23 responses so far ↓

• 1 Shayan // Aug 3, 2007 at 2:23 pm

  OMG, I love Ladan. She is so cute!! I wish I could buy her Ice cream everyday lol. She definitely need her own little segment.

  Mel Talk was good as always. Counting the days until next Mel talk, word has it it will be hosted nude. Because that’s not the type of show it is guys. Melissa joon, ve lave u.

• 2 pouyan // Aug 3, 2007 at 4:10 pm

  instead of bebin tv this website should be called Mel TV love your show keep up the great work

• 3 Mehrdad // Aug 4, 2007 at 10:50 am

  Nice job! I love bebin.tv and Mel Talk. The only thing that bothers me is that why no one in bebin.tv speaks like human? Either speak in Persian or in English. You are not the only immigrants in the west. There are many Germans, Spanish, Mexicans … living in the U.S. Have you ever seen a German-American who mixes German and English? Come on guys! See how many people are multi-lingual in the west. Many of my classmates can speak French, Italian, Spanish, English and German at an acceptable level. That’s a shame you can not speak even two languages.

• 4 CINEMA.NEGAR.NETWORK // Aug 4, 2007 at 2:08 pm

  wow bebin.tv is really different!
  keep on going.

• 5 Mike K // Aug 4, 2007 at 3:26 pm

  Hi Mehrdad, (ABOVE)
  I’m glad you enjoy our programming, the feedback is much appreciated…. As far as the language content of our programs…. I assume there are many people out there that would agree with you….with respect to either speaking fully in English or Persian (or Farsi, what have you)….
  As you can see our staff comes from a variety of backgrounds… many of the bebin crew speak multiple languages fluently…. including german, swedish, english, and farsi….

  Nevertheless… I think we have purposefully chosen not to speak only in one language… or you might refer to it as non-”human”, however bebin wants to reach out to those that are human, those that speak all or some languages exclusively fluently….and to those that are Non-”Human”, those who are fluent in their host countries but not necessarily in their mother language….

  so as such…bebin.tv has decided that it feels most at home with the non-”human” culture of fingelishi (Farsi-English) or for those in Europe or Oversees (Fingerman, Finswedish, or what have you…. Obviously all these terms are made up)

  I hope you keep watching….and I also hope that someone as talented as you can also learn a new language…the non-human kind…

• 6 Mehrdad // Aug 5, 2007 at 11:06 am

  Thanks Mike K. for your comment.

  1. It seems that I did not use an appropriate wording in my former comment. By “human”, I simply meant “normal”. I posted something quickly without paying enough attention to the details. By “bebin.tv” , I meant “Mel Talk”. Sorry for the confusion.

  2. Obviously your are free to have your own policy and aims. As it stands right now your Mel Talks are aimed at Iranian-Americans, Iranian-Canadians and Iranian-Britishs … and NOT Iranians, NOT Americans …. .

  3. “I also hope that someone as talented as you can also learn a new language…the non-human kind…”. I don’t understand what you mean. I have never lived in an English speaking area. My mother tongue is not English either. I am currently writing in English! and not in Finglish! I am also fluent in two more languages.

  4. Your mistake is that you categorized these shows into an English and a Persian category. Your Mel Talks are neither in English nor in Persian.

  5. I am neither a nationalist nor fanatic about Iranian culture. But: as some one who belongs to Iranian cultural sphere, I consider it my duty to respect the official decision of Academy of Persian Language and Literature about the English name of the Persian language. The academy is an international body with representatives from all Persian speaking countries. If you don’t care about it, that’s up to you. You use the word “Persian” for “Iranian” and the word “Farsi” for “Persian”. Both are wrong. Farsi is a word entered into English by people like you since 1980s.

  6. If you are not like a native speaker in your mother tongue. That’s not a problem. This is not an excuse to mess up with Persian language! You can still make shows in Persian with your accent. No one expects you to speak like Simin Behbahani ! But you are fluent enough to make a show fully in Persian (if you wanted to … ).

  7. Just to give you an example, please check out Monika Jalili. She is NOT from Iranian descent. She was born to a German-Dutch family in the United states. She has never lived in Iran. She speaks Persian just perfectly and she is a prolific persian singer.

  8. Iran is a land to many different ethnic groups and languages. We have Azeris, Kurds, Armenians, Mazanis, Lurs, Arabs etc. They all speak their mother tongues along side Persian. We never make such strange gestures that you make. I have never seen a single Iranian-Armenian who mixes his mother tongue with Persian.

  9. As I said I enjoyed Mel Talk and personally I have no problem with it. I made this comment as I thought it will help you to attract more Iranian audience. If you don’t care about it, the discussion is closed.

  Finally, your shows are great which is partly due to your sense of humor and talents and partly due to your beauty. I am very excited about bebin.tv and I think that’s a great step forward for Iranian media. The team is composed of nice and talented people and I hope many join the project by uploading their videos. I wish you all the best.

• 7 persian pimp // Aug 5, 2007 at 11:13 am

  well said mike, when speaking persian i also find myself mixing the two languages and speaking “fingelishi”. mel keep up the great work..party like a rockstar

• 8 Mehrdad // Aug 6, 2007 at 12:32 am

  persian pimp, you reminded me of this lovely episode:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m7s7KN_TNA

• 9 Mazzi // Aug 6, 2007 at 1:25 am

  Ain’t that better to talk either in English or Farsi? You just ruining both of them. Also putting a lil bit of production techniques to it wouldn’t be that bad. Anyway like to watch such a show if those girls don’t try so hard to be some Iranian version of US shows.

  Bedroud.

• 10 Melissa // Aug 6, 2007 at 11:20 am

  Thank you all for your comments, I’m glad you all like the Mel Talks. As far as the way I speak-I do mix the two languages up, because that is the way I speak-I was raised in America, I cannot speak Farsi very well, but I have friends and family all over the world that can understand still. If this is something you guys cannot understand we do have many other programming on our channel to cater your needs that are in Farsi.

  -Melissa

• 11 Mike K // Aug 6, 2007 at 11:32 am

  HI Mehrdad,

  I’m glad you responded to my comment…. At least now I know that your intentions were not as they seemed from your first comment….

  You have to admit saying that one should talk like a human…or its Persian equivalent mesle adam harfzadan…. does sound a bit rude…..

  But I now see that your point was not to be rude…but rather just a poor choice of wording….

  With that in mind….lets talk a bit about why we do what we do the way we do it….

  I think you are absolutely right…. with respect to the language, the confusion it might cause, the academic aspect of it, and all the rest…..

  For one thing… I had never even heard about the Academy you mentioned…so I’m glad you pointed it out… I think that in itself might make for a nice discussion or show….

  Really to be quite frank…. I do not think that bebin.tv, or mel talk is messing up the Persian language… in fact, the goal is to spark more interest in those who are second generation Iranians, who seem to be really distant from either their mother tongue or language…not necessarily because they don’t approve of it, but rather because for one reason or another they are not comfortable in it….
  for the most part, these individuals are not being catered to from any media outlets, nor is it easy to reach this audience….

  Lets look at their options… and I speak of the options again not from an academic prospective but a media and entertainment one….
  these second generation Iranians, including myself, have an option between Los Angeles Satellite based Iranian Stations, who for the most part only have a marginal number of the young second (or even third) generation audience, they could opt for the Persian Language channels coming out of Iran, which are even harder for most of us to comprehend because of again a language barrier that does exist… and finally…they have the option to their host country television networks…the local american, british, german, canadian, swedish, or whatever other country they are in…..

  For the most part, most of them opt for the third option…for multiple reasons, the most obvious being that the programing far surpasses anything that Iranian Media has been able to provide, but notwithstanding that, another reason is due to the fact that many just are not used to watching full scale persian language television because they have a hard time to relate to it…..

  But another thing that is true, I think, is that a lot, if not many of these individuals, do speak a hybrid of their host languages…I lived in Germany….and in germany we did speak both persian and german and used the language interchangeably in casual conversations… just how it is done here by most young people in America, and I’m sure in Sweden, Canada, and elsewhere as well….

  It is this type of casual conversation (consisting of the mixed languages), that has for the most part kept persian language and culture alive in most of these individuals that I am speaking about…. and it is these individuals that are for the most part ignored by the media in general….

  There currently are other outlets that provide for strictly persian language programs and strictly english programming….

  We have opted to provide a hybrid of both….

  I do see your point with the labeling of just Persian and English, as most of our programs really do use both….so i guess it would be possible for us to label it hybrid… but I think for the most part our audience has not had an issue with it yet….

  Nevertheless, I also have to add that just because some of us are not fluent in our native tongue, the persian language, and because we use it interchangeably, does not mean we are messing up the language…
  I doubt that the likes of bebin.tv have messed up the persian language, as I am sure your persian has not been effected in anyway by our programs….
  You, I assume, would make the argument that what we are doing is messing up the persian language because it is encouraging the use and mixture of multiple languages, and by doing so it is destroying the integrity of both of those languages…. but I would offer that the individuals who it might have an effect on are those who currently are not fluent in persian and who for the most part have for one reason or another had probably no interest in learning persian fluently…

  This now would be an academic question…. is the lack of interest in becoming fluent the faults of the individual, their parents, or society as a whole…I don’t have an answer…but I would assume it would be a combination of all of those factors if not more….

  One thing is for sure… We have had amazing feedback from many individuals who for one reason or another would not watch or associate with anything persian…but now are… To me, that spells success at getting those individuals more interested in their culture, and consequently also hopefully sparking an interest in them to further their own education or quest to master the persian language…

  Finally, the goal of bebin.tv is also to encourage these kind of discussions, as we tried to do with our UCLA Debate show, and we hope to bring more serious and interesting debates in the near future….. but I encourage YOU and others to become part of the community and to truly provide your opinions, which I think are very educational….

  Our Vpod Channel was established for this exact reason….it allows users to upload their own programs…. The idea is not to have a YouTube type of environment, but rather to open channels of interest for young Iranians world wide to share their stories, talents, etc….

  As such, I would encourage you to make a video with respect to the persian language, the academia aspect of it (which I thought was interesting, as I had never heard of it before, and I’m sure there are many others that haven’t), and other topics of interests…

  With that… I hope to see some Vpods from you soon….
  Best Regards,
  Mike K

• 12 Amin // Aug 6, 2007 at 2:57 pm

  Just watched your show for the first time. Pretty interesting, you have a nice accent. You look more indian than persian tho. Are you indian?

• 13 Melissa // Aug 6, 2007 at 4:16 pm

  Hi Amin-

  I am pure Iranian and proud of it, no Indian heritage-but I have been tanning a lot-maybe thats why…

• 14 erfan // Aug 7, 2007 at 1:01 pm

  lol, on the hendi melissa. thanks for havin us on the show, mabye we’ll have you az a guest on rapgap somehow. first you gotta knock down some tracks.

• 15 Pouyan // Aug 7, 2007 at 6:49 pm

  hahah i cant imagine mellisa speaking indian oh by the way dont stop tanning just because of that comment!

• 16 Shayan // Aug 7, 2007 at 7:15 pm

  If people need to learn English by watching Bebin.TV they’ve got the wrong channel. On the other hand, if they want to improve their Farsi, they’ve also go the wrong channel.

  Mellisa joon, do what you do best. You don’t need to change a thing. We love it as is. Everyone in USA speaks like this. You shouldn’t be any different. I wouldn’t want an all English show nor do I want an all Farsi show. Otherwise I got Cable for first, and satellite TV for second.

  I come to Bebin.tv for it’s uniqueness and this is it.

• 17 Sina // Aug 7, 2007 at 9:05 pm

  yes erfan! damet garm! as the old persian say “naze nafaset” nice album man. i listen to persian rap in and out of country but gotta say ur album is just something else. since i “bought” the album its been the only music ive been listening to! and im glad that ur only appearing in high class persian tvs which bebin.tv is mostly the only one.

  -sina

• 18 Stephani // Aug 7, 2007 at 11:38 pm

  Great show, Mel! Love watching your show because it is always interesting! Keep up the great work!

• 19 Mehrdad // Aug 8, 2007 at 8:17 am

  Hi Mike and Melissa and others who commented

  Thanks for replying to my comment.

  1. Yes, you are right about second-generation of Iranians in the west. I appreciate your effort in this respect. I have already guessed your aim when I first watched these videos. For such audience, I would suggest you to switch between Persian and English “properly”. For example one can say one sentence entirely in English and the next one entirely in Persian. I wouldn’t mix the two languages in one sentence. I have heard several times a persian noun was used as a verb or an English verb was used as a noun in finglisi of Mel Talk and elsewhere. This is misleading. Besides please give the two languages the equal weight and share.

  2. English language enjoys a strong political and economic support. It will never die and it will not be damaged easily. This is not true for a language like Persian.

  3. I have to disagree with Shayan about learning languages. You can not tell the audience what to learn. People learn automatically.

  4. “Everyone in USA speaks like this”. First of all this is not ture. Secondly, people in the US are not those who define the norm. Thirdly, Melissa and others are quite young. They grew up like this. But that does not mean that they have to stay like this to the end of their lives! I improve my English everyday, you can do the same for your persian. Forth, a significant fraction of Iranian-Americans not only do not see themselves as Iranian but also hate Iran and Iranians.

  5. I do not think the second generation of Iranians have more language problems than native Iranians. Learning Persian for such people was much easier than learning English and German for a person like me. I think they are simply more careless than us. For most second generation of Iranians in the west, Iranian culture and Persian language is like a hobby. They have fun with the fun part of it and when they are tired they will throw it away. They are not much interested in learning the language, otherwise it was not a big deal for them to learn it. In Iran, I took both German and English classes in a city in the northern part of Iran and I learned them in a short time (less than one year for German). My mother tongue is Azeri and I am native in Persian. I learned the languages because I cared about them and I wanted to learn them. Yes, I could also go to a German course and spend some time without taking it seriously. I would end up in a situation similar to yours. In summary: when I as a middle class Iranian from an almost poor family manage to learn languages, how come Iranian-Americans who are far richer than me and enjoy a high standard of life and have access to much more sources than me can not? I am not saying that they have to learn Persian. All I say is that learning Persian is not a big deal for them, if they really want to learn it. But if they want to make excuse, there is always room for that. Just to give you example from your team: I think the way Babak speaks Persian is quite well and I appreciate his efforts. The main point is that he puts efforts into it. He has accent but the majority of native Iranians have “accent” too. Finally please do not forget that you are different from other Iranian-Americans. You chose to become a journalist in an Iranian media. So learning persian indicates that you are serious in your job.

  6. We, the native Iranians, do not have proper media outlet either. Otherwise I would not watch bebin.tv. I hope BBC Persian launches its TV service soon. Fortunately we have now Radio Zamaneh which is more or less OK. I hope Bebin.tv will be helpful in this respect too.

  7. Apart from language issues there are some problems with the content of the shows. Examples: the show on Carmen Electra and Melissa’s making fun of Iranian girls bowing. I think you have to reduce the American mentality of your shows.

  8. I would not be surprised to see some Iranian youth and many Iranian-Americans like the way you handle Mel Talk. But I think you have to act professionally and to consider the consequences of your works (fashion in Iran).

  I hope my comments are helpful. Melissa, I do not want to bother you. I like you and I appreciate the US based Iranians like you who have respect for their heritage. But you have to understand that I love Iran more!

• 20 Mehrdad // Aug 8, 2007 at 9:04 am

  Ah, in number 7 above, I mistyped “rowing”! sorry.

• 21 admin // Aug 8, 2007 at 4:24 pm

  Hi Mehrdad and Others….

  LOL>… I just realized that Mel Talk #10 has currently the most comments… and well, I really think the discussions are great…..

  But I have a couple of comments and a suggestion (well more of a Bebin.tv VPOD channel PLUG)

  First… Mehrdad I can see your point and it is well taken, however I still think there are some things where we do have a difference of opinion…

  in your point labeled #5 you mentioned that you don’t think second generation Iranians have more difficulties in learning the language more so then native Iranians….
  I agree with you 100% and you more importantly touched upon why that might be the case…. it is the interest within each individual….
  I’m not sure if I would call it careless, I think it’s just a matter of how people to choose to prioritize their interests…..

  I must admit, I’m one of those people…..

  When my family moved to Germany, my mother not only tried to teach me the persian language at home but also sent me to classes….but to no avail… I just really didn’t have much interest and was more caught up in my host country language, german.

  Then when I moved to America, I started learning English, and my family again sent me to persian classes…. I think overall I’ve gone through 1st grade persian classes about 3 times….

  My persian is still very limited, I don’t have communication problems, however I have difficulty reading or writing… and quite frankly, in my case it was really my own fault…

  Nevertheless, my priorities were different, either due to my immaturity at the time or for whatever other reason or excuse I had then.

  One thing is for sure however, I do have my regrets now, and as I got older I tried more and more to become Iranian, even though as you correctly pointed out in the U.S. especially, it is often un-cool to be Iranian and some even refuse to associate with it.

  But my own experience and that of many of the Iranians I have met have made one thing definitely clear to me…. most of the young Iranians that I have met often try to be more and more Iranian and go back to their roots, especially as they enter college and leave their teen years behind. They, including me, I think, try to identify with both their heritages, and really by both I really mean the Iranian (since most are already accustomed to their host countries culture and identity).

  I started associating more and more with Iranians (made more Iranian friends, started listening to Iranian music (thanks to Ebi), etc.) … by doing so my farsi has substantially improved….I try to increase my vocabulary and so on…. but I have yet to make enough time for persian classes and to become fluent in the language….

  So, my priorities are obviously elsewhere…. this doesn’t mean that I don’t care or love Iran, it just means I’m preoccupied elsewhere…..

  I don’t think anyone has made an excuse…. if you thought we were trying to make any excuses, i apologize for the confusion…but I don’t think many people in my situation make excuses… but as you correctly figured, our priorities were elsewhere… but that doesn’t make us, or at least me, less Iranian or makes me care less about Iran.

  I think all of us at Bebin.tv have put in a lot of effort to make these programs as appealing as possible to a variety of audiences. But really, and quite frankly, the original goal was to provide something different for an audience that is largely ignored by the media, foreign or Iranian.

  The audience I am referring to is those people like myself, melissa, babak, and others….. which is a large number, maybe not as large as those fluent enough, but large enough. But that is not to say that we don’t care about the other audiences… I hope that will not be a misunderstanding….

  We want to be able to appeal to those in Iran, those in Europe, those in Asia, and those here in the U.S. We are striving really hard to provide an alternative television network for those who are currenlty either turned of by what is available, or really can’t relate to it… WE REALIZE that many people might not like the type of programs we have or be able to relate to it, but they do have other options…..

  As you correctly pointed out, we do not have any proper media outlets… we hope that eventually we might be able to reach a stage where Iranian media outlets actually become available. But our budget is not quite that of the BBC, and unfortunately Iranian Media in Los Angeles already has a bad name as it is and finding capital to invest in Iranian Media made by Iranians is quite difficult.

  We are also very excited about the launch of BBC Persian TV, and it is our understanding that it should be out shortly. Nevertheless, I think if the BBC intends to have as part of its audience a generation of Iranians outside of Iran who are struggling with the persian language, then they might very well resort to the type of programs or the manner in which we have presented them. My personal feeling however is that the concentration of the BBC Persian TV will be either exclusively in persian, or persian with some english. This again will probably not help spark an interest to those of us who have difficulty with the language. I might be wrong and I hope that the BBC will have programs so entertaining or educational in value that it will force many of us to watch and learn persian more and more…. but that remains to be seen…..

  In the end, there will be those who really won’t want to associate with anything persian, but I think there are many many more that do want to become ‘more’ persian…. We simply want to keep those people closer to the persian culture as much as we can….

  We have planned a series of cultural, debate, and other programs to spark those interests….

  FINALLY: I really think these discussions are great….but I would MUCH MORE APPRECIATE IT if you uploaded a vpod …. the blog is still fairly new and I do not think many people are getting the benefit of these discussions…..

  Also, I think it is very educational…i’ve been reading up on the persian vs. farsi/parsi and it has been quite interesting….

  but I think it would do everyone more justice and increase our community if you, along with everyone else’s, contributed your own programs or opinions on video….it would be easier to distribute and would also help us and you express opinions that are often not heard…..

  best of luck
  mike

• 22 Mehrdad // Aug 9, 2007 at 6:38 am

  Hey guys, I enjoyed the discussions. I will try to contribute to bebintv in near future (as soon as I come up with an interesting idea). For now, let see what love means in Persian culture (somehow different from the common depiction of love in the west and elsewhere! see wikipedia for the definition of love in western culture.)

  The debate of Khosrow and Farhad on Shirin:

  نخستین بار گفتش کز کجائی بگفت از دار ملک آشنائی
  بگفت آنجا به صنعت در چه کوشند بگفت انده خرند و جان فروشند
  بگفتا جان فروشی در ادب نیست بگفت از عشقبازان این عجب نیست
  بگفت از دل شدی عاشق بدینسان؟ بگفت از دل تو می‌گوئی من از جان
  بگفتا عشق شیرین بر تو چونست بگفت از جان شیرینم فزونست
  بگفتا هر شبش بینی چو مهتاب بگفت آری چو خواب آید کجا خواب
  بگفتا دل ز مهرش کی کنی پاک بگفت آنگه که باشم خفته در خاک
  بگفتا گر خرامی در سرایش بگفت اندازم این سر زیر پایش
  بگفتا گر کند چشم تو را ریش بگفت این چشم دیگر دارمش پیش

  بگفتا گر نیابی سوی او راه بگفت از دور شاید دید در ماه
  بگفتا دوری از مه نیست در خور بگفت آشفته از مه دور بهتر
  بگفتا گر بخواهد هر چه داری بگفت این از خدا خواهم به زاری
  بگفتا گر به سر یابیش خوشنود بگفت از گردن این وام افکنم زود
  بگفتا دوستیش از طبع بگذار بگفت از دوستان ناید چنین کار
  بگفت آسوده شو که این کار خامست بگفت آسودگی بر من حرام است
  بگفتا رو صبوری کن درین درد بگفت از جان صبوری چون توان کرد
  بگفت از صبر کردن کس خجل نیست بگفت این دل تواند کرد دل نیست
  بگفت از عشق کارت سخت زار است بگفت از عاشقی خوشتر چکار است
  بگفتا جان مده بس دل که با اوست بگفتا دشمنند این هر دو بی دوست
  بگفت ار من کنم در وی نگاهی بگفت آفاق را سوزم به آهی
  چو عاجز گشت خسرو در جوابش نیامد بیش پرسیدن صوابش
  به یاران گفت کز خاکی و آبی ندیدم کس بدین حاضر جوابی

  I hope you enjoy it!
  Cheers, M.

• 23 Shayan // Aug 9, 2007 at 1:49 pm

  I tink ve shood le goh ufff dis sabjuct already.

  Tanx Gawd.

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