Gevalt, Oy.

When the husband and I were strategizing to take up digs in the Marais, the thought of its twin cultural legacies were comforting, as they each have some semblance of my two former cities of residence: the old Jewish quarter (I’m a member of the tribe, from NYC no less) and the epicenter of the city’s gay population (I lived in San Francisco for nearly a decade). The combination would surely make us feel at home.

In reality, you may see the occasional cluster of Hassidim strolling around or rainbow sticker displayed in a storefront window, but our neighborhood is hardly 47th or Castro streets. It’s a fantastic area of Paris, to be sure, with its old, narrow streets; small, leafy parks; myriad boutiques, restos, and cafés; and all-around laid-back charm. But one thing our quartier is for sure is gentrified. The French might call it bobo, or bourgeois bohemian. And this process of gentrification, which began several years ago, may be benign to one of the neighborhood’s key social groups, but is squeezing out the other.

The rue des Rosiers is the heart of Jewish life in the Marais, boasting kosher bakeries, Israeli falafel joints, Judaica shops, and small synagogues scattered on side streets. When you walk the insanely narrow, cobble-stoned street (all three blocks of it), you can see these vestiges of Jewish culture—but they’re few compared to the number of modern fashion boutiques lining the rue. On my first walk down Rosiers, I felt simultaneously heartened and disheartened. The reality was as surprising as the first time I visited the corner of Haight-Ashbury—I wasn’t expecting to see a hippie commune, and to be honest I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a swath of expensive shops. The Haight has been performing a dance for years now, holding onto its bohemian past while making way for its gentrified present. A few years ago, Haight-area residents successfully petitioned against plans to open an Urban Outfitters on the infamous street. People feared that “mall-ification” of the rest of the street would follow, and wanted to prevent the havoc the store would wreak on the already insane weekend crowds and impossible street-parking situation. Back on the rue des Rosiers, people are gearing up to resist the very real threat of an H&M store opening on the grounds of a former hammam. The last thing the largely chain-free yet pedestrian-thronged Marais needs now—especially on Rosiers—is a big, brash H&M store.

I can’t afford to shop in the smart boutiques and don’t need an H&M within 10 minutes of my house, but I support the Jewish businesses by literally putting my money where my mouth is. I relish frequenting the two best eateries on Rosiers, where I can be sure to get my money’s worth for a delicious lunch and also practice my very-rusty Hebrew: the famous L’As du Falafel (best falafel outside the homeland? The long line of locals and tourists proves it) and the kitty-cornered fabulous deli with the blue-tiled exterior (I can’t remember the name and it’s driving me crazy—but they make great turkey and pastrami sandwiches and have all kinds of Sefardic and Ashkenazi goodies). Gentrification may be inevitable, but I know where my loyalties lie.

The World, He Is Small

I experienced quite the small-world coincidence today, which seldom occurs when almost everyone you know lives across an ocean.

I had two morning classes and two afternoon classes scheduled today at La Défense, the business district situated on the outskirts of Paris. However, my second class got cancelled and so I had a three-hour gap in my schedule. Rather than spend half of it riding back and forth between La Défense and home, I took my laptop and planned to write and hop on a wi-fi connection.

So, I was walking across the Esplanade at a time that I wouldn’t normally be doing so. All of a sudden, I hear my name called, and it turns out it’s an old colleague from my Travelocity days, who I haven’t seen in over four years. She’s French and had lived in the States for several years before returning to the mother country. I had some vague memories of her coming back to Europe, but I wasn’t exactly sure where she’d moved and these memories were so buried in my brain that I hadn’t remembered to seek her out when I emigrated.

Anyhow, coincidence worked in my favor, because she was on her way to work, very late in fact, and thus out on the Esplanade at a time she normally wouldn’t be. It turns out she lives outside Paris and works at La Défense. Our accidental rendez-vous was probably even stranger for her, because although she knows my husband has dual citizenship, what on earth was I doing here, of all places? I’ve never been so glad to have a big gap in my schedule (when they happen at La Défense, I usually spend them alone, drinking coffee and reading or just wandering the local mall, which is the only thing going in those parts). It was great to reconnect and see a familiar face for a change!

What’s even funnier is that this isn’t the first Travelocity-related coincidence to pop up in my life in Paris. After living here for several months, it came to my attention (thanks to my good friend and former TVLY co-worker) that a former colleague of ours was also living in Paris. She and I got in touch and it turns out she and her husband moved here around the same time as us, for the same reason, and lived within a 15-minute walk from chez nous. Parallel lives, much? It was a wonderful discovery, and now we see each other regularly.

Who else is going to come out of the woodwork from my former life in the travel industry? And is this a sign of some sort?

Risqué Business

A couple weeks ago, she started popping up in some Métro stations. Now I can hardly take the train anywhere without seeing her oiled, tanned, almost completely naked body. It’s not a raving exhibitionist nor poster for a porno, but rather the Galeries Lafayette’s current life-size ad for its bathing suit collection.

Well, it might as well be porn. I’ve had to brush past more than one man blatantly ogling the model in the ad. She lies in profile, gripping a triangle-bikini top to her substantially bare chest, the bikini bottom dangling seductively from her toes. She should be bronzing on the beaches of Rio, yet here she is, brazenly exposed in the Paris underground. Wait, I could’ve sworn this was an ad for women’s bathing suits, not for beer or power tools. Or is this the paragon of seductive beauty that French women aspire to?

My workday took me past the Galeries Lafayette today, where I saw the ad grossly magnified on the edifice of the department store, demanding the attention of passers-by, in an even more aggressive fashion than when Marky Mark graced the giant Calvin Klein underwear ad at Times Square. It’s an overwhelming testament to the French’s casual attitude toward sexuality. After all, this is a country in which nudie magazines are not hidden in the very back corner of a newsstand, but are blown up to ten times the magazine cover size and flaunted on the kiosk’s exterior to beckon customers—and some network television programs feature what is virtually soft-core porn.

Yes, the French are far less prudish than us Americans. But lest you believe in the now-clichéd topless beaches of the Côte d’Azur, take it from les français (and my one allemande student)—the Germans are even more relaxed about sexuality, as many of them apparently love to be nude. For what it’s worth.

(Not) Working, Part Deux: Two Years in the Merde

If you thought my recent skewering of the French work ethic wasn’t enough, I just made an interesting discovery during a discussion with a student. Apparently her company (a very large, leading French financial firm) provides a career development track of urging employees to change their jobs—that correspond to their qualifications, of course—every three to four years. That’s nice, considering finding employment isn’t an easy gambit in this country and the rigid university selection process forces people to stay within one given field—at least this way employees are encouraged to diversify their experiences. Of course, in America, an employee’s career development relies largely on his own motivation and isn’t gently nudged in that direction by his company. But I digress.

The real cherry on top is that when an employee at my student’s company wants to change positions, she can’t just one day make the switch. She must wait for a replacement to come along before she moves on to greener pastures. This can take a while, for a variety of reasons—not the least of which, French employment law dictates that individuals must give three months’ notice when resigning! Three months! (It’s hard to imagine how those employees stay motivated, but apparently a considerable stipend is withheld until the end of this lame-duck period.) Anyhow, my student’s manager was in a real pickle when he was all set to change positions, but nary a replacement could be found. He waited so long that he tried to negotiate several times with his managers, and finally they told him that they’d need him to stay in his current position for another two years (!!!) until they could properly replace him. Wow. Now that’s career mobility.

My student informed me that her manager is not alone—many employees have had to wait months…and months…and more months for replacements. All it does is decrease motivation. My student has benefited from her manager’s lack of it, as he lets her leave early and take vacation during super busy work periods. That’s great for her, but when viewed on a larger scale, that’s terrible for employee satisfaction and worker productivity at her firm. And I don’t have any proof, but something tells me the problem exists at more than just one French company.

Everybody's (Not) Working for the Weekend

When discussing cultural stereotypes with a student, I was shocked to learn that she wasn’t aware of one of the (in my eyes) most common perceptions of the French: their allergy to work. This stereotype is, of course, propagated by Anglo Saxons, and from that perspective, it seems rather irrefutable, what with the standard five weeks of vacation and 35-hour workweek.

When I moved to France last year, I decided it was time to put the jokes about French slackers aside and get to the bottom of what the work culture was all about. Stereotypes are only partially based in truth; surely, there must be more to the story. Well, nearly a year later, I’m here to tell you that there isn’t. It seems that certain forces have conspired to create a perfect storm of anti-productivity. This phenomenon is complex to be sure (I’ve boiled down book-length material to a handful of paragraphs, mind you) and not without exceptions, but from an American point of view, rather mind-boggling.

On the surface, working in France seems like one, long paid vacation. In addition to the aforementioned five weeks of annual holiday time, employees who work over 35 hours per week (which means practically everyone in the private sector) are entitled to reduction du temps de travail (literally: reduction of work time), more commonly known as RTT: one or two extra paid days off per month. This added PTO amounts to a grand total of seven to nine weeks of vacation per year. The French also grant employees with children three extra days off per year for each child if the child is sick and needs parental care (proof in the form of a doctor’s note is required for these and for employees’ own sick days, because employers apparently don’t trust their employees). Lest you think French companies are going overboard, not to worry—employees must use their vacation within a year, as PTO doesn’t roll over into the following year as in many American companies. Therefore, it’s totally natural to take off weeks at a time—it’s all in the spirit of making the most out of what the unions make sure is an employee’s right.

While Anglos may envy the French’s ability to take such advantage of work-life balance, there’s a dark underbelly to the French employment system. There is an exceptionally high cost of operating a business in France, as companies are obliged to pay a business tax in addition to exorbitant taxes on employees. Moreover, when a company wishes to dismiss someone, they not only have to provide a valid justification for doing so, but also pay a substantial sum to the government. These restrictions have created a climate in which it’s extremely difficult to get hired (see the nearly 10% unemployment rate) and even more difficult to get fired. Therefore, repeated tardiness, persistent loafing, and gross incompetence are not high on the list of reasons for getting fired—the companies just don’t want to go through the trouble of documenting the infractions and paying the fee. People can therefore coast and exploit a system just made for abuse.

To an Anglo, there are several things French employees seemingly “get away with,” yet these “abuses” are relatively benign and practically rote. A two-hour lunch is totally acceptable. It doesn’t mean that everyone regularly takes one, but anything under an hour is deemed unthinkable; don’t even think about telling someone that you’re so busy you need to eat lunch at your desk, unless you want to risk giving them a heart attack. Coffee breaks are also a stalwart feature of the French workday. It’s worth noting that the length of coffee breaks is totally disproportionate to the size of coffees people drink. The French have a knack for making a tiny espresso last 25 minutes—and do so several times per day. On sunny days, I’ve walked past office buildings where nearly everyone seemed to be outside “drinking coffee.” These frequent breaks aren’t clocked and while I’m sure managers notice, they may very well be engaging in similar behavior. Between all of these pauses (and including many employees’ weekly training in languages or tech), it’s hard to imagine that a lot of work actually gets done in a given day.

When the French are actually working, they often attend meetings—an aspect of work culture that is run in a manner far from Swiss-watch efficiency. From what I’ve gleaned from many students who work at a variety of companies, meetings can be quite the sore spot, annoying even those who may not have the most diligent work ethic. People show up late, which often delays the start time. There may or may not be a meeting organizer who runs the show, and if there is one, he/she may or may not have an agenda. Attendees often come unprepared and sometimes unclear on why they’re needed there. Meetings also usually go overtime because a decision can’t be reached, as the French have a tendency to scrutinize a situation from all possible angles—a level of analysis that can be admirable, if not done to a fault. Progress consequently gets halted, generating more and more meetings. Coming from America, where (for the most part) meetings are held to agendas, decisions are made, and action items are assigned, this molasses-like rate of “forward” movement seems CRAZY.

And as if all the above everyday behaviors didn’t seem bad enough, we then have the serious cases of work-sploitation—the ones that even your average glandeur (slacker) cannot tolerate. In fact, the French have invented a term for the type of worker who stretches the system to the limit. These ne’er-do-wells are called bras cassés (broken arms), and they exist at many a company. The bras cassé is either incompetent or just doesn’t care at all about doing a good job, and everyone in his department knows it. However, he can’t get fired (for the reasons delineated above), so he gets shunted into a series of bullshit jobs that have no real purpose or make no real contribution to the company and still receives a paycheck for showing up every day and doing, for all intents and purposes, nothing. Think Milton from the film “Office Space.” Here’s a prime example: my student had a former teammate who used to come in, no joke, at 5pm every day and work for about four hours. This tardy queen extraordinaire would also raise a huge fuss if her chair was being used in a meeting or if even one pencil was out of place on her desk. Then she started to come down with chronic “illnesses,” which caused her to intermittently miss “whole” (well, in reality, half) days of work. Her manager wanted to fire her, of course, but couldn’t. The young blood who joined the team in the midst of all this observed her behavior and felt, if she’s doing it and isn’t getting fired, then why shouldn’t we? And so a vicious cycle begins. We can wag our fingers at the bras cassé for being a bad role model, and I agree, but I also say, bad system! This story may seem extreme, and it is, but I’ve heard similar tales (albeit to lesser degrees) from many students.

While hurdles to getting fired provide employees with a sizable amount of job security, they sometimes take their sense of security too far. The feeling of “I can’t be bothered” has permeated the system. People have rigid definitions of what their jobs entail, and they stick to this script in way that throws the notions of efficiency and customer service out the window altogether. At my bank, only my account executive can assist me with certain tasks. You’d think there is someone else at the bank who’s trained to do those exact same tasks, and I’ve asked that very question more than once, but I’ve gotten the same response: “It’s not my job.” Excuse me? Isn’t keeping your customers happy every employee’s job? At at the local appliances depot, I was having a difficult time finding what I was looking for, so I sought out an employee’s help. I asked a worker in the dishwasher section if he could help me find the fans. I apparently mistakenly assumed that any employee would be able to assist me, because he told me I’d have to find someone else to help me, as fans weren’t in his jurisdiction. Read: it’s not my job. This tunnel vision is seeping into the minds of the future workforce as well. My husband and I were visiting his French relatives recently, and his cousin’s adorable four-year-old daughter was prattling on about cute four-year-old matters when she suddenly stated with utmost seriousness that the poor pigeons poop on the buildings and someone should build them bathrooms (aw, cute). My husband asked her, “Who’s going to build these bathrooms?” “Well,” she replied, “I don’t know—but definitely not me!” And thus, her generation’s aversion to work is given a voice.

You’d think this collective lack of urgency would result in almost nothing getting done, but ironically France was ranked number three on the world productivity index. Huh? Well, of course not all French workers are grand glandeurs. There are many people who are committed to their jobs and truly do work hard. But there are also many who game the system under the guise of diligence. A recent trend in French work culture has been to work long hours in order to be noticed as the last one still in the office. As I laid out above, people aren’t always assiduously working throughout the day. They could be surfing Internet porn after having taken the fourteenth coffee break of the day, but it’s 8:30pm and so therefore they must be dedicatedly chipping away at their gargantuan pile of work. These masters of illusion get recognition for their apparent diligence, while others who may work just as—if not harder—than the midnight-oil burners prefer to leave work at a reasonable hour (due to having young children at home) get passed up for promotions. This screams of a lamentable lack of critical thinking and a system of reward based on performance quantity rather than quality—the opposite of which is rightly valued in Anglo work culture.

Despite the logic-defying productivity index ranking, France has remained relatively uncompetitive on the world business stage for many of the reasons described above. Furthermore, anytime a reform to employment law is proposed, public outcry rages against the threat of France becoming “too Anglo-Saxon.” Oh, the horror! Mind you, a lot of the material for this piece came from long discussions with French people who detest the way the system works and lament the manifold abuses. However, it’s clear that the system is so ingrained that despite some of its denizens’ best intentions and efforts, not much will change and therefore, the French will live to (not) work another day.

Fun With Frenglish

Teaching English to the French does funny things to my brain. It not only helps me learn French (as my students often provide translations of certain words and idioms), but it also simultaneously strengthens and weakens my English. The strengthening part should be fairly obvious—I can easily articulate the grammatical structures of the language, which I’ve never been taught but have learned intuitively (like most native speakers). But the weakening part can be best explained by sharing with you the English I hear day in, day out. And so, it is with a teacher’s loving (and only lightly mocking) heart that I bring you the latest compilation of English gone awry, French style.

Let’s take a journey through what could be a typical conversation on the job (sans teacherly interjections to correct any mistakes):

Me: Can you recommend a good restaurant?
Student: Yes. I am happy to give you the good address. Can you precise me the cuisine you want?
Me: A bistro would be great.
Student: I propose you a bistro, not so touristic, in the first arrondisement. He has very typic French cooking. I suggest you also a sympatic wine bar, not expensive, on the same street. There is a very funny atmosphere.
Me: What are some of the bistro’s specialties?
Student: I always choice the confit de canard. It’s very tasty. And they have sorbets of many unusual perfumes.
Me: Great. And where is it located?
Student: I explain you how to go there. But can you say me your nearest Metro station?
Me: (Give the details)
Student: (Gives directions). And those are all the infos you need to know. Please say me how was your meal. I am very interesting in your feedbacks.

You’ve no doubt noticed what appear to be glaring English errors—but these are mostly instances of the French imposing their own grammar and vocabulary on English. I hear “I propose you…I explain you…I suggest you…I confirm you…” countless times, but that’s just French grammar rearing its head. Say vs. tell is a natural point of confusion. The expression le bon addresse is the French way of saying ‘a great place to go.’ Calling a restaurant “he”? All nouns have genders in French. You can probably guess what 'touristic' and 'typic' should be. 'Sympatic' is derived from sympatique, the French word for nice. Perfume translates to parfum, which could be Chanel No. 5 or a flavor. Info and feedback are always singular in English, but countable in French. Owing to phonological similarity, “choice” and “choose” are frequently confused (my husband got an email from a work event organizer requesting him to “choice his lunch”). In addition, many people don’t realize there’s a distinction between funny and fun; rather, the word funny is used as a catchall, as is done in French. But “I am very interesting” is just a bald-faced mistake, with no language-transfer justification. (I get a kick out of explaining to my students that starting off a sentence that way can cause the false perception that they have highly-inflated senses of self.)

Needless to say, these typical errors are so commonplace that I’ve taken to jokingly using them in my home life, far away from the burning ears of my students. (I know, it’s bad.) I will ask my husband to propose me what he’d like to eat for dinner or to look up infos on the train schedule for our next vacation destination. He’s right there with me, responding in kind, as he hears these same errors every day at his office. The thing is, it’s like the old warning parents give children: if you keep making those faces, one day, they’ll stick. Yes folks, my English skills are starting to deteriorate. Ruh roh.

Let’s go in further depth with Frenglish to show you just how far the rabbit hole things have fallen.

False friends. That’s what the French call English words that appear to have French equivalents, but in reality have different meanings altogether, or no meaning at all. I constantly have to correct my students’ use of these phonies, explaining that people work at companies, not societies; that getting into car accidents can hurt people, not bless them; and that a business can be profitable, not rentable. At a shop, an employee—in an effort to practice his English—asked me if I had any money, because he “have not money.” It seems like a rather obvious, albeit bizarre, question to a customer, right? What he meant was, he was out of small change (in French, monnaie), so did I have any I could pay with? My all-time favorite: a student once said that a certain solution wouldn’t be very “sweatable” (the French souhaitable, sounds just like it if said Anglo style, but it means desirable). It’s all very funny until false friends come unintentionally tumbling out of your own mouth. I once complained to a colleague about the poor organization skills of a ‘formation’ (ahem, training) manager at a client’s office, and on another occasion told someone about the unthinkable scenario I had to face at a certain ‘agency’ (that would be, branch) of my bank. Although these slips have been rare, they give me pause. If my vocabulary is starting to go, what’s next?

The answer to that question lies in certain ubiquitous expressions the French use in English that, while not incorrect, are just a little off. “Normally” is in heavy rotation. For example: How do you like your coffee? “I normally take my coffee with no milk.” How do you get to the Louvre? “Normally, you should exit the Metro and turn on the third street on your left.” Well, normally, Anglos would say ‘usually’ or ‘generally.’ The usage doesn’t mangle the speaker’s meaning, but it’s just different enough. It sometimes slips into my speech when I explain how to use a certain verb tense: “Normally, we use present perfect for actions that…(etc).”

Whenever a French person wishes to confirm something, they’ll undoubtedly say, “It’s OK for me.” Can you meet next Tuesday at 10:00? “It’s OK for me.” Do you mind picking me up from work today? “Yes, it’s OK for me.” While the sentence seems innocuous, it’s not something native English speakers would actually say. Those questions would probably be answered with, “That works for me” or “No problem.” What does being OK have to do with it? But lo and behold, after reading a difficult passage in an article during an English lesson, I’ve started asking students, “Did you understand that? Is it OK for you?” Gah! It makes me cringe a little every time.

But the most amusing offender (if we can call it that) is the standard phrase used to express a positive opinion. Should abortion be legal in Catholic countries? “Yes, why not?” If you find a wallet on the street containing a large sum of money, but no identification, is it justifiable to keep it? “Yes, why not?” This response suggests a rather flippant attitude toward the controversies at hand. We’re not dealing with whether we should choose a Burgundy rather than a Bordeaux. Even though I’m quite accustomed to receiving it as an answer to most opinion-based questions, it still makes me snigger inside every time I hear it. And while I’ve actually never inadvertently used the expression in English, whenever I use its equivalent pourquoi pas? in French, I crack up a little bit, leaving the French person I’m talking to slightly perplexed.

Idioms and slang are two components of my English that have remained, thankfully, 100% intact—which doesn’t make it any less funny when I hear my dear students make verbal guacamole of certain English expressions. The most recent parade of hits include “It is just the small part of the iceberg” and “It isn’t written in the rock.” Fabulous. There’s also the student who commiserated with me over getting sunburns: “I cannot support the sun.” (I know—its policies on immigration are way over the line. It’s not getting my vote this year!) Or take my sexagenarian student who laments the fact that she never speaks English with her British husband, but said when they met, she “was attracted by his English tongue.” Uh…TMI?

The best is when a student has clearly used a translation engine in order to write an email in English. I tell my students again and again that those engines never work, but it doesn’t prevent people from using them anyway—to hilarious effect. I received a real head-scratcher from a student with whom I was trying to schedule lessons. She wrote:

“I am going to try but sometimes with transport I have difficulty in being there at 9:00 am. If it is your only schedule disponnible roaches. When think of courting you, because I have to try to find a room what is not always easy.”

OK, we can overlook some of the grammar. And disponible means available in French. But “disponnible roaches”? Who invited them to the lesson? And who’s trying to “court” me—is this the 19th century? Please tell me it’s not the roaches, however available they may be.

Even if Frenglish has started pecking away at my own English, even if my students’ verbal blunders keep me on my toes, and even if I do sometimes stoop to the level of discreet mockery, I still find all of these linguistic slips quite endearing. It’s OK for me.

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.