Patriotism, Expat Style

I teach English to Parisian businesspeople, and with my more advanced students the agenda often deviates from verb tenses and possessive pronouns. Sure, we may discuss relatively mundane matters such as what we did over the weekend and which patisseries have the best tarte tatin; however, we often delve into meatier territory such as the environment, the global economy, business matters, and politics. And as I’m a curious person, I frequently try to pick apart issues concerning French society, as well as the European community – but without fail, all roads lead to America, as my students are curious, too. And so, while I technically get paid to teach a language, I often feel that my job takes on a whole other dimension, that of American Cultural Ambassador to the French.

Frequently, my Other Job takes the form of the “Is This American Stereotype True?” game, which my students love to play. Is it true that in America people eat all day long? Is it true that in America people are obsessed with money, and even ask each other how much they earn? Is it true that in America almost everyone has a gun? Is it true that in America people work 24/7? As Cultural Ambassador I strive to educate my students on the nuances involved—but ultimately I’m forced to explain that these stereotypes are all at least somewhat true relative to French culture. Take the one about Americans working too hard: I am especially amused by the incredulous looks and horrified gasps when I reveal that Americans get a standard two weeks of annual vacation – not five, as in France.

I suppose I should be thankful that the French are at least fairly informed on American life, even if some perceptions are blown out of proportion or are erroneous altogether. My Australian friend, who also teaches English, has suffered far worse blows: a student actually asked her if kangaroos pop up in people’s backyards. Stereotypes aside, there’s clearly more to my country’s story and while I always start out by presenting America in a positive light, I have from time to time found myself caught between bashing and apologizing for my home culture on several points.

Litigiousness. Well, it’s something I’m hardly proud of, but the fact is America has its fair share of unnecessary lawsuits. France, on the other hand, is a country in which individuals do not adequately prepare themselves for potential legal trouble. For example, in a Parisian apartment building, all lights are off in stairwells and hallways unless someone pushes a button that results in temporary illumination. Not to mention, when light bulbs eventually burn out, they have a tendency to not get replaced for some time. While this is at best a fantastic energy-saving measure and at worst a major pain in the ass, it would never happen in the States. Why not? Because if someone fell in a darkened stairwell and injured himself, he could blame the building owner for negligence. How was he to know he had to turn on the light himself? And incidentally, if the light is out for over a week, it’s clearly the property manager’s fault. Needless to say, I have spent quite a bit of time decoding the expression “it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen” for my students. If someone in France took a steaming-hot coffee to go (which would never happen here to begin with!), drove with it wedged between his legs, and consequently burned himself, the French would laugh and call him an idiot. No lawsuit would instantly ensue, and thank goodness.

Sex in the workplace. Speaking of lawsuits, sexual harassment is also a concept that hasn’t quite caught on here. It’s perfectly normal to tell dirty jokes in the office or for a male superior to comment on how pretty a female subordinate looks (Michael Scott would have a field day in France). No one but my American husband raised an eyebrow when a co-worker forwarded a PowerPoint presentation of naked Carla Bruni photos around his office. My French colleague’s student repeatedly hit on her for over a month before she asked our manager to assign a different teacher. Every time she confided in me, I told her point blank: “In my country, this would never fly.” And this is what I am forced to constantly explain to my own students: Paris Hilton aside, Americans are prudes! And we draw very firm lines in the sand when it comes to propriety, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Although we did almost impeach a president because of it—something the French (and I) cannot comprehend.

The last 8 years (or, he who shall not be named). The “he” in question isn’t Lord Voldemort, but rather the soon-to-be lame-duck-in-chief. Probably the number two question I, as Cultural Ambassador, must field, is, “How did he get elected twice?” I’ve expounded on the following topics more times than I can remember: the electoral college, hanging chads, red state vs. blue state culture, 9/11’s impact on the national psyche, our atrocious war and how its messy wake swayed many Americans (despite their better sentiments) to vote for him in ‘04, the disappointment that was John Kerry, that 49% of us did not want him around for a second term, and that all public-speaking evidence to the contrary, Dubya is not as mentally feeble as he seems. My students perhaps got more than they bargained for, but at least their already-negative views of W have been more fleshed out.

Election fatigue. As if the prolonged primary and its abundant news coverage weren’t reasons enough, I’ve also fallen prey to election fatigue because Indecision ’08 (as “The Daily Show” has branded it) is The Number One Issue on which my students want my opinion. Is Obama really the “Black Kennedy” (as the French media has dubbed him)? Why won’t Hillary give up? And just who is this John McCain character, anyway? These are the questions I get day in, day out. I’ve analyzed the pros and cons of each candidate, dissected every mini-scandal (from Rev. Wright to “100 years in Iraq” to Hillary’s RFK gaffe), and described the major election issues and how much they matter to various constituencies. However, while it can be fatiguing, tackling this election isn’t as demoralizing as, say, regaling my students with tales of ambulance chasers. It can actually be inspiring. We may not yet know who the Democratic nominee will be, but it fills me with hope and pride each time I tell my students with full conviction that America seems ready to elect its first Black president. A president of color and one who promises a real change of direction—two concepts that are also totally foreign to the French, but for once I’m not wincing as I explain the intricacies of life back home.

Soixante-et-un, Le Maximum!

I knew there would be a transportation strike yesterday, but what I didn’t realize was that there would also be a huge demonstration protesting the proposed retirement age increase practically right outside my door. I’ve seen a few manifestations over the past few months, but none as big as this one. Tons and tons of civil servant unions from the greater Paris region gathered at Place de la Bastille and marched up the boulevard to Place de la Republique, right past my block, to decry working until the (hardly) “ripe, old” age of 61 – quite a laugh to an American who’s not only accustomed to the standard retirement age of 65, but also knows that even 65 is becoming more and more of a pipe dream what with the Social Security crisis and longer life expectancy. (Plus, isn't 60 the new 40?) Preconceptions aside, I went to check out the action. If attending Burning Man several times taught me anything, it was that being a spectator and not a participant is kind of lame. However, being an expat often makes you a spectator by nature, and sociological observation is a learning experience, after all.

Here are a few things I observed at the manif. Some were hardly surprising, but were a riot to see up close.

- Protests are a raucous affair (duh). San Francisco and New York can put on a mean protest, but this one, in terms of scale and effort, was formidable. Hoards of people of all ages were out for the event, from grade-school age to those who shuffled along with canes. Attendees of course had the standard flags, banners, pins, stickers, and leaflets that shouted out their respective causes, but whipped themselves up into a frenzy chanting at the top of their lungs to the point of becoming red in the face. (I think I can recite at least two of the popular chants now, being that I heard them ad nauseum: one slammed the increase of the retirement age from 60 to 61, while the other vocalized just how much Sarkozy’s disapproval rating has grown.) The unions not only had all the propaganda mentioned above, but also drove vans sporting soundtracks. Pinko parade footage blared from the Parti Communiste Française, the Rolling Stones’ “Emotional Rescue” (WTF?) blasted from the metallurgist union, and in a surprisingly pro twist, a dub-reggae remix of the maximum working years chant sounded from another van.

- Protests are a social affair. People crowded the rears of said vans in order to get down to the day’s real order of business: serious drinking. Yes, the vans sported bars in the back. If you’re going to spend your whole afternoon trudging up the boulevard and shouting your lungs out, you might as well do it with a beer or glass of wine in hand. Some protesters seemed to be taking this a bit too far. Plus, there were even some food vendors serving the crowd! It also seemed that the manif was a reunion of sorts. I saw lots of people spot each other across the crowd, prance over to each other, and perform the ritual double-kiss, proclaiming how long it had been and how good it was to see each other, etc. It all made me wonder, is this demonstration thing a social circuit? I mean, everyone and their mother and their mother’s mailman is out, they’re partying, and they’re running into each other in a manner rivaling a Phish show parking lot.
o “Man, manif tour is such a blur – did I see you last at that crazy waste management union thing, or was it the pharmacists'? Or maybe the teachers' strike – that was off the hook! All I know is, I passed out on the grass at Republique and woke up hours later plastered with Socialist Party flyers.”

- Protests are an ironic affair. People spent hours and hours revolting against reforms that would supposedly make them work harder, and created so much waste in the process – the street looked like an aftermath of a post-war victory parade. The best was when the city street cleaners’ union moved through the crowd. One of their entourage threw his beer can on the ground, crushed it underfoot, and kept on walking. In the end, someone would have to work hard at this anti-work affair - busting ass cleaning it all up.

On n'a pas besoin d'education

I’ve heard for a long time that the French education system is superior to America’s, and after 9 months of living here, I have gleaned some solid evidence to support this claim: people are well-read, spout off world history like it’s no one’s business, and engage in the art of debate for pleasure’s sake. Get an average American to locate Canada on a map and, well, we have gaffes the like of fourth grade teachers caught on Jay Leno who can’t. Touché. But on further examination (and lots of prodding on my part to discuss matters with my French students and friends), I’ve learned that despite its graduates’ shiny intello façades, the French education system isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

Yesterday’s teachers’ strike really drove one of the causal issues home. Prez Sarkozy had announced plans to cut teaching jobs due to lack of funding. Do more with less – sounds familiar to a former American public school teacher who knows all too well the consequences of limited financing: layoffs, overcrowded classrooms, ancient tech equipment, and the list goes on. But these glaring similarities between the two countries aside, France’s schools aren’t helped by the age-old French pattern of politician proposes reform, groups X, Y, and Z don’t like it, said groups go on strike, and politician relents. It’s a vicious cycle that has daunted many administrations past and one that the electorate hoped to break by putting Sarkozy, who promised sweeping reforms, into office last May. So far, Sarkozy hasn’t made much headway, but given his four remaining years in office, he can still turn over a new leaf, starting with the demonstrating teachers.

You’d think that right about now I’d be starting a vicious rant about the sacrilege of cutting teaching jobs. However, the dirty truth is that some teaching jobs DO need to be cut in this country, but not for the reasons you’d expect. Unlike in America, there is a glut of teachers in France, but many of them aren’t teaching. They’re living on the dole while on lengthy maternity leaves (bravo) or sick leaves (boo) – many of the latter aren’t even legit. (Apparently they can go on sick leave if they feel overstressed. Um, name me ONE teacher who isn’t severely overstressed at times.) And the taxpayers provide these non-working teachers with a livable salary. See, this is where I scare myself because I start to sound like a right-winger. In France, I practically am dangerously close to being one! (In order to calibrate between the two countries, just shift American views to the right and you have your French equivalent. The French left would be considered radical socialist in America, the French center is our left, and the French right wing spans conservatives of the just-fiscal variety all the way to the Bible-thumpers.) Back to the point, more people in France actually do oppose the all-too-familiar vicious cycle scenario described above and do want the big changes Sarko promised – more than we think. But how can a country make progress when too many others game the system or freak out when one small thing is taken away from them, in the name of utilitarianism? Isn’t that what socialism is supposed to be about, the common good?

Another big issue with French education is that academia is destiny. The notion of a liberal arts college education doesn’t exist here. When you apply to college in France, you must select your professional field. High school seniors apply to science college, business college, social sciences college, engineering college, etc, essentially locking themselves into their chosen métier for life. Because it’s darn near impossible to change careers. Yes, you can change roles within a field, but once you’ve chosen a field there’s no American-style late-20’s/early-30’s crisis of “this isn’t what I really want to do, so I’ll just become a...” (insert new career path here), unless you go back to square zero and get another bachelor's-level degree and then some. It isn’t all that shocking then, that 46% of French first-year undergrads drop out of college. Or that tons of adults feel trapped in jobs they hate. I teach several of such people. The same people who look at me like I’ve just landed from Mars when I tell them I’ve had two very different careers – especially since a lot of folks think at first glance that I’m, like, 25 (maybe it’s the freckles). Anyhow, the situation is so fatalistic and depressing and suddenly the idea of coughing up gobs and gobs of money for an American bachelor’s degree doesn’t seem as crazy as it once did.

There’s so much more to say, but I feel like I could dedicate a five-page essay to this topic and it’s Friday night and I want to step out and this is really shaping up to be quite the run-on sentence (thank you, American education system). Granted, I’ve only done a quickie armchair analysis of the situation, so I’d be really interested to hear what my French readership (if you’re out there) have to say. Les français, n'hesitez pas de commenter!

La Buena Vida

I’ve been waiting years and years to visit Spain. Learning Spanish during my school days, watching every Almodovar film, savoring tapas, and hearing many travelogues dripping with superlatives about the country’s offerings were enough to put it on the top of my wish list. Furthermore, every single person I know who’s visited Barcelona has insisted that I’d absolutely fall in love with the city. Well, sure enough, within moments of arriving, I knew it was my kind of town, and after three and a half glorious days, I very surely fell in love.

There’s a very special kind of energy there – one that joins ultra-dynamism and ultra-chillness. The people are friendly and laid back, yet have the energy to keep it going through all hours of the day. Sure, they take a siesta, but in Barcelona we hardly noticed any kind of pause in the afternoon. Some shops were closed, but there were people pouring out of every nook and cranny. Granted, it’s the beginning of peak tourist season, but the constant swarm of people hardly made the city unbearable – if anything, it only added to the vibrancy of an already lively place. While we found the super-late dining hour to be over-hyped (restaurants were packed, even with locals, by the time we arrived at 10:30-11), the legends are all true – the people rage through all hours of night. Walking around post-dinner at 1am, there were groups of people strolling, partying, or just hanging out, and I’m not just talking twentysomethings.

Then there’s the city’s incredible art and architecture. I think my jaw was agape almost the entire time I was in town. Like many European cities, there is an abundance of history captured in the building’s edifices. In Barcelona, we stumbled upon medieval and Gothic churches, 17th century plazas, and ornate statues from various bygone eras. Plus there was architecture we set out to see: the art-nouveau-on-acid apartment buildings designed by Antoni Gaudi and his contemporaries, not to mention Gaudi’s piece de resistance, the Sagrada Familia cathedral. This work-in-progress is, over 100 years since building started, still under construction, but the cranes and sporadic scaffolding do not at all diminish the effect of this astounding architectural wonder of the world. The pseudo-cubist stone edifice at the entrance featuring knights and religious figures gives way to an interior forest of columns branching into petal-like designs and sometimes a burst of sky (the ceiling is not entirely complete). After circling the whole of the interior, we reached the back exterior of the building, and at that point my mind was officially blown. The famous 80’s anti-drug ad campaign came to mind: this is your brain (picture the pristine, raw egg); this is your brain on Gaudi (cut to sunny-side up). Yowza. The edifice looks like it’s melting, but it’s really all a series of ornate carvings so weird and beautiful and at some times realistic (there were some human figures reminiscent of classical sculpture). The spires swirl upward and are topped off by bulbous, colorfully tiled simulacrums of crosses. And the most insane part is that there’s so much more work to be done to fully realize the original vision. I can’t wait to return to the city, say 5 or 10 years from now, just to see the progress that’s been made. The lone image pictured here obviously expresses more than my words ever could, but of course no pictures can even do it justice.

But that’s not the end of all the surreal goodness with which Gaudi graced BCN. He designed a fantasyland of a park in the hilly outskirts of the city, Parc Guell. From the gingerbread house at the entrance to the eerily cool and calm Hall of Columns to the mosaic-tiled lizard, there are enough quirky landmarks to feed the senses aside from lush greenery and shady walking paths. Even though the park was a total tourist madhouse, exploring it was a heavenly experience.

We tried to visit the Picasso Museum twice, but each time the line was winding all the way to Madrid, so we opted out. Instead, we checked out a gallery featuring Dali’s lesser-known works (lots of drawings, small paintings, sculptures, and even some funky furniture). In addition, we went to the MACBA, BCN’s contemporary art museum. Although we weren’t super impressed with the current exhibits (plus there wasn’t enough context provided for the more obscure ones, including a multimedia installation on the Lithuanian embassy in Rome…a little info would’ve been helpful), we loved the museum’s architecture and a few random installations.

In between all our art-gazing escapades, we just walked and walked and walked. Las Ramblas, a main artery of the city that was built for promenading, is a tourist attraction in and of itself. It’s chockablock with vendors hawking everything from bouquets to tacky souvenirs to live animals; in between the vendors you can find all manner of street performers. I think BCN has a higher per capita of street performers than any other city in the world. They weren’t limited to Las Ramblas – we saw them in almost every plaza throughout daytime hours. The Boqueria, the mother of all outdoor market, is also located right off the densely packed Ramblas. We spent a while just wandering amid the market stalls boasting vibrantly colored produce, seafood, spices, candies, and, of course, the
ultimate in Spanish food products, jamon iberico. We sampled the latter at a restaurant and I’m not a very good Jew for saying this, but I felt intoxicated after eating it, and I don’t even really like ham. It was that incredible. We of course also enjoyed a variety of tapas and sipped some tasty cava, and amid all the delicious eats, we somehow forgot to get some paella, which is scandalous.

A final note on language: I was mentally preparing myself to try out my long dormant Spanish skills. Granted, in Catalunya (the region in Spain where BCN is located) people speak Catalan, which is not the Spanish we learned in school. However, most people in BCN do speak Castellano Spanish as well as some English. The first couple days my foreign language wires got crossed and I spoke in a little patois I like to call fragnol. For example, I ordered “café avec leche” more than once and instinctively answered “oui” instead of “si.” But after a while, the old Spanish came back to me and I was able to put whole sentences together. N felt a bit helpless, as his Spanish is more or less limited to "hola," "gracias," and now, "bocadilla." It was funny to have the tables turned, as I’m used to being the linguistically inferior one in the land of the Gauls.

In short, I am head over heels for BCN and although we already moved to Paris, I now really, really want to move there. Best. City. Ever.