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Monday, February 28, 2005 A Blog's Birthday, Part III Happy Birthday, Randomness! Here's to three whole years of blogging and an average of two posts a week (according to Blogger stats). Thanks to all of my faithful friends and readers for making me feel like I'm not writing into the void. Today's post comes from May 29, 2003: Being in Paris is amazing. The architecture is beautiful (though I can't say that for most of the modern buildings); Patrick would go nuts, I'm sure. You perhaps wouldn't think it, but the French have a very different culture than Americans, and not just in the superficial "they eat a lot of cheese and drink a lot of wine" ways. When I first flew into the city on Sunday, traffic was backed up for miles. Why? Un grève--or for those of us who speak English, a strike. Apparently you're not truly French unless you've been on strike at some point. Needless to say, this happens often. That day I was told that in France I should forget one word: "efficiency". It doesn't exist here. The customer is not always right and people take their time. But it means that you're welcome to sit and talk for a long time in a cafe and that no one will hurry you out of a restaurant. Politics are more integral to French life than American; we're considered moderate--both parties--in comparison. On the political spectrum you have, starting on the right, the people who want to bring back the monarchy, the people who want to kick out all of the immigrants, and then you move into the moderates and where most of the American population lies. Then on the left you have various groups going all the way to the communists and even further (what can be further left than communism?) the Troskists. People here love to debate, love to argue politics. Separation of church and state as we understand it does not exist; it made national news that Bush declared a day of prayer in connection with Iraq. The idea of Congress praying before a session is completely foreign. You do not talk about religion or faith or God--it would lead to divisions in unity. In practice, it means that they are essentially anti-God; the vast majority of the country claims to be Catholic but only 5% are practicing. Catholicism has left a bad taste in the mouths of the French; everything here has a historical context, and its historical context is that of close ties with the monarchy, the Crusades, and abuses in the church. You'll also find that the French value their writers far more than we do (which I can definitely appreciate). They're an intensely literary people--writers are often interviewed, and people actually listen to what they have to say. When a writer dies, it's as though a huge public figure--a president for us, perhaps--has died. Thus there are bookstores everywhere and they're well-read. Moving away from specifically French culture, we've started to spend time in the universities, where we will be most of the summer. Two days ago I was with my friend Megan, who was one of the kids planning to go to East Asia, who speaks a little French and a tiny bit of Mandarin; at dinner we met a girl from Taiwan and her friend who were studying for their masters degrees in music. They were fluent in Mandarin and knew a fair amount of French (they've lived here for two years) and a little English, so we ended up in conversation around the table in three languages, mostly meeting in French with pieces of the other languages thrown in for clarity. Just yesterday I was sitting with Yenna, who's also from our group, trying to practice speaking in French; we were about to leave the cafeteria when a French guy sat down and started talking to us (which isn't common; they're a very private people). He'd been taking Tae Kwan Do so he knew a couple of words in Korean--Yenna's Korean--and had studied English for eight years, though he was more comfortable in French. Thus we spoke in French most of the conversation with a bit of English thrown in here and there. It's been really helpful for my own French skills, and fun to try communicating in a variety of tongues. You have to be careful in Paris--there are thieves everywhere, and they're really good. Apparently it's safer than a lot of American cities, but just now as I was sitting in the internet cafe (literally a few minutes ago) I saw someone caught stealing. The guy who saw what was going on yelled in English, "Whose bag is this? Whose bag is this?" and chased the thief out of the cafe; he came back in, warning everyone that thieves here are "like magic." Someone on the Metro was trying to open my bag and I didn't even notice; luckily my friend Chase realized what was going on and shoved the guy away. So one should definitely be on guard. I've definitely learned a number of things by being here and my French has improved as well. I bought a French Bible the other day and plan to do all of my reading from here on in French, which will also help. ^ Top | 10:42 PM | | | 
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