Up in Smoke

On January 1st, I awoke in our SF hotel to see the headline splattered across the front page of USA Today (oh please, it was a standard hotel-room paper delivery – like we’d ever pay money for that rag): French Smoking Ban in Effect (or something like that). Oh, that’s right! Nearly a week in California and we’d completely readjusted to cigarette-free restaurants, cafés, and bars without looking back. What a relief to know that upon our return to France, we could enjoy more of the same.

Who would have thought it could ever happen? Banning smoking in public places in France?!?! That’s like abolishing pasta in Italy or the siesta in Spain. Smoking is so ingrained in the lifestyle here that even people who don’t “truly” smoke have the more-than-just-occasional post-meal cigarette, hikers have been known to light up and puff away while trudging up steep inclines, and more traffic accidents have been caused by cyclists trying to light up mid-ride than by drunk drivers (OK, I made that last one up, but it’s probably not far from the truth). True, sitting in a Parisian bar for over an hour could cause even regular smokers to feel headachy and get teary-eyed because of the perpetual haze permeating the space. But per the French mentality, smoking in public wasn’t a privilege – it was a right! A right that has now been stripped away. Sure, it’s the wave of the future (or of a decade ago), but change is sometimes slow in France and protecting one’s rights is paramount.

And so, we have the inevitable fallout. In the aforementioned USA Today article, a 19-year-old French student was quoted as being staunchly against the law because it was “ridiculous! How can you drink a coffee without having a cigarette? That is unthinkable.” (That quote works even better if you say it aloud in an atrocious French accent.)

One of my more mature students is less extreme in her resistance to the law, but she is less than pleased. For her, smoking is a social activity and she doesn’t like to do it alone. She feels inconvenienced to have to invite friends up to her apartment to join her for a cigarette on her spacious balcony overlooking a 270-degree view of the city.

Some citizens are siding with the government - the traitors! We came home one day last week to find a sign posted in our tiny (approx. 3’x3’) elevator (see the "before" photo). The translation: please do not smoke in the elevator, thank you. Wow. We may not use the elevator every day, but in our four months living here we’ve never noticed it reeking of stale smoke. Anyway, someone wasn’t happy with this fascist propaganda, because the sign didn’t last a week. One night we went out for dinner and had to take a photo of what we thought was a preciously hilarious sign. We returned from dinner to discover the most heinous, politically-motivated act of vandalism I’ve seen on this side of the pond since I landed in London on the night the Germans beat the Brits in the World Cup semis (’96) and saw drunken buffoons carousing around the streets smashing BMW windows (yes, I was very afraid). Anyhow, see the "after" photo. Note to selves: anti-smoking ideology is obviously not popular in our building.

However, not everyone is clawing away at no-smoking signs. (Which, by the way, are tiny stickers posted in the corners of restaurants that blithely offer a phone number – which one must of course pay for per minute – to help smokers learn how to quit. Aw, how cute, all tucked away back there where prying eyes can’t find ‘em.) Even if they’re not slapping on the Patch just yet, there are Frenchmen and women who are more open to the benefits of the law. A pregnant acquaintance who is still puffing away daily told me she’s glad there’s no more smoking in public because it’s healthier for the baby. This, without a shred of irony.

Playing Dumb - Not What's It's All Cracked up to Be

Contrary to popular belief, playing the role of “dumb American” can have its benefits, depending on the situation, of course. I’ve adopted the role a couple of times in order to get out of trouble when I accidentally didn’t pay the appropriate fee for my destination on the commuter train. “Ex-ke-yooze-ay-mwaaah. Jay nay parl paah fran-caaaay. There is problem – my ticket not work. I do not understand.” (Because dumb Americans speak both French and English poorly, natch.) And with that, the ticket agent lets me through the exit turnstile anyway, with a wink. Perhaps I’m treated with such laissez-faire because I’m a woman, perhaps it’s attributable to the French allergy to work (fining me wouldn’t be as easy as letting me through the turnstile), or perhaps the agent actually buys my act and thinks I really am dumb. At any rate, I don’t question getting let off the hook, and in return, I don’t take advantage of exploiting the “dumb American” act if I can help it. I like to think of it as a safety measure.

Well, today the safety measure backfired. I was walking down the Metro platform, waiting for a train, when a youngish, semi-loopy homeless guy accosted me and started closely following me down the platform. Ordinarily, the homeless are not this aggressive, and in an effort to get him to back off, I pulled the dumb American card out of the deck.

“Jay nay parl paah fran-caaaay.” Out it comes, in my feigned worst accent.

“Vous êtes anglaise? (Are you English?)” he asks.

“No. I do not understand,” I say, while walking away from him even faster. He keeps following me.

“Please, some money for me. You give me.” WHAT??? He speaks English? Of course, in Paris, the homeless speak English. I’m too stunned that my language barrier trick won’t work and just firmly shake my head in the negative. I might have mumbled a “No, sorry.”

But he keeps following me, and now I’m starting to get a little freaked out, even though we are surrounded by people. I think he saw it on my face because he then said, “It’s OK,” a few times before making a courteous exit. What a complete 180.

So what are the morals of this silly little story? Never create an opening for a potentially unstable person. Never play the dumb card too much or you’ll just get outsmarted. Never start a land war in Asia*. And never mess with a Parisian when bilingualism is on the line.


* TM, Princess Bride

California Musings

I’m back in Paris, invigorated for the new year, and now that I’m over the jetlag, I’m able to fully reflect on the experience of going back home (to one of my two homes, anyway – I do consider myself bi-coastal) for the holidays. Our visit to San Francisco was loads of fun as well as revelatory concerning our sense of belonging (or, non-belonging – our perspectives are multi-faceted, of course). Before I get into specifics, I’d like to note that my trip to New York earlier in December was not quite as eye opening as this one, for a couple reasons. First, my NYC visit was super short and I was so occupied with engagements and errands that I almost didn’t have enough time to reflect on and process what it was like to be back in the U.S. Second, while I grew up in NYC, I’ve been a visitor to my hometown since I started college. Therefore, NYC evokes a very different notion of home than does San Francisco, where I lived most recently for 9 years. While New York embodies my childhood and adolescence, SF is rife with immediate memories and strongly symbolizes my adult life – thus an apt point of comparison to the new experience we’ve started cultivating in Paris.

We’d come a long way in our first four months here: learning to navigate the illogical and largely bureaucratic system, benefiting from solid routines, adjusting to the culture and language, enjoying the constant discovery and delights of the city, lamenting our currently small social network (which keeps slowly but steadily growing, to be sure). Adjusting to life in a new country has been full of ups and downs, but mostly ups. Most notable was the conscious sensation of feeling at home in our apartment; after a couple months of having it completely set up, it had shed the sense of ‘that new place where we sleep’ and had truly started to feel like our own. It was therefore an interesting juncture at which to revisit our previous home.

One of the first things I was struck by, upon arriving in California, was the abundance of color. In San Francisco, it is everywhere: brightly painted Victorian houses, ubiquitous trees (some of which even sport vibrant flowers), gardens that pop against white, apricot, and butter-yellow edifices, the intensely deep azure winter sky, multi-colored frocks and fleeces sported by locals. While I’ve been soaking up an obscene amount of beauty in Paris, it is all man-made and in the drabbest of color palettes. Grays, blacks, browns of the architecture coupled with the usually-gray sky and the somber tones of Parisian wardrobes do not elevate the senses in the same way the Left Coast can. Of course, here there is architecture gorgeous enough to make your toes curl—but not a lot of natural beauty. The parks are very manicured and also man-made. There is a large, woodsy park, but it is on the western outskirts of the city and not as accessible as, say, Golden Gate or Central parks. Hopefully come spring the city will experience a renaissance of color, because too much gray with no green can really wear on a person. Returning to California definitely made me hyper-aware of this.

Being in California had other benefits, of the financial variety. The dollar’s value has plummeted atrociously since we moved to Europe. While I’m paid in euros, N is not, and despite his smart contractual currency adjustment clause, we’re still feeling the burn. [NB: A friend mentioned that a recent video for a big-name American rapper featured him flaunting a huge stack of euros. Sign of the times.] The cost of living is nothing to shake a stick at here. We pay about the same in rent as we did in SF, our utilities and other monthly costs seem to balance out with our former US budget, but groceries are more expensive and dining out is just ridiculous. Dropping 50 bucks on a two-course dinner with wine at a mid-range restaurant is as easy as finding a $2 slice of ‘za in Manhattan. Even with all the temptations of Marais boutiques and fancy food shops just down the block, we haven’t spent too much money on unnecessary items. Hence we came to the States ready to shop. The dollar felt like Monopoly money! It’s a good thing we got out when we did, but it was funny to feel like part of the Euro jet set who, to take advantage of the favorable conversion rate, fly to the States just for a shopping vacation.

On a less superficial level, our trip to California resonated beyond aesthetics and shopping bargains. It was marvelous to be surrounded by our friends—who have really become like family—and remember what it’s like to have the most comfortable of social interactions. With new friends, you’re just starting to build rapport and do not yet have the shared history, jokes, and special language, not to mention the ease of being 110% yourself—you’re still feeling each other’s personalities out. Several dear friends who live in other parts of the US had also decided to come to SF for New Year’s, so it was a larger-than-life reunion. While we’ve been having our little Parisian adventure, our people have been raising kids, getting engaged, buying homes, starting new relationships, applying to grad school, advancing their careers…life has been moving on fast and furiously and in so many wonderful ways. In some ways it’s sad to miss out on some of these developments, but then again we have a ‘development’ of our own, so to speak, and know life will keep moving at this exciting and rapid clip beyond our eventual return to the States.

The strangest revelation was feeling simultaneously at-home-and-yet-not in SF. Everything was surreally yet gloriously familiar, from the drive back into the city from the airport to riding the public transport to walking up the steps to a friend’s house. In the first half of the week, it was fantastic to immerse ourselves in this feeling, even if it was a bit heartbreaking at times. When we visited our old neighborhood and walked up our old street, the surges of longing were overwhelming. Standing on our old stoop, it felt ridiculous to not be able to just walk into “our” apartment and make ourselves comfortable on the brown leather sectional. Sigh. We loved that place.

But something strange happened towards the end of the visit: that feeling of being ready to go home at the end of a fulfilling vacation crept in…yet, there we were, in our home city yet our home no more. We were ready to return to Paris, our true home now. While it’s still largely mysterious to us and we do not have a large network of friends to share the mysteries of the city with, while I’m still pecking away at speaking (or sometimes mangling) the language and therefore always approaching French strangers with a combination of fascination and hesitation, while we’re still not FULLY adjusted to the idiosyncrasies and are still conscious of our status as cultural outsiders, it’s where we’re carving out our new reality, our new memories, integrating into a new community, and (yeah of course, it’s where our stuff is, but…) consequently, it’s become more than just that place where we sleep.