French Kissing vs. The International Open-Mouthed Tongue Parade

Dear Readers,

I present you with a passage from my guidebook:

"There is no such thing in France as the French kiss. Open-mouthed tongue kissing has no national boundaries, and aside from les bises, the formal greeting that marks most encounters, is really the only kind of kissing that counts here."

I read this before I went, and after a couple weeks, I'd like to add the following:
"And how."

My sightseeing so far in Paris has consisted largely of people making out with each other. People making out with each other in the Gardens of Luxembourg, the enormous, lush monument to Marie de Medicis' dead husband. The park is complete with a fountain, a bocci court, playgrounds, tennis courts and acres upon acres of beautiful lawns and benches for people to make out on. The garden abuts the Palais du Luxembourg, an ornate and enormous structure that houses the French senate, who must be grateful to be relieved, during heated senatorial debates, to gaze out upon The People publicly displaying such unbounded affection for their fellow man/woman.

People make out on the metro, of course, due to it's cozy nature. In fact, you can often be squeezed right up next to a couple making out, and if you're lucky maybe the train will jostle and someone will lick your cheek.

People make out in restaurants, and I try my best to be blasse about it. It's a different culture, I was raised in a prude one, it's fine to make out wherever you want. But sometimes the American girl in me can't help but stare when I see strangers all but conceiving a child on a bench in the Parc de Butte-Chaumont, where the innocent among us are trying to have a run.

I can see them in their homes now:
Man: "Hoh hoh hoh. Let us make out now."
Woman: "No! There are not enough people to see us! We must go into public and make an exhibition of it!"

Needless to say, I feel more left-out than judgmental. Not that the French haven't been inviting. Why, just yesterday I was quietly having a decaf cafe while I waited to walk to the movie theater, and one of the bartenders, after a chat where I told him I was married and here visiting my husband's sister, nearly pulled me into his lap for a kiss. I had to wriggle a little to get out of his amorous clutches.

Last weekend at a nightclub, I turned from the bar to find myself approximately half an inch from one man's French kiss. Or, whatever - International Open-Mouthed Kiss. I said I was married. He didn't speak any English except for the following phrase, which he kept repeating:

"I am a man! I am a man! I am a man!"

So that's mainly what I have to report: P. D. A. I will regale you soon with adventures at the Louvre, or the Musee Rodin, or the Eiffel Tower...but I know for sure those places will all be filled with people performing their own unique versions of the International Open-Mouthed Tongue Parade. For now I am holed up safe in my apartment where, due to the T.V not working, I actually can't see anyone making out right now. I can just gaze out my window in peace and...

well, nevermind.

A Social Democracy vs. A...What are we, exactly?

In Paris, they have a phrase: c'est l'hôpital qui se moque de la Charité. It means, literally, "It is the hospital mocking charity" and it is the French version of the pot calling the kettle black.

Interesting, non? For we certainly do not hail from a country where hospitals and charities could ever be confused. Before I left, I tore my rotator cuff, and the diagnostic visit + a shot of cortizone & lidocaine, was $415.00. Now, consider this: in case of emergency, a doctor can visit your house for $50 euro. And if you go to his office, the average cost (and this is not a copay, folks) is $25 euro.

So why the disparity? Some Americans say it is because the quality of the healthcare suffers. If I had just discovered that I pay some eight times the amount that healthcare is worth, then I, too, would feel a need to claim that the cheaper version was poorer quality. But I would be wrong. French doctors charge less in part because they have less overhead - they pay almost nothing for advertising, marketing and pompe, focusing instead on the actual healthcare.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, "But, Kelly. Don't you write freelance for a healthcare advertising agency? Isn't that kindof calling the kettle black?" And you're right, but you're a jerk. I'm just trying to make money as a writer so that one day I can stop working long enough to finish a novel. You can help by publicizing my blog. Stop pointing fingers, Bob. Be part of the solution.

Another thing Americans say when they find out how much better the schools and healthcare are in places like France is claim that the tax burden in France is almost unbearable. Also untrue. There is actually no income tax in France. The tax is all in sales.

For example, the French government collects 75% of the cost of cigarettes, which are smoked prolifically by 25% of the adult population, who in turn use a lot of cheap healthcare. So it goes around and comes around.

Point is, the amount of tax you pay depends largely on the amount you consume. Imagine that: taxes based on what you spend, and not what you earn. And no matter what, you're taken care of.

So it is possible. I've seen it. And today I did my part to contribute to the system by spending an uncharacteristic amount of money on things like shoes, clothes and purses. Just helping the cause, Bob. Trying to be part of the solution.

One last note on politics: Last week when I was in a smokey, techno, pulsing nightclub bar (not my usual style, but these things can be enjoyed once every seven years or so), I mentioned to someone that I was from Texas. She said, "Oh I am afraid, because of Bush." And I was trying to say, "I think he's a numbskull, too" and maybe express that I prefer a social democracy over whatever it is we are, too. But my French does not encompass that. So instead I just said, "Oh, Bush?" And stuck my tongue out and made a gross face.

I figure that's good enough.

March-ing vs. Walking

The French translation of "to walk" is "marcher," which in turn is the derivative of our work "To March." In English, as you know, "Marching" has a musical or military or otherwise industrial connotation - "to march" is not to stroll at leisure. In contrast, "to walk" derives from the welsh term for turning or rolling and is rooted in the act of kneading bread. English is a strange language.

To be sure, "Marcher" is a more appropriate description of what I've been doing, as I have not been strolling at leisure, or even walking at a normal pace. Daniel's been visiting and he really walks quickly. We have made our way through and around and outside of Paris, almost entirely on foot, and with the purpose and determination of Napoleon's Army. I have warned Daniel of the hazards of Russian winters and excess haste...but he's not historically inclined.

We have marched through Oberkampf, the hopping, bar-lined street in the 11th district where much of the young nightlife resides. We have marched through the Louvre courtyard (but not into the Louvre) and taken pause from our invasion of Paris long enough to say, "This is unbelievably huge." We marched across the Seine and into St. Germain de Pres, the famous shopping district, pausing just long enough to say, "These prices are unbelievably high." Although I added, "But maybe I can afford a purse."

We have marched our way through a lot of shopping, to be sure. Interestingly, markets are called "marche" which refers to the way in which people walk around a market. There's a lovely farmer's market-type-market just next to my house on wednesdays and Saturdays. Recently I saw a sign advertising a cybermarche, which I suppose refers to virtual ambulation. We found a pretty incredible flea market just outside the city, and I spent money on really cool vintage stuff, like a clutch and a necklace and prada shoes for $20 euro.

Then we marched home.

The other day we marched to a delicious dinner - I had a french classic, Duck. It was marvelous, but filling. No matter, as I marched it all off on the way home.

Last night we marched to the Open Air Cinema, which was pretty great. Every night in the summer, the city sets up an unbelievably huge screen and projects movies onto it whilst viewers lay in the park to watch. It's incredible, and I plan to return, albeit with a jacket this time, and some snacks.

A related warning on the hazards of the "auto-translate" function for websites: We looked up the Cinema for information, and auto-translated the page into english. Here is what it said about the Open Air Cinema: "The cinema of full with air has the wind in poop!"

Surely that's not right, as it was not our experience at all.

We marched home.

So I'm going to look into a bike rental for the time I'm here - Paris has a really popular, really functional program called Velib, which offers participants bikes and bikestops all over the city for very reasonable rates. It's like what Yellowbike was supposed to be, except for a minimal fee and centers to lock up the bikes, so they don't get stolen, painted a different color, and redistributed.

Not that I don't enjoy all the marching. I do. I just wish it was a little calmer. You know...more like kneading bread, and less like invading a city.

Hope everyone is well.

Art Nouveau vs. Things Nouveau

You are all most likely familiar with the french word "nouveau," (meaning new) from the phrase "Art Nouveau," which refers to the highly-stylized, expensive-to-produce, flowing art and architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I suppose it is so named because at the time, it was new. Although, in retrospect, it's a rather short-sighted thing to call an art movement. One of my favorite artists, Alphonse Mucha, is famous for his impact on Art Nouveau.

Since you know the meaning of nouveau, let me introduce it in the context of my life. Here, everything is new. For example, at the cafes and bars, there are two prices for drinks: The (lesser) price for standing at the bar to drink and the higher price for sitting down. There are public toilets that are very, very clean on account of when you close the door behind you, jets of water spray over the entire thing, according to Lisa. There are these horror stories of mothers who accidentally left their kids in the toilet after they closed the door and the kids died from the power of the water spray. This delights me as it convinces me they are very clean, indeed.

Everyone speaks French all the time here. I guess I expected that, but it's still new.

Earlier today I went on my first walk around my new neighborhood in Paris. For those of you familiar with the city, I live in the 19th Arrindissmont, which is in the northeast part of the city. This part of town (Belleville) is sort of the Chinatown...and Arab town and Jewish Town...a very international part of the city. It's also quite fashionable these days. It's sort of the East Austin of Paris.

Anyway, I traipsed around in the rain looking for something Parisian and came upon a church. Outside the church were lots of tents. Inside those tents are people, which fact I learned when one of them popped his head out of the tent and began retching onto the street. Is that art nouveau? Wikipedia says no.

On the way back I saw writing on the tents and I thought I'd read it to see if I could trace the origin of said tents. I figure they are for the homeless. Though I was curious, I decided not to get to close. [see above paragraph] They were labelled "Medicins du monde" or "Doctors of the world." I think it is very nice of the doctors to provide tents for homeless people to retch out of, and stay dry in and so forth.

That is all for now. My internet access is limited until next week. I recommend, for those of you who are nouveau to this blog or haven't yet done so, that you read some of the comments. They are full of interesting linguistic tidbits. Also, Valerie writes in to say that the Cherokee have no word for "try." Either you do a thing, or you don't.

That said, I suppose I simply WILL learn this language, rather than just try to. And this culture. And the way home from the Papeterie. And the blog directions in French. And all manner of brand new things.

Work vs. A Three-Pronged Instrument of Torture

Before I leave the country, I have to spend quite a lot of time at my day job, so that I have plenty of money to blow in Paris. Doing so leads to a discussion of the english "to work" vs. the French word, "Travailler." For example, in english: "I work at an advertising agency." In French, "Je travaille pour le diable."

An etymological inquiry yields fascinating, and telling, results. In english, the word "work" derives from Ye Olde Englishe "wyrcan," from the merging of the P. Germanic "wurkijanan" and Ye Olde Englishe "wircan." (If you think I'm kidding, visit http://www.etymonline.com.) The roots all mean, "to work, operate, function." A mild enough description. The term "worker bee" was coined c. 1747. One gets the sense that, like bees, we must work as part of our function, and that there's a certain sort of harmonious consistence to the process.

Not so in French. The word "travailler" reminds us of the english word "travail," which means "to labor, or toil" and comes straight from the French word. Of course, the French comes from the same verb in Ye Olde Frenche, meaning "suffering or painful effort, trouble." The earliest form of "travailler" meant "to trouble, torture." Now, we're onto something.

"Travailler" is derived from the word "tripaliare," which means "to torture." This word comes from "tripalium," a Latin word meaning "instrument of torture." Illuminating, don't you think? "Tripalium" traces its roots to "tripalis," meaning "having three stakes."

Thank you for bearing with me during that tedious, but remarkably telling, exploration. You see, the French, unlike the Americans, are clearly onto something here. They are not afraid to call a spade a spade; or in this case, to call work an instrument of torture. Good for them.

In America, we act as though work is simply part of our function. Something we must to "to operate." Further than that, it becomes our identity - the way we define ourselves, our success, our intelligence. And we are expected not only to work, but to work all day, every day, sometimes for way more than 40 hours a week. (The French work week is 30 hours; in Spain they take a Siesta...) Those of us who choose to take it easy, or avoid a full-time job, are considered lazy, rather than sane. Americans are overworked and overstressed, but they act like this is simply one's function. After all, you don't hear bees complaining. (Unless "bzzzzz" in bee means "G.Damnit. I have to go make more stupid honey for that self-righteous, bossy, idiot queen.")

Historically, a German phrase has portrayed an eerily euphamistic attitude towards work. Let's not forget "Arbeit macht frei," or, "Work brings freedom." A more telling translation would be, "Work shall set you free," and the phrase was posted at the entrance of concentration camps.

Not that I should not complain too much. In this instant, "to work," for me, means "to blog and dream of iminent trip to Paris." And in Paris, "to work" will mean to spend time with Adam and Meyer, who are definitely not instruments of torture. And certainly, one must work to a certain extent, and that's fine, if one enjoys said work. But there are limits, and as a society we have long crossed them.

I suggest we reexamine our linguistics and, in turn, our lifestyle. Let's all start calling "work" what it is. For example:

WIFE: "So long, honey. I'm off to my three-pronged instrument of torture."

HUSBAND: "Alright dear. When you get home, we can have three steaks."

And so forth.

I'm Excited vs. Je suis excitee

Or, alternately titled: The things we have vs. the things we are.

In Spanish, there is this idea that there are two ways to be (ser, estar); a permanent way of being and a temporary way of being, respectively. For example, one can be temporarily tired (estoy cansada) or even temporarily married (estoy casada) but permanently an American woman. (Yo soy una mujer. Yo soy de los Estados Unidos.) In Spanish, we acknolwedge that there is a difference - however much it is mired in cultural assumptions - between that which you are experiencing transiently and that which you permanently are.

Neither French nor English have this characteristic, but French has another way of grappling with this. One can either be something or have something. (The same is true in Spanish.) For example, one has hunger (j'ai faim), has thirst (j'ai soif); they are a seperate entity that one is carrying with them for some period of time - we get the sense that you can let them go - as soon as you eat sheeps brains or drink water. There is also plenty of room to BE something temporarily: for example, "Je suis tres excitee!"

I posted this on my email lately thinking, "Oh. It means, 'I am very excited [for my trip].'" But it was called to my attention by my French-speaking friend Alan that what I was really publicly proclaiming was that "I am very horny."

This was not the case.

I realized (see first entry) that just because the word in French is simply one added e or so different from the word in English doesn't mean they are the same thing. In English, "excited" basically refers to the state of looking forward to something. In France, it seems, the only thing anyone ever looks forward to is sex. Of course, in English, "excited" can of course refer to a sexually aroused state of being, but one would not necessarily assume so. You could say, "That man is excited," and depending on the man in question you would not automatically assume that he was specifically looking forward to sex. Or, we could say, "That electron has been excited," and most people would either (a) not know what you're talking about or (b) think the electron had jumped from one orbital to a higher orbital, presumably not to have electron sex. So imagine my surprise when I discovered (after already having sent an email to another french-speaking friend containing said phrase, of course) what it was I had been implying.

How embarrasing.

In English, of course, we have our own slang: horny. If one were to say, "That man is horny," we would not assume that he had horns proturuding from his skull. In French, if I say, "L'homme est cornu" (The man is horny) they would look at me funny and wonder: Why are Americans such religious fanatics? I would have to correct myself and say "L'homme est excite." And then, being French, they would snicker.

But I digress somewhat. (Apologies: I only wanted to make a point, and for those of you who have read the first entry, you'll understand the significance of added "e" sounds. Also, those of you looking forward to your visit to France should be careful how you express that.)

My point, originally, was this. In English, there is no implied sense of temporarily being something (as in Spanish) or of simply having something (such as hunger) for a transient state of time. One simply is. One is hungry. One is thirsty. One is tired. One is married. One is divorced. One is a woman from America. Of course, you could say, "I am temporarily hungry" or "I will be thirsty until I drink a sufficent amount of liquids" or "I am married until I get tired of it" but there is no built-in implication of permanence or transience. It's all the same word.

And if there's one thing we've learned today, its that built-in implications are IMPORTANT.

So as an amateur linguist, I wonder: What does this built-in impermanence imply about a culture? Obviously, Americans practice impermanence. They just don't necessarily accept it linguistically. Is this denial? Or something we simply inherited long ago? I don't recall Latin having a permanent or impermanent form of the word "to be," but perhaps that should serve as a warning sign for languages that don't accept impermance. Those languages, ironically, perish.

We shall explore in more depth as the trip progresses. I look forward to your thoughts on all these matters. Together we will get to the root of these questions: I hope we are all excited.

The Premise: La Premisee

I leave for France in two weeks, and will use this blog to document the whole five-month experience. That is, assuming I can stop having fun long enough to make regular posts. Hopefully my perennial longing for attention will motivate me to be diligent in this undertaking.

Those of you lucky enough to subscribe will be graced with weekly - perhaps monthly - insights into my trip; the food, the surroundings, the twins, and - most importantly - the language.

For example, today I introduce the following french word: Premisee. It means: Premise. This will be easy to remember if you use the following memory trick: When you think of the english word "Premise," you think "A supposition." You immediately remember that "Premise" rhymes with "Grimace," which is the face you make when someone suggests eating sheeps brains. You recall from World Cultures in 9th grade that French people simply ADORE sheep brains. They think it is tres bon. And then you think: "Ah, French. The french word for premise is 'Premisee,' which I remember because its essentially the same as in English but with an extra e."

See?

As my trip approaches, I wonder just how different Paris will be. Having travelled to the remote Tibetan villages of the Himalayas, I feel prepared for the culture shock: in fact, I'm fairly convinced that any place where the language has the same basic elements of sentence structure cannot be a place so entirely different from my home. On the other hand, even travelling to Dallas is like going to a whole new time and place. (In the words of Linda, Codey's mom: "Dallas! Shit, that's so far north they may as well be yankees!") So I have to assume a trip across the atlantic will be more culturally shocking than a trip three hours north in Texas. Maybe. Maybe not.

Maybe the differences will be subtle. Maybe Paris will be exactly like Austin, but with an extra e. And while on the surface the difference will seem negligable, perhaps the nuanced variations in pronunciation, and meaning, will be harder to navigate than they will be to perceive.

Having not yet gone, I can't predict what the differences between Paris and Austin will be though I premise (v - to take for granted) that there will, at least, be some.