An Iraqi in Paris

Samuel Shimon is an Iraqi author who recently released his debut novel An Iraqi in Paris. He was interviewed for next month's issue of World Literature Today, produced by my alma mater The University of Oklahoma. This quote caught my attention:

SS: It is said that Paris is the city of fashion and beauty, but for me it is the city of compassion par excellence. I do not think I could have lived in any other city the way I lived in Paris.

As I mentioned in my answer to your first question, those who tortured me were security and intelligence men, working for their Arab regimes. As for the Arabs I met in Paris; they were running away from those lousy regimes. Others were immigrants who had, to a certain degree, integrated into French society. Besides the French, who were generous and kind to me for the most part, I had strong ties to the Algerian community of Paris. Here I would like to point out that many Arabs consider the Algerians to be rough and gruff, but that is not true at all.

In my experience, the Algerians are very kind and loving people. They were always very kind to me and always welcomed me into their homes, despite the fact that I am not a Muslim and am always very critical—to the point of being sarcastic—of the traditions of Islam. They were never offended even though I was a regular guest of theirs and was being disrespectful. The Algerians are principled and tend to be straightforward. They also take special pride in and care of their friendships.

A Day In The Life

I started feeing sick sometime last night.

Unusually, I woke up well before my alarm went off. A little bit of indigestion? Maybe the onions? I went back to sleep.

The nausea slowly grew in strength, but I held steady. I had invited three of my colleagues to eat with me at a restaurant called L'avant gout (Foretaste). They are always eager to find new restaurants, and so I was looking forward to their reaction.

I didn't make it through lunch.

The nausea grew to a fever pitch sometime before the starter arrived. I had deftly avoided drinking an aperitif, but eating food is generally something of an obligation in restaurants. I stared at the soup. Perhaps it would soothe my stomach. Perhaps, but I knew I couldn't make it through the entire meal. I excused myself; my co-workers graciously offered to take care of everything. And I walked up the street to the Place d'Italie metro stop.

Four minutes to wait for the train.

In four minutes there is time to reverse half a day of your eating and drinking. Unfortunately, the people who will soon by your fellow travelers are able to hear and watch it. Fortunately, however, Parisians are very good at ignoring people in their immediate vicinity.

After another trip to the toilet and hours of sleep, I am happy to report my recovery from this morning's malaise. But thanks to my afternoon in bed, I am now up at 4 A.M.

Tomorrow, or rather today, I will have a different problem to grapple with.

Nothing Seen

I have a sad announcement to make: The Parisian Sketches will be deprived of it's photographic element for the immediate future.

A certain amateur photographer briefly left his Nikon D50 unattended while hiking in the Alps last weekend, returning some minutes later to find it gone. Prime suspects include the malicious children playing nearby, older hikers suffering from camera envy, and raccoons.

A brief moment of silence for the Nikon D50, which served its owner faithfully from December 2005 until October 2011.

Thank you.

The feature "Scenes from Paris" will return once a suitable and affordable replacement for the D50 can be found.

Paris Syndrome

I've written about the disconnect between media portrayals of Paris and the actual city, but I had no idea it could get this bad...

As tourist season here in Paris winds to a close and the air once again becomes crisp, fresh, and new, we must unfortunately acknowledge that it does not end without a few casualties. Yes, this summer, like the ones that have come before it, has claimed at least 20 victims of a very particular affliction: Paris Syndrome. And though it may sound like a disease unique to freshman girls with Le Chat Noir posters everywhere, it is a serious disorder that causes tourists, especially Japanese tourists, many problems on their trip through the City of Light. And what is Paris Syndrome, exactly? Simply put, it's a collection of physical and psychological symptoms experienced by first-time visitors realizing that Paris isn't, in fact, what they thought it would be.

-- Chelsea Fagan in The Atlantic

Ink On The Finger

On Saturday night I saw a Tunisian friend of mine I hadn't seen for a while.

I told him about the various changes in my life: the new job, new apartment, new bank account. And then he replied, telling me about work and his girlfriend. And then he put his finger up and said, "I voted" with a smile on his face.

This weekend Tunisians are voting in the first truly democratic elections their country has ever had. Their president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was deposed in January of this year, right before I arrived in Paris. Unlike in Egypt the transition to a more democratic state has proceeded fairly smoothly. The numerous Tunisian expatriate community also has the right to vote, and so my friend voted in Paris.

I have tried to follow the transition in Tunisia, but it has been difficult because of the complexity of the events. Forces which had been suppressed for years have suddenly taken form in a few months time. Rhetorical battles over the future of Tunisia have been launched. It's hard to know which direction things will go. The only major details I have been able to take away is that there are over a hundred parties and that the main Islamist party is called Nahda.

I asked my friend which party he had voted for. He told me the name, and I just shook my head. He understood that it was completely natural for me to have no idea who they were. He smiled again and said, "Not Nahda."

We shared a laugh and then clinked glasses, drinking to Tunisia and its democratic future.

"How Are You?"

One morning earlier this week, the part-time secretary of our small company entered my office and said, "Good morning. How are you?"

I was a bit shocked. It was the first time something like that had happened to me before.

If you're surprised that I was shocked, then it has probably never happened to you either.

And by 'it' I mean the shift from vous to tu. You see in French there are two words for 'you', that carry with them separate sets of conjugations and nuanced meanings about the relationship between the two people.

When I first studied in France many, many moons ago I struggled to master the distinction. I was mainly around fellow students, and so I developed the reflex of using the informal tu form with everyone.

Unfortunately, it shouldn't be the reflex. One time during a French-American Club meeting I asked the sponsoring professor a question about his opinion on stereotypes only to get dirty stares from the French students in the room. One panickingly whispered to me, "Vous, vous...not tu!"

This was obviously not the first time an American student had used the tu form with him, and so he very light-heartedly dismissed the slight to his position. But I had committed a faux pas all the same.

Since then, I have developed better reflexes when choosing which form to use with people: vous with anyone in public places I don't know, customers, and superiors (the very concept of a superior is hard for an American to wrap his mind around...) and tu with people my own age. And without exception those distinctions have stayed that way. Either we move to the tu form in the very first conversation or we stay with the more distanced vous form.

When I first met the secretary earlier this year, we began with vous. She didn't know me, and she was a few decades older than me. We didn't talk a lot and I didn't expect to go out for beers with her. So I thought it would continue that way, just as it had with all other formal relationships I had previously had.

Last week while stuffing envelopes with invoices together we had a few good laughs. One might say we even bonded. And then the next time I saw her, she walked into my office and said, "Good morning. How are you?"

Except this time she used 'tu'.

French Among Least Friendly

People in New Zealand and Portugal are among the most social of all nationalities surveyed, with more than 75% reporting at least one social contact with friends or family per week; people in Poland, France and Hungary report the lowest levels of social interaction.

The Economist discusses a recent OECD report.

This finding doesn't surprise me: French people have their family and friends--best of luck breaking into that circle.

Most of my friends in France are of foreign extraction. We share the difficulty of integration and desire people who are generally more friendly and more fun than the average French person we encounter.

When I do manage to penetrate the favored realms of French soirées, it is often the case that I am the only foreigner there. Good for my language practice, not so much as a grade of French openness.

Scenes from the 19th: Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

Paperwork

In order to open a bank account in France, I need proof of residence in France. That is, I need a rent contract or an attestation de logement, in which someone promises that he is housing me.

In order to rent an apartment you need to write a check. To write a check you need a bank account.

In order to rent an apartment you also need proof of renter's insurance.

In order to buy renter's insurance you need to know the address of your apartment. That is, you need an apartment.

Sometimes in France it feels like all the attestations and contrats that fill our time and our folders are chickens and eggs. None of them wants to come first.

Fortunately for me, my boss offered to loan me the money and pay the check for my apartment's deposit before I opened my bank account. And fortunately for me, a friend of a coworker offered me proof of renter's insurance before I actually paid him or rented the apartment.

Now, finally, after two weeks in the country, my chickens are beginning to reproduce and my eggs are beginning to hatch.

More Awesomely Cool NYTimes coverage of Paris

Here's another one to file in the "Crappy New York Times Articles about Paris" folder. The travel writer, of "Frugal Traveler" fame, begins his piece discussing how he bought an umbrella for €240.

Intriguing?
Perhaps...where else would someone charge that much for an umbrella?

Authentic Parisian experience?
Maybe. It does rain a lot. On the other hand, I don't know anyone who owns an umbrella that costs more than a few euros.

Frugal?
Not so much...

This narcissistic rambler knows the city fairly well, but, after my half a year here and with help from my Parisian network, I'd hazard to say I know it better. The article gives you almost no history or sociology or demography; it's a play-by-play of supposedly cool stuff that the guy found while wandering around. Since it's his own personal experience, a newbie to Paris doesn't benefit much at all from this sort of travel writing. If the goal is to wander around Paris and discover things you didn't know, you certainly don't need a guide like this. And if the article is supposed to introduce you to the most interesting Parisian sights, wandering around isn't the best way to find them.

After having read a lot of travel writing, I'm still not sure what the high quality kind is supposed to look like, but I'd say it probably doesn't include banalities like this

Almost everywhere I looked in Paris I found this tug between the past and present engulfing me.

...or end with this sentence:

While I discovered a lot of new places on this trip, there are several old favorites I wish I’d gotten back to.

The latter is what I might write to my grandma in an e-mail. (Yes, my 81-year old grandma reads and writes e-mails.) If I write something for publication, I usually polish up my prose a little.

This phenomenon, of course, is nothing new. For years, I've noticed that the Grey Lady's travel writers have an ideal of travel that baffles me. Their travel writing generally falls into two categories: narcissistic ramblings and unaccessible fineries. This article clearly falls into the first category, the musings of an ignorant egotist. The second deals more with artsy, expensive places available to a very small fragment of the world's population (many of who do live in Paris and New York, admittedly). The reaction of all the ex-pats and French people that I know in Paris is, "I wish I had the money to do that."

If I were writing a travel article about Paris, I would focus on three things. First, I would vastly expand coverage of sites available to an average middle class traveler. It should pass my Parisian friend test--they've actually done it and like it. Secondly, I would include more history, sociology, and demography--trying to help a reader understand why Paris looks the way it does and why Parisians act they way they do. Most travel writers can't seem to grasp just how diverse and immense Paris actually is. I seriously wonder if they have any command of French sometimes, let alone Arabic or Kabyle or Portuguese or any of the numerous other languages I regularly hear. Finally I would try to give the reader an idea of the city that doesn't revolve around the Manichean division between the poorest of banlieues and the finest the rich can afford. Trust me. There's a lot in between.

It's what most of us Parisian residents live and enjoy every day.

Scenes from the 13th

I Should Frequent the Business District More Often

Then I wouldn't miss things like the Post-It Wars.
























(photo from www.postitwar.com)

CNN reports on the phenomenon:

“We stuck Space Invader character on our window and the day after, BNP (Paribas), which is the largest bank in France, just across the way, they drew a Pac-Man,” Fabrice Cambonet of Ubisoft told CNN.

La guerre des Post-it (the Post-it wars) was on.

Collages swept across office spaces in the business district of La Défense and companies in the Issy-les-Moulineaux area of the French capital. The art ranges from simple representations of Tweety Bird or Bart Simpson, to seven-story high illustrations that use thousands of Post-it notes and complex, computer-designed plans.

(HT: DH)