A Little Less Lonely

French markets are famous for vibrant displays of every imaginable alimentary substance. The best part, though, is the bread: French bread is sinfully delicious. And of all this delicious bread, one man in Lyon makes it better than anyone else. His chocolate chip loaves in particular are moist, buttery, slightly sweet—perfection itself. The first Sunday I was in Lyon, I stopped just to admire his wares, but his charm quickly converted me into a patron. Over the next four weeks, I stopped by his station weekly for a mouthwatering loaf and a bit of conversation. Despite the fact that our acquaintanceship lasted a mere month, and despite the fact that we never spoke longer than ten minutes, my eyes welled on my last visit to the market when he smiled with disappointment in his eyes and pronounced the final “adieu.” That moment demonstrates why I chose language education as my career. To connect to others, to form relationships, to break stereotypes—these are the most important human functions, the ones that make our time on the planet a little less lonely. All of them are possible only with language.

To this end, my classroom encourages genuine, respectful interaction; everyone’s voice is heard. Every class meeting begins with informal conversation: I greet students and ask what has occupied their time since I saw them last, what they are working on, and how their lives are going. Students eagerly respond to this invitation to share their lives with others. The relationships we form early on are of utmost importance to me personally and as a foundation for our language study. In no time, rapport builds to the point that students no longer hesitate to discuss their childhood, likes and dislikes, or hopes for the future. They learn to trust the other students and me with glimpses into their lives. However, rather than always talking about ourselves, I routinely ask students to adopt the perspectives of others, which simultaneously raises their affective awareness and vocabulary base. Regardless of the assignment, the goal in my classroom is the same: to foster real communication in as authentic a situation as possible for the students’ current linguistic level.

Even when presenting grammar and vocabulary for the first time, I try to take a learner-focused approach. Rather than give rules and immediately expect output, I ask students to look at or listen to authentic texts that feature the concept, and then we work together to construct and test hypotheses about the form. This way, my role can shift from lecturer to guide. In my experience, language students who are guided stay engaged; those who are inundated with new information quickly become overwhelmed or apathetic. A typical lesson in my classroom, then, follows the PACE method, allowing for extra support when the students seem to need it. The extension component of the lesson always consists of thoughtful communication with others while reinforcing the new linguistic form, often via “info gap” activities. This communication might be in written form or spoken, presentational or interactive, but the goal of all language, sharing information, is always at the forefront.

This belief about sharing information leads me to include as much authentic text as possible. Language classes are not about words: they are about speakers. Words alone do not make a language what it is; emotions, traditions, and people do. Consequently, to introduce my students to French is to introduce them to its speakers. We consider questions such as, “How do native speakers wield the words we learn in class? How do the words interact with the cultures in which they are born? How does the language reflect the voices that use it?” Of highest priority to me is that my students see the French language as a dynamic space in which life takes place. It is not merely a phenomenon occurring within our classroom. Authentic text helps students come to this realization. Music videos, film clips, news articles, photographs, theatre programs…these are all vital in my classroom. Not only do these instruments allow us to see the grammar and vocabulary in action, but they are also launching pads for culture discussions. The vast majority of students I have taught, regardless of age, are intrinsically motivated to discover new things about the cultures that share our world. By weaving cultural information with linguistic information, students begin to see the full picture of language and how it works in tandem with the people who speak it. Their comments in class mature from, “That’s so weird!” to “I can see why they do/believe that,” or even, “That makes sense.” As these new points of view are accepted, students’ interest in the language itself tends to increase, which makes the classroom experience a powerful one for all of us, myself included.

I hope to continue learning ways of maximizing the linguistic and cultural interests and abilities of my students, particularly as it relates to bringing down the affective filter. It is my firm belief that as the affective filter is dissolved, language learning skyrockets. When students are no longer intimidated by the language itself or by the teacher, they engage more voluntarily with the material. And as they become more comfortable with the others in the classroom, they find it easier to use the language to discover each other. In the future, I want to work with others to research and develop classroom materials and practices that encourage the affective filter to dissolve as much as possible. The more positive associations a student has with the language, the more likely she will be to study the language in depth. What can teachers be doing to reach and appreciate their students as individuals, rather than viewing the entire class as a single entity? What types of activities work to quickly dissipate the natural reservations students bring to the subject? How can teachers build motivation and creativity within the short space of a class period? These questions fascinate me: I am eager to learn more about how students learn so that I can become a better teacher and servant for them.

I have benefited through the years from excellent instructors from whom I learned the value of a teacher’s enthusiasm and passion for the material. As I have gained experience teaching for myself, I have learned more practical lessons: keeping students in their seats for long periods of time is counterproductive. Lecturing about grammar rules tends not to be effective. Listening to students’ specific needs as it relates to language instruction raises productivity and confidence. Every day I enter a classroom, whether as a student or a teacher, I learn something brand new about the profession. My primary career goal is to continue this process forever, so that each day my students have an increasingly effective teacher in the classroom. Nothing is more beautiful to me than the moment when a light bulb clicks on for a student, when she discovers yet another way to use language to make her neighbor a little less lonely. If I can continue finding ways to make that happen, I will feel that I have been a success.

Magic.

Oz. Narnia. Wonderland. Never-Never Land. Consider our myths and fairytales, and you’ll see immediately that we humans crave magic. A deep, long-lost part of us must believe in it: decade after decade we teach these stories to our children. At a young age, we learn that if you shove aside the coats in your armoire, you will walk straight into a snowy kingdom where all your courage will be needed to fight the White Queen. Or that if a tornado strikes your house, you will land on a yellow brick road that takes you to the Wizard. Or that if you fall through a hole after being hurried there by a rabbit, you will find yourself in the midst of an epic battle between kindness and jealousy. Courage and magic intertwine at the core of our favorite childhood stories. My own favorite story, Charlotte’s Web, relies on the reader’s willing suspension of disbelief in farm animals’ ability to converse.

How does it happen that gradually such belief fades? Last month my three-year-old niece told me about a pink-and-blue tent she received for her birthday. When I asked her favorite thing about it, she replied, “Probably the lift-up door because I can lift it up and see what’s going on in there so I know if I want to play in it or go somewhere else with Mommy.” While I’m sure my niece knows that whatever might be “going on in there” is strictly her imagination, I’m betting she’d be an easy sell on all things magical. After all, to the young brain, both Santa Claus and rainbows are magical. How did exactly the toys you wanted appear under the tree sometime during the night on Christmas Eve? Somehow Santa must’ve done it. How does light shooting through suspended water droplets cause a bursting forth of colors in the same order every single time? Somehow God must’ve done it.

When it comes to faith, instead of harboring a childlike willingness to believe in magic, we enter into these ridiculous adult arguments about old earth versus new earth, or literal versus figurative. Those conversations might be enjoyable or even faith-building to some, but when they split friendships and churches—as they often do—something is wrong. Consider the words of Jesus in the Book of Mark: Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it (Mark 10:14b-15, NLT). Can you imagine children arguing whether Jesus turned water into wine or grape juice? Whether the Flood actually killed everything except that which was literally on the ark? Kids eat up Bible stories: they’re pure magic. You hear a lot more cries of “Cool!” than snorts of “This is obviously not meant to be taken literally” when you teach children’s Sunday school. And clearly, this is what Jesus is after—unbridled enthusiasm and belief in all things magically God. Luckily for most of us, Jesus doesn’t say, “Anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a theologian will never enter it.”

Am I taking issue with the discipline of theology? Certainly not. Am I suggesting that all sophisticated and/or inquiry-driven considerations of God should be quashed? Not at all. But I do wonder why we can’t go back to our child selves and be willing to accept a little more magic at face value. A fourteen-year-old Middle Eastern girl who’d never had sex in gave birth to God’s child? Let’s just go with it. As we’ve learned from the oft-quoted passage, Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see (Hebrews 11:1, NLT). What is that if not a definition of believing in magic? So what if we can’t see God? Let’s just believe he’s there. We’ve never seen the wind or Neptune either, and we believe they’re out there. Maybe it’s time to peek back in that armoire with the children and see what they teach us about God.

Rainbows.

So when…I'm all by myself / And I can't hear You answer my cries for help / I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through / And I will go through the valley if You want me to.

— “If You Want Me To” by Ginny Owens

I didn’t grow up in a Christian denomination that spoke much about grace. Instead, sermons of sin, God’s displeasure, and the weakness of humans abounded. Once, a pastor informed my youth group that there was a specific formula one must follow when praying: God wouldn't listen otherwise. An evangelist who came to my church when I was barely a teenager suggested that those who weren’t filled with the Spirit might not be saved, and the only way to be sure you’d been filled with the Spirit was whether you’d spoken in tongues. For this reason and others, I grew up doubting the grace of God as frequently as I went to bed at night—and if I were being honest with myself, I’d have to say that I still sometimes have relapses. Every night for years and years, I prayed the sinner’s prayer just in case Jesus came back in the night. I wanted to cover my bases in case the last 24,591 sinner’s prayers didn’t take.

It’s no great surprise, then, that when I was eighteen years old, I was sure that God had revoked my salvation privileges forever. Looking back over my life, there were lots of things I regretted thinking or doing—from saying disrespectful things to my parents to making fun of people at school. Drugs, alcohol, and sex—the trinity of Big Sins—might never have tempted me, but there was still an undeniable sinfulness at my core. I kept praying words like, “I know You’re probably not listening anymore, but even if I can’t be saved, I’ll still try to live like I am. I still believe in You, and I’ll try to send others Your way. I’m just sorry I’ve screwed up so often, and this relationship didn’t work out any better.”

I remember praying exactly that way as my family drove to my aunt’s house one Friday afternoon. I was feeling especially bold that day, and asked God if he wouldn’t mind sending me a sign if in fact I hadn’t quite used up my grace allotment yet. “I know I’m probably overstepping the bounds here a little,” I whispered tentatively, “but if there’s still a little grace with my name on it, would you let me know?” I fell asleep, praying that prayer over and over. When I woke up from my nap, I swear the first thing I saw was a rainbow. Now, a rainbow might not mean much to you, but here’s what it says about them in Genesis: Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds…When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and…when I see [it], I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth” (Genesis 9:12-14, 16, NLT). So every time God sees a rainbow, he remembers his covenant with us: he has guaranteed us love, grace, and protection from the perils of life on earth. It only seems fitting that if that’s what’s on God’s mind when he sees a rainbow, the same can be true of me. I spent the next several moments in the car contemplating the mercy of God…until I began talking myself out of the message. “Mercy for others, but no longer for me,” I reminded myself, frustrated that I’d been swept away by the magic of nature. “God is merciful to those who have more self-control than I have and can keep themselves from sinning.”

A few months later, it was January of 2003, and I was in a church service with my then-boyfriend. I don’t remember what the minister preached about that morning, but I do remember the overpowering urge to ask for prayer. I was still struggling (privately) with the feeling of being outside the bounds of salvation, but that rainbow had sent a tiny ray of light into my being, causing me to question if all really was lost. Almost immediately after I walked up to the altar, a woman joined me and began praying for me, praying all the things I wanted to say but didn’t feel that I could. Without ever asking why I was at the altar, she told me that God found me beautiful, treasured, and even holy. She told me that God did not take kindly to his children being terrorized by Satan’s lies. She told me that God roars like a lion against anyone who bullies, mistreats, or harms one of his own. She told me that I was precious and forgiven…and I believed her. I finally believed that I was still accepted and that God was welcoming me to his side. My body crumbled to the floor, and for a long time I sat in the presence of the Lord, letting grace and peace flood me. I belong to Jesus, I belong to Jesus, I belong to Jesus…

That night I ate dinner at my boyfriend’s house, and then we all took our regular spots in the sunroom. His mom sat on a wicker chair in the corner, and he and I settled onto a glider. In moments, the sun was setting in the most unbelievable way: the sunset was quite literally a gigantic rainbow that spanned the entire sky. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet…they were all there in order as the sun slipped below the horizon. We marveled; none of us had seen a sunset like that ever before. (And while I can’t speak for them, I can say that I haven’t seen anything remotely like it since.) Remember? I heard the word echoing somewhere within me. Remember? God reminded me that we had a covenant, he and I. He’d painted both rainbows—skywriting, really—to remind me of the immense love he harbors for me. If I hadn’t already believed that God had power even over the colors of the sunset, I certainly did then.

Ever since, I have sought rainbows. Although, I usually don’t even have to: if I am going through a trying time, if something is weighing heavily on my mind, a rainbow will inevitably appear. God always reminds me of his ultimate control over the situation and of my privileged place in his family. Just yesterday I tearfully returned to my apartment in Virginia after spending a fabulous week of respite at home. I begged the Lord to tell me why I’m having to go through this—being away from home, family, and friends—in order to get a degree I’ve fallen out of love with. He didn’t answer, but did send a rainbow to meet me along the interstate. I love you more than words can express, remember?

Patriotism.

The night before we left, everyone got together for a final group dinner. Before long, as always happens at such functions, conversation wound around to our thoughts about leaving France. Some of us avions hâte (“had haste”) to return to the States; others were more saddened that it had come to an end. At one point, someone asked, “What will you miss most about France?” Although I said nothing at the time, my answer was definitely “the people”. As I have said before, I believe that learning a foreign language is all about learning to listen—decoding others’ ways of speaking, if you will. This trip only confirmed my beliefs, as I listened to some incredibly interesting people during my time in the country. Their stories amaze me and made me grateful for the professors over the years that have taught me how to listen to French.

One such story came from Madame D, whom we met at the Museum of Resistance and Deportation. Mme D was not even a teenager when World War II broke out, but she became a Resistance fighter in Lyon. She was raised speaking both French and German because her father believed that World War I wasn’t over, and if the Germans came back, he wanted his family to be prepared. Whenever they complained that other families didn’t have to learn other languages, he replied, “Il faut parler la langue de l’ennemi” (“It’s imperative to speak the language of the enemy”). But it wasn’t just at home that she learned how to fight the Germans: at school she was taught that France was the most beautiful, most intelligent, most strategic country on the planet. If she and her classmates stayed in school and then used their knowledge as employees of the State, they would make France a formidable opponent for Germany.

With such patriotic and idealistic talk swirling constantly around her head, it’s no surprise that Mme D began believing it. When Hitler and Pétain signed the armistice on 22 June 1940, 12-year-old Mme D (at that time, Mademoiselle D) was already looking for a way to fight the Germans. She didn’t have to look long before she was given a task: Libération-Sud, a Resistance group in Lyon, gave her clandestine newspapers to distribute every evening. Each morning, Mlle D went to school like every other 12-year-old girl in her country, innocent as a butterfly. When school let out, she rode her bike to the secret headquarters of Libération-Sud to collect an armfulof newspapers, which she distributed swiftly to other members of the Resistance group, a vital cog in the greater communication machine. This 12-year-old girl was willing to put herself in risk of death every afternoon because she loved her country and believed in its potential for victory.

We U.Va. students were floored as we listened to Mme D’s tales of bravery. She didn’t tell them in a proud way; she didn’t even seem emotionally affected by the words coming out of her mouth. I found myself wondering, Would I have been willing to do what she did? Would my students be willing to go to such great lengths for freedom and country? Is this woman extraordinary for answering the call of duty, or would most of us do the same in her shoes? I have to admit, I don’t really know the answers to any of those questions. But I do know that people her age often have much more patriotism, regardless their native land, than those my age and younger. Why is that? Have we become spoiled in our less war-torn era? Are we only willing to do that which increases our own social or economic statuses? Have we simply become too angry about the decline of the global economy? Is the crevasse between the political parties eroding our love of country? Why don’t we put our hands over our hearts when we hear the anthem? Why do we only think about our country during national elections, heated political discussions, or while watching Harrison Ford action thrillers?

Not that the situation in France is any better. On Bastille Day, as I was enjoying a fireworks show at one of the grad students’ apartments, someone asked my theatre professor whether she was feeling especially patriotic. She said, “Absolutely not. Today everyone gets drunk, lights fireworks, and sings ‘La Marseillaise’ [the French national anthem]. That’s all. And that’s such a violent, xenophobic song. None of these things inspire patriotism in me. Besides, the fireworks aren’t even good tonight.” N, one of the grad students, said that he had heard several other French people answer his question similarly. Somewhere between the Mme D generation and the Professor B generation (the two women are about 40 years different in age), the patriotism evaporated.

Of course, the fierce nationalism that brought on World War II is to be avoided at all costs. No country is inherently better or more valuable than another, and that’s important to remember lest we start feeling too sure of ourselves. And a more peaceful world is certainly a goal worth working toward. However, what country can withstand national trials and hardships without a basic love of homeland? Can we survive without patriotism?

Adieu.

French, like English, offers its speakers a number of ways to say goodbye, most of them dependent on when you expect to see each other again. A tout à l’heure has one of the smallest lapses of time between departure and reunion: it translates loosely to “within the hour,” although in conversational French it’s just used for “see you very soon.” There is the weekday staple a demain!, which means “until tomorrow.” From there, you have your generic goodbyes of indeterminate length but with certain reunions, expressions like salut for your friends and au revoir for your superiors. Then, there’s the scary one. It connotes a forever goodbye, quite literally translating “to God,” as in “I commit you to God.” This is a very certain goodbye, not one that had ever been said to me, not even mistakenly from a student, until today.

E and I were at the market for the last time this morning, picking up our final selections of bread, cheese, fruits, and vegetables. On our way out, I stopped at the Bread Man’s stand because I just couldn’t pass up being his customer one last time. Besides, he had my favorite bread, pépites au chocolat, which he hasn’t had since that first week. It was a sign.

When we approached his display, he said, “Ah! You were in Avignon, no?” Surprised at his remarkable memory—he must see a few hundred people pass by every Sunday—we replied that indeed we were. “You went to see the plays of the festival. I remember. I went there myself once, spent an enjoyable weekend there. This is a good tradition of France.” We agreed that we too had had a great time in southern France but that we were glad to be back in Lyon. I ordered my pépites au chocolat loaf and then informed him that it was our last market visit before returning to the States. “I had to come back once more for your bread!” I said with a smile.

He raised his eyebrows. “Your last market?” He shook his head. “When do you return? You are American, no? Going back to America?” We told him he was right and that our planes for America would leave on Saturday. “What city will you go back to?” For simplicity’s sake, E and I just gave him our home states. “Well, I must take my breads to America then! You have nothing like this in America. All factory breads!” We all chuckled as he handed me my box. “Well, I guess this is adieu then,” he said with a regretful expression. “Yes, adieu.” I nodded, almost tearing up, and echoed his goodbye.

It’s amazing that someone I spoke to for only a few minutes each week could cause such emotion in me. But this, this is why I chose language for my career. You learn a language so that you can hear other people speak: their stories, their joy, their pain, their fragility. You learn a language so that you can appreciate the Godlikeness of other people. You learn a language so that you can laugh with them, understand them, be welcomed by them and welcome them in return. That’s why it’s so close to God’s heart. He said at the dawn of mankind that it’s not good for us to be alone.

The Bread Man and I never spoke more than ten minutes at the time. We don’t even know each other’s names. But for four weekends, we looked forward to seeing each other and exchanging a few words of conversation in his native language. He clearly enjoyed regaling E and I with brief stories of traveling to Avignon and America and with proud claims of the superiority of his bread to anything else at the market or across the ocean. I enjoyed hearing it. That, if you ask me, is a little bit of God showing up in everyday life.

French Food.

There’s no doubt about it: France lusts over food. From the hours spent preparing it to the hours spent consuming it, food crosses the French mind every day à plusieurs reprises (“at many repeats”). On any block in France, you will find store after store devoted to alimentation—bakeries, butchers, dairy shops, confectioners, produce markets, and so on. Cafés never lack patrons, even in the middle of the day. French air is overflowing with the aromatic mélange of roasted chicken, garlic, bread, sautéed onions, cheese, coffee, chocolate…Can you smell it yet? It only fits, then, that many of our activités culturelles obligatoires (“required cultural activities”) have centered on consumption and “palate education.”

Sunday, 20 June: Huge group dinner at the Le Nord Brasserie Bocuse, a four-star restaurant in Lyon. Our reservations were at 7:00 p.m., but we didn’t leave until after 10:30—which is actually common in France. If you want to have dinner at a restaurant, not just a café, you’re expected to make reservations. The restaurant, however, only accepts as many reservations as there are tables. After it fills up, the doors are closed and customers can stay until all hours. And it’s a good thing: the food at Le Nord was absolutely delicious. It took all three and a half hours to eat it slowly enough to savor every bite and enjoy the company, too.

Thursday, 24 June: Small group dinners. Our group opted for traditional Lyonnais cuisine, so our professor made reservations at a bouchon, an establishment that serves exclusively Lyonnais food. There again, the meal was incredible. I had French onion soup, quenelle (a soufflé made of cheese, a rich white fish, and spiced cream), and profiteroles au chocolat, the largest chocolate dessert I have ever seen. (I wasn’t sure exactly how to translate profiterole, so I looked in the New American Oxford Dictionary: “a small hollow pastry typically filled with cream and covered with chocolate sauce”. Ohhh, yeah.) Much of Lyonnais cuisine is that which I imagine is served at the gates of hell: tripe sausage, tongue, fish heads, cow brains, and so on. Nonetheless, it’s possible to find more edible dishes, which was the case at our bouchon. I will post pictures when I get back home.

Sunday 27 June: Cheese tasting. You’ve probably heard rumors that French cheese is some of the weirdest and stinkiest on the planet. I concur. But much of it is delicious, despite the olfactory displeasure. Our job on this particular evening was to amble around the room, trying different cheeses, and describing each with words other than “strong” or “stinky.” That left us hard pressed for appropriate adjectives. However, I found a fantastic cheese made of sheep’s milk that had a nutty, buttery taste. That stuff was incredible with some water crackersand a sip of white wine. Three or four of the cows’ milk cheeses were also fantastic: smooth, creamy, and slightly salted. All of those were the perfect compliment to a baguette. Of course, there were others that tasted like feet, acid, and/or poisonous mushroom, so I stuck mostly to my favorites.

Monday, 28 June: Cooking workshop and winetasting. That’s right: I attended a cooking workshop with a professional French chef. We prepared a chicken-and-pesto main dish with sides of tomates Provençal (“Provence tomatoes,” which are roasted in olive oil, garlic, and basil) and sautéed zucchini. The other half of our group made a sushi appetizer and a raspberry cake with warm compote of tomatoes (yes, tomatoes) and strawberries for dessert. It was terrifying to be in the kitchen of a French restaurant with a guy who does it for a living, let me tell you. It’s amazing how much school they have to go through to be hire-able in the restaurant industry in France. Very intimidating for those of us who struggle with our microwave oatmeal. Anyway, while one group was cooking, the other was in a wine tasting. We did essentially the same thing with the wine that we did the night before with the cheese: describe what we smelled and tasted. Naturally, I liked the white wine best—it was fruity, floral-y, and crispy. We also tried a rosé and a red; the red was surprisingly good. It’s weird to describe a drink as peppery and smooth, but that’s exactly what the red wine tasted like. Too hardcore for me, but I could tell it was of exquisite quality.

Thursday, 1 July: Couscous dinner. Couscous? Is that really a meal, you might ask. Well, no, not usually. Usually it’s a side dish, similar in style (but not in taste or consistency) to rice or other grains. However, at L’Étoile de l’Orient, it is the main attraction. The servers first brought us green aperitifs with a minty-lime taste. Although small, they were refreshing since we were positively baking on the top floor of the restaurant. The meal was served family-style: a dish of plain couscous occupied the center of the table, flanked by a giant bowl of vegetable stew and a gargantuan platter of baked meat. Everyone dug in heartily and delighted in the spicy Moroccan specialty. The portions were so much more than I could ever eat, but I ate until I could hardly wiggle. Before the night was over, one among us who is Canadian sang “O, Canada!” (his version deserves an exclamation point) in both French and English to celebrate Canada Day. To quote Jen from CakeWrecks: “I didn't even realize that the US celebrated Canada with its own day.”

Sunday, 4 July: French-style Independence Day feast. This was just an E and I thing, not the whole group. We wanted somehow to celebrate our patriotism, but the hot dogs here just wouldn’t cut it. They’re served on baguettes. That’s right, baguettes with wieners inside. So, E found a café whose plat du jour was moules-frites (“mussels and fries”). We figured that was as close as we were going to get. I mean, hey, it had fries with it. (Yes, I understand the irony of being in France, trying to find American food, and ordering “French” fries. [Which are not French, by the way. Just wanted to clear that up.]) It was a lovely evening, sitting there in front of the Saône River, chowing down on mussels and fries. But I don’t think I’ll ever order mussels in America: they looked too much like insects with soft flesh.

Tuesday, 6 July: Ice cream. There is an ice cream shop here in Lyon with over sixty flavors. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Baskin-Robbins. Granted, some of their flavors would never make it in the U.S. because they are, in a word, weird. Exhibit A: flower flavors. At the Nardonne ice cream shop, you can order rose, violet, or orange blossom ice cream. Another graduate student, braver than I, ordered violet. She let me try it, and all I can say is that it tasted like smelling purple. I ordered mint, hazelnut, and Nutella, which formed a winning combination. Assuming E and I go back on our own—the chances are pretty high—I think I’ll try dark chocolate, salted caramel, and cinnamon. So many flavors, so little calorie allowance.

Reading back over this, I have three thoughts: 1) How in the world have I lost eleven pounds since being here? 2) The next few days we’ll be in Avignon at the theatre festival and eating most of our meals at the YMCA. Good thing we’ve been stocking up on delicious food up until now. 3) I’m seriously hungry. Time for dinner.

Stupid Boys.

Nope, I’m not going to rail on the male species. I rather like them, especially my husband and dad. Believe it or not, what follows is a story of Franco-American relations in an Anglophone pub where E and I went to watch the U.S.-Ghana quarterfinals. After the Internet troubles we’d had earlier in the day, we really just wanted to sit somewhere fun and watch the game. Since we were going to be cheering (in English) for an English-speaking country, we felt it only fitting to choose an English-speaking pub. We made our way out to Vieux-Lyon, the old part of the city, and ambled into an Irish pub called the James Joyce. We’d heard it had a good atmosphere, and besides, on an English-language schedule of the day’s games, it said, “Welcome, Americans!” underneath the U.S.A.-Ghana game info. Perfect choice.

Unfortunately, within moments of choosing a table, we rued the decision. An already-inebriated Frenchman dressed in a bright blue polo and a plaid kilt turned from the bar and started speaking some very loud French in our direction. Nothing offensive, just the noisy, opinionated ramblings of a late-afternoon drunk. “My father, he was Scottish, and my uncle, he was French. But I, I learned how to dance the Riverdance!” Frenchman bellowed. Regrettably, he felt the need to demonstrate his paltry talent. E and I tried our best to ignore him and just keep up our conversation, but he did not take kindly to that. Before long, she and I were practically yelling at one another over the ruckus he was creating. Finally, we simultaneously made unsmiling eye contact with Frenchman, hoping he’d see the general lack of mirth he was causing.

Moments later, he silenced. But it wasn’t because of our scathing nonverbal message; it was because two more men entered the pub, an American and a Brit—looking rather stereotypical, I might add. American was in cargo shorts and a T-shirt and spoke with a Texan accent. He ordered himself a glass of dark ale and settled heavily on a barstool. Brit, in his pressed khakis, followed suit (no pun intended). Frenchman watched all of this with a sparkle in his eye. He hurried back over to his barstool and eavesdropped on the two men for a few minutes, trying, I suspect, to pick up a nugget to start yelling about again.

American and Brit wondered aloud why the word “football” is used to denote both “soccer” and “American football.” American said, “We mostly throw the ball in football. In soccer, you actually kick the thing around, so it would make more sense to call soccer ‘football.’” Brit agreed, of course. He said he was accustomed to using the term “football” for “soccer.” American continued, “I prefer the game of football, though.”

That was all Frenchman needed to hear. He turned around and boomed, “Stupid boys! American football is stupid boys!” He reverted to his slurred, loud French for the rest of the insult. “You throw the ball, you make the scores, you throw the ball, you make the scores. So easy! This is something any person can do! In soccer, you never stop running, kicking.” He held his index fingers and thumbs in the shape of two tiny circles. “This is what stupid American football boys looks like,” he said in thickly accented English. “Little, little.”

As any football fan knows, it is never safe to trash talk another fan’s team. But to trash talk the entire sport? That, citizens, is anathema. Predictably, American seethed. “Oh yeah?” he replied in English. “Where’s your ‘football’ team, huh?” he asked, air quoting the word. “They’re at home, watching the game on their TVs because they lost. Because they’re no good. My team is still in the running, even though it’s soccer. So who looks stupid now?” He looked at Brit, and both rolled their eyes.

But Frenchman wasn’t done. Although he seemed not to have understood much of what American said, he was busy decrying football again. This went on—literally repetitions of the above conversation—for ten minutes. It was frustrating to watch: two adults who couldn’t even understand each other arguing about games. It was as if one had insulted the other’s family; they were fighting with that much vehemence. Stupid boys.

And then it hit me: they had insulted each other’s families. For many of us Americans, football is a major part of our lives, whether we’re fans or not. The vast majority of us watch the Super Bowl (or the ads). From August to February, we see commercials for games regardless of the channel we watch. Our spouses, parents, children, friends, cousins, and siblings talk football. We remember the glory days in high school of marching band, cheerleading, or playing on the gridiron…or being the best friend or significant other of someone who did. Most of us claim allegiance to a college team. Pro football players are in the news, on magazine covers, and referred to by DJs. You have to admit that it’s a big part of our culture—and that much more for someone who is a fan, like American. Football is a part of his identity as much as being a husband or being an international traveler.

Of course, it’s the same for the French with their soccer.

So as the sports insults kept flying—to the point that Frenchman was eventually escorted out for public drunkenness—I started thinking about what (not so much “who”) started it. Clearly, Frenchman was looking for a battle from the beginning, but American did us no favors by insulting Les Bleus, the French soccer team. It reminded me of something another Frenchman said to me eight years ago. His name was Jean, and he was the father in one of our host families. I asked Jean what the most surprising thing was about American culture. He told me, “The movies. In French movies, we solve problems like difficult relationships. We see how families work and how couples work. At the center of every French movie is a relationship.” (By the way, he wasn’t exaggerating.) “In American movies, you’re usually saving the world. Yes, I can go see American romance movies if I want to, but usually you’re saving the world. And you don’t usually let people of other countries help you. Just a team of Americans saving the world.” Jean was right. Perhaps that’s why Frenchman was picking a fight: he’s tired of teams of Americans.

On the other hand, American is probably tired of being despised just because he’s from America. E told me that the other day she was in a bakery and the woman at the cash register, upon hearing E’s French, asked her where she was from. E told her America. “Oh, well, that’s not that bad,” the woman commiserated with a watery smile. No, it’s not! It’s not bad at all because no nationality is inherently bad or good…or even better.

I lack the words to conclude this post because I’m still thinking about it all.

Livebox.

You might have seen on FaceBook that E and I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day yesterday. An explanation is in order. E and I are 21^st-century Americans: we want our Internet, and we want it fast. We use it for communicating with people back home, for entertainment, and also for receiving messages regarding where we should be when because we are cell-phone-less here in France. So on Friday at 1:15 p.m. when it stopped working, we panicked slightly. Not on the level of Peyton-Manning-has-retired, but more along the lines of I-have-a-zit-two-days-before-prom. So it didn’t work right before we left to read our World War II assignment in the park? It surely would when we returned.

It didn’t.

Our panic level rose from yellow to orange, in the manner of the Homeland Security Advisory System. It was now prom day, so to speak, and the zit had grown to hairy-mole size. We played with it for a bit, but ultimately decided just to go to bed and assume it would kick itself back on in the middle of the night. You can sleep off a headache; why not Internet malaise?

You can’t. At least not in France.

By Saturday morning, we were on full alert. Batten down the hatches, boys; it’s Internet or bust! After becoming completely disgusted with both the troubleshooting manual and the piece-of-crap Internet box itself (called “Livebox”), we decided to visit McDonald’s to take advantage of their free Wi-Fi. The priority was making sure our families knew that our silence and missed Skype dates came from an Internet malfunction, not abduction by angry French World Cup soccer players. But wouldn’t you know it: our computers simply would not hook up to McDonald’s Wi-Fi. Our vexation mounted.

We went across the street to an Internet café. At least we knew it would work there. And it did. From a computer attached to a French keyboard:

(Notice, for example, the placement of the letters compared to where they are on your keyboard. Also, check out the punctuation marks. Totally different from yours. And do you see how there are two symbols plus a number on each numerical key? Yeah, that’s not easy to finagle.)

In the end, we spent 25 minutes—and a euro each—sending two emails per person of three to five sentences apiece, something that takes less than eight minutes when using our computers. After that, we were back to the issue at hand: fixing the Internet in our own apartment since we’d each paid 26 euro for it. Remembering the exorbitant price and feeling the anger mount again, we tried to call our landlord. Unfortunately, he lives in Avignon, which is nowhere near us. We got a busy signal anyway.

We returned to the apartment and fumed, frowned, and spoke harshly to Livebox. Nothing happened. Livebox is a jerk. E read the troubleshooting directions to herself. Then out loud. I did the same. We restarted Livebox. We restarted our computers. We turned off everything. We turned it back on. We seethed.

Leaving the apartment, we headed toward Orange, the company that makes blasted Livebox. They sent us to SFR, the primary Internet provider in Lyon. They sent us to France Telecom, the centralized French telecommunications company. They sent us to Orange. We noticed a pattern. We tried another Orange. They sent us to France Telecom. We tried a second France Telecom. They sent us to…wait for it…Orange. Our problem seemed to be no one’s but ours. We returned to the Internet café and dialed up France Telecom. There’s no toll-free number, but by that time, we didn’t care how much it cost to get the Internet running again. That is, until the café owner told us we owed him fifteen euro. Then, we cared how much it cost.

Raging anew, we lamented the fact that we’d spent money at McDonald’s, the Internet café (twice), and the landlord, and ended up with no Internet. Discouraged and forlorn, we returned to Quai Claude Bernard, growling and murmuring all the way there. Eventually, I said, “This may sound like the stupidest idea ever, but we could ask the guy at the café who speaks English to help us.” (We live above a café.) E said that she’d thought of that earlier, but was afraid to mention it since he was unlikely to be of any help. But he was our last option, and no one else in France cared that we desperately wanted to talk to our families.

Upon returning to our apartment, we found English Speaker and breathlessly explained our troubles. We handed him the troubleshooting manual, Livebox’s serial number, and several phone numbers. Expecting him to do what, I don’t really know. In the end, English Speaker was indeed able to help: there was a particular username and password that had to be changed periodically, and it was time to do so. It wouldn’t let us back in until we changed said information. Showering English Speaker with a deluge of Merci!s, we hiked up the 10 flights to our apartment and tried the password-changing. It worked! 

For two minutes.

I could go on, but suffice it to say that we pushed every button on Livebox and our computers, and everything was finally functional again, after another hour or so of work. We consider our connection to be pretty tenuous at this point, but at least it’s running again. I’d make a comment about how dependent E and I are on the Internet, but the fact is, it’s actually our families we’re addicted to. More than anything, E and I just wanted to be able to communicate with the people who are so special to us. So this post is dedicated to you. May we never have to be cut off from one another again. Cheers!

Groceries.

My students always used to ask what sorts of things were different in France. On the spur of the moment, it’s hard to come up with an answer like that. Like when someone asks you, “What sorts of movies do you like?” All of a sudden, you think, What do I like? Well, a couple of days ago something happened that I can cite as a definitive difference between France and America.

E and I went grocery shopping twice last week: once to the Sunday market for produce and fresh bread, and once to the store mid-week for everything else. Unfortunately, I’d already run out of produce when we went to the store on Wednesday, so I picked up some apples, cherries, and tomatoes to hold me over until Sunday. As is customary in France, for the surge of customers waiting to check out, there was one open cash register (and four closed ones [and a handful of unoccupied employees who weren’t about to get to work {which reminds me of a French comedian who said that Obama’s “Yes, we can!” slogan would never work in France. They operate more along the lines of, “No, we can’t!”}]). Anyway, when I finally got up to the front, I put everything on the little conveyor belt, just as one does in the States. Everything went smoothly until we got to the produce. “Il faut les peser,” the cashier informed me. Because I was flustered, I couldn’t catch the words, so I asked her to repeat. She did, and added, “Je vous attendrai.” Great, so I had to go back to the display where I picked up my produce so that I could weigh it, all the while with her waiting for me at the front with the other six shoppers in line behind me.

I had no problems with the apples or tomatoes, but I simply could not find the button on the scale for cherries. So that I wouldn’t hold anyone up any longer, I just pushed the “grapes” button and hoped for the best. Close enough, right? By the time I rushed back to the front where she was indeed waiting with the rest of my purchases, the line had increased by three more shoppers. I was so embarrassed about holding these people up for so long that I wanted to crawl under that produce display and become a troll as a cautionary tale for other unsuspecting Americans.

The weird thing is that no one seemed especially put off by my unintentional antics—and it was the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday! They looked at me as though I were a fish in an aquarium. What is this species, one seemed to ask another in French eye language. Why is its face turning red? It appeared as though no one was really in a hurry. Certainly the cashier was not: she’d been talking to the customer before me about going south for vacation—the French get six weeks of paid vacation per year—long after she was done ringing up the woman’s purchases. The other potential cashiers were not in a hurry; they were instead ambling around the grocery store without a care in the world. Even the customers were more curious than frustrated. In America I would’ve been raked over the coals.

When Jeff and I had our neighbor F over last month, this same thing came up. I asked F what was the most surprising thing about America, after having grown up in Austria. He said, “It surprises me how quickly everyone moves in the stores. We move through the line fast, always. What if you love your customer and you want to say, ‘Your barber did a good job this week’? You cannot do it. You must just move, move, move.” Upon asking the same question to Professor B, a French professor from the region where we’re staying now, I was given the same response: “Why are Americans always in a hurry in the stores? If something takes awhile, we could just talk to each other in line, no problem. And what if we want to talk to the person who works for the store? But you cannot do it! We are rushed all the time.”

It’s a surprising thought.

But would it work in America?

Call it greed, call it capitalism, call it “making an honest living”…but one thing we hold dear in America is making money. I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way. We want to take vacations to get away from the stress of everyday life, we want our children to go to highly rated private schools, we want to shop at Whole Foods or Greenlife so we get the cleanest food possible. Our lives require a lot of money. If we were to slow down in stores or in restaurants, we’d accommodate fewer customers, thereby bringing in less money. In France, for example, it’s common for a restaurant to fill up and then shut its doors for the night: patrons will stay from seven o’clock until midnight, lingering over bread, wine, and cheerful conversation. Would slowing down in this manner be worth the exchange we’d make? We would make a smaller profit, but we would know people better and perhaps, for that reason, benefit from increased national solidarity. Would racial anger begin to dissipate? Would religious extremism attenuate? Would we be physically healthier if we took things a little more slowly? Or would it make a difference at all? Perhaps we are too ingrained in our ways, too dependent on our money and independent of each other, for anything to change. After all, as a hardened introvert, I have trouble imagining myself talking to people for long periods of time at the grocery store or spending hours at the dinner table with others. Perhaps talking in line at the grocery store and lingering at the table wouldn’t make a difference. And we would probably have to give up the private schools and find other sources for the organic food.

I don’t think the French are wrong or the U.S. is wrong here, but perhaps we could benefit from each other. What’s the most important thing to get out of our lives, and how is the best, most balanced way to do it? I’d love to know what you think.

Fête de la musique.

On travaille moins et on joue plus ! (We work less and we play more!)

That slogan was on ads citywide for Fête de la musique, the national French holiday for music. Fête means “party,” “festival,” or “celebration,” and it is the word used to denote public holidays. I like the sentiment: Fête de la musique translates to “music party/festival/celebration.” The French counterpart of Independence Day is Fête nationale, which would translate as “national party/festival/celebration.” In keeping with the idea of a party, red, white, and blue bulletins were printed out with the above slogan on the front and a schedule of all the registered concerts in and around Lyon on the inside. However, some concerts are little more than a duet or trio with a boom box, and those were not included on the list. Dancers also seem to gain rights to their land for the night by squatting, so you just have to amble around if you want to find them. Anyway, contrary to how it might sound, the French do go to work on Fête de la musique, and most of them work a full day. But at 5:00 p.m. sharp, the party begins. Actually, it began a little before that outside my window on Monday afternoon: by 4:00 p.m., my window and head were pounding a bass rhythm in time with the impromptu discothèque on Quai Claude Bernard.

It has long been known that the French are healthier than Americans—fewer heart attacks, strokes, alcohol-related deaths, and Type II diabetes diagnoses, to name a few. We already know that they walk/bike more, eat less sugar, and enjoy smaller portions of food. But surely there has to be another reason for their robust health. As we walked the streets of Lyon in pursuit of good music and the perfect crêpe au chocolat, I wondered whether Fête de la musique might be the secret to French health…or at least indicative of the mindset that contributes to French health. On 21 June each year, people gather for the simple pleasure of being together. They dance in the streets, sing along with the bands, and eat ice cream and crêpes. They chatter and laugh and walk around with cocktails. They take pictures and breathe deeply and hold hands. It’s the very picture of their expression joie de vivre (“joy of living”). Who can stay sufficiently stressed out to have a heart attack when they’re having such a great time?

The fact is this isn’t just the picture of Fête de la musique. Have dinner at any restaurant in France, and you’ll see the same thing: people in groups, laughing and talking and enjoying each other’s company. Last night we had our “small group dinner” which means that eight of us students went out with one professor for the sole purpose of enjoying ourselves in the city with someone to make sure we spoke French the whole time. L, one of the grad students, asked Professor B why the tables were all set for upwards of four people. After all, in America, most tables are ready for two, three, or four. Professor B replied, “Because that’s how many people have to sit at them!” In France, she informed us, people don’t just go out for dinner. If you’re at a restaurant, it’s because you’re celebrating something—which you would always do with friends. You go to restaurants when friends come to see you, when someone graduates, when a couple gets engaged, when you get a promotion. You don’t go just because you made it to 5:00 at work without keeling over.

Speaking of work, I think the French attitude toward it might also explain the decreased incidence of health problems. While the Fête de la musique bulletins might have especially brought it to the forefront, “On travaille moins et on joue plus!” is the general sentiment in the French mind as it relates to work. Professor B explained that the word “career” is used much less frequently in France than in America: one has a “job,” not a “career.” Work is simply not as meaningful or beneficial for the French as it is for Americans; the French punch in their time card, give their boss the next seven hours of their day, and then go home to enjoy an evening with their families. Professor B said that French people “live for evenings, weekends, and holidays.” Those are the times when living happens. As a result, the French workweek is only 35 hours, and everyone gets six weeks of paid vacation a year. And even more than that in some companies. The “lunch hour” is actually two, so people generally walk home and eat lunch with their families. Work is a means to an end, not an end in itself. That has to help the health statistics.

While I embrace the French culture of joie de vivre, I do believe there should be a balance between responsibility and fun. It seems to me that Americans in general lack the willingness and perhaps the know-how to lead truly sociable lives. I suspect I am just such an American. On the other hand, there is a value in working to better one’s environment, whether in the arena of business, education, medicine, law, parenting, or other such fields. These might be missing some extra punch in France because of the longing for weekends and holidays. Perhaps the French economy could be stronger if there was more interest and ambition on the part of the workforce. Or I might be wrong about both nationalities. What do you think?