Funny in Farsi: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

The Persian language has far more complex vocabulary for describing relatives than the English language does. For example, there are eight different Persian words describing various kinds of cousins—whereas in English, there’s just one word, “cousin.”

One day, while Firoozeh is strolling through Berkeley, she smells a flower and experiences a vivid flashback to playing in her aunt’s garden as a child. At the age of six, Firoozeh loved to spend time with her Uncle Abdullah. Abdullah was an educated man, and Firoozeh admired his passion for language. Abdullah now lives in California with his wife, Firoozeh’s Aunt Sedigeh. He works as a translator, and has four children. Kazem is very close with Abdullah’s children, and after the Iranian Revolution, when he couldn’t find a job, he stayed with Mehdi, one of his (Kazem’s) nephews. More recently, one of Mehdi’s own children stayed with Kazem.

Aunt Sedigeh, Kazem’s sister, was a bright child, but because of the norms of Iranian society at the time, she didn’t continue her education after the sixth grade, and married when she was a young teenager. Her brothers became engineers and doctors. Kazem found this outrageous, and often tells Firoozeh that, had Sedigeh been allowed to study, she would have become the best doctor of anyone in the family.

Firoozeh’s paternal uncle, Muhammad, became a successful doctor in Ahwaz. However, following the Iranian Revolution, he fled to America. Muhammad then had to get a new medical degree, and by the time he started interning at the hospital he was almost sixty. For Firoozeh, Muhammad is a symbol of the family’s perseverance. To this day, Firoozeh is very close with her cousins, uncles, and nephews. She goes to everyone’s graduation, and celebrates her family’s achievements as joyfully as if they’re her own. Kazem and his siblings have bought burial plots in the same cemetery, since they want to be together even after they die. “Without my relatives,” Firoozeh concludes, “I am but a thread; together, we form a colorful and elaborate Persian carpet.”