Paris au Moyen Age

You can slap my wrist later because I haven't done anything even remotely related to my project for almost a week.  For now, you can be proud of me because I got out of the apartment before noon today without the excuse of having to meet my landlady or the necessity of going to a church meeting.  This is what got me out and about today:

Yes.  That's right.  Medieval Paris.  I think I'm in love, and also, I should have known that 1920 isn't long enough ago.  I was walking through the Montparnasse Cemetery the other day, disappointed that all those people had died between 1875 and 2011.  "Isn't there anyone who's been dead LONGER?"  I'm going to Montmartre Cemetery one of these days to see if people there have been dead longer.  After I get my bearings in the parts of Paris I can walk to, I'll start venturing out to the parts I have to Metro to and walk back from.  I'm hoping my shoes will be nice and worn in by then.

Anyway, Medieval Paris.  I went to St.-Sulpice the other day and just about died

(of happiness).

It's just about that beautiful in person, except all that open space around it is a lie.  There's a nice big square out in front of it, where some boys were playing football before I went in to attend messe and they were still there when I got out an hour later, so I sat and watched them for a while.  I have to admit, Catholic mass feels different from an Anglican service, which I've been to half a dozen of.  Even in the center of Paris, there are local paroissiens/parissioners--um, I don't know the spelling in either English or French, so you'll have to take a cross between the two--and its much like it must have been a hundred years ago: a community church service.  Only there are less people than there used to be (or so I assume) and several of the people attending are tourists (I'm going to count myself as one of them for the time being).  I do prefer the church when its silent and I get to walk around and sit and worship God in my own way, but I'm glad to have had the experience of mass, regardless.

St. Sulpice opened doors.  I decided to do some research on it because I want to write an architecture piece on it for one of my classes.  I started with wikipedia, which is really a lot more useful than academia gives it credit for.  And I found this.

And this is what I thought: "Holy Hell.  Streets.  That existed then.  That might exist now."

So it started a long and involved internet search for Medieval maps of Paris in which one of the maps I found was the first one I posted above.  I encourage you to click on the picture and see it at full resolution, if it lets you.  It's awesome.  Well, I'd been wanting to go to St. Germain-des-Prés, when what should I find out but that it's the oldest church in Paris, founded in the 6th century by the SON OF CLOVIS (relaying this information makes me want to cry--seriously).  ARE YOU HEARING ME?!  CLOVIS!  (Also, a Medieval side-note: Clovis-->Clouis-->Louis.  The French have been using that name for a long time.  Is your mind blown?)  Anyway, the tower of the Abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés was finished in 1014.  You're probably one of those people to whom dates mean nothing.  1014 was almost 1000 years ago.

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That's a thousand 0's.  For you.  To see how many 0's it would take to make a thousand.  One 0 at the end of every year.  That's a LOT of years.  Okay.  So here I am just looking at this map of this ancient church that used to sit on this one street in--and I realize, it still does.  I can GO.  I can GO.  It's like...a 20 minute walk.  So I decided to make it a Medieval Monday.  I woke up, got ready to go out, and started on my Medieval Monday adventure.  I walked down to Luxembourg Gardens, then down St. Michel, and ancient Roman thoroughfare, past the Abbey Cluny, now the Musée du Moyen Age, left on Blvd. St-Germain, and down, down, down the street until I got to St. Germain-des-Prés.  St. Germaine of the Fields.

I walked in.

Choeur Des Moines De L'abbaye De Saint Benoît Sur Loire – Fantaisie En Do Mineur

I wish you could hear my laugh.  The happy laugh I get when I walk into really old cemeteries.  That kind of laugh.  The "Yes, I really AM here," laugh.  Because the organ was playing.  It reverberated through the entire church.  I don't know if you know what that sounds like.  These old stone churches were made for noise: for singing, for the organ; for soft chattering.

Sometimes one of your senses takes over, disallowing any other from experiencing a space.  I'm fairly certain I was blind for a few moments after I walked into the church because my ears were taking in the surrounding.  But eventually my ears gave in to my eyes.  Not many people know that the ancient statues outside of the medieval churches like Nôtre-Dame and the old Greek and Roman statues used to be painted.  (At the musée du Moyen Age at the Hôtel Cluny/Abbey Cluny (Hôtel-->Hostel, just another word in French for Mansion, basically) they've got some of the heads of the old statues that used to be part of Nôtre-Dame before they were broken off and destroyed in the revolution, and the ancient statues still have red on the lips and cheeks, and green in the eyes, left over paint from long ago.)  In ancient-style, nearly every inch of Saint-Germain-des-Prés is painted.  The columns, the archways, the walls, the ceiling--everything but the floor.

St-Germain-des-Prés

(Cette image est tirée de simplyparis.org)

I didn't take this picture, and it is a beautiful picture, but it doesn't do the place justice.  The inside of the church is darker than this, so much darker.  And the light is not so soft.  It's creepier, somehow.  And yet still, the color comes through, not like a shine, or a punch, but a resonance, refusing to wear away, though it fades.  I have no idea how often they've restored the paint, and I have no idea if it looks anything like what it looked like when it was painted in antiquity, but the point is certainly gotten across.  No other church I've gone in to is painted this way on the inside, though it gives a good idea of what many of the churches must have been like before they were destroyed during the Revolution.

That's another thing to think about.  Here in Paris, the Revolution happened, but no one in particular started it, carried it out, or even felt the effects of it.  It is almost always spoken of in the passive tense.  "Destroyed during the Revolution," but not destroyed by whom?  Destroyed for what reason?  The Revolution is spoken of like a force of nature that came through Paris, destroying the things people miss most about how Paris used to be: the history, the age, the culture; but blame is attached to no one in general reference to the Revolution.  That's very interesting to me.  I can't tell yet, but will get back to you about whether I deem it shame, reverence, respect, a knowledge of happenstance, a statement of fact, or something else entirely as a reason why they speak of the Revolution this way.  In America we kind of think of the French Revolution as this interesting point in history.  Here...the scar isn't interesting, it's just a reminder of pain.  I'll get back to you on this.

Most of the abbey of St.-Germain-des-Prés was destroyed during the Revolution, but the little church still stands, par la grâce de Dieu, I'm sure.  This reminds me of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.  I do believe God saved that place from ruin; why not these churches in Paris?

So I walked in.  Organ playing, making the place creepier than it would have been in silence.  Entire inside of the church painted, making it darker than St. Sulpice.  Smaller than Nôtre Dame, but still with plenty of Chapelle's around the nave and transept.  Candles burning--I lit one in L'Eglise St.Etienne du Mont the other day, so decided not to light one here.  It's less crowded than Nôtre-Dame, or even St. Sulpice; it's easy to misread as a small parish and decide to walk past after seeing the likes of those other churches.  And I know I keep comparing these churches.  Here's why: they told me when we went to London that I'd get sick of going into the Cathedrals and churches, that after a while they'd all start to look the same, or feel the same.  I'm not saying I'm special or anything, I'm no cathedral-whisperer, but that's never happened to me.  They're all so different, they've all got a very particular feel.  Maybe it was knowing that St.-Germain was the oldest, but I think I could really feel it.  It kind of took me by the spirit and clenched its fist around my insides and didn't let go until I left.  I wasn't uncomfortable, but I was sad.  Does anyone else get that way in places with lots of history?

I sat and thought and wrote for about an hour before leaving the church and walking around the area, particularly down Rue du Four, which is a street that existed in Medieval times, despite the names of all the major roads (St. Michel, St. Germain, etc) having changed.  I decided to wander through some of the smaller roads, making my way back to St. Sulpice, and then returning to Abbey Cluny.

Abbey Cluny I have been more or less fascinated by for two weeks, since I first walked by it with Kate on Bd St-Michel.  Old buildings do that to me.  It was an old Roman Bath, I believe, then an Abbey, then it was destroyed, and made into an Abbey again, and destroyed and into an Abbey again, and then destroyed and built onto by some rich woman who bought the land.  (This is all very spotty history, so don't take my word for it.  It's just to give you an idea.)  I kept telling myself I'd go to the Museum, but didn't, and didn't.  Then it became Medieval Monday, and what do you know...there I was.

I had a somewhat successful conversation in French with the man who I bought my ticket from.  He treated me like I wasn't an idiot, which was preferable.  I asked for a student ticket, he asked if I "had less than 26 years."  I said yes.  He asked to see my ID and I said, I'm American.  He smiled and said, "Tarif Reduit" (Reduced Cost).  I said, "Parfait."  He told me there was an audio guide in the next room, and that I could get it in English.  I said, "Merci."  And then I went on my way.  My conversation with the audio guide woman was less perfect because she started speaking to me in English as soon as I asked for an audioguide "en anglais."  I was going to ask for it in French but decided I was really too curious about the middle ages in France to lose half of the information I could get by listening to it in French.  I'm working on it.

My camera died which wasn't even on the radar for me.  So here are some pictures (the ones I could salvage) from my phone, which hasn't died since I got into Paris, as it's got no SIM card and is on flight mode.  Glorious.  But the pictures aren't so glorious.  I'll go back to the Museum and get pictures of the outside, the pleasure gardens (if you want the explanation of that, you can ask for it, and I'll give it), and the Hotel du Cluny.

Roman foundation and brickwork:

The reason Roman buildings NEVER go away.  These bricks are slabs, so walls are more than a foot thick.  The Romans feared being forgotten and made sure they wouldn't be.

Roman ceiling.  Fascinating to me, but maybe not to you.

Hotel du Cluny, the Abbot had his personal chapel.  Here is the staircase leading up to it.

Here are my feet, standing on the floor of the chapelle.  I love floors and ceilings of old buildings best.

Two other things I loved about the museum.

Arms room.  Old weapons/shields/armor are awesome.

This sculpture carved of wood.  My favorite in the museum.

A common theme of thought for the day was that only the history of the rich is ever really kept.  I, of course, was very interested in all of the things I saw, listened to and read about today, but it was very apparent to me that I was reading and listening to the history of the rich, or of the church--which was rich.  There is so little written or recorded about the lives of the common people who lived in Medieval Paris, and that's something I'd like to spend some time looking into.

The man who did a lot of the excavation for Cluny III, the ruins of the third abbey of Cluny, was an American--Kenneth J. Conant.  He dedicated his life to Medieval Architecture, particularly that of Cluny.  I love that he made such a difference somewhere so far from home.  That he gave this place something they hadn't given to themselves.  I think sometimes it takes someone from the outside to remind the people on the inside of how interesting their history and their ruins are.  It takes someone from the outside to ask the questions that no one else thinks important to ask.  Can you imagine what else is under these Parisian roads and buildings?

The last time I wrote a post this long about the things I learned someone made a comment about it being too academic for them.  This should not have hurt my feelings, but it did.  I get that I've been in school for my entire life, but honestly academic??  This stuff is interesting.  So keep your mouth shut and don't relay this kind of information to me in the future.  If you're interested in me reporting on something else other than what I did while in Paris or something other than the fascinating stuff I'm seeing WHILE IN PARIS, then let me know and I'll be happy to oblige if you find a nice way to say it.  I'm the only me you've got, so take me or leave me.  (I'm guessing most of you will opt for the leaving me part...eh, oh well.)

I proceeded to come home and listen to Chants Gregorien late into the night while eating crepes and nutella, which I'm sure they did in the medieval ages, also.

Any suggestions about what Tuesday's theme should be?

Lesbians and their dogs

I've been in Paris for about a week and a half.  For the four days I had Kate with me, and for the next three I had a friend from school.  I walked around the city with them--mostly the parts of the city tourists go to see: the Seine, Notre-Dame, the Louvre, Jardin du Louvre et Jardin du Luxombourg, Champs-Elysee, Arc du Triomphe, le Tour Eiffel, and then back across Pont Neuf, and down St-Michel through the Latin Quarter.  So this is my second full day in Paris alone.

It's hard to get out of bed in the mornings, either because I haven't got a class to go to or because its cloudy out.  It could be both.  I think it will get better, already today feels better than yesterday did.  I'm getting used to being alone, though I know some days will be much harder than others.

Apart from classes which I haven't really started doing the readings for, I'm taking some notes, though not about anything specific to classes.  I'm trying to get all of the new information I'm soaking up everyday out on paper so I can start looking for specific things like Consumption and Waste or Attire and Adornment.  What most worries me is my French comprehension, so I'm deciding to do an hour of French listening a day either in film or podcast form (church also counts).  I'd sit and listen to french speakers for an hour, but I can't seem to eavesdrop on one conversation long enough to get enough real practice.  So, that's my attempt at making myself learn French.

Participation and Involvement - Entertainment
Yesterday, I wasn't sure I'd get myself out of the apartment to wander the streets alone, so I decided to go to a movie.  To kill two birds with one stone, I went to see a French movie called 'Intouchables' which did really well in the box office initially and was still showing at the cinema less than a block away from my apartment.  This is the first time I've gone to the cinema in foreign-language speaking country, specifically France so it'll take a few séances (that's what they call film shows) to be sure there is any trend to my initial notes, but here it goes.

Whereas in the États-Unis you can stand in line and buy tickets for 10pm at night at 11am in the morning, Paris ticket-offices don't sell tickets to a show until 10 minutes before the film starts.  Also, in the United States there is a particular etiquette in a movie theatre: you can talk during the commercials and especially before the commercials, but typically when the trailers begin, everyone is quiet.  So far, in my grand experience of one movie, this is not the case in Paris.  While there were a few people in the theatre who did not speak once trailers started it was because they, like me, were seeing the movie alone.  Everyone who had come to the theatre with a friend/date/family spoke loudly--did not even bother to whisper--all the way  up until the movie started.  As someone who goes to the cinema often, this was extremely annoying to me until I realized that they might not have the same reverence for trailers that I have--and then I didn't blame them, because reverence for trailers does seem a little strange.

I do have to say--I love that they call them séances, though I'm sure it doesn't even come close to having the same connotation in French as it does in English.  In French it just means 'session' or 'show' while in English it connotes some cultish meeting with the dead.  Regardless, that's interesting.

Well I watched the entire movie and didn't understand a single word of it, which I knew would happen.  It did get me thinking in limited French for about an hour afterwards, however.  At the end of the movie, whereas the lights come up immediate in the United States, the lights were dimmed for at least half of the credits.  I always stay for the credits--something my father always does, that I have continued in my own film viewing--so I felt a certain appreciation for the French who stay for part of the credits until the lights are at least brought up, though most of them stayed even until after the lights came up, until the credits were nearly finished.

--

After the film, I wandered St-Michel to find a MonoP* and Boulongerie to get some food.  So far I've been eating bread, goat cheese and tomato at almost every meal, which, while I realize is nutritionally problematic, is not being contested by my taste-buds.  I did have eggs yesterday...with tomatoes and goat cheese and bread.  Haha.  Well, I'll be working on that, trust me.  It's just that I'm so used to getting food in bulk and I'm used to having a microwave, or an oven.  So the amount of things I feel capable eating are limited.  I'm also quite the wuss.  I usually scout something out several times before I feel comfortable going in and then I get out as fast as I can.  I'm just getting used to my hallway, for example, which I now feel comfortable walking down in my bare feet.

I also hate looking like a tourist.  Because while I am a foreigner, I'm not exactly a tourist.  Also, I hate that I can't understand the things other people say to me.  It's not my inability to respond that bothers me nearly as much as my ability to listen, which I've always used far more often than my ability to speak.  So for those of you who think I talk a lot, imagine how much listening I must do to make up for it!  I do in fact listen to everything around me, as I am unable/incapable of ignoring anybody.  But when they're speaking in a different language it seems a lot easier to assume they're not speaking to me--but the catch is: they might be, I would just have no way of knowing.

Anyway, so I'm just going through some minor "OMG" moments trying to keep my ears and eyes open.  Which reminds me, I'll be walking around in Paris and hear the most bizarre coupling of words in French and think to myself, "Wow, I must have misunderstood that."  Then the other day I was walking by a café and overheard these two English girls talking saying, "...the lesbian and her dog..." and I couldn't help but laugh.  And I realized--I heard them rather clearly, she said "the lesbian and her dog," and I didn't think I misunderstood them, I just realized that I overheard a few odd words in the conversation.  It made me re-think what I was hearing in French--maybe the French are talking about lesbians and their dogs, also, and I'm just overhearding odd things, rather than misunderstanding.  This is why I've decided to listen to podcasts and movies rather than eavesdropping on conversations (though trust me, I'm trying to do that too) but I literally understand nothing.  So many different voices, and accents--its killing me.

Oh, but I have to remind myself, it's just day 2 on my own.  Kate was not speaking to me in Chinese and Jake was not speaking to me in Russian.  So I should cut myself a little slack.  I am getting better at recognizing the tourists: English, Indian, Italian, American, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French, Spanish, German.  Though I can't understand what they're saying (except the Americans and sometimes the English) I can distinguish between their languages, which I'm rather proud of.

Back to the main point: I will continue looking for food I can eat.  I will continue going to films.  I will continue to eavesdrop on French conversations.  There's an update on the last week and a half.  I must remember to say 'Bonsoir' in greetings after 5pm.

Au revoir!

Pep-talk for Paris

Sometimes I wonder and think what they'd have done in Paris. What they'd have done in any paradise, even if it wasn't paradise, and what I'd do if paradise existed. I should have done my field study in New Orleans. I should have gone down there and been a volunteer, helping rebuild something, somewhere. I should have asked people about jazz. I should have read Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston at night. Is it ridiculous to say that my mother would probably be more nervous about me going to New Orleans than me going to Paris? Not to mention, Caitlin would never forgive me.

It's funny, that I'm less than a month away now, and more than aware that I'm doing the craziest thing I've ever done before, but also aware that this is just a stepping stone for doing things that are crazier in the future. I was watching The Music Man last night with some friends, and I realized how good it was for me that I wasn't born in a small town. The old women talked of the librarian in a way that I realized people would talk about me if the people from where I'm from weren't used to people hauling off and doing crazy things. For most of them, moving to LA from wherever they were from was the crazy thing. So me going off to Paris is surprising, maybe, but not unexpected, if they know me, which many of them do.

My mom says she's afraid I'll never come back.

I'm not afraid of that, though it wouldn't upset me if I found a reason to stay somewhere.

Going over culture shock again I realized what I'm most prone to is holing myself up in whatever apartment I get or wherever I'm living, reading, writing, but never going out because it means I'll have to go out on my own. That's how I am at home. I love getting in the car and driving somewhere, but I always have to have a purpose, and directions. But then again, I am prone to wander. But wandering for me usually comes with the need for comfort--not total comfort, just an understanding that I can control myself, or...something. I haven't figured that one out yet.

I wanted a way to "mitigate"--I hate that word--this issue. I hate the word because it's so impersonal, and it means nothing to me. It's just meaningless. Anyway, I've decided that I'm going to chose one place that I have to visit every day. Not the same place, a new place. Something to get me out of the apartment. When I went to London, and realized I had no idea what I was doing there, and I didn't have alone time, and it was brand new, and I'd never been abroad, I got an email from my father telling me to go to St. Paul's. Honestly, to make him proud, to tell him I had gone, to write back to him about it, was all that got me out that first weekend. And that was all I needed.

I'm not afraid of the romanticism of Paris. I'm afraid that'll all melt away as soon as I'm in that city alone, and part of me wants to just sit on a park bench for two or three days after Kate leaves and force myself to realize that this city will be kind. I think that's why I might need Langston Hughes with me, to keep me company. I may have found something to love. But which love? And in which life? Kate says that God let me listen to the music, enter those speakeasies and listen. I feel I can remember asking, please let me go. Please. And I imagine God rolled his eyes at me. But it makes me wonder if perhaps I've been to these places before, and if I have, then why be nervous?

I remember thinking when I was in Heathrow for the second time, so nervous because it was such a big airport, and that taxi driver had just cheated me out of about £20 and I was angry at him (and will not be speaking for him in the trials of heaven) and I was afraid of never getting home. Getting into JFK airport was like coming home. You could feel America in the soil, coming up through your feet. Everything clean and in straight lines, the shops on the right in the left, rather than circling around you, and I knew I'd get there. On the plane to JFK they gave us these horrible airplane pizzas but on the cover of the pizza box was the Coliseum, the Eiffel tower, and the London Gherkin, all of which I had seen and been to, if not inside of, and it occurred to me that 4 months ago I hadn't at all been to those places, just seen pictures of them. This wonderful sense of accomplishment came over me. The boy sitting next to me laughed at me, and I explained. He said he was going on holiday to Florida with some friends. I thought that a very odd place to decide to go on holiday, but didn't say so. All of this goes back to the point that I said to myself, "If you can get through Heathrow, you can do anything." I honestly believed that, because I was nervous about it, and I was afraid, and it seems a ridiculous thing to be afraid of, if you've done it, but I hadn't. So when I got back home, an occurrence I don't actually remember, Heathrow had been done. And I knew I could do anything.

Why shouldn't that apply now? Why can't I use that as my reason for going to Paris alone on a Field Study? Gosh I'm crazy, but going crazy--so I've been told--can be a fun experience. If I just let it happen. Damn. I've been through Heathrow! What can't I do? Learn and speak a foreign language? Sure! Travel a foreign country on one's lonesome? Done! Live abroad for as long as a tourist visa will let you stay? Not a problem. I mean let's be clear about this: Heathrow is 10 miles in diameter. 5 terminals. Outside of London. It's got really circular design, so its easy to get lost, and there are a trillion people so it's easy to not be certain where you are. It's only when the plane is going to board that they actually tell you where your gate is, so you have to stave off sleep while you wait for the board to update your gate, meanwhile you may be on the other end of the terminal from your gate. That's not nerve-racking at all.  (In another time-continuum, by the way, Jennifer is still sleeping in Heathrow; she missed her plane and just became an illegal immigrant of the UK.) My question is, if I've been through Heathrow, what can't I do? Well, honestly, I'm aware there are plenty of things I can't do. Like speak Romanian. Or French, for that matter. But you know, people have been doing this for centuries. Americans have been doing this for centuries. What really is the problem?

If you haven't figured it out, this is my pep-talk. Because it's easy to tell yourself its all going to be fine when you've got 3 months until you go. But now it's a couple of weeks, and I really have to do myself some convincing.

Language

I first fell in love with French when I was learning the phrase, 'Je suis enchantée de faire votre connaissance.'  I had been back at home in Los Angeles for six months from a study abroad in London and had another two months to go until I returned to Provo.  Learning is all that has ever made me particularly happy, and after six months of not being in school, I was reeling with dissatisfaction.  Perhaps sensing my displeasure with life, and aware I'd be taking French in the Fall, my parents gifted me one of those CD-ROM 'Learn a Language' programs for my birthday to get me started.

I worked about four to six hours every day at a Law Office, and when I came home, I'd practice French for hours, lying across my parents bed repeating words and phrases.  I loved it.  My roommate collects stories I tell her of my prayers with God; her favorite is the story of the week I prayed every night for God to help me get the pronunciation of the French 'r' down.  I can still remember the first time I said 'rouge.'

Fairly quickly, I familiarized myself with most of the disks of the program, and swapped them out depending on whether I wanted to learn phrases, 'Au secours!' (Help!) which is another great direct-translation, or vocabulary, 'souris' (mouse).

It was a phrase day when I found, 'Je suis enchantée de faire votre connaissance.'  I had NO idea what this meant.  I knew it was supposed to mean something about being enchanted, and maybe meeting someone, but I hardly understood the sentence syntax or meaning of the individual words.  I looked it up online.  It means "I'm pleased to meet you," but more literally, "I am enchanted to make your knowledge/acquaintance."  I was smitten.  Someone could tell me I was wrong now, and I'd probably agree with them, but at the time this phrase meant something a lot more than "I'm glad to meet you."  It was saying something more like, "I'm enchanted to know you exist."  What a glorious idea.  Because if Descartes is right, and 'Je pense donc je suis,' that means that I am my knowledge.  I'm only as good as my knowledge, and they're pleased they know about it.

French wasn't about learning another language that day, it was about learning a new way of thinking, a new way of seeing people, and a new way of seeing the world.  How could you ever have a bad day with people being pleased to know you exist and other such grandiose phrases?  Granted, I've now been studying French for almost two years and I don't know that I could make the same argument about this phrase, knowing what I know about the meaning of french words.  But it doesn't really matter that my direct translation was a little off, because I believed it, and it carried me through two years of learning a language that more often than not frustrates me, and makes me feel ridiculously incapable and inept.  I hate it.  I mean, I hate it.  I hate the homework, and I hate that I never know how to say what I want quickly enough.  I hate that I can't understand most people speaking the same language I've been studying for two years, and I hate that I understand concepts I can't put into practice.  I hate getting up in front of people and fumbling with the words and the grammar.  I really hate it.

But then--I'll accidentally forget time.  I'll forget the other homework I've got looming over my head, and I'll get stuck in my grammar book, and I'll marvel over this language that makes no sense some days, and all the sense in the world others.  I'll find a book written in french about the history of jazz, and I'll read seven pages of it before I realize I didn't once look up the definition of a word, or wonder what the hell a series of words in a particular order meant.  I'll forget about what needs doing and realize how long its been since I had to get the direct translation for "I'm glad to meet you," and I'm back lying across my parents' bed, pronouncing rouge for the very first time.

Privacy

The French close their shutters every night so no one can see into their homes.  They don't talk about money, they don't talk to people on the metro, they don't give out their names, and it doesn't matter what they do for a living.  But they'll invite you in to their dining room, feed you, have a conversation with you about their children, their house in the country, and give you a jar of fig jam if you show interest.  This is the gist of the chapter I read today.  And I love it.

It's privacy.  It's a different notion of what is private, and what isn't private.  The home, the family, personal decisions--those are all private, to the extent that 'scandals' aren't really scandals at all but simply not your business.  And yet arguing, disagreeing, eating are not private matters, but in fact more public than we as Americans would think.

Hospitality is expected on many accounts, but only if you do it the right way--the French way.  Saying bonjour and au revoir as you enter and leave a shop, for example, will get you good service.  What has this to do with privacy?  Well, you're coming into someone else's private domain, and in doing so, it is only polite to greet and give farewells to the person whose home or business you enter.  However, asking someone outright what their name is will create immediate barriers.  Why?  Because whether they want to be contacted by you again should be their decision--not yours.

Also, it seems to me, the French are not worried about finding and keeping people they like to share company with, or converse with, because they figure that those people will find and gravitate toward each other.  And they seem less worried about wasting time with the wrong sort of people, because I don't think there's a worry about wasting time, or a worry about "wrong people."

Nadeau and Barlow point out one interesting difference I really enjoy: that is, the conversation between couples.  "They typical American couple seeks to display harmony. . . . The French expect exactly the opposite: . . . a relationship should be strong enough to withstand differences" (43-44).  It's not that American relationships aren't strong enough to withstand differences, because in fact they withstand all sorts of differences all the time, but that arguments in public seem distasteful to them.  And thus the French seem to value idea-oriented discussion rather than relationship-oriented discussion.  Meaning, they attack ideas, not the person.  And in doing so, a little arguing is hardly anything to bat an eye over.

This is an interesting cultural difference to me and it reveals how to go about talking to people in different ways.  Knowing and remembering someone's name in our culture is not only a sign of respect, but engenders trust.  Not so in France, where asking for someone's name is a breach of privacy.  Eating in our culture is our business, we eat what we want when we want it.  Not in France.  Eating is important, and therefore is something you do a particular way, something you allot time for, something you do communally with others.  I don't think either is inherently wrong or right, but different for explainable reasons.  So I better master bonjour and au revoir if I want to make people in France happy, which I do.

Proposal: Statement of Intent

A. Statement of Intent

            Little care is often taken with American culture by Americans—or anyone else for that matter—but as an American Studies major, I find American culture essential to understanding those who come to the United States, the United States’ place in the world, and the changes that take place routinely within the country itself.  However, there are facets of American culture which are or have been very influential and yet are either rarely studied, or rarely given credence to as a significant part of a whole.  African-American culture is one such part which has altered the United States in astounding ways and yet is rarely given credit within American culture as a whole.

In 2011 I took an American Novels course which gave me a taste for black-American literature, which resonated with me further than the other American literature.  In this class I realized I was beginning to love a culture that was not only in part being lost, but was not being recognized as playing a larger role within main-stream American culture.  The fact that we need an African-American Studies field to augment American Studies is understandable but disappointing to me—American Studies itself should indicate in its every study the presence of black Americans, Latino Americans, Chinese Americans . . . the list could go on.  Separating the races is not a true study of American culture, because America is what it is because of the collision and/or melding of the races.

In 2010 I began studying French, and soon decided I wanted to go to France before I began a Graduate degree.  I wasn’t interested in being with a group of other Americans, since I wanted to be able to practice my language-speaking, but I would have gone any way I could have when I discovered Field Studies and realized it allowed me the opportunity to study my French, but more importantly, meld that interest with my study of American culture.  I fell upon an idea and decided I wanted to study something no one had talked about in my history courses or American Study classes: the African-American expatriates in Paris and how their presence in Paris can or has influenced our understanding of American culture.

I want to live in France for three months so I might be immersed in French culture, much like these American expatriates were, and so I might better understand what elements of French culture made Paris appealing for these Americans.  I do not feel I can understand the black American-Parisian culture until I understand the elements of French culture that brought musicians, writers, painters, and intellectuals out to Paris after the Great War.

            The men and women who I am interested in studying have been written about before, which is why my anticipated results are not a series of autobiographical sketches, so much as a creative linking of these cultures through the people to better understand African-American-Parisian influence on American culture at the time and it’s holdover in contemporary American culture.  I am not interested in new information but rather a new outlook, one that is particularly of the American Studies field and of an American Studies telling.

Worries & Preparations

The worries keep stacking up.  The initial worry was whether or not I'd be able to speak this language.  People are people.  That's a good thing.  But I think through every word I use when I'm speaking in English, let alone having to think through/figure out what I want to say in a French.


Ce pourquoi, j'ai decidé que je vais écouter un podcast par semaine en français sur l'histoire ou la culture.  Aussi, je vais faire une heure de travaille par jour en français--faire les devoirs, écouter les podcasts, lire les lectures, pratiquer d'écriture ou parler à les autres.


More about that another time, because I can force myself to believe that I'll be better at this language in four months.  My new worry I don't want to overlook this culture simply because it's "Western."  As preliminary reading, I've purchased Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong.  It had the best reviews on French culture for English reading that I could find, and I really don't have the stamina to read a book about French culture in french.  A project for another day.  I hope that this reading will give me an idea of where to go next about French culture.


Parce que je sais que la culture de  nourriture en français est importante, je vais essayer cuisiner une repas française chaque mois, et lire au sujet de la nourriture en « Around My French Table ».


Hopefully these few decisions will help me not only with the language, but with my steps into understanding the culture I'll be entering.  Although my field study 'question' will be important, and I'll want to be aware of a plethora of cultures evident in Paris, I don't want to overlook the main one simply because I'll be in a large city where culture can sometimes seem lost.