Tours is a small city in France; Ithaca is a large town in New York. Every day, I notice new differences between my hometown and my current living-space. Obviously, the greatest difference is in language, but France is not America in code: real cultural differences exist. In the following post, I will try to paint a thumbnail portrait of my temporary home.
Tours is in central France, an hour's drive south of Paris, in the Loire Valley. It is the hometown of Honore de Balzac, the 19th-century French novelist. Balzac is Tours's favorite son, and scattered across town are notices indicating his places of residence, and the various locales that inspired, or appeared in, his works. Tours, in fact, seems to be in love with all writers, philosophes, artists, artisans, and politicians, French and otherwise: Rabelais, De Gaulle, Da Vinci, Zola, Descartes, George Sand, Voltaire, Anatole France, Victor Hugo, Marechal Foch, various Saints, and even a 15th-century carpet-maker are all have the honor of having streets bearing their names. Gregory of Tours, and St. Martin, both very active bishops in their adopted home (and the former also a highly-regarded medieval chronicler), are Tours's other high-profile historical figures.
Tours attracts hundreds of tourists to its various historic churches and chapels, its art and cultural museums, and (presumably) its beautiful view of the Loire. However, even as a tourist, I feel comfortably outnumbered by the Tourangeaux: none of the culture in the city feels artificial, although the central hub of restaurants and bars do employ at least a few anglophones. Today, I visited the Cathedral of St. Gatien, seat of the archbishop of Tours (whose palace has been converted into an art museum), and there were fewer than twenty people who might have been tourists, inside and out. The visit of one tourist in particular garners a great deal of attention: in 1996, Pope Jean-Paul II visited the basilica of St. Martin. Needless to say, the local historic churches have highly capitalized upon his pilgrimage.
Tours is full of restaurants and bars, cafes and bookstores, and museums and monuments. It is also full of bakeries, which often double as sandwich-shops or patisseries. There is no American equivalent to a French boulangerie: the Ithaca Bakery and CTB are really delicatessens. The bread here has crust; it has flavor; it has texture. It comes in all different shapes, although only a few different sizes (typically 350g). It can be filled with figs, raisins, olives, hazelnuts, or herbs. Artisans proudly advertise that they bake their loaves in wood-burning ovens. At mealtimes, a basket of a sliced baguette is the only dish kept on the table throughout all courses, and one's bread is placed on the table rather than on one's plate. It is considered polite to mop up the remains of one's meal with one's slice of baguette. Now I understand how Professor Kaplan can spend a lifetime studying the the culture and history of bread in France: the French have a true love affair with their bread.
There is no Wegmans in Tours. Nor do there seem to seem to be many large chains: rather, one buys one's groceries from a variety of locally-owned small businesses. Although there are a few signs of American market intrusion (a Domino's Pizzeria and a Pizza Hut), I have not even seen a McDonald's. There is only one business that is questionably a supermarket, but it is much more of a glorified convenience store, smaller than Greenstar Oasis in downtown Ithaca. A single shop does not meet all of a family's needs: for bread, one visits a bakery; for meat, one visits a butcher; for fish, one visits a fishmonger; etc.
The people here are quite sympathetic to foreigners they meet. Once, a young woman saw me peering at a map, and immediately stopped in order to offer me directions. On the second day of courses, my class visited a local flower market, which gathers every Wednesday and Saturday, and interviewed the Tourangeux about the market and the city. Most of the people whom we addressed responded politely, and gladly told us how much they loved Tours, every respondent choosing the adjective "belle" to describe it. (I suspect, however, that my having a pretty Russian girl for a partner probably increased my chances of of a polite reception).
There are a surprisingly large number of beggars in Tours. I would like to think that this is because it is a city (albeit a small one), and not an endemic problem of France; still, I seem to see more beggars per-capita than I do in New York City. Many of them sit and smile and wave, murmuring requests for passers-by to drop coins into their dishes. Others move about, calling out to passers-by. Church-steps seem to be a popular site for begging, and on two different days, I have seen the same woman wearing the same skirt begging at the same church stoop. Today, a man spoke to me for several minutes about Tours before he finally got to the point, told me he was diabetic, and asked me for 6 Euros to buy lunch. I've turned every entreaty down, and it's made me uncomfortable: I don't like to refuse people, especially if I need to lie in order to do it, but I know (or, at least, I've been taught) that paying beggars is like scratching a scab. I don't think a single day has passed in which I have not needed to turn down a beggar who has personally addressed me. I politely asked the Avertins about it, and they told me that the beggars are central or eastern Europeans who have fled their countries in order to escape persecution, and although granted asylum in France, cannot obtain working papers. I have no additional data with which to support or refute this claim, except that the beggar with whom I spoke today said that he was "ne en France."
While I am on the topic of beggars, I would like to say that the North Africans are not among them. France's relationship with the North African immigrants is, as far as I can tell, somewhat similar to the US's relationship with Latino immigrants. From what I have observed, the North Africans seem to be moving in peacefully, and making their way economically: I have seen several businesses which seem to be owned and managed by North Africans, and there are at least two halal eateries in town (according to my map, there is also a mosque). Today, I saw a young woman wearing a headscarf and carrying an iPod. I know that my positive judgment is based upon a very American capitalist rubric, but I know no other.
The streets here are narrower, the cars are slightly smaller, the license plates are more legible, and the frequency of motorcycles, especially for food delivery, seems to be higher. Bicycles ride on the sidewalk, and motorcycles (and their marginally smaller cousins) have access to pedestrian walkways. Walking along the Loire, I have twice come uncomfortably close to a motored 2-wheeled vehicle.
I have taken photographs of the various monuments in Tours, which I plan to post on Facebook, but I am having some difficulty uploading them onto my computer. Please, be patient: I have a lot to do!
Love to you all,
~JD
"Au niveau de l'administration locale, la monarchie absolue de l'age classique a reussi, par une evolution menee sur plus d'une siecle, a placer son homme: non pas un officier, mais un commissaire, agent direct du roi et revocable par lui" [The absolute monarchy of the classical age succeeded, after an evolution lasting over a century, to post its own man at the level of local administration: and not an officer, but a superintendent, direct agent of the king, and revocable by him] (Vovelle, La Chute de la monarchie, p. 38).
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