First of all, here are the photos as promised. I hope this works: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110741&id=1013408537&saved#!/album.php?fbid=1866210767682&id=1013408537&aid=110741
Today the météo promised a sunny day in the 20s (Celsius--about 70 Fahrenheit), but alas, it is gray and a tad chilly. Carole and I were outside on the patio enjoying reading the newspaper and completing a Sudoku respectively when rain drops began to fall on our heads, and we retreated indoors. What a bummer.
Saturdays are always very relaxing for me. I sleep in late, then do my minimal homework to the sound of Maxime playing King Kong on the XBox. Carole and Manu make a nice lunch which we enjoy together before the kids have swim practice. We spend the afternoon relaxing, reading, and playing games before we have yet another nice dinner, sometimes in the living room during the nightly news, other times in the kitchen.
Last weekend we decided to mix it up a bit: we went to play laser tag as a family. The laser tag place was just like laser tag places in the States. We entered the maze and suited up in our flashing vests, and Maxime declared that since he and I were both on the yellow team we should stick together and help each other. So I followed Maxime through the dark, twisting corridors of the labyrinth, aiming my laser gun at all moving lights which signified that a person was lurking there. We especially enjoyed running into Manu, Carole, and Charlotte (all on the red team) and provoking a bit of a family battle. Maxime and I won every time.
What shocks me most about this experience, and indeed about my experience in France in general, is how much English I see and hear everywhere. When I got tagged by a laser in the maze, my vest would chant "Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up." Instead of having "les équipes rouges, bleus, et jaune," the labels "Red Team," "Blue Team," and "Yellow Team" distinguished the battling parties. The sign next to the counter in the lobby advertised "Bachelor Party" and "Birthday Party" deals. In Paris, one of the most visited places in the world and an international center, English is only to be expected. But in Rennes, a rather small city in the heart of Brittany, the dominance of English comes as somewhat as a shock. While most of the menus here are solely in French (though it's definitely not uncommon to have a bilingual menu), the Rennais (people from Rennes) themselves know a lot of English. The other day I was in the grocery store and gave the clerk incorrect change which she took without comment. When she didn't give me back the 10 centimes I had overpaid her, I blubbered in French that I had given her incorrect change. Smiling at me she said, "Oh, are you English? You can speak English to me, ok?" Once they figure out you're a foreigner, the French speaking ceases immediately.
Before coming to France I was determined to prove to myself that the United States is not the center of the universe like it thinks it is. The world is much bigger than the stretch of land between New York City and Los Angeles. In some ways, I was right: the French would be horrified by the thought of America at the center of the world. They have their own ways of being, thinking, and doing, and we have ours. But the fact remains that the music I hear in the métro belongs to almost exclusively American artists; the French news, when it's not obsessing over the nuclear disaster in Japan or the upcoming election, focuses on American pop culture and what Obama's been up to lately; the majority of French students, beginning as early as seven years old, choose English as their second language; The Simpsons is Maxime and Charlotte's favorite show, and Gladiator, E.T., and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer sit on the movie shelf in the living room; most of the information that pops up on the computer is in English, as are nearly all the prompts for the new XBox. What I have discovered here is that the United States is a cultural and political super power--though I'm not sure that's necessarily something to be proud of. Quite to the contrary, I find it a little frightening. If there's one thing that history has taught us (to follow the French method of always looking to the past), it's that power is a dangerous thing. To me, the most terrible thing about the United States' power is its ability to transform hundreds of years of cultural creation into the somewhat homogeneous product of a single nation--not that this has happened yet, but it is definitely inching that direction. I understand now why France has a language committee run by the government to keep French safe from the claws of the American English mainstream.
No comments:
Post a Comment