Why travel is the way to find your tribe
In 1988, a week spent meeting new people, bonding over Depeche Mode, dying her hair and kissing boys in Paris helped comedian Shaparak Khorsandi finally find confidence and learn to like herself
Iwas born in Iran and lived in Tehran for the first few years of my life, until my father – Iranian political satirist and poet Hadi Khorsandi – was offered the opportunity to work at the London office of the newspaper he wrote for. My mum was quite strict, but my dad wasn’t and understood that I needed time and freedom away from the family. So in 1988, when I was 15, he arranged for me to spend a week in Paris with a friend of his, who had a daughter my age.
Arnoush was cool: her short hair was shaved at the sides and she had a dyed blonde fringe. She had a lot of friends – including good-looking boys, which girls like me didn’t have – and they all studied drama and belonged to theatre companies.
I was having a tough time in my teens and went to a school in west London that made me deeply unhappy. I was shy, didn’t fit in and wasn’t doing well academically because I had undiagnosed ADHD, so I was underestimated. I wasn’t systematically bullied, but if you made eye contact with the other kids, they’d punch you in the face.
My school friends were friends by default – we were the geeks that hung around together for safety in numbers. I had made one friend outside of school when I was 13. She lived a few doors down from me, but then she fell out of her bedroom window and died, so I was still reeling from that.
It was the first time I’d been to Paris without my parents. Arnoush’s family lived in the suburbs in social housing where many refugees and immigrants live. There were big blocks of flats and I thought it was so fancy because the Parisian council estates had shops selling freshly baked baguettes and croissants first thing in the morning.
We had to get a metro to go into the city centre and even being allowed to get the train on my own was exciting, because my life at home was more sheltered. We went to the Champs-Élysées and the Eiffel Tower, but we didn’t have
They thought I was a cool girl from London... I felt appreciated and understood
any money so we didn’t go inside. We just had fun, riding on the metro, eating Nutella and walking around.
In this new place filled with new people, I had a proper teenage life for the first time. Here, no-one knew that the kids back home thought I was a dweeb. In Paris, they thought I was a cool girl from London dressed a bit like a goth. For the first time I felt appreciated and understood.
Two significant things happened while I was there. First, I discovered Depeche Mode and what it’s like to find a band that speaks to you in the way
Teenage dreams: j Cool kids: Shaparak explored Arnoush and the French capital Shaparak, flanked when she was 15 by friends, in 1988
that no-one else does. They are huge in France. Arnoush and her friends, who were really into them but didn’t speak English, thought I was a genius because I would translate the group’s lyrics into Farsi.
It was also during this trip that I had my first kiss. My new friends threw me a goodbye party, which I discovered had been orchestrated solely so that I could snog Parnham, an Iranian boy who lived in the same apartment block as Arnoush. The party was very French with lots of smoking and kissing. They all seemed so much more mature than the people I went to school with.
Parnham was loud, forward and a real joker, but most importantly he was 17 – two years older than me. Glenn Medeiros’s Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You was playing and as we slow-danced to it, his hand moved under my top and up my back. I was wearing a lame sky-blue jumper with three plastic bows at the front for buttons that my grandmother in Iran had knitted for me.
Someone recorded the party and I’ve still got this weird tape where I’m giggling with the boy I snogged. But it was not to be: Parnham said he wanted to show me something in his bedroom, where he opened his cupboard to reveal a huge collection of my father’s satirical essays. I was horrified and just wanted to get out of there – it was very strange having a fan of my dad with his hand up my top, simultaneously making me feel that he wished I was my father.
On my last day, Arnoush, who always wore make-up, gave me her eyeliner, mascara and frosted pink lipstick and dyed my fringe light brown. I could be myself with her and I confided in her that I wanted to become a comedian.
I returned from Paris with a little bit of my hair dyed and a lot more confidence. I loved the street hawkers in the Parisian subways, and I’d bought lots of little skulls on spaghetti leather straps, which I wore around my wrists and neck. When I went back to school, I was wearing Arnoush’s lipstick and some eyeliner and one of the popular girls came up to me and said, “I like your hair, it’s cool.” I had come back from
Paris a badass – and more importantly, one who liked herself. Arnoush and her friends were the first people that I felt accepted me for who I was and taught me to do the same.
As told to Shelley Rubenstein
Shaparak Khorsandi is a comedian and writer. She is currently touring her show It was the 90s!
For further information and tour dates, visit shappi.co.uk