Best of Both Worlds: Junior Iris Chabanis and East alum Tristan Chabanis spend every winter and summer break traveling around Europe and Asia to visit their dad

Fifteen steps away from the beach at her house, junior Iris Chabanis spends her summers with five-hour-long tranquil beach days and tedious games of French monopoly with her family who lives in France. She spends most of her days sitting atop ash-red rock formations with her thirteen-year-old cousin Louise, ending the day watching the sunset at the beach.

Being able to travel to France and around Europe almost every summer isn’t only a vacation for Iris and her brother, East alum Tristan Chabanis, it’s a home. Iris and Tristan travel to France during winter and summer break, spending six weeks of their summer in the vibrant and quiet south of France to visit their dad, Thomas Chabanis.

“The special thing whenever they come to France is that we’re back to our [French] roots,” Thomas said. “That’s the important thing. It’s a lot of fun moments. It’s the laugh of my kids when we’re on the boats, or when Iris comes her birthday is celebrated because it’s in the middle of summer. All of our family really wants to make it a special day.”

Thomas was born and raised in Paris, France and moved to Washington D.C when he was 24 for a job. He moved back to France in 2021. He had the opportunity of buying his mother’s beach house and taking a job in Paris as a general counsel for a medical company.

Life in France is a stark difference from America for Tristan and Iris. In place of the typical rushed  American lifestyle of being a workaholic, and always being on the go, French people typically live a slower life, even when it comes to simple things like lunch, or sleeping in.

“It’s definitely a lot more laid back,” Iris said. “People here [in the U.S.] are always doing stuff. They always have stuff on their schedule. In France, we just lay around the house, or around the beach. Work isn’t always on people’s minds.”

Seeing all of her American friends’ posts about their summer makes Iris miss her friends, but nothing beats memories like watching fireworks with her family on the French Independence Day on July 14th, or eating her grandmother’s home-cooked meals.

Both of the siblings grew up around French culture —  with having a dad who was born in France and a mom with a major in French. Speaking both French and English has been part of the siblings’ dialogue since they were old enough to say “mom” or “maman” which is the french word for mother. They commonly mix both languages together in sentences.

The majority of the siblings’ travels have been to France, but from 2013-2020 the tradition of visiting France had changed to visiting Shanghai, China, where their dad was working at the time.

Over those seven years, Thomas has made it his goal to bring his family with him through his travels. During the seven-year period he lived in Shanghai, the family’s summers were spent in Asia. They’ve traveled through Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines together.

The family has experienced being trapped in the Philippines during a typhoon with no electricity, traveling through cities with an ox cart and being welcomed into Myanmar by local villagers who make brooms for a living. With a variety of cultural experiences, Tristan highly values going on these trips.

“We have so much privilege to go to a high school with teachers who have spent their lives earning a degree,” Tristan said. “There were 30 kids in one school [In Myanmar] of all different ages being taught by one teacher. They were being taught English, and I got to stand in front of the class and teach them a few English words up on the chalkboard. I’ll surely remember that forever.”

Having a parent that lives 4,748.82 miles away wasn’t easy for the family, space comes with missing your family, but ultimately makes them appreciate the time they do get to spend together more. 

“It’s not that I wanted to do it for them,” Thomas said. “It’s because work leads you to different places, so I was curious by nature. I always wanted to learn more, and that’s the part that I wanted to share with them. I think naturally you want to share that experience with the people closest to you. I wanted them to see what I saw. And it’s a wonderful thing to share.”