October 5, 2011
“France: You Live and
You Learn”
My
high school’s motto was “Pride through diversity.” It seemed like such a
nonsensical phrase at the time. How do you even quantify diversity let alone boast
about it? It’s not as if we went around with cardboard signs stating our race
and ethnicities, “Caucasian…100% Italian.” Walking through the maroon locker
halls of my high school you’d see Abercrombie waffle knit shirts and tattered
boot cut jeans amongst basketball jerseys with fitted hats in coordinated
colors and it was normal. Overhearing gossip peppered with phrases like “g-shit” and “ya tu sabes” was just another lunch period at Sleepy Hollow.
I
never realized how much I’d taken it for granted until freshman year of college
rolled around and I found myself experiencing culture shock. As a white person
at a university where a majority of the student body is also white you’d wonder
how it’d be conceivable that I’d feel out of my element. I’d been transplanted
from a world where Dominican Republic Independence day is practically a
national holiday and a gym class were we warmed up to DMX’s “Ruff Ryders
Anthem” to a society that seemed to revolve around the newest Vera Bradley print and what t-shirt
could also serve the dual purpose of a dress. Now I consider myself a pretty
adaptable person; coming from a straight off the boat Italian family and being
one of 5 siblings tends to make you that way. After four semesters at Loyola I
found myself not quite being sucked into the world of Tory Birch and “white girl problems” but assimilating just fine. I’d
gotten used to the grimaces my friends would make when I’d throw out the word
“black” in Boulder and having to
justify the superfluity of taking a motor pool van to a community service site
that was literally two blocks down the street from CVS on York Road.
Culture
shock wouldn’t be an issue any longer because I thought I’d seen it all. Going
to Montpellier for a semester was going to be my French dreams coming to
fruition. A country where people could eat all the baguettes and brie they could
stomach and never gain a kilo. French people would all look like they stepped
out of the pages of a J. Crew catalogue and wear striped shirts in neutral
colors like navy and black. They’d be patient and understanding when you’d
stumble to find the right conjugation to ask for directions and before you know
it you’d be laughing and getting a glass of Rose with them at the nearest pub.
Needless to say I think I watched films like “Paris, Je T’Aime” and “Amelie”
too many times. This grandiose dream of French society slowly deflated like a
helium filled balloon that got caught on the sharp branches of reality.
I
arrived to Montpellier in the most unconventional ways. Rather than taking a
flight to Paris and then the TGV my travel savvy father thought it would be
best for me to take a 16 hour bus from Naples, Italy to Marseilles, France and
then board another bus to get to my final destination. It goes without saying
that 16 hours of anything is 16 hours too long. When I ended up at the
Montpellier bus station miraculously unscathed and only slightly delirious I
was shocked to see trains decorated with red, orange, yellow and green flowers.
If it hadn’t been for Marion (my French resident assistant) I would have
probably stayed there for hours and watched the colorful transportation zoom
past me. She tried to explain to me in halting French and English the
simplicity of the tram system but I had already labeled them too complicated
for everyday use. When we walked out I noticed the tracks they ran on and while
the logical part of me reasoned they were not electrical it reminded me of the
New York City subway system and how it’s absolutely not allowed to walk on the
tracks and only advisable if you have a death wish. For that reason I refused
to walk on the “tram street” and for the longest time would only cross after
looking both ways at least 10 times while sprinting to the other side. Now I
realize how stupid I was to think that jaywalking on essentially a sky rail
system would be dangerous. The trams only clock in at about 15 miles per hour
and the drivers make a point to slow down and even stop if they see bikers or
pedestrians walking on the tracks.
Trams
are an invaluable method of transportation to Montpellier. You can pretty much
get anywhere important in the city with Line 1 or 2 and in 10 years it’s said
that Montpellier will run completely on the tram system. It’s a far cry from
the yellow taxis I’m used to hailing to get from Times Square to Grand Central
Station or York Road to Newman Towers but it’s a lot cheaper so I’m not
complaining. They’re also a great way to people watch and as a foreigner with
little to no disposable income for cable it provides a free source of
entertainment. You’ll see the typical PDA couples who even in rush hour pressed
up against an old woman with her groceries and a middle schooler with a bulging
backpack will proceed to passionately make out as if the power of the tram
depends on it. You’ll also witness the occasional drama. The drunken teenagers
who stumble to catch the last tram to avoid walking back. They’ll try to speak
English (much like they way after a couple of beers suddenly you find yourself
fluent in French) and hilarity ensues because statements like, “I would f---k
him with my straight finger” get said instead of what they presumably meant, “I
would f---k him up with one finger.”
It’s
all in good fun until it goes too far and you’re put into a situation where you
realize that you’re not in America anymore. A couple of weeks ago I went to the
grocery store with one of my friends and what began with a simple quest for tea
and honey ended up in a fist fight. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon and we’d just
gotten out from our phonetics class so we walked over to the closest Carrefour Market. While we were waiting
online she innocuously placed the divider between her stuff and this Heineken
this guy behind her was buying. Like she’d flipped an invisible switch this guy
started to spew out curse words saying awful things of which I could only grasp
“puttane Chinoise,” calling her in
French a “Chinese whore.” He was incredibly wrong on both counts as Kim’s
actually Vietnamese and the farthest thing from anything remotely street walker
material and while she stood there tight lipped I couldn’t help but fume. The
guy wouldn’t stop with the insults the cashier even had to tell him to “Arreter” or “Stop.” I made eye contact
with Kim to avoid starting a problem and audibly said in English that I had the
insatiable desire to punch this asshole in the face.
When
we left and started walking towards the tram stop we started to list the
unfavorable things in France/Europe we wouldn’t miss and how that level of
disrespect was number one. Waiting for the tram under the blue awning we had
the misfortune to run into the guy from the supermarket again although he was
on the other side going in the opposite direction towards Odysseum. He kept shouting obscenities at Kim and I couldn’t take
it anymore so I replied using a lot of four letter English words that have
universal understanding thinking it would shut him up. It didn’t. At this point
it was getting a little ridiculous. The guy was around our age, old enough to
know better and he was picking on girl by making fun of her when he was clearly
not a “Eugene Delacroix” of direct French origins but probably if I had to
guess Moroccan. He stopped and we figured he’d finally gotten the point until
we watched him almost as if in slow motion extend his arm back like a baseball
pitch and throw his beer can at Kim. Thankfully he missed and his can hit the
top of the awning but some of the beer remnants still splashed on Kim and I and
that was it. All of the self control I had thought I possessed fled my body and
I was suddenly too enraged to speak. The only times I’ve felt that angry are
when I’ve gotten into full on fights with my older brothers and it never ends
well as I never know to back down and end up holding my head and fighting back
tears.
I
know that I should have been more diplomatic about the situation and I was when
he was just throwing words around but when I saw her pained face and by
comparison his stupid grin it was too much. I threw down my pink Monoprix school bag crossed the street
and got up in his face all 5 feet and 3 and 3/4 inches of me in my jean shorts
and cut off t-shirt. I told him in a low no nonsense voice to, “Back the f--k
up,” they were the only words I could get out and I kept repeating them thinking
that I could show him how serious I was and he would stop. That’s typically how
bullying works. If you stand up for yourself the person realizes not to mess
with you and backs down. It didn’t exactly pan out that way.
It
ended up looking more like a deleted scene from an episode of the Jerry Springer show minus the trashy
subtext about a cheating husband. He pushed me in the chest and I pushed him
back all the while repeating my four word phrase. Pause. See this is the point in time where if I was back home
someone, anyone….guy or girl would have come to my defense and tried to break
us up or make sure I was okay. There would have been at least 10 Chinese people
that would have come out of nowhere ready to beat that guy up and a cop car on
its way but I was in Montpellier not Sleepy Hollow. Play. The guy went to push me again and as I fought back he lifted
me up and at one point I was fighting the air. When I came back down to the
ground I held my stance and we entwined hands and he wasn’t cutting me any
slack for being a girl. When I told him I would punch him in the face if he
didn’t stop he made it clear that he would punch me back. All the while people
looked on but didn’t do anything. At this point I knew he wasn’t joking and my
adrenaline rush had subsided into cold fear. It may sound really weird but I
have this irrational fear of getting my teeth knocked out so with that thought
planted in my head I feigned kicking him where it hurts and he cringed. I took
his moment of weakness as a stroke of opportunity because the tram had just
arrived and I ran to the other side and caught it. While heading back to the
dorm I noticed that my pinky finger had suffered the brunt of the fight. As
I watched it swell to twice its size and
turn black and blue at the knuckle it really hit me that I couldn’t just go up
to people and tell them off like I could in Sleepy Hollow. In this strange new
place moral codes like chivalry and not hitting a girl didn’t exist.
It’s
taken about a month of making judging and complaining at every bureaucratic
inadequacy but it’s finally hit me that my problem is that I keep making comparisons.
It’s normal to comment on differences and to fondly remember the capitalistic
alternative to everything from registering for classes to signing up for a
debit card. However I think this stage can quickly cycle into a cynical state
of mind that feeds off of homesickness and that’s not healthy. While my
expectations of Montpellier were somewhat unrealistic, I’m realistic enough to
know that they were before I set foot on French soil. It would have been great
to not have had to experience firsthand the puzzled and slightly annoyed
expressions of French people when asking for simple things like the “courrier” (mail) or the “pain chocolate.” I’d have loved to have known
that French people either smell really good or really bad as I’d have made a
mental note to pack a small deodorizing spray to keep on hand for those
interminable crowded trips on the tram. If I’d come to France knowing that that
condescending attitude was prevalent towards foreigners I wouldn’t ever speak
French and work as hard as I have to be understood. If I carried around a
bottle of Lysol I’d miss out on the
intoxicating smells of the kebab vendors, the patisseries with their fresh
baguettes and the creperies with their heavenly Nutella guafres made
right in front of you. I’d basically be
missing out on France and all it has to offer and for that reason I’ve decided
to just live and learn.
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