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(12/14/09 3:55am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France - On the days I actually wake up in time for my 8 a.m. class, I get to see the sun rise over a mountain from my dorm room window.It’s the first thing I do most mornings, anyway – toss back the sheet I put up as a curtain, throw open my window and take in the kilometer after kilometer of beige buildings and red-thatched roofs stretching north through town.Then, if I’m lucky (“motivated” or “still awake from the night before”) my gaze eventually drifts to the breathtaking mix of pinks and yellows and oranges floating out from behind Mont Sainte Victoire.In a perfect world my feet would then carry me not southwest to the university, but north, north into that city of beige whose red roofs remain a secret of those of hilltops or mountains or the fourth floor of dorms.The city’s center, of course, holds its own secrets – secrets you must descend into to learn.Secrets of a thousand fountains.Secrets of cobblestone streets and statues of saints.Secrets of the intimacy of the relationship the city’s planners must have had with the sun to make it hit the walls and streets and fountains just so, filling plazas with light steadily changing from the burst of the early morning and afternoon to the hushed beauty only knowable at the Hotel de Ville as the sun prepares to set.After a semester, though, all this gets ignored. After a semester, we academic-year kids typically see visions of Bloomington, Starbucks, friends and Anglophones dance through our heads. Reality morphs into a world of only ugly dorms and inefficient universities instead of awe-inspiring cathedrals and pain au chocolat. We forget the friends we’ve made and instead consider only the chill of the French at the surface.For some, it’s too much; for some, it’s enough to leave.I, though, know a way around it. It’s simple and it’s free.Sit on the ledge of that fountain by the Hotel de Ville.Push past the arrogance and the slowness and the argumentativeness of the people; look past the stoicism and too-expensive outfits – and see instead the sun as it paints the beige canvas of the walls of the city; see the ease with which the Aixois move.Let yourself hear the music of the language and of the busker with the accordion.Let yourself react in feeling before criticizing in thought.Live this city for a day.Then tell yourself you want to leave it.
(12/07/09 3:50am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Our program director meant for it to be an end-of-semester discussion of the cultural differences between France and the United States.In the end, we only discussed one.The clink of forks and knives against the ceramic plates was abandoned in favor of stunned silence as all 20 sets of eyes were locked on IU junior Stephanie Becht.Stitches stretched across her chin and her eyes betrayed nothing but exhaustion as she recounted a tale that, to us, participants in the academic year program in Aix-en-Provence, is but a terrifying escalation of an occurrence that, in France, is frighteningly common.At around 3 a.m. that morning, Becht and fellow IU students Matthew Bochard and Anne Spitz were returning home from buying burgers when they were harassed by a group of drunk French men.“I kept trying to cut in between them and Anne, then them and Stephanie,” Bochard said. “Then they cornered me and Stephanie, and we fell.”After Bochard and Becht regained their footing, one of the men began “touching Stephanie inappropriately,” Bochard said.“So I slapped him,” Becht said. “He hit me, and I fell face-first into the concrete.”As blood soaked into her scarf, she said she panicked.“I always told myself that I need to think clearly in situations like that, but nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” Becht said.Luckily, Becht wasn’t alone. Bochard was joined in his heroism as Spitz memorized faces and outfits and IU junior Amy Kendall called the police.But in the end, it was another group of French men who noted the direction the assailants were headed – information that ultimately resulted in the arrest of Becht’s attacker.“I went home hating French men. I had just never seen anyone treat a woman like that,” Bochard said, adding that he had been “a wreck” since the incident. “But then I reminded myself that it was French men, too, who made sure they were caught.”Bochard’s comment was the sole light of optimism that managed to wrest its way into the overwhelmingly somber sentiment among the American students present.We like to think that the depraved and sometimes drunken comments shouted to women in the streets stay just that – comments.We like to think that the preventative measures we take (as Becht said, “we did everything we were supposed to do – we were in a group, we had a guy, we weren’t doing anything provocative at all”) will put us into some kind of protective bubble.We like to think that a place so linguistically and architecturally and (mostly) culturally beautiful couldn’t allow the unthinkable and random and horrifying to happen.But then the unthinkable and random and horrifying happens.Yes, French men are more aggressive than their American counterparts.Yes, verbal violence can escalate to something physical.Yes, from this vantage point we were able to watch the cultural puzzle pieces fall slowly into place.But what have we gained from this new cultural knowledge acquisition, save a prayer that we’ll never again see the puzzle completed?
(11/30/09 3:20am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>My expression écrite teacher likens the mind of a French student to a computer.“Everything a teacher says, everything you read,” Professor D-bag tells us at least once a week, “you have to file it away, and then click and open the folder when you’re asked a question!”This is usually said after one of us can’t recall which 16th-century French author said some obscure quote he’d shared with us eight or so weeks ago. (For the record, I still have no idea what the quote was or who said it – but I consider it a small victory that I even remember it was a 16th-century author. High five, computer brain.)Unfortunately, this difference between French and American students might literally be the only thing I’ve learned from the man charged with teaching a group of American students the details of the writing we all have to do for French university.Wait, I take that back. I’ve also learned that he’s very important, wears nice suits and has a Ph.D. in something very respectable, I’m sure.The very thought of him makes me angry – but what that thought evolves to makes me livid.Professor D-bag, though an extreme, seems to be symptomatic of the cultural phenomenon that is the French university system.For an American student studying in Aix, the difference in the approach to education can be one of the hardest bits of culture shock.Because the universities are all owned by the state, college here is cheap.The typical student pays around 500 euro a year for tuition, but in a lot of ways, you get what you pay for.Most superficially, this is evidenced by the state of the campus. Wires hang from the ceilings, graffiti covers the walls and bits of fencing jut out from the first-story windows.Ugly buildings are easy enough to look past, though – the point, after all, is education.Turns out they’re not much into that, either.Stateside, we’ve all had professors far more engrossed in their research than in their students’ knowledge acquisition, the sole purpose of their lectures to highlight the gap between their Ph.D.-wielding selves the and the lowly, ignorant undergrad population.In France, though – or at least in Aix – they seem to be more of the rule than the exception.That they’re allowed to be is partly to blame – when the sole method of evaluation is a final exam and the only outside work an impossibly long bibliography, students aren’t the only ones not being held accountable throughout the semester.Couple that with a total lack of accessibility – office hours are non-existent here, and it’s not uncommon for teachers to say during the first week of classes that it’s pointless to e-mail them, as they won’t respond and likely won’t even read it.What results is either lazy and apathetic students – or Professor D-bag’s personal favorites, the computers.After all, just like in the U.S., the ideal student isn’t the one who’s learned the most.It’s just the one who’s mastered the system.Maybe someone ought to point out to him that computers can’t think.
(11/23/09 3:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Remember that time, a couple years back, when French football player Zinedine Zidane headbutted that Italian guy in the chest during a match? I do, and I don’t even know anything about soccer. Zidane said he didn’t regret his outburst, and the French didn’t hold it against him, either – in a poll executed by Paris daily Le Parisien, 61 percent of respondents said that they forgave Zidane days after the offense was committed. Just don’t expect the same pardon for Thierry Henry, whose actions during a recent World Cup qualification match against Ireland prompted the same newspaper to state that “to be French is to be ashamed of one’s national team.” Ouch. “Shame.” Harsh. But hey, those are just the feelings of one paper, right? Wrong. Try the whole of French press, French people and even French politicians. Le Monde, another French paper, confirmed the sentiment: Two-thirds of those polled agreed that Henry’s behavior “discredits France’s qualification.” And it wasn’t just any politician expressing disdain. President Nicolas Sarkozy himself felt the need to tell Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen “how sorry (he) was” for the Irish after last week’s game. If Zidane can ram a guy like a hornless rhino and be forgiven within days, what would Henry had to have done to deserve the shame of his entire country? Set an opponent on fire? Drop kick a baby? Run around the field naked, save a cape embroidered with “I hate France and all its people”? Nope. Henry’s sin is a simple one. He broke the one rule that I, athletically an idiot, know about soccer. Don’t touch the ball with your hands. Oh, but touch it Henry did. Twice – and in a buildup to the game’s winning goal, no less. Violence, it seems, the French can take – it’s just part of the game. Blatant rule violations, though, are much tougher to swallow. On an academic level, I was aware of the rabid sort of enthusiasm every country that’s not the U.S. or Canada has for soccer – but I’d never really witnessed it from the vantage point of a non-American.During the past few weeks, though, both French and international press have given me several gems to gawk about. Aside from the handball debacle, there was last Saturday’s reaction in Marseille, France, to the outcome of an Egypt-Algeria match that had been played that day a continent away. I first read about the game on Al-Jazeera, where reports cited officials who were happy about the lack of violence in the two countries immediately following the game.Cut to the Web site of La Provence, the Aix-Marseille regional newspaper, whose main photo was of policemen in Marseille standing before a fire started during a post-match riot that resulted in eight arrests, at least one fire and six severely damaged boats. My advice? If you ever find yourself in France on a game day, keep these guidelines in mind. Headbutting? Cool. Fire? Awesome. Rule breaking and/or an L for the favored team? Run far, far away.
(11/17/09 6:22am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s hard to be a manly French dude.Think about it. Aside from the universal pressure from peers and the media to be tough, masculine and devoid of emotion, French guys have a whole slew of other crap to deal with.First is the language, which can be described as flowing, gorgeous, elegant and, at worst, pretentious – but to ears accustomed to harsher Germanic tongues, any attempt to seem angry or even rugged just winds up sounding silly. Secondly, there’s that culturally mandatory scarf. You can be suave in a scarf, you can be stylish in a scarf – but manly? That’s tough to pull off.Finally, French women are said to be cold. Stoic faces, muted colors and the click of heels that assert superiority with each step – everything about them is elegance and class, and very little is approachability.So French men have it rough – and they deal with their plight the way anybody else would. And they grossly overcompensate.One of the first tips given to a group of foreign students studying in France – particularly to women – is not to make eye contact with anyone on the street. And then, when the prevention tactic inevitably fails, it’s necessary to then be incredibly forceful with your rejection.This is usually only a problem late at night, if a woman chooses to walk alone through town.Usually.At about 9 p.m. Friday, I was walking back to my dorm when I saw a petite woman bump into a young man, maybe 15 or 16 years old, who didn’t move to let her pass his group on the sidewalk.She kept walking. They started yelling.The shouts started off as impolite variations on “Please avoid nudging my arm in the future, kind miss,” escalating to “We’re going to rape you in an alley” when their jeers didn’t provoke a reaction.She got faster. They got louder.I, for my part, got pissed, and yelled a well-chosen variety of angry English phrases at them.Sure, there was a language barrier. But I cuss like a beast, which apparently translates well – as evidenced by their only then walking away.When I reached her, the woman was shaken, wondering aloud to me if anyone would’ve intervened if they hadn’t stopped issuing their threats – or worse, had acted on them.“This is my third year in Aix, and this has never happened to me before,” she said. “In Nice, sure, plenty of times. But Aix is supposed to be safer.”I will acknowledge that the cold women/much-too-forward men phenomenon is in part a devastatingly vicious cycle – but in a country where one in 10 women is a victim of domestic violence, 400 women a year are killed by their partners and 25,000 cases of rape occur annually, I find myself siding with my sex.They’re cold for a reason.Harassment, though, is never excusable.Don’t get me wrong – I’ve met my share of extremely nice guys during my time here.All of them are just more victims of the fact that “dick” could be a lingua franca for men.
(11/09/09 4:50am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When one spends enough time in a foreign country – long enough, for instance, to establish oneself as a student and not a tourist – a great majority of stereotypes are usually proved false.Men don’t prance down Aixois streets clad in “Where’s Waldo”-esque sweaters and berets; women aren’t constantly clad in head-to-toe black; and in general, if you avoid making yourself look like an idiot, the French are never all that rude.There’s one stereotype, though, that I’ve yet to disprove.The French laugh.You know the one I’m talking about – the overly nasalized, guttural snort of an “oh-hoh-hoh-hoh” chuckle that any American who’s ever imitated a French accent busts out.It seems silly, of course, to think for a second that anyone would actually laugh like that – and in that sense, it should’ve been the first French myth I debunked upon arrival.But I declare, with shock and bewilderment, that nothing I have witnessed in my two months in Aix has provided evidence of its nonexistence, and for one very simple reason – I’ve never heard a French person laugh.I’ve heard catty, pre-adolescent-girl giggles, sure, but I’m convinced that’s universal.I also acknowledge that it might have happened in my presence while I wasn’t listening for it.Never, though, since I began pointedly listening, have I heard so much as a light-hearted chuckle out of these citizens.At first I thought it was simply that none of my jokes made it past the language barrier. After all, deadpan is difficult when you’re struggling to even understand what someone’s trying to communicate.Then Thursday happened.Thursdays hold the great distinction of having my only 8 a.m. class of the semester.This Thursday in particular, though, I made it my 10 a.m., slinking into the room during the break halfway through and melodramatically saying to my French friend, “I’m the worst student in the world.”“The worst?” he said. “That’s a little bit pretentious.”And I laughed. I laughed hard, and I laughed long.That laughter, though? It was regarded with nothing but a shocked, slightly offended facial expression. I’d caught a Frenchman in his natural habitat, and I’d apparently made him very mad indeed.So I find myself needing to humbly propose a theory.That nasal laugh? I think it’s real – and I think that in response to the global mockery of so instinctive a reaction, the French have taken it upon themselves to never show signs of a sense of humor in front of a foreigner.Prove me wrong, naysayers. Prove me wrong.
(11/03/09 5:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France - The French people strike like crazy – and to me, a typical American, it’s borderline ridiculous.That said, the most a strike has ever affected me was when I lost interest in “Grey’s Anatomy” during the writers’ strike my freshman year. I could say I mourned the loss long after, but it would be a blatant lie.But these guys? They all strike. All of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some complicated algorithm far outside my realm of understanding dictating when each subset of the French population gets its moment to clock out and picket.Here’s a prime example. Just before I wrote this column, I logged onto the Web site of La Provence, the regional paper, just to see if there was news of a for-instance strike I could use.Of course, I’m in France, so the most prominent story was about a strike in Marseille with the headline, “Une greve paralyse la collecte des dechets dans les rue de Marseille.”“Strike paralyzes trash collection on the streets of Marseille.”Apparently Bronzo, a waste collection firm in the coastal city, will be reorganizing city cleaning and trash pickup, spiking concern among its employees, who are striking for the assurance that their wages and benefits will go unaffected.Were I living in Marseille, I’d at the very least be massively grossed out, and assuming I’d be surrounded by like-minded people, I’d expect chaos.The French, however, greet these situations with perfect nonchalance for two reasons. One, strikes and protests are practically as French as a daily baguette; and two, in the land of berets and silly mustaches, strikes and protests work.The cross-cultural difference in attitudes toward such demonstrations is striking.In France, protests and strikes are seen as perfectly valid methods of expressing unrest and bringing social issues to light.In the United States, on the other hand, protesters and strikers seem to be viewed more as obnoxious, eccentric, whiny wannabe radicals.And I can’t put my finger on why.Are Americans just that much more complacent?Do we view our authority figures as having so much power that it would be pointless to rebel?Have we so much faith in our elected officials that we think they’ll make the changes we want without us prompting them to – that our role in the political process ends once our leader of choice is elected?Both the French and Americans are clearly aware of their respective society’s flaws, for we share the common thread of ceaseless complaint.But it’s us that can’t seem to take a step beyond it.Though I don’t consider myself patriotic, coming to France has shown me that, despite all its shortcomings, I do love America, and if I’m lucky, I’ll have been equipped with the tools to help better it when I get back.The question remains, though – who among my compatriots will be similarly willing?
(10/26/09 3:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sometimes I feel like the greatest difference between the other students in my study abroad program and I is that they’re all here for practical reasons.I first realized it at an orientation meeting, when one of the obligatory activities was to rank our objectives for studying abroad for a year. Did we want a more competitive resume? Was our goal to become fluent? Or was a life-changing experience what we were seeking?The third, I remember, made me laugh – it just seemed like a mighty strong expectation for an experience for which we couldn’t possibly have expectations.But when I shared my observation with the group, I was (awkwardly) surprised that nearly every other student had ranked it as either highest or second-highest.Yeah, I make friends easily.My reason for going – and for studying French in the first place – was much simpler.I love French.I love speaking it, hearing it, reading it; I love its grammar and its history and its phonetics; I love its syntax, slang and songs.But there’s one thing I don’t love, a thing that led me to skipping many a structure and development of French class (sorry about that, by the way, Professor Rottet): its long and complicated history – of which I’m about to give you an extremely abridged version.Let’s start at 842, the year that the Oaths of Strasbourg – the earliest document written in a language considered to be French – were written. At the time, of course, French was still one of many languages spoken on the territory of present-day France, and many of those regional languages continue to be spoken today.Moving on.In 1539, Francis I declared French the official language of the court – not because it was a dominant language by then, but because it was the regional language spoken where he happened to be located.Then 1634 happened.As far as years in the evolution of French go, 1634 was a biggie.That year, Cardinal Richelieu founded the Academie francaise, whose mission was (and still is) the preservation of the French language.One of the modern manifestations of that mission has been a campaign against Anglicization.During the course of a language’s history, words are lent to and borrowed from the tongues to which speakers are exposed – a natural phenomenon for linguists and speakers alike, and an abomination for the Academie.The Academie’s solution to the “problem” of borrowed English words has been to simply invent Frenchier replacements – some of which, fascinatingly, fully integrate themselves into the spoken language. Some, of course, don’t, as evidenced by my daily confrontation with English words, which I’m forced to pronounce with a French accent. Try doing that without feeling like a douchebag.More fascinating are the factors contributing to this hyper-preservation – one being France’s role as a lingua franca of European diplomacy from the 17th century until the middle of the 20th, when it was replaced by, well, English.It makes one wonder – how will the superpower of America handle its inevitable replacement as the language of globalization?
(10/20/09 4:14am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France - At first I thought it was a massive dog.After all, to the Aixois, a pooch is almost as necessary an accessory as the ubiquitous French scarf; it was far from unlikely that some huge pup had been let off its leash to amble around the Parc Jourdan.It was when I heard the clicking of hooves that everything got a bit surreal.I stopped for a moment, mainly out of confusion, and watched as what appeared to be a big, dirty pig trotted contentedly past me, through an empty fountain and up a flight of stairs.Desperate to make sense of whatever had just happened – a pig coming from chic, expensive and farm-free downtown Aix? – I looked around for someone eccentric enough to own something as exotic as a domesticated pig.What I saw instead were two bicycling policemen in close pursuit.My instinct said to follow them, but my reason said no – I was already running late for a language exchange. So I continued on my way out of the park, passing and giving a “what the hell?” look to a guy on a bench, who just laughed and shrugged.In all my bewilderment, though, I had faith – faith that the French newspapers readers love so dearly would clue me in on whatever the hell had just happened.That night, in my impatience, I went to the Web site of La Provence, the regional newspaper, and learned two things.First of all, the reporter promised, full details would be divulged in the next day’s paper.Secondly, the animal I’d seen in the park had, in fact, been a wild boar.My mind raced with questions that could not wait for the next day’s precious print edition. Wild boars exist outside “Robin Hood: Men in Tights?” And how did one get in the middle of Aix-en-Provence?The next day, I dished out my 90 centimes and bought La Provence, complete with a cover photo of a group of policemen standing in a semicircle around a dead, bloody wild boar.And here I thought posing in journalistic photos was a no-no. But hey, I’m not a photographer – what do I know? And anyway, I was in it for the story.Man alive, did the story let me down.Its analysis can be basically summed up as thus: “Hey – crazy, wild boars shouldn’t be in downtown Aix! Weird amirite?!”But it wasn’t my first disillusionment with the French press. It wasn’t even my first of the week.Much to the chagrin (and annoyance) of the multitudes of college students in Aix, the sale of alcohol past 9 p.m. is, as of last weekend, prohibited.La Provence ran its first story on the decree the day after it went into effect – with no explanation of why Aix lawmakers decided to implement the purely municipal ordinance.I do acknowledge the possibility that this all boils down to nothing but my own intolerance of (and lack of ability to identify) a cultural difference.But as someone who spent 20 hours a week in a newsroom last semester, well, I’m strangely all right with my inability to tolerate it.
(10/12/09 4:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>French President Nicolas Sarkozy is a tiny man. At 5 feet 5 inches, the guy’s actually shorter than Napoleon – and his touchiness on the subject is almost as notorious as his sometimes-ridiculous attempts to mask it.Of course, each effort to appear taller has resulted in its respective French media field day, and lucky for said media, the more the government strives for subtlety, the more ridiculous the endeavors become.To be fair, the first was in all likelihood instinctive, with Sarkozy simply standing on his tiptoes in a photograph taken during his April trip to the White House. It might have even gone unnoticed had the Obamas and French first lady Carla Bruni not towered over him.That, though, is what you get for marrying a 5-foot-9-inch former supermodel, so I somehow have trouble pitying the guy.The next time, barely two months later, was clearly a much more thought-out attempt.In Normandy for a ceremony commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day, Sarkozy found himself speaking at a lectern clearly designed for taller fellow speakers Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.The solution? A discreetly placed footstool at the base of the platform.Well, potentially discreet, anyway: A profile shot of Sarkozy speaking soon became a press and Internet sensation. (Seriously, give it a Google. It’s definitely a silly picture.)Ah, but the third attempt, made in September, is by far my favorite.Wanting to avoid the footstool backlash, Sarkozy’s aides – or, allegedly, event organizers – took their first stab at real subtlety.Why they were confident it wouldn’t backfire is totally beyond me.Speaking once more in Normandy, this time at a motor technology plant in Caen, Sarkozy appeared onstage with several plant researchers – all of whom, curiously, were Sarkozy’s height or shorter.Yes, it would have worked beautifully – had the press not been already on the lookout for another height brouhaha.“Is it true you were all picked to appear alongside the president because of your height?” a reporter asked a woman who had stood behind Sarkozy during the speech.Of course, the woman offered an affirmative response, which a trade union leader later confirmed.Presidential spokesmen dismissed the “absurd and grotesque” accusation – but considering they were the ones who put Sarkozy on a footstool, I must admit having some issue believing them.As Americans, it’d be easy to assume that all the attention the media give to Sarkozy’s height would only overshadow any relevant political news, but luckily, the French love their politics.I, on the other hand, know nothing, so my only thought as I walk past the posters in my school’s commons of Sarkozy flipping the bird – a remnant of last year’s student strike in opposition to university reform – my main thought is, “Well, there’s an angry little fella.”But hey, if I were short, I’d probably be pretty mad about it, too.
(10/05/09 3:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France - I consider myself a pretty open-minded person.It’s an attribute I take great pride in, and one that’s vital for study abroad – after all, no matter how similar a country might seem to the U.S., the cultural differences are bound to be innumerable.I’ve learned, though, that just as innumerable are the approaches students take to cope with them – or, in other words, just how open-minded one chooses to be.First, and most annoyingly, there’s the approach of the obsessive optimist – the student who romanticizes the host country to the extent where in his or her eyes, the country can do no wrong. Sure, I love Nutella crepes and French cheese, too, but I know for a fact that every time you pop a piece of baguette smeared with camembert into your mouth, it’s not the orgasmic experience you paint it to be. Oh, and the post office being on strike? Interesting, sure, but not that endearing.The next approach is only less off-putting in that it’s easier to ignore. Yes, faux-expert, approach No. 2 is dedicated to you.I get it. You’re here to observe the cultural differences of France. But here’s a fun fact: Everyone read the same books and took the same classes as you, so when you come up with some contrived, long-winded explanation for every cultural tic, everyone around you knows you’re not speaking from personal experience and are in all likelihood just making it up. Conjectures, while fun to ponder and discuss, aren’t fact.Let it go.While the optimists are the most annoying, I can say without hesitation that my least favorite studiers abroad are the pessimists.You know the type. They might not be as loud as the faux-experts or as grating as the peppy people, but the pessimists have that rare quality of repelling everyone around them with almost every word that comes out of their mouths.To support this argument, I bring you an unedited conversation from a birthday dinner I attended last week.“It’s been 45 minutes! When are they bringing us our food? This is ridiculous.”“Uh, the French usually take three hours for dinner. It’s a cultural thing.”“Well, I don’t like it.”Of course, the most common way to cope with such unfamiliar surroundings involves combinations of and fluctuations between the optimist, pessimist and faux-expert.For example, last night I found myself taking a 15-minute walk through the city alone – and for 10 minutes of it, I was followed and cat-called by a small group of creepy Frenchmen, who only left me alone when I reached a group of people from my program.The optimist kept me from wetting myself in sheer terror, the faux-expert knew it was a typical case of French men being far more aggressive than their American counterparts and the pessimist, well, she was the one terrified and hyperventilating when I came upon my classmates – who I’m still convinced are the most beautiful things I have ever seen.Oddly, the pessimist won that battle, because no matter how deep of an understanding I could have of the dynamics between men and women in France, creepy men are creepy men.Maybe sometimes it’s best to keep that mind closed.
(09/29/09 4:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France - Liberte, egalite, fraternite.Not all three-thirds of the French motto were created equal, apparently.Liberte, for one, takes a bit of a beating when one examines the ban of ostentatious religious symbols in schools – in the name of egalite and fraternite.But you need not be well versed in French current events to see the love the French have for the other two-thirds of the motto.You need only listen to them speak – after all, fewer things are more telling of the values of a country than the bits of its history to which it holds fast.France is no exception.I heard, in one week, on three separate occasions and in three totally unrelated contexts, three mentions of the Dreyfus Affair.The first was, innocently enough, during the grammar section of our intensive course, the instructor demonstrating the use of the suffix “–ard” as a method of constructing nouns – as in, she told us, Dreyfusard and anti-Dreyfusard.I overheard the second reference in the next day’s civilization class, in the middle of a discussion on the historical significance of Aix’s street names – including Boulevard Francois et Emile Zola, named for a writer famous for his risky activism in support of Alfred Dreyfus.The double mention did stand out to me as a bit odd, something I shrugged off rather quickly, chalking it up to subconscious excitement or relief at being able to grasp at least one of the cultural references my instructors were making.Then came mention No. 3, whose context I don’t entirely remember. I was spacing out during a bus tour of Marseille, distracted both by my struggle to keep my eyes open after waking up at 8 a.m. on a Saturday and the beauty of the city we were driving through.But then, clear as day, I heard the smooth-voiced man with the microphone say it: l’affaire Dreyfus.Something was up.My mind wandered from the Mediterranean and Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica to a few days of lecture in my Jewish history class the last semester. Alfred Dreyfus was a French Jew accused of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1894 for his alleged betrayal of French military secrets to Germany during his time as a captain in the French army.Two years into Dreyfus’ sentence, the army uncovered evidence that another officer committed the crime. But the evidence was suppressed by the army, the man was acquitted after two days of trial and Dreyfus’ guilt was reconfirmed via falsified documents.Everything was almost sunshine and puppies (well, except morally, ethically and from Dreyfus’ perspective) until l’Autore, the Parisian daily, published Emile Zola’s “J’accuse” (literally “I accuse”), accusing the French army of anti-Semitism and obstruction of justice – a move that risked Zola’s career and life.Then France went bazonkers, splitting into the aforementioned Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards – and suffered quite the blow from the failure of its precious egalite and fraternite.And as evidenced by the discourse among the French, it’s a blow they’re still reeling from today.
(09/21/09 4:38am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France - I’d like to clear up a couple misconceptions you might have about the French.First of all, they don’t all speak English – and when they try, it’s often frustratingly incomprehensible. And oh, do they try. I might as well walk around Aix with an American flag tattooed to my forehead, juggling figurines of the Statue of Liberty and singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” But I digress.Secondly, they don’t all love Barack Obama.Both are pretty easily dealt with, the first with my trusty six years of French under my belt, including one vital phonetics class, and the second ... well, the second I deflect mainly by keeping my mouth shut and not knowing a damn thing about politics.The strategy’s proved rather bulletproof in conversations, which usually wind up going something like this:“Where are you from?”“A couple hours from Chicago.”“OOH! CHICAGO! BARACK OBAMA!”At this point I usually offer a slight chuckle, repeating “Barack Obama” in a French accent, and the conversation moves on to less of a hot-button, let’s-not-make-Katie-look-like-an-idiot topic. Then came the Frenchman of Saturday night.The conversation started smoothly, easy, despite his insistence on English. Then I realized that I was the only American in the group, and that this man was very, very drunk.“You know, Barack Obama...” He paused.“Well, yes.”“He is not Superman. He is great president for the United States, but he is not this black messiah.”Both the introvert and the political ignoramus in me began to weep.“What do you mean?” I asked, more than a hint of caution in my voice.“He is not Superman! After George Bush, he is great president for the United States, but he is not Superman!”I stared at him blankly for a few seconds, trying to see if there was a point somewhere in his drunken repetition. It wasn’t until Irish Gary pulled me away that I realized that he had not only a point, but a little bit of wisdom.Americans weren’t the only ones worshipping Obama during this past presidential campaign. Stateside, and apparently abroad, Obama seemed super-heroic, every speech inspiring enough hope to both land him in office and to harbor occasionally too high of expectations for our 44th president.And so far he’s kept the shabbiness to a minimum.We now have our first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, a deadline for the closing of Guantanamo Bay, and reduced transparency for presidential records – not shabby – as well as a delayed release of a report documenting the CIA’s use of torture, an inappropriate joke on national television about the Special Olympics and relatively little action regarding global human rights issues – pretty shabby.So the French are catching on, just as we are. Obama’s not Superman.But great president?I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
(09/07/09 3:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France – There are no flip-flops in France.All right, so that might be a bit of a stretch. After all, strappy, backless sandals are pretty common in a city where temperatures in the low-80s extend until October. What French feet (or at least those of the Aixois) seem to be lacking are those plain, rubber, monochrome, stateside-ubiquitous Old Navy flip-flops that I can now – whether with pride or disdain, I’m unsure – call American.But the phenomenon of which this flip-flop condemnation is indicative stretches far beyond cheap footwear.The French just don’t have cheap anything.Sure, at least part of this impression is because of the (depressing) fact that every one of my American dollars is worth a little less than 70 centimes. But I’m convinced that the real root of the problem is the French’s flip-flop of our spending affinities: We like a lot of cheap, and they like a little of quality.Even before I left I was aware of Americans’ insane consumerist tendencies – partially thanks to watching “The Story of Stuff” online and partially to not walking around with my eyes closed – but because I’d never left the United States, I had trouble conjuring up the conception of another kind of life.Then I went to France.It’s true that the vast majority of French women are impeccably dressed, from the aforementioned awe-inspiring footwear to the expertly chosen jewelry – but it’s not because they throw down more cash for their wardrobes. The Françaises also have much fewer pieces of clothing, having mastered a trick American women can’t seem to master: dressing for their shape.Take, for example, one of the directors of the academic program in Aix. In the two weeks I’ve been here, she’s worn the same dress three times, and for good reason.She looks damn good in it.Contrast that with the American attitude of dress, which more or less amounts to acquiring as many clothes as possible, and it’s easy to grasp why Americans, well, just aren’t as well-dressed as the French.Check your closet. How many T.I.S. IU T-shirts are spun into a wrinkly mass at the bottom? I consider myself relatively minimalistic, and at my peak, I had eight cheaply made, shapeless IU T-shirts.Sure, the T.I.S. T-shirts are an obscene and unbeatable deal, as they’re always either “buy one, get one free” or, on a good day, “buy one, get two.” But even if the average price of my eight IU T-shirts was $5, in retrospect that was $40 terribly spent.And I can’t even blame an ignorance of what would be flattering on my body for this irrationality. Blouses buttoned halfway with a v-neck underneath make me look awesome – but, for whatever reason, I rejected that knowledge in favor of stretched-out IU logo splayed across my chest.I owe the French a great deal.That flip-flop fight, though?Far from finished.
(08/31/09 3:57am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France – Euphoria: the first emotional stage of a study-abroad experience, due mainly to a somewhat rabid and irrational love of the host country and a tendency to overlook cultural differences.That is according to “Maximizing Study Abroad,” a pre-trip guide Overseas Studies gives to every student in its programs.Granted, I didn’t actually read the book, but one of the finer aspects of self-serving works of nonfiction is that they often come complete with an obscene number of graphs and diagrams – most of which I did glance at as my tendency to wing it was beaten down a bit by my guilt at not reading something that was given to me for free and for my benefit.Anyway, those graphs. As the “emotional stages” diagram happened to be one of the first in the group, I actually looked at it long enough to derive whatever point it and the chapter I found it in were trying to get across. What I gleaned was that this euphoria starts upon arrival and ends a little before the trip is half over – which is, for those in my boat who are spending the academic year abroad, until about winter break. My current plan is to spend that time tree-less, Santa-less and alone.Thanks for the heads-up, “Maximizing Study Abroad.” I hadn’t been dreading that one at all. But my impending solitude wasn’t without perks – for a moment, that initial euphoria didn’t sound so bad.Then my defensive side kicked in.Irrational love of the host country? That seemed a little unfair. After all, I’ve been studying the French language for six years, and even hearing snippets of conversations between native speakers has always made me a little giddy. Throw me into a place where, well, everyone speaks French – and where I can see a mountain from the window of my dorm room – and you’ll probably have a pretty happy Katie on your hands.It’s the latter, though, that really bugs the proverbial crap out of me. Between the cheek-kissing and the lack of urgency and Aixois drivers’ ability to speed down streets most Americans would consider glorified sidewalks and the je ne sais quoi that manages to make the usually makeup-less French women incredibly alluring, France’s cultural differences have been punching me in the face since I stepped off the plane at the Marseille Provence Airport.That said, I’ve only been in town for five days. But honestly, a little bit of euphoria probably would’ve helped with the aforementioned figurative punching and the jet lag. I guess Mont Sainte-Victoire, gorgeous architecture and being immersed in what I’ve studied and loved since high school will have to do for now.