Learn Persian with Chaiian conversation, Raising Nimrunis, a conversation with Mazjabrani.

Hello and welcome to Raising Nimjis, our podcast series about raising half Iranian children.

Today's interview is with Mazdrabrani, a renowned Iranian-American comedian.

Although his comedy is about a range of topics, Persian issues do come up often, as does raising kids.

So when we recorded this interview, Maz happened to be on a comedy tour for Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the show on MPR.

And it just happened that he was performing a live show in Austin, Texas, two days after we recorded our interview. And so he graciously gifted me with tickets to his show, and I really had not laughed that hard in a long, long time.

So thank you, Maas, for that wonderful gift that happened to actually be on my birthday, too.

And thank you for this interview, which will now all take a listen to

together. Mazrabrani, thank you so much for talking with us today. Thank you for having me.

It's very exciting to talk to you. I've been a big fan for years and years. To get started,

if you could just tell us about your background, where were you born? Sure. I was born in Iran,

and I left Iran at the age of 6,

late 1978, right around the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. And we moved to Northern

California, Marin County. And I grew up there from the age of 6 and then moved down to

Los Angeles after college. And I've been here the past, I guess, 27 years

about. Okay. So then you started off speaking Persian. Yeah, it's funny you're asking because I just

had this conversation with my daughter, who's nine now. And she was asking about it, and I was saying that she said,

why didn't you speak?

You should have taught me Persian when I was younger.

Now, I grew up in a family where, so I learned Persian in Iran.

And then when I was, I guess in whatever it would be nursery or kindergarten or

whatever it was, I went to an international school. So I was learning English half the day. Actually,

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