The helpful man I almost yelled at

Today, on my way to a useless pedagogical meeting (of which there are many), I got lost in a Parisian suburb called Bobigny.  Standing on a busy street corner, I stared in all directions, wondering where to go.  Suddenly a tow truck honked at me.  I looked up, and the driver was gesticulating to me to cross the street.  He made a face like "What are you doing, I'm waiting for you to cross."  Confused, angered, and still lost, I shrugged at him, crossed the street, and thought about making an obscene gesture.  Honestly, it wasn't my good nature that prevented me from doing it, it's that in France the American single finger salute is not acknowledged as having meaning, and I don't know what they use instead.  Defeated (and still lost) I glared at him from across the street.  He glared back.  I raised my hands and shrugged my shoulders in a "what?!" gesture, which he returned to me.  I then gave up on him and opened the book where I had scribbled directions.

"Perdu?" - "Lost?" The man yelled at me across the street from his truck window.
"Oui!" I yelled back, making a sad face.  Suddenly, the portly middle aged man opened his cab door, ran across three lanes of traffic and asked where I was trying to go.  After I explained to him, he pointed me in the right direction, told me to be careful crossing the rest of the streets, and bid me "bye bye" in (possibly) his best English.

I walked down the street a ways, around a rotary, and saw the man pass me with a car in tow and a passenger.  He slowed down, opened his pasenger's window and yelled across her to tell me that I was on the right road.
"Merci beaucoup!" I smiled and gave the thumbs up sign.  Well, he must be the friendliest person in France! I decided.  When I had just about reached the last street that I needed to turn onto, the man was returning, having dropped off his passenger and her car.  Stopping in the middle of traffic, he yelled to me "Take a left here!" and pointed down the street.
"Thank you!!" I yelled and waved, laughing to myself, and feeling thankful that someone was indeed friendly around here.

The moral of the story is you never know who is going to be friendly, so don't flip anyone off.

It's hard to acknowledge that your own preferences are culturally informed

Like many languages, French has two ways to address someone as "you".  The formal is "vous" and the informal is "tu".  As an English speaker, I make no distinction between tu and vous.  Theoretically, I obviously understand the concept;  I am able to use them at appropriate times.  If a three year old, however, accidentally (or purposefully) calls me tu, I don't care.  Not in the slightest.  Even if someone called me tu to be purposefully insulting, I wouldn't care.  I have been asked by everyone I work with within the first three minutes of meeting them if it is okay that we "tutoyer" - use tu instead of vous.  "Bien sur" (Of course) I respond.  For them, it is a legitimate question.  For me, I laugh a little inside every time.  It's not that I think they are ridiculous, its simply that I have no emotional reservations about their use of language regarding addressing someone, so if someone calls me something they shouldn't have, I am seemingly unable to get upset about it.  (Yes, I've actually tried to care about this after watching an elementary school teacher yell at a child for addressing her as tu)

Now, the tables are turned when I walk into a store.  Why doesn't the cashier make an effort to be mildly polite?  Why do people act like it's an enormous inconvenience that I've asked them a question?  Why won't anyone help me???  These are the thoughts that run through my mind on many shopping adventures.  However, to a French person, if a cashier doesn't say "Have a nice day" or smile, they don't notice or care.  More over, if they knew how much it bothered me, they would probably think I was ridiculous. 

While its easy for me to point out the fact that I expect customer service and they expect more polite formalities than Americans do, it has been almost impossible for me to acknowlede that customer service is not intrinsically more important than pleasant formalities are.  As an American, I place much more emphasis on business interaction that they do.  I know this.  Still, I can't help feeling that I'm right and they're wrong.  I know its not true.  I swear.

I think this formality on behalf of the French might be what has led many Americans to think that they are arrogant and rude.  After watching them for several months, I've decided that they are actually far more polite than we are.  Everyone greets each other with "Bonjour, Madame."  Never just "Hey".  Choir rehearsal always begins 15 minutes late even though everyone is there on time, because every individual must greet every other individual and ask about some aspect of their lives.  "How are you feeling today?" "How was your daughter's soccer game?" "How was the train ride over here?"  And, unlike Americans, the French answer honestly! Every week at rehearsal, I overhear something to the effect of:
"Ca va, Agathe?" - "Is it going well, Agatha?"
"Non, pas du tout!" - "No, not at all!"
This is usually followed by the reason for such a negative response, such as "I'm tired", "I have a lot of work to do when I get home.", or "This creepy American girl next to me observes me and then writes about it in her blog."

Recently, a teacher at one of my schools asked me, "How do you answer the question 'How are you?" if you're not doing so well.  Is it 'I'm bad'?"
"We just say 'I'm okay' if we're bad." I answered.
"Oh," she replied, "but I thought that meant that you're fine, not good or bad."
"It does," I responded. "We don't really say if we're doing badly, we just say we are okay."
Perplexed, she continued, "Well, what if you're actually just okay, but not bad?"
"Well," I thought for a moment, "Then you just say you're well."  I could see she was looking at me strangely.  "If you're actually doing well, you say you're great!  We don't really use 'How are you' as a question so much as a greeting."
"Oh really?" She answered, "So, when you say 'How are you', you're not really asking?"
"Exactly," I responded, feeling a little dehumanized.  Of course, had anyone asked me how I felt, I obviously would have responded, "Great!"

My Many Teeth

On Wednesdays I babysit two girls aged 3 and 6.  They don't speak English.  I watch them for ten hours.  Ten hours.

The first time that I met them, the 3 year old - Hanae - said to me, "You have a lot of teeth because you're American".  I thought that I had misunderstood her French, since I happen to know that I do not have any extra teeth! I continued to consider it a misunderstanding until, after staring at my mouth, she poked my tooth with her finger, and started putting her hand in my mouth, in that way that adults rarely do.

For the next several days, I glanced at everyone's mouth that I encountered.  Surely we all have the same amount of teeth, I pondered, but maybe because I've had braces, more of my teeth are showing when I smile.  My hypothesis was proven wrong, however, by the large amount of people with straight teeth that I saw.  I would like to make a note that most people would have just chalked this comment up to meaning nothing, since it was a three year old who told me.  But, I didn't.

About a week ago, Matt and I were walking around, and saw a woman posing for a photo by the Seine.  I noticed immediately that she didn't smile for her photo.  Hmmm, did she not smile because people here don't smile for photos, or was she trying to look sultry?  It was impossible to tell, until yesterday.  Yesterday, when waiting to be let into the classroom where I work, I noticed that there was a class photo on the door, with 22 unsmiling children and one unsmiling teacher.  If you think this is normal, go find a classroom photo of any US class.  It's not how we do things.

"Did you know that French people don't smile for photos?" I asked Matt when I saw him that night.  "Well," I corrected myself, "They smile, but with their mouths closed in an unfriendly way."
"Yeah," He replied, "When I was at the bus stop waiting for Henri-Louis, I heard a Dad tell his child to remember to close his mouth when he smiles."
"Really?!" I exclaimed, "Why?"
"I don't know.  Maybe it's rude here."
"But," I continued, "I see people smile with their mouths open all the time!  They laugh and smile a lot!"
"Yeah, they laugh and smile when something happens, but to just smile with your teeth when nothing is happening to make you smile, they think it makes you look stupid.  It's not that it's rude, it's that it's a sign of stupidity and low-class."
"But I smile with my teeth all the time.  All Americans do!"
"Well," Matt smiled (I'm not sure if it was with or without teeth), "Maybe they all think we're stupid."


In other news, next week I will be featured in an article in the elementary school newspaper where I work.  The article will be in English with questions that the kids were able to ask me, and my very simple responses.  There will also be a photo of me, complete with a big open smile.

People

I went to choir rehearsal early to work on a few things with Lionel the director (he gave me some solos!)  I realized in working with him that he is one of the few people that I've met here who treat me like a normal person despite the fact that I have a huge accent and make no sense most of the time.  That isn't to say that everyone else is unkind.  Actually, most people are nice and very helpful, always looking out for me, and telling me where to go to do certain things.  Its just that most people, unconsciously I'm sure, assume I somehow don't know anything about anything just because I can't speak the language and don't know the social system.  I think it is completely natural for people to think that.  In fact, I didn't even really notice they did that until, when working with Lionel, I noticed that he treated me like a normal person.  Perhaps being a musician helps, in that people assume I know nothing until it turns out I can sing and sightread anything despite my French problems.  Then they see that I am not completely useless, so maybe I'm actually pretty smart in my own world.  Finally, I've noticed that all the people who are unkind or rude to me are unkind or rude to everyone!  So every time I think its just because I'm not French, it turns out that they are mean to everyone.

Charcutiers

Yesterday was the 203rd annual "Messe du Souvenir des Charcutiers-Traiteurs et Traiteurs".  I'm still not exactly sure what was happening.  It was a special night-time Mass (which meant that I spent 3 hours at Mass yesterday) and it was for the Charcutiers. I think the guild or union put it on. There were many Charcutiers there, some with all white suits, covered by capes - yes, capes - of royal blue velvet (Incidentally, the French call it "French Blue").  There were at least thirty other Charcutiers wearing all white clothes, white aprons and tall white chef hats.  To my own bemusement, as soon as I saw them, the song "Les Poissons" from "The Little Mermaid" immediately popped into my head and refused to leave.  There were other Charcutiers on the side of the Choir loft setting up a buffet for after the Mass.  As I tried to inconspicuously see what they were serving, I realized I didn't really know what kind of food a Charcutier prepares.  I wasn't quite clear on the difference between a Charcutier and a Butcher.  Resolutely, I planned out my question in French before asking - "Est-ce qu'un Charcutier c'est pareil comme un Boucher?" - and turned to my neighbors in the Choir stall.

A Charcutier is someone who works with sausages and prepared meats, in a Charcuterie (the sausage store).  

"So, it's like a butcher?" I asked Nicole, the very nice older woman who I sit next to in choir.  
"Ah, non," she replied, "a butcher is for meat."  Here I must have looked confused, because she continued, "Charcutiers don't work with viande... how do you say viande in English?"  
"Beef," I replied. 
"Right," she continued, "They don't work with beef.  Or any cuts of meat really."  
Let me just say, as an American, I was confused.
"So, they work with sausages?" I asked.
"Oui, oui," Nicole and my other neighbor excalimed, looking relieved that they had gotten through to me.
"And chickens too?" I asked.  I was fairly sure that Charcutiers did not work with poultery and that there was some other person who did that, but I just wanted to check.
"Non, non," they told me as their faces fell at my misunderstanding, "Poultry is for the Volailler."
"Ah, ok." I said.  Of course, the Volailler!  I could see that they seemed a little sad that they couldn't make me understand, so I said, "So a Charcuterie sells sausages and it's where the Charcutier works."
"Oui, oui," They smiled at me.  I wasn't completely lost, after all!

After the service, I finally got to see what there was in the buffet, and what it is exactly that Charcutiers do. Waiting in line, I envisioned plates full of pepperoni and salami.  Apparently, in France they have a lot of "sausages" that aren't what I would particularly have thought of as sausage.  On the tables, there were beautiful platters of what seemed to be giant meat casseroles cut up into squares and served with toothpicks.  Some of the squares had a garnish, others seemed to glow with a layer of gelatin on the top.  I took one meat square and ate it, deciding it was a lump of ham.  Not too bad, I thought.  I wanted to get more but the crowd was enormous and I couldn't take it, so I retreated into the choir loft to find my coat.  When I entered, I saw that the entire choir was there, and there were meat trays there just for us.  Great! I thought.  I found a piece of marbled meat that looked interesting, so I picked it up and had it halfway to my mouth when I heard someone exclaim, "Ah fromage de tête!" and grab a piece of what I had.  Hmmm, fromage de tête ...head cheese, I thought, suspending my piece's movement toward my mouth.  I couldn't remember what head cheese was, but I remembered learning about it before and that I didn't think I would like it.  Upon further inspection of my hunk of meat, I noticed it was a bunch of tiny other pieces of meat stuck together with jelly.  I decided to forgo this, and found a trash can (when no one was looking of course).  As it turns out, I was glad I didn't eat it.


When I got home, I thought that maybe there are Charcutiers in the USA, and I just have never heard of them, so I looked up some words in Google translate.  In English, Charcutier translates to Butcher, as does Boucher.  I was not crazy, we really don't have them.  Charcuterie, however, translated to Delicatessen.  This may be the case in some old delis where I believe you can purchase loafs of spiced meat and sausage.  It is not, however, like most delis where you buy a sandwich with a pickle and potato chips.  As for Volailler, that translated to Poulterer.  Again, this is something we have (I think) in the USA, however, not something that anyone I know has ever talked about.  


In other news: We're singing excerpts for Handel's Messiah in choir at church, and more and more, I like it.  I've sung Messiah millions of times before, and I never enjoyed it, but here I am finally enjoying Baroque music.  I can't even quite remember why I didn't like it before.  Perhaps I wanted more emotional singing and less technically demanding passages.  I honestly have no idea.  But, I really enjoy the melismas and the intertwining of the voice parts.  I certainly never thought that in France I would discover an interest in English Baroque music.  But, as the French seem to say every day, "On ne sait jamais" - the equivalent of, "you never know".

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise

I love cemeteries, something I'm sure most people find creepy, to say the least.  But they are usually quiet, peaceful, filled with birds and flowers and trees, and sometimes with lovely views.  I like to read the carvings on the stones, read the names, read the dates.  I like to imagine the person interred there; their life, what it might have been like, what the world was like for them at the time of their experience, what might they have died from.  In one way, I like cemeteries because they are fascinating.  In another way, I think maybe its nice for the living to remember the dead, even if only that a stranger read a name and a set of dates, and imagines the rest.

Today we went to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, and I can't wait to go back.  I wish we could have spent all day there, but by the time we meandered through the gates it was already late afternoon, with the ever elusive Paris sun sliding further down the horizon.  I could have walked in there for hours.  We saw the grave of Chopin, and I was happy to see that there were at least 20 different sets of fresh flowers there for him, laid out by his fans within the past few days.  That so many people care enough for his music to spend their money on flowers for the grave of someone long gone, well, it was quite touching.  I was hoping to see the graves of Maria Callas, Georges Bizet, Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf (and maybe Jim Morrison too, but just because everyone else goes there to see it) but they were all impossible to find.  Maps are sold across the street, but, in addition to the fact that I didn't feel like spending my money on a cemetery map, I also feel a little against purchased cemetery maps.  Its one thing to visit a cemetery, its another for someone to profit from your expedition.  Someone, I might add, who is NOT connected to the cemetery in anyway.  Obviously, the cemetery is famous because it is the final resting place of so many famous people, but I would have loved it even if it were full of "unknown" people.  The monuments, the statues, the view of the Eiffel Tower, everything was amazing.

While we tried to find our way back to the street, a man stopped us and asked where Jim Morrison's grave was.
 "Nous ne savons pas," I said, "Desolee."
He said something like, "Really? Its back the way you came." 
"Ah, oui?" I asked, suprised and disappointed that we hadn't seen it.
"Yes," he replied, telling us that it is very big and we must have passed it. 
I responded disappointedly, "Ah, no, nous n'avons vu pas," to which he smiled, cocked his head, and reiterated, "Oh you didn't see it?" 
"Non," I answered, "Bon chance!" 
As he walked away, Matt said to me, "'Nous n'avons pas vu', the 'pas' doesn't go at the end." 
"Oh really?" I said, repeating the corrected version to myself. 
"In fact," Matt said - something he's been saying quite often since he discovered that in French, one says 'en fait' to mean both 'in fact' and our more common word 'actually' - "You have to indicate that you haven't seen something, so it would be 'Nous ne l'avons pas vu.'" 
"Oh, yeah that makes sense." I responded, now repeated the final version of my sentence.  Meanwhile, the man was long gone.  And this is how we learn French.

Today I want to stay in France forever. 

Friday, November 25, 2011

French teacher: (in french) "How do you say 'classe de neige' in English?"
Me: "Classe de neige? As in your upcoming three week field trip where everyone skis? We would just say 'snow class'. We don't have a word for that."
F.T.:"Really? So you don't have another name for it? It's just a literal translation?"
Me: "You mean the trip where the whole class goes on a ski trip for three weeks, you have classes in the morning, and in the afternoon everyone goes skiing, and the town pays for it?"
F.T. "Yes. The snow class."
Me: "Yeah, we definitely don't don't have a word for that."


Later that day, while teaching a "chorale" of 50 six and seven year olds "If you're happy and you know it"...
Me: (In french) Ok, first I'll say a phrase and then you all repeat. Here we go: "If you're happy"
Group: "Eeeef you Appy"
Me: "And"
Group: "Ant"
Me: You know it"
Group: "You now eet"
Me: "Clap your hands!" (clap clap)
Group (mass confusion, lots of clapping)
Me: "Okay, now let's sing"
Group: (singing) "Eeef you APPY an you nnnn itsa, (silence) (Clap Clap!)
Me: "Ok... good...? Now we can add Stomp your feet (stomp stomp)
Group: (Stomp stomp)
Me: "Great! Ok now I'm going to either say clap your hands or stomp your feet, and you have to listen and do what I said!"
Freah Teachers: "Wow! Listen well everyone!"
Me: "Stomp your feet!"
Group: (Clapping, Stomping, nose-picking)
Me: "Umm... good? Ok lets just sing"
French teacher: "Wait, how do you say this in English (Shimmies up and down)?"
Me: "Ummm...well, you could say - "
French Teacher: " --Get funky!" (does dance)
Me: "Yeah (?) Or shake yourself."
French Teacher: (Confused) "Shake youseff?"
Me: "No, no, shake... actually, just say 'shake your body'"
French Teacher: "Ok everyone, shake your body!" (Excitedly shimmies)
... Later that day, I was in the teacher's lounge and I heard the same teacher yell to her class as they lined up in the hall for recess, "Ok everyone, shake your body!" And 26 little six year old French children shimmied off to play outside.