March 19, 2018
• So I Married an Iranian
Please enjoy our video about how we celebrate nowruz in the Shams/Gannon family. Scroll below to read other tips and more information about this most important Persian holiday!
March 13, 2018
Are you ready to jump over some fire tonight?
March 05, 2018
As those of you who have been with us for a while may have noticed, we have a brand new website! We have been working quietly behind the scenes on this for over two years now, so you can imagine how excited we are to finally reveal all that work to you. And the response has been overwhelmingly positive! Thank you for all your kind notes and words of encouragement- please keep them coming!
September 07, 2017
(coauthored by Mahshad Vakili Hall)
July 14, 2017
A continuation of our tābestoon word of the day series. This week, we learn a few more words associated with the season. Any we're missing and you're dying to know? Leave us a comment below!
July 07, 2017
Another tābestoon week, another set of words! This week, we got a little help with our words from musician Fared Shafinury. In addition to being an incredible Iranian-American musician, he also wrote and performed our theme music!
June 30, 2017
This week, as the weather is heating up, we are continuing to learn words about tābestoon.
June 23, 2017
Welcome to our new Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation tābestoon (summer) Word of the Day series! In this series of short videos, we're going to learn one vocabulary day each day of the week in the summer. On Fridays, we'll provide a summary of the words we've learned in a video and here on the website blog. Please leave any words you'd like to learn in the comments- here at Chai and Conversation, we LOVE summer, and are excited to share these words with you!
January 18, 2017
As you know, for the Chai and Conversation podcast, we generally publish Persian lessons, but this time we have a very special treat- a special interview Fared Shafinury, an extraordinary Iranian-American musician. If you’ve been listening to Chai and Conversation, you’ll be very familiar with Fared’s music- he composed our theme music which you hear at the beginning and end of each episode. In addition, I’m very lucky to be able to call Fared a friend- we both attended the University of Texas together here in Austin and have kept in touch throughout the years. He’s become a very well known and successful musician, with several years of composing and performing under his belt.
April 28, 2016
A few months ago, I was visiting my dear cousins in Toronto, Canada, and we were talking about the many positive traits of the city (they call it Tehran-to due to the enormous Iranian population there by the way). The conversation eventually turned to me, however, and one cousin asked ‘So… do you actually like Texas?” Now, everyone knows that Texans have a inflated egos when it comes to where they live, and most people who don't live in Texas are baffled by this. But, live in Texas for a while (I’ve been here since moving from Tehran when I was 4), and you’re completely swept away by this pride. There’s a saying here ‘I wasn’t born in Texas, but got here as fast as I could’- and this exactly describes me.
