c'est fou, non?

lundi 14 avril 2008

My journey is nearly 25% over, hard to believe but true.  So what have I done?  That's the question I've been asking myself the past few days, and it has led to anxiety and doubt more than anything else.

As you know, I have the tendency to want to arrive at a solution instantaneously, like the day before the problem presents itself.  What, then, do I want at this moment?  I want to speak French fluently, to have finished the second draft of my script (that's a lie, I want to be directing the film already), to have met lots of French people, to have taken tons of amazing photos, to have walked everywhere in Paris.  In reality, what among these have I done?

In the past couple of days, I have noticed that when I'm spending time studying French or working on my script (only did it once so far), I felt guilty about not taking walks and getting lost in the city; and when I'm meeting and talking to a local Frenchie, I remind myself that I haven't studied French in two days and that I have barely touched my camera.  Yes, I know how to drive myself (and other people) crazy.

How am I going to stay out (or get out) of the cuckoo's nest?  Not sure, but I need to prioritize things a bit.  The most important things I wanted to do were to learn French and to continue work on my script.  Have I done either?  Sure, I've learned lots of French, even very useful bad words which I hope to incorporate into my daily vocabulary when I return to San Francisco, and I've also started just a little bit on my second draft - I decided that one character would be a nanny and that her boyfriend would be a photographer's assistant.

I've also met some interesting French people - Elisabeth, Thomas, Luyang, Didier's friends Patrick, Julien, Marion, Sylvain, and Isabelle.  They're not my best friends yet, but I've met them.  And yes, the camera has been used.  I haven't taken thousands of pictures yet, but I'm 50 closer.

So actually, I have done a bit of everything I've wanted to, and I've got over 75% of my time here to write a bit more, study a bit more, walk a bit more, photograph a bit more, meet a bit more, and give myself a break a lot more.  Much, much more.

Hey, I've also kept up with this blog.  I've done more than I thought.  Somebody, reach your arm across the Atlantic and give me a pat on the back.

o spring, where art thou?

dimanche 13 avril 2008

Maybe it's because I hated playing Vivaldi's Spring when I was learning the violin two decades ago.  Honestly, it isn't my favorite season in The Four Seasons; Winter and Fall are so much more interesting.

Whatever the reason, spring isn't coming to Paris.  But the tourists are.  Over the weekend there were actually two semi-dry days with temperatures in the low 50's (ouais !) - I could take off my sweater and wear just my winter coat.  Well, no, I was wearing other things besides just the coat.

I took a stroll toward Notre Dame and brought along my camera to test it out, apparently so did thousands of other people that day.  I wasn't in a straight mood (am I ever?) and took most of the pictures at an angle.  Among them you will find evidence of the protest against China's rule on Tibet.  Notice the handcuffs in the disguise of Olympic rings.  There was a second reason I took the picture, can you guess?  I already told you why in this paragraph.

getting lost

vendredi 11 avril 2008

Trying to be as active as I can during these two months without tennis, I make an effort to walk to class everyday.  The keyword is effort.  My class is in the 9ème arrondissement, which is a 25-30 minute walk from home.

Navigating through the streets of Paris isn't exactly the easiest thing, even with my handy "Paris Pratique" which maps out every street in Paris, because lots of these streets are centuries old.  Sure, there are the huge, wide avenues and boulevards, but there are also the narrow rues (streets).  One could start out on a boulevard, walk into a street, turn around the corner into another street, and then get lost in a seemingly unending maze of streets that come one after another.

Or maybe it's just me.  I do have a habit of getting lost while driving; just ask Jeni, she has received too many calls from me at random times asking for directions.

Anyway, during the first two weeks of class, I think I got lost about five or six times, usually as a result of thinking that walking into a particular street would lead to a shortcut.  Eventually, I ended up where I needed to be, and in the process I traversed yet a couple more unknown streets in Paris.

So then, getting lost might be a good thing.  One of the first things Elisabeth said to me was that it's necessary to get lost in Paris.  As a doctor, I've always felt that getting lost is the worst feeling to have when you have a concerned patient or parent sitting in front of you; the entire purpose of medicine is to find the solution as quickly as possible, as directly as possible.  There is no room for error, just ask any lawyer.

If my brain has been wired that way, how am I going to reprogram it to accept change, to embrace getting lost?  Like they say, practice makes perfect; I'll have to force myself to get lost more often (not to be confused with someone telling me to get lost).  I think I am going to take the metro, get off at a random station, walk around while avoiding stepping on the brown trails of dogs which one can find every few steps in Paris, get lost (that is sure to happen), and not consult my Paris Pratique until 2 hours later.  Certainly I'll have my camera with me.  Now if only the weather will cooperate my plan.

Will this work and allow me to embrace changes, spontaneity, getting lost?  I don't know, but it's a step.  Knowing me, I'll get lost trying to get lost.  Even better, as long as I end up there.

tongues (des langues)

mercredi 9 avril 2008

So, tongues, what could I be talking about?

Last night I was watching a porgram on TV, something like a talk show but called Magazine in French.  There are many of these on French TV every night, but they offer no resemblance to American talk shows.  On a typical French talk show, there is one host who talks to several guests about current events in the world, anything from politics to book releases and entertainment.  Some of these include "On n'a pas tout dit" (We haven't said it all), "Ce soir (ou jamais ! )" (Tonight or never), and "C'est à dire ? " (That is to say?).  Yes, much more intellectual than Oprah giving away gifts or Ellen dancing on stage.

I was surfing through the channels and came across a blond woman speaking perfect French; ten seconds later, I realized it was Jodie Foster.  I had no idea she speaks perfect French, with just a very little accent (to my ears at least).  I knew that she graduated from Yale, and a classmate just old me that she had majored in French literature.  Ok, I'm ignorant.  She was in France promoting her new movie "L'île de Nim," starring also Gerard Butler and Abigail Breslin.  One of these three stars is cute.  Guess which one I'm referring to.

This morning in class we talked about food in different cultures (again, I know - but you do know that the French love talking about politics, food, and sex, right?)  Someone brought up cow tongues (it wasn't me).  Not surprisingly, most people made a face when it came up, even more of a reaction than to grasshoppers and wasps.  It's just a muscle, people!

Tonight a Chinese friend took me to a Chinese restaurant specializing in "la mien" (pulled noodles).  The noodles were good, but the most surprising moment of the evening was hearing a song that seemed very familiar but surely a version I hadn't encountered.  It took me 15 seconds to realize it was Jackie Cheung's (not to be confused with Jacky Chan who can't sing) "wen bien" (kiss goodbye), but sung in English by an unfamiliar voice.  My friend told me the song was redone in English by a singer whose name he couldn't remember.  So there I was, eating noodles from northern China, listening to a song in English, originally sung by a guy from Hong Kong (no, don't even start with the "HK is China" thing), in Paris.  Super, hein !?

working hard

lundi 7 avril 2008

Over the weekend, Didier, his friends Alim and Patrick, and I went to a restaurnt in Le Marais called Au P'tit Canaillou.  P'tit is short for petit, meaning little.  Canaillou is a word from familiar language (you probably won't find it in a French-English dictionary) referring to a mischievous boy.  The awning of the restaurant features a cartoon drawing of a little boy making peepee like you would see in a fountain.  Lots of restaurants in France utilize non-standard words that either have familiar, literary, or historical origins.  So much more character than what one would see in the U.S., n'est-ce pas?

The restaurant was full that night, meaning the waiter was busy with about 10 tables of 30 customers.  That's right, I wrote "the waiter," not "waiters."  I don't think one would ever see that in the U.S.  All the customers spent at least two or three hours dining, with very few complaints, at least not verbally that we could hear (yes, my French is that good that I can distinguish complaints from 20 feet away).  Even though one doesn't need to leave a tip (un pourboire - literally "for a drink"), the waiter still worked very hard to please every customer.  He even remembered what everyone at my table ordered.  Quite impressive.

D'ailleurs, j'avais un autre rendez-vous avec un correspondant. Il s'appelle Falilou et il vient de Guinea. Il est en France depuis 2002 et il habite dans la banlieue parisienne avec sa femme et leur fille qui a cinq mois. Il m'a dit qu'en mars et en avril, tout le monde qui travaille dans les affaires est très occupé parce qu'il est la fin de la période fiscale.

Sa femme et lui, ils tous les deux travaillent très dur. Il faut que son anglais s'améliore parce que les gens qui peuvent parler l'anglais gagnent d'habitude plus d'argent que ceux qui ne le parlent pas. Il a dit que typiquement il n'étudie pas l'anglais souvent parce qu'il regarde le foot à la télé ou il est trop fatigué de le faire après une journée trop tongue au travail, mais ma persévérance d'apprendre le français le motive à étudier l'anglais plus intensément. Par contre, je crois que c'est lui qui me motive à travailler plus. Sa dédicace à sa famille me touche beaucoup.

déjà?

samedi 5 avril 2008

Has it already been a week since my arrival in Paris?  C'est pas vrai ! Hard to believe.  The week went by quickly except for the days when I was fighting both jetlag and a cold, definitely not a good combination.

I am finally feeling better and what I looked forward most today was to see my good friend Julien again.  I first met Julien and his very elegant mother Martine two years ago, really a very nice family - as the French would say, super sympa.  Julien invited me to his home in Bry Sur Marne, about 10 minutes by the RER (a network of trains) outside of Paris proper, for lunch with his girlfriend Hermine, Martine, and his uncle Pierre-Jean.

Europeans in general truly do not enjoy the luxury of large spaces as many Americans do.  I guess I shouldn't complain about my 625 square-foot (58 m2) apartment when most of the apartments I've seen have been less than 50 m2.

Julien is a typical Frenchman, meaning he complains about everything, and I mean everything.  He knows it too.  Actually, I haven't heard him complain about Hermine yet, so perhaps not everything.  He studied architecture and spent some time working as an architect, but now he does recruitment for an architectural firm.  I think he enjoyed his current job initially, but not any more.  For him, Paris is a depressing, cold city deprived of live and energy (at the same time depriving him of both these things).  He longs to live in the mountains.  If one day he moves there, maybe I'll visit him like Heidi.  I wonder if I'll get to milk goats.

I had seen pictures of Hermine, but when I met her in person, I could see why JuJu was crazy about her.  Neither he nor I can understand why she's with him.  To each his (her) own, I suppose.

I told JuJu he should start a new career as a chef after tasting his cuisine.  Just as an example of a Saturday French lunch (I know I've talked about food already, but you know how much I like to eat) - for entrée, we had bread (yes, a baguette) with one of my favorite discoveries from last trip - les rilletes.  It's basically a mix of pork, duck, or goose, with lots of delicious animal fat; it is most often served as a pâté.  The plat was a Braizilian fish stew (amazing) not too unlike a ratatouille.  He calls it la moqueica de peixel.  To finish things off, JuJu served for dessert a type of pudding with pears called un clafoutis aux poires.  If I were a judge on Iron Chef (the original Japanese version, not the stupid American version), I would be using words like "ah, the subtle aroma of the fish blends perfectly with the delicate texture of the tomatoes, everything is just so good, I could eat this everyday."

After lunch, we all went to a nearby mall (centre commercial) to check out the French version of this American import.  Not too different, except the parking spaces are much smaller here.  We visited FNAC, the French equivalent to Borders, where I looked for "Le Petit Nicolas" by Sempé (children's literature).  With just simple pictures, words, and sentence structures (we're talking fourth grade level here), Sempé hilariously depicts the lives of young French children.

Wanting me to read something more appropriate for my age, JuJu gave me Amélie Nothomb's "Métaphysique des Tubes."  She is one of the hottest authors in France now, and apparently she too uses simple language that even I can understand.  Simple is good, always very good for me.  I guess I like books like "Le Petit Nicolas" and "Le Petit Prince" because I like the simple things that children experience, how the easiest things could seem so complicated to six-year-olds.  At least that's my excuse for avoiding more "mature" (i.e., boring) topics like politics and the economy.

As an adult (yeah, I know I hardly behave like one), I can look at situtations that appear to be super complicated for kids and smile (actually, more like reading and laughing uncontrollably during work in between seeing patients) at the intricately constructed simplicity of their lives.  By comparison, when I become wise at the age of 70, I will probably look back at my struggles now and smile at my own naiveté and ineptitude.  And when I struggle with things at 70?  Who's going to laugh at my mistakes?

I guess I can always do that myself.

what is a tourist to do?

mercredi 2 avril 2008

I met a very interesting woman for language exchange today, Elisabeth Schubert.  She is an artist focusing mostly on sculpture.  We spent nearly three hours in a café chatting about her work and les français in general.  However, she wasn't quite confident with her English, so we conducted our conversation mostly in French.  Surprisingly, I understood most of what she said.  Even more so, she understood what I said.

One of the many topics we discussed was the French people's seeming unfriendliness, or at least that of the Parisians.  For example, when there is a tourist standing at the corner of a busy intersection on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, he could be there for hours with an open map in his hands and a desperate look on his face, and no one would offer to help him.  The key word here is offer.  Accordingly to Elisabeth, the French do not like disturbing other people, and to offer to help would be to suggest that the tourist doesn't know what he's doing (even though it is apparent).  But if the tourist were to ask for help (even better if he were to address someone with a simple bonjour), most Parisians would be glad to assist.  However, the tourist may not understand directions in French or in English with a very heavy French accent (incomprehensible to some, but super cute to me).

Au contraire, Elisabeth tells me she was once in New York, and when she was lost, a heap of strangers immediately came up to help her.  That surprised her a bit.  Too bad she didn't understand that they said.

Regarding cafés, a very welcoming change is the disappearance of the fog, I mean smoke.  In the past, whenever I approached a café or restaurant, the first thing that struck me was not the aroma of pastries or coffee, but the odor of cigarettes and the cloud of smoke just waiting to engulf me and seep into every fiber of my body as soon as I opened the door.  Luckily, as the French would say, ça n'existe plus (it doesn't exist any more).  Since 1er janvier 2008, the smokers can only gather outside these establishments.  Therefore, the classic images of a chic Frenchwoman sitting outside a café with a cigarette in her hand and a ring of smoke in front of her can still be found.