Author: mkvarats

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Vous voulez un dessert?

We all know the feeling, I think. You just ate dinner, maybe it was great, maybe it wasn’t. Regardless, you’re in the mood. You’ve got an itch. You want some dessert.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but there’s always that feeling of subtle judgment when you indicate that you want dessert after dinner when dining in the US. Even if there’s no judgy looks, the culture around asking for dessert is an unspoken “I won’t unless you do, please dear god speak up I want some ice cream” narrative we only really communicate through a hesitant 30 second long period of charged looks when the waiter at a restaurant asks if we want a dessert menu.

You’ll understand my surprise then, when my host family informed me that not only would we be having dessert most nights, but that it was more than normal to have dessert after meals in France, or that when I would go out to eat, it seemed like an expectation that I would get dessert. In fact, the culture around food is a lot more structured, and often includes parts of a meal that we don’t typically take (appetizers and dessert are usually expected). As my host mom told me, the order of a meal is entree (appetizer), plat (main course), and dessert OR cheese (though we’d often take both because I discovered I am addicted to french cheese).

I don’t necessarily know what this indicates about me, but I do think that I noticed more of a balance when it comes to the idea of indulgence in France. They are more inclined to eat what they want to eat (I don’t think I touched a vegetable I didn’t actively seek out), but they are more strict with things like recycling, turning off lights, public transportation, and not using plastic. Perhaps it’s more of a balanced approach to indulgent living, and I am curious to see how it compares when I return to the US.

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Savez-vous que….

Avant de commencer cette histoire, je vous demande à vous: réduisez vos attentes. Cette histoire ne sera pas très étonnante, seulement un exemple des situations en qui j’ai trouvé moi-même içi. Mais bien sûr, ça veut dire qu’elle sera aussi un peu drôle. Imaginez vous que vous soyez dans une pharmacie avec votre mère. Vous avez déjà pris vos affaires, et votre mère s’est assise sur une chaise proche des caisses. Une homme derrière un bureau d’aide dit quelque chose à vous (vous ne avez pas pu entendre) et vous pensez immédiatement qu’il a dit que vous ne pouviez pas vous asseoir sur les chaises (où quelque chose de cet effet). Immédiatement, votre mère se lève et vous deux apologiez. Mais, non. En fait, il a proposé à vous de vous aider (il y avait un queue très longue pour les autres caisses). Après, vous avez une bonne conversation sur sa fille qui étudie aux Etats-Unis et partez en riant.

In English now: to describe what happened, in the few days that my mom came to visit me in Tours, we happened to stop into a pharmacy. I was looking for some sunscreen, and while I went to go check out my mom sat on a chair near what looked like a help desk by the checkouts. A man behind the help desk gestured to us and said something I couldn’t quite hear, but my mom and I assumed he was telling us we could not sit on the chairs or something to that effect. We got up and apologized, and then the man explained that he was just trying to call us over to check us out because the line was long. I explained this to my mom as we walked over and we both felt a bit bashful about it. We ended up having a nice conversation with him in English about his daughter who is studying near Atlanta and left laughing.

My immediate interpretation of the situation was that we had just had a silly little encounter in a pharmacy, but after thinking about it a bit more I realized that it goes deeper than that. I noticed that Americans, and foreigners in general, have the overwhelming tendency to assume that they are in the wrong. I think this is an extension of feeling out of place or “not belonging.” This in turn manifests itself in the asssumption that they are imposing even if someone is, just as in my situation, trying to be kind. This takes me back to my reflections before arriving. One of the goals I set for myself was to be present and to do my best to not make negative assumptions about other people. I have since discovered that this is much easier said than done. In practice, the desire to fit in is very difficult to overcome, and often leads to reactive thoughts and behavior. There are positive aspects, like the motivation it gives people to learn language and culture, but I cannot say if those are worth the negative aspects of the feelings. I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to reflect though, and recommit to being more mindful about remaining positive.

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Les Stéréotypes et moi

You’ll often hear physicists say that the universe has four dimensions, three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. Once, I was on a youtube binge watching some particle physics videos from the Fermilab youtube channel (I know, how quirky physics major of me) and a segment of one video was giving a simplified analogy to describe the relationship between the three spatial dimensions of the universe and the time dimension. Essentially, it used a graph and some straight lines to illustrate a basic tenant of special relativity: the more quickly you move through space, the more slowly you will perceive time to move.

All of this unessential background is simply to say that I now understand the whole “time is a construct” idea. There’s no other feasible explanation as to how the past 5 weeks seem like they’ve passed by in the blink of an eye while it’s also true that I feel as though my arrival to France happened years ago. I’m incredibly grateful for how much I’ve learned and done in my time here, but it’s hard to believe I already only have three weeks left!

Speaking to French people has been a learning curve, specifically understanding them. When I first got here, my listening comprehension–as I very quickly learned–was basically garbage. Frequently people would have to speak very slowly for me to get the idea of what they were saying, and if they had spoken quickly my buffering time was almost laughable. Gradually, though, I have found myself able to grasp their ideas faster. That ability has also allowed me to actually speak with people. And boy do they have some thoughts.

Obviously a pretty common talking point among people from different countries is going to be the differences between those countries. I will say, though, that discussing French ideas of Americans has been pretty entertaining for me. Interestingly enough, one of the most straightforward conversations I’ve had about “typical Americans” was an offhanded one with a saleswoman in a store. I had walked in just to peruse the skirt/dress selection and ended up striking up a chat with the woman working there (in French, for reference). Mid-conversation, she looked at me and remarked, “You guys are all friendly. You smile so much! None of us really do that.”

Though that’s something I’ve heard from other Europeans (exhibit A: my Georgian uncle telling me not to smile with teeth in a family picture because, “Nobody does that, Maya! There’s nothing right now to be that happy about.”) the fact that I was in fact smiling when she said that kind of hit me across the face. I don’t think that smiling is a bad thing at all, but the whole “American picture” kind of came together for me, I think. Later that week, my host mom described it in full. Generally, the French idea of an American is as follows:

Imagine that you’re walking down the street. You’re minding your own business, probably wearing black and carrying a tote bag with some sort of bread product in it, when someone loudly says “excuse me!” as they pass you. Observing them, they smile at people as they walk down the street, are generally social and talkative, speak at an unnecessary volume, probably only speak english, and are distinctly unafraid to take up space. You, a French person, also assume that they’re probably good at math, bad at geography, and don’t know what year the French Revolution started.

What French people as a whole think Americans are like was pretty interesting for me to learn. This is mostly because I am a lot like they think we are in some ways and completely different in others. For starters, I most certainly am overtly friendly, social, and loud. In the US, this wouldn’t be considered a bad thing, but French people generally think of these traits as obnoxious. Also, I know plenty of people who are terrible at geography and history, so they’re not completely off about that either.

Though I think that these heterostereotypes aren’t necessarily all bad, they can be detrimental. An impulse I’ve noticed amongst Americans when they travel is the feeling that they have to mask the things that make them stand out. To a degree I understand this desire. Being perceived, especially negatively, is never something we want. But I’ve also noticed that the mental instinct to stereotype tends to fade when considering individuals. It’s unlikely that whole groups can alter their heterostereotypes, but it is worth noting internally when we are doing that and trying to supress our urges to treat people according to them. After all, we Americans aren’t all hollywood bimbos or people who gorge themselves on fast food constantly, and French people aren’t all holed up wine-drunkenly at a cafe with four lovers, a beret, and a cigarette (though so many people smoke). A lot of my French heterostereotypes have been diminished in their caricature-like quality since coming here, even though individual parts of them have proven very true. And I hope that the French people I’ve interacted with have taken my smily loudness in stride and realized that individual traits which happen to coincide with the stereotype don’t define a whole country of people.

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Le début: Mes Premiers Jours à Tours (et à Paris)

What a week! I can’t believe I’ve already been here this long. I arrived in France on May 19 and stayed just outside Paris with some family friends for two days. They took me to a few really amazing places. On Friday night, we went to the Eiffel Tower, where I got to see the sun set over Paris. The following day, we visited la Basilique du Sacre-coeur at Montmartre, where we not only saw the inside of the basilica but also got to climb to the top of the dome (293 steps upon which I learned little by little just how out of shape I am). Paris, obviously, was beautiful and I loved every moment there.

On Sunday, the family I stayed with for the few days in Paris generously drove me to my residence in Tours. Once there, the man at the front desk showed me to my room and around the residence. Notably, I am pretty lucky in the fact that the residence is less than a 2 minute walk from the Institute I take classes at and about a 5 minute walk from the center of the town. After arriving, checking in, and calling my parents, I decided to head to the downtown area to get some lunch. Why is this notable? This is where our critical incident story begins.

Some background information: the area where I tend to get food is a t-shaped section of a larger downtown area that loops around to itself. There are lots and lots of restaurant options here, all of which are pretty good at the very least (at least, the ones I’ve tried). When I found it for the first time, I walked around to see exactly what some of my options were, and I knew I’d find something I would like at pretty much any of them. However, I couldn’t bring myself to actually walk into one. I made the loop once, then twice, then a third time, and before I knew it I had been walking the same t-shaped path for 30 minutes and had traversed more than a mile and a half in the process. Every time I tried to enter a place and order something off the menu, the little man in my head steered me away and down the same road again. Finally, I picked a place, walked in, and in the least intelligible French I think I’ve ever spoken, I began with, “Hello, I’m so sorry, I’m American and…”

Looking back on myself, I can laugh pretty hard, but in the moment I felt like I was watching myself fall over in slow-motion from a third person perspective. Anyway, the poor hostess was incredibly understanding. She asked if I wanted to sit inside or outside, and then if I wanted the english menu, to which I replied, “Non, je peux lire en francais…” I ordered a cocktail (because she said they had one and I was afraid to make a choice), a plate of salmon, and after, a panna cotta. I paid, and I ran back to my room.

As far as first interactions in French go, I’m genuinely unsure if mine could have been any more awkward. To the hostess and waitress who dealt with me at my most strung-out (I think ever), I’d like to issue both a huge apology and a huge thank-you. I never could have predicted just how terrified I was going to be even when just trying to order food for the first time.

Ripping that band-aid off proved to be the first defining moment of my stay in France, and my fear brought with it a lot of points for reflection. First, I realized I wasn’t as advanced, confident, and culturally competent as I thought I was. I had only really interacted with situations and people I felt I could express myself to, and when that fundamental ability wasn’t as in reach, I absolutely panicked. I got to actually see where the boundaries of my comfort zone were and then had to jump over them, instead of just toeing the line.

I also, though, actually managed to get through an interaction in French, and after that first one, asking for a few croissants at the Boulangerie didn’t seem as intimidating anymore (and I even got one for free). Despite how clunky my French still indubitably was, the interactions themselves began to run smoother and follow a now-comfortable formula, which let me see that improvement was actually attainable.

I met Martha and Andy as well, and got to walk and talk with them. I’m super excited to see how we all progress here and experience some wonderful things in the process! Allons y!