immigrants in America, I have often read about immigrants in Norway that have problems such as getting a call back from a job application, and in frustration have “Norwegianized” their names.

However, this might be an issue of the past. Since we are living in a world where people travels and moves more than ever, and where borders are getting more and more an invention of old, the I’m Not Going to Talk to You Because I Can’t Pronounce Your Name might go away. People certainly are more used to different sounding names anyway, and hopefully we are more open to people from other countries. Mrs. Dumas is not entirely sure about this, at least not when regarding Iranians in America. When she and her family first moved to America some 30 years age, they were an oddity, a rare thing that the Americans didn’t know anything about. People were curious and attentive and always kind. Nowadays, as she says, “the Americans felt that they knew all about Iran and its people, and they had no questions, just opinions” (p. 36).

A lot of the novel Funny in Farsi evolves around face-saving. There is not a single chapter without Firoozeh Dumas being embarrassed in one way or another and this embarrassment more often than not, involves her father (and mother). In many ways I think this book could be about any teenager in the world, being shy and embarrassed about your parents is one of the main past time activities when you are growing up. Off course, many of the incidents in the book happens because the Family comes from another culture and have some really different values and views on life, but a lot of the embarrassment and subsequent face-saving could have happened to anyone growing up.

The mother and father in question seem to be masters of face-saving. They go about their, sometimes peculiar, business with impressive gusto and enthusiasm. At least, this is what they express to their children. In reality I think that the parents in this story often grinded their teeth in embarrassment and humiliation but pretended otherwise to save face, both towards their children, but also for their children. They took one for the team, to strengthen the collective.

You have to adapt when you move to another country and another culture, and this novel has shown us some ways of doing it, and some ways not to. Off course, the author ends up changing her name back to her given first name. It contains her identity, and is a symbol of her family and heritage, thus far more important than losing face over some mispronunciation.

Sources:

Dumas, Firoozeh. Funny in Farsi (2004). Random House Trade

Samovar, Larry A. Porter, Richard E. and McDaniel, Edwin. Communication Between Cultures 7^th Edition (2010). Wadsworth Cengage Learning

(but takes her husband’s French surname).