Whether I am abroad or in Japan,
there is a question that always comes up when I meet someone new.
“Where are you mixed from?”
I would answer without much thought, “I’m half Iranian.”
It is a clear fact, and Persian blood certainly runs through half of my body.
Still, every time I said it, something small felt off deep in my throat, even though it was true.
I was not lying. But something caught inside my chest.
That other place that is supposed to shape who I am.
What could I actually say about the country called Iran?
Was it about good food? or scattered memories of relatives?
To be honest, everything was vague.
Fragments of news, a dangerous place, a distant country.
All I had were rough images shaped by someone else.
I knew almost nothing about the place that makes up half of me.
When I realized that, I felt shallow, like I had no roots anywhere.
After that, I began to face it little by little.
Since last year, I started reading books and following local news,
and more than anything, talking with my father about Iran.
The beautiful scenes that remain in my father’s memories, and the harsh reality Iran faces today.
We talked as if trying to bridge the endless distance between them with words.
The more I learned, the more Iran showed a face completely different from what I had seen on screens.
Its history is deep beyond measure and still connected to the present.
Above all, people are surprisingly close.
They are kind, they laugh often, they talk openly.
Even with strangers, there is a warmth that feels like sharing a family table.
Behind the image of a “dangerous country,”
there were people living calm and dignified everyday lives.
At the same time, even now, there are events in Iranian streets that seem to wear down the soul.
There are people who keep standing, risking their lives, so they do not lose their freedom.
They may never return home after leaving today.
Even so, they choose to raise their fists.
Imagining the weight of that resolve tightened my chest again and again.
I want to support what is happening with all my heart,
yet I also feel myself holding back at the same time.
I want to support it.
But I feel a slight unease about affirming everything without question.
When I see the current unity among the people, it sometimes overlaps with the sense of excitement before the revolution that overthrew the king.
Back then too, people believed that this would finally bring change.
But when we look back with time, whether that choice was truly right still has no single answer.
If economic sanctions were lifted, something would probably change. Still, I cannot help but doubt whether that change would truly reach the lives of ordinary people.
On the vast chessboard of politics, Iran often looks like a piece moved by someone else’s convenience.
Even cries for freedom can feel like tools for distant political interests, and I find myself unable to nod along easily.
From a peaceful place, I cannot irresponsibly shout “fight for freedom.”
The reality there is too complex, raw, and painful
to be settled with simple ideals.
Still, the reason I am drawn to Iran is not to send a political message.
It is quieter, and more personal.
I want to feel the half that flows inside me
not as words or knowledge, but as warmth.
I want to understand it through my heartbeat, not my head.
Beyond arguments about sanctions or the justice of protests,
I want to touch the raw everyday life that lies beneath those layers.
That is why I am planning to head toward Iran this year.
I was originally planning to travel in January.
But I heard from my Iranian aunt who lives in Canada.
She said she would return to Iran in April and suggested we meet there.
Around the spring equinox in Japan, Iran celebrates Nowruz, the Persian New Year marking renewal and beginnings.
I decided to align with that moment and agreed.
If I had already been in Iran a few days earlier,
I cannot imagine how I would have faced the current situation.
So for now, I chose not to rush and to focus on preparing.
I do not expect this to be an easy journey. I do not even know if I will be able to enter safely.
The door may close along the way and things are far more likely not to go as planned.
Even so, I did not want to leave that country only in my imagination.
Visiting family is one reason I tell myself.
But above all, I want to pull Iran closer, not as distant news but as part of the continuation of my own life.
Not through a smartphone screen and not only through traces of my father’s memories.
I want to breathe the air of today’s Iran, feel its ground and look up at the sky from the same level as those who live there.
I want to feel their anger, their sorrow,
and the beauty that lies beneath, at my own distance.
Honestly, I do not know if I will be able to go.
If luck turns against me, I may have to turn back at the airport lobby.
Still, I began preparing because someday, in some other city, when I am asked about my roots, I feel I will be able to answer with a different expression.
“Iran.”
I want to offer that word without hesitation.
This text is not a conclusion either. It is an unfinished record from the middle of a process of learning.
Still, by beginning to think about Iran, I can no longer return to who I was when I knew nothing.
And for now, that feels like enough.