Ca me gene...

Contrary to my earlier promise, I'm going to postpone my entry on the museums and monuments Tours. Rather, I'm going to take a moment to launch a few darts at the French who have been kind enough to allow me to live among them.

The French have several verbs that indicate irritation or annoyance: gener, ennuyer, emmerder, irriter, inquieter, and agacer, to name a few. Several aspects of French culture make me think "ca me gene," or "that annoys me," and I have compiled a top-ten list.

10) French books fall apart before you can even finish reading them for the first time. I've never seen a book's signatures drop out of its spine so quickly.

9) I've already mentioned the practice of bicycling on the sidewalk: it still feels unsafe.

8) Here in Tours, if you seem to hesitate at the first few words flung at you, the speaker is likely to revert to English, because (s)he assumes you are a stupid American unable to speak any French. Although I am ready to admit that my French is mediocre, I prefer to retain, at the very least, the right to try to communicate in French, even if I make mistakes, and require correction.

7) Contrary to the popular stereotype, the French language is not more beautiful and mellifluous than English in all respects. In comparison, one realizes the elegance of Germanic English words, especially those describing nature. I prefer "rainbow" to "arc-en-ciel," "moonlight" to "clair de lune," "lamb" to "agneau," "carnation" to "oeillet," "waterfall" to "chute d'eau," and "rain" to "pluit" and "pleuvoir." This last word in particular strikes me as dreary: when I read "pleuvoir" (the verb) or "pluit" (the noun), I can only think of dreary skies, ruined picnics, and damp chillness. "Rain," however, brings to mind healing water falling on a parched field, raindrops racing down windowpanes, colorful umbrellas, and, yes, singing in the rain.

6) The French are evasive about their government's decisions to expel the Romani, and to ban the headscarf. When I brought this up in a situation in which negative stereotypes of the French were being discussed, I received the reply that I ought not to mistake the politically-motivated actions of the French government for the genuine feelings of the French people. To the credit of the latter, I have seen women in headscarves, unmolested. Still, the response seems like a cop-out, at least from my perspective, as a foreigner: why would the government make such an obviously intolerant law in such a public manner, in order to improve its reputation with its people? I know (or rather, suspect) that if Maurice Hinchey voted to enact a similar law in the United States, he would thereby forfeit my vote in the next election.

5) Although the bread here is excellent, I made the mistake yesterday of experimenting with a new variety. The cursive handwritten label had two words, "compte," which means "county," and another word, which I couldn't read. I asked about the contents of the bread, and the boulangere replied to me that "compte" is a kind of cheese. Suspecting that the bread was the specialty of a particular French county, which produced the eponymous cheese, I bought the roll, and left satisfied. As I munched my way through, I began to notice a salty, greasy flavor, and found what looked like tiny pieces of meat in the bread. I have never seen anyone bake bread with meat in it before. I stopped eating, and returned to the boulangere: the second word was "lardons," which is cognate with English "lard." Well, now, at least, I know that I'm not missing anything by not eating pork! I had the salty taste in my mouth all day long, and it even seemed to resist my toothpaste.

4) Everything here is exorbitantly expensive. Yesterday, I had to leave a cafe where I had sat down with a group of my friends, because the waiter insisted that I order something, and I didn't want to pay four euros for a drink. Also, cf. #1. However, this nickel-and-diming attitude began to irritate me on an ideological level when I needed to shell out for a library card. Payment for use of a library seems to send exactly the wrong message, that access to knowledge is a privilege, rather than a right.

3) By no means is Tours any more environmentally sustainable than Ithaca. In Ithaca, you can take a run, early on a Monday morning, and see the bins of recycling outside everyone's house; in Tours, everything seems to be thrown to the landfill. In Ithaca, vegetarianism is very common; in Tours, I alone do not (intentionally, at least) consume meat. There is neither evidence of greater use of public transportation, nor of any other quotidian habits adopted in order to conserve energy. The mean automobile size I would say is slightly smaller, but the Tourrangeux do not seem to drive any less than the Ithacans: a large percentage of the pedestrians I see are tourists, who don't have cars in the first place. These observations would not bother me in the least if the United States did not have a statistically-founded reputation as the world's worst per-capita polluter, whereas France, from my point of view, has always posed as being particularly progressive in environmental matters (Kyoto Protocol, anybody?). My observations are not facts, and I suspect that I am missing a great deal, but the culture and spirit of sustainability seems to belong no more to the French than it does to the Americans.

2) Beggars; cf. post from August 3rd.

1) France contains the filthiest public bathrooms that I have ever, ever used. One of them didn't even have soap; another looked as if the last occupant had urinated in the corner rather than in the toilet. And did I mention? The bathrooms here cost .30 to .50 Euros to use, gas mask not included.

That's enough bellyaching for now. Tomorrow, I visit the Chateau de Chenonceau: you'll be the first to read about it.

~JD


"Par surcroit, Ivan incarne le refus d'etre sauve seul. Il se solidarise avec les damnes et, a cause d'eux, refuse le ciel" [Moreover, Ivan {Karamazov} embodies the refusal to be saved alone. He stands with the condemned, and, on their account, rejects heaven] (Camus, L'homme revolte, p. 81).