"Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am...Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, you daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That's not always comfortable, but it's always invigorating" Michael Crichton, Travels
For some reason this quote really speaks to me, but I'm having a difficult time articulating how exactly. It's true, when traveling you find yourself confronting completely new and different people and situations every single day. And these new situations really do force you into direct experience. At home it's very easy for me to create my bubble of comfort and familiarity. I surround myself with people who are similar to me and this, I think, is human nature. We want to be understood and accepted, so it makes sense that we seek people with similar life experiences, goals, ideals, etc. And while there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, sometimes it's good to be shaken up a bit and thrown out of the comfort zone. It forces reevaluation. Every day here I am constantly coming into contact with people and with a society that has different ways of thinking, different social norms, different priorities, different everything. It puts my world and my self in a different context.
But I still don't know what it is I'm trying to say. I guess in a nutshell, what I'm describing is culture shock, but in a good way and on a huge scale. It's not just French culture shock. I am still constantly surprised and oftentimes baffled by the different sub-cultures of the United States. And in my classes there are students from literally all over the world. There is a girl Sara who sits next to me in Cours Practique who is from Iran. I can't even begin to imagine how different our lives before Paris were. And yet we're friends, we laugh at the mistakes we make, talk about French culture, complain about the metro strikes, share stories about our weekend, the same things I would do with any of the rest of my friends. But in a different context.
The other day Sara asked me before class "Why are you in Paris?" Well wasn't that obvious? "To study French," I responded unsure of why she asked such a silly question in the first place. Exasperated she said "Yes, but why Paris? And why French? Why are you here? What do you want?" They were simple questions, yet I had a very hard time coming up with the answers to them. No one had ever asked me before. Oh sure before I left I had plenty of people who commented Oh Paris, why would you want to go to Paris, they don't even like us there. And I've taken my fair share of criticism for choosing to study French--But Spanish is so much more useful, What are you even going to do with French besides teach, or my personal favorite, But everyone speaks English now so why even bother? But Sara wasn't trying to criticize me, she too has obviously chosen to study French in Paris, her question was much more personal. After some reflecting I finally responded "Because I love it. Because I'm a city girl, because I love analyzing languages, because I connect with this culture, and I love it." Et c'est tout.
On Saturday night Gabi and I stayed in largely due to the rain and also because we were visiting Le Musee Des Arts et Metiers as well as making a day trip to Champagne on Sunday. But for some reason we were still antsy, so we decided during one of the breaks between downpours to try to find a Monoprix (French Target more or less) to buy hair dye to dye my hair. I'd been contemplating a change in hair color for a few weeks and finally just decided I was bored with the blonde. Unfortunately we could not find a Monoprix that was open past 10, so we decided the hair dying would have to wait for another day. On Sunday morning during breakfast Mme Dugan asked about our night and I explained the Monoprix excursion. She looked at me with that bewildered stare that she has and demanded "But WHY would you want to dye your hair?" I shrugged and tried to explain that I just wanted something different. Apparently this was not the correct response. After a 5 minute lecture as to why I should not act on this whim that I was having, we agreed to disagree.
The next night at dinner she asked what I had decided. I told her I still wanted to dye it and explained that I had dyed my hair dark before and that I had been perfectly happy with it. So she of course asked to see pictures, which I showed her. She reluctantly shook her head and said "Ouai, ouai ca marche …" After stumbling across a picture in which my hair was in an awkward in between shade of blonde and brown she exclaimed "Ah mais ca c'est moche ca! Ah ouai mais franchement." Frankly that is ugly. Oh, no but really that is ugly. Ohh the French.
When the dye job was finally complete, she asked me in the morning "Well..?" She then proceeded to carefully inspect my hair, lift practically every strand, circle me, ask me to stand in the sunlight, ask me to stand further away, all while clicking her tongue and muttering under her breath. Finally she proclaimed. "Oui. Ah oui ca marche" Yes, yes this works. Well Hallelujah, I never knew dying one's hair could be such a production. I think she was more invested in the end result than I was. But the French take this approach to practically everything. They take some time to make a decision and once they decide, that's it-their mind is made up and they will argue about it incessantly. And they are honest, brutally, and painfully honest about everything. So here, you have to know where you stand on everything, from the metro strikes, to hair color, to the new health care bill, to how you take your coffee. You will not only be asked your stance on all this things, but you better be prepared to defend your answer. These answers almost always beg the question "Why?" Why do you feel this way? Why do you want to do you want to dye your hair? Why did you choose Paris? Mais pourquoi? And that opens a new can of worms entirely.
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