The Idea of Paris

Paris is a city that universally excites. I don't mean that everyone loves it (all you have to do is stop a Parisian in the street to know this isn't true) but it evokes all kinds of associations and implications from history and literature and contemporary culture. It is a charged city. And while to a large extent these ideas are individual, a projection of what matters to us personally, there seem to be some generally accepted Parisian truths. There's the romance of the architecture and the airiness of the atmosphere and the swaying branches that line boulevards where women in turtlenecks and men in boat necks sip cafe with poodles in their laps. So...not so far from the truth. But definitely not a snapshot.

For me, it's hard to think about the American love affair with Paris without Hemingway. His portraits are what drew me to the city of lights, his blurred and intense version of reality. It was like an oversaturated watercolor sinking slowly beneath the surface of the Seinne. And to be honest, when I first came here in 2011, I don't know whether I enjoyed the present Paris as much as that version: which one was I actually seeing when I chatted both the book stall vendors or regarded water lillies or saw women in perfectly tailored trousers walking their dogs with baguettes under arm. Was I seeing Paris, or was I reading a real time Hemingway synopsis? Who cares?!? Said 2011 Dana.
The land of starving artists and perfect café...it's like the west village on crack, what's not love?

The answer to that question is both simple and complicated. The simple response is that it's not real, that I'm in love with a hologram. The more complicated response follows from there: Paris is a real 21st century city with absurd rents and a growing homeless population and a self imposed need to freeze a moment 150 years old and peddle it as authentic and current. It's an illusion that is safeguarded by laws and popularity: Mr. and Mrs. Johnson from Nebraska didnt come to Paris to see skyscrapers or even art deco, they came to see Paris, the constantly changing city that refuses to change. I'm definitely biased against the Parisian brand of preservation. For any number of modern reasons (efficiency, heating, lighting, safety) and because my reference point for urban life has always been and will always be NY, the world capital of upheaval and renewal, something feels insincere about the Parisian snowglobe.

But, I can't help but love it too. So many people that I know say they feel inspired by Paris. They paint every day even though they've never picked up a brush before; it's never been so easy to write, it comes out of them with a will of its own; by my own observation people even speak more poetically; and if the tourists' cameras mean anything then on any given day there are 3000 budding Ansel Addams in the street. And I feel it too. You feel the effects of the preservation and the aesthetic preoccupation with almost no awareness of what it took to create this magnificent ship in a bottle. How funny that something which is dead, or cryogenicly frozen, can make artists feel so alive.

Maybe that's the secret: frozen but not dead. Paris functions as a blank canvas, a very well crafted, high quality, aesthetically pleasing, perfectly proportioned blank canvas that maybe young post grads don't really deserve, but a blank canvas none the less. And the fun or the magic is that we each bring our own ideas. And by never changing, Paris offerts us opportunities for new cities each time we return. Eaxh time we leave our apartments, as a matter of fact. And it's not just us laypersons that have this experience. Give Monet a brush or hemmingway a pen or Jackie a fitting and, voila, we're in love, not just with the city and our ideas, but with the idea of someone else, the sense that the magic we feel is both personal and universal.

Female in France

As the ground around my Paris roots hardens there are beaucoup interrelated topics I'd like to work through, dissect, understand. Most of them are in the nebulous of identity, like what is it like to be a French woman? Why am I a target for French men? Why is it easier to be yourself with other foreigners whom you objectively have less in common with than the French? In short, the mysteries of a temporary life abroad...

Let me start with the most unpleasant aspect of Paris for me. It has slowed down, but too often for my liking, men stop me or approach me and ask me something or say something in French, to which I respond "je ne comprends pas..." To which they respond with apparent delight : Oh! What do you speak, English? Where are you from?!? Let me clarify that this is, by Parisian standards, incredibly strange. The man that passed me by the Sorbonne caught my suspicion when he smiled at me, which now seems as strange as bowing to a stranger on the street, doing a rain dance around them, and then running off singing Tina Turner. It's strange. He confirmed my suspicion by then turning around, following me, and catching up with me to...I honestly don't even know where he can see this going. But he's gunning for it. Then there are the men who invent places to ask me directions to. Then there are the men that seem harmless, but seem to revel in the opportunity to teach me French or yell at me for not knowing it. And then just to keep things exciting, there are the homeless men who demand kisses when I deny them quarters.

And I don't want you to misunderstand this as harmless flirting, because on the rare occassions that I've allowed conversatIon to progress it inevitably ends with being asked if they can touch my hair... or if I'm interested in going back to their apartment. The universe does not just throw good men at you, that's not really the way it works.

And if it weren't for my natural response to this, it wouldn't really be a problem. There's no threat of physical attack and these strange encounters usually occur during daylight hours. But they're uncomfortable and unpleasant and sometimes upsetting and I have, without even noticing it at first, switched into aversion mode. I don't make eye contact with anyone on the street. I don't look up at posters or billboards for more than a few seconds. I don't crane my neck. I don't smile. I essentially pretend that I'm deaf: I reject all aural data. And while I don't think that this behavior has significantly lessened my fascination with the Alien planet that is Paris, it's not a particularly pleasant or open way to go through life.

My point isn't really oh, I shouldn't have to change my behavior patriarchy feminism sex objects blah blah blah. That's just not particularly useful. It's nice to think about the kind of world we could live in, but it's not the world that we actually live in, so those suppositions and hypotheticals aren't particularly helpful in coping with my reality. There are certain realities that we have to adjust to, and refusing to change our behavior is perhaps the least useful way to combat it. I'm not suggesting that pretending unwanted male attention is normal or giving in is the way to go, but only that progress is achieved in the way respond. Pretending that we don't have to respond is an easy way to change nothing. This is all a very theoretical way of saying that I'm looking for a way to shut it down without shutting myself off, and that that solution, when I find it, will be a big thing.

I had the great pleasure of hitting a wine bar with some of my classmates after school on Friday, and I enjoyed hours of conversation on any number of things, but as may be expected in a quartet of expats a lot of our discussions ran through and returned to identity: gender equality in Australia, Hong Kong v. Mainland China, Taiwanese interest in ABCs, the four types of Americans (for the record, it's apparently Americans, Jewish Americans, African americans, and...I can't remember the fourth category). But I guess that it takes a particular type of person to leave their life for half a year and move to Paris so despite the seemingly infinite list of cultural differences, big and small, there is an essential similarity in world view. Namely, that there's something of value and interest in every culture, but more specifically in every person. And, most importantly, that the two aren't interchangeable: generalizations aren't steadfast and while it's useful to make rules, we must admit to breaking them by virtue of our circumstance. Obviously I'm not your average American. If I were, I'd be in Paris, TX, not Paris, FR. But in that round table we each became an authority on and a stand in for our respective national cultures.

So maybe there's something there: managing awareness of the individual and the whole, while somehow being aware of how you come across...the great expat balancing act. And I guess there's something to be said for staying curious, asking the questions, trying to understand what upsets you as opposed to writing it off. Wish me luck.

Well, obviously, she's American...

In my French class on Thursday we were reading one of Festival's (my French book) lovely dialogues, this one revolving around two roommates who went to lunch together, which gave way to a long debate: who pays? Yukiko and Chris were enjoying a lovely lunch for two and when it came time Chris was assigned the task of asking for the bill.

"But of course!" Exclaimed my classmates from Hong Kong and India. He is the man, he will pay. My professor, partly because she was ready for her vacation and not anxious to teach us more grammar and partly because she was curious, started an international debate, which was really just me verses the rest of my class. It ended with a Portuguese man in his late 40s saying that he believed in equality, which to him meant Chris paying, then
Yukiko paying, and then Yukiko preparing all subsequent meals at home. The immediate response of my professor was to turn to me "and Donna, what do you think of that?" I think he's a fucking moron, that's what I think of that. Of course I only know about two of those words, so I said something else, but that's what my tone said. This went on for no less than half an hour.

Then the next day, the Colombian girl who had been absent was confused by references to our discussion. She was upset by the mere supposition that the girl would pay. Aghast. Madame Gsell explained that in many places it was standard for the man to pay, but that Donna had not agreed. To which she responded "But of course! She's American!"

As if this explained everything. As if all my peculiarities and preferences were explained by one adjective. Maybe not so much explained as excused by. I could be forgiven my stupidity, for what else was I supposed to think growing up in that hotbed of needless liberalism? I responded with a laugh, as that's what the rest of the class did, and proudly proclaimed "Oui, Oui! Je suis américaine. Je suis féministe. Je suis libéral." My bubbling fury and confusion got the better of my articles.

It was such a strange moment, but not at all uncommon. Catching up with a friend a few weeks ago he commented on an earlier post about the professional/private distinction in the French personality saying that he found it to be true in the U.S. as well. He found my observations reductive. I was stereotyping. And I was. He was 100% right. Because when you're exposed to so much new at once, your response is to divide and condense it in to more easily digestable packets. It's exhausting to sincerely consider each individual and each action as a unique entity. Imagine trying to explain all of the behaviors of just one person for a day. An hour. Why was the cashier nice to her and mean to me? Because she spoke French? Because I look like a mean Nanny he had when he was little? Because in between ringing us up he remembered that he forgot to feed his goldfish this morning and his mind went elsewhere? It's impossible to say. And exhausting to try. Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't, it just means that it might be unreasonable to do it 24/7.

I'm not a scientist, but from personal experience I think that it's the way of the human brain to observe, find patterns, make rules, and behave accordingly. It definitely works in our favor when we're doing things like learning object permanance of learning to walk. But, when we're learning about the big things, the things that put the mechanics to use, like new cultures for example, maybe it does more harm than good. Because it's nice that my classmate could find such an airtight explanation for my opinion, but really, what did she get from it? Besides proof for a generalization that wasn't really true?

So is that what I've been doing? Reducing the French to their simplest terms? Their most convenient definitions? Ignoring the details for the illusion of understanding? Well...yes. Obviously. I'm human. What do you want from me? BUT, maybe it's an important first step. How could an alien new to our planet understand what a lion is without understanding what animals are? Well the lion could attack him, that would help him out. But then he's only getting one aspect, and I think that's what experiencing France is like as a foreigner in Paris. I'm being attacked by a lion. I don't understand the language that well. I look different. I smile. So I only get one side of the lion. I don't see the lions hunting or playing or sleeping, only attacking me. But maybe as I change, as I learn French and adjust and become less strange, I will have the benefit of seeing their other habits.