I woke up this morning thinking, “Do I still love it here?” I realized I was laying in bed with a frown on my face and no motivation to get out of my warm bed. But then I smiled. I don’t even mind that I’m freezing at night because my old windows are drafty, or that I don’t have the same motivation to run out for a baguette in the morning. It’s winter, and it’s gray, and nobody here is going to claim that this is a great time to be in Paris. And I thought about my day yesterday. As I emerged from the Luxembourg RER station for the first time and didn’t recognize where I was, snow was swirling as I crossed the street, realized I’d gone the wrong way and turned around to re-cross the same intersection. I walked streets I’d never walked before in the 5th, little streets with Tibetan restaurants and Buddhist shops. I managed to emerge right near the Sorbonne, got my identity card within 5 minutes, and then walked along the Jardin du Luxembourg to see the new photo exhibit. Set against the backdrop of green leaves, expansive walkways, and an old stone garden house with the fountain in front of it, the photos transported me to a different world. An Afghani man sat on the edge of a bed, his hand on the forehead of a dying Afghani woman. Next to it, in stunning reds, was an aerial photo of Indian men packed next to each other celebrating the first day of spring. Only their red turbans could be seen from the vantage-point, except for one man whose head was tossed back in joy, a huge smile across his face, hands raised, face streaked with red dye. “Here comes the Flood” played on my iPod when I came across a photo of an Indonesian woman sitting in the foreground, a thin cloth mask across her mouth and nose, her hand on her forehead and the destruction of the tsunami in the background. All these people, all these realities, different cultures, travesties, celebrations, different struggles. But the same smiles and tears and apprehension and devastation. Malawian kids in a rudimentary classroom, teaching themselves. Pregnant Danish mothers standing on the bank of a river. Sudanese woman near Darfor repairing a thatched hut after torrential rains. The snow started swirling again, and the sky was gray and my fingers and toes were growing numb. But I was so content in my world of wonder. So connected, so inspired, so intruiged by the enormity of the world, so necessarily diverse.
Globalization seems to be the hottest word in the past 2 years, and I have no doubt the word or the trend is going away. But as countries strive to join the global market, convinced there’s no way to survive without playing along at this point, I also worry about the loss of so many distinct and unique cultures. Cultures that provide us with different perspectives, ways of living, beliefs and customs and foods and languages. If these differences aren’t respected and thereby preserved, we’ll live in a world where, whether in Istanbul or Los Angeles, you can walk into the exact same restaurant, order off of the exact same menu, buy the same pair of jeans and find the same notebook. The French have been criticized for their farm subsidies, and they have a rap for being snobbish, but they believe in protecting those aspects of their culture that both define and preserve what is distinctly “French”: their cheeses, their wines, their fresh local produce, their cocoa for chocolates, their grains for breads and pastries, their rich butter, their duck and rabbit and farm chickens. The French cuisine, whether one loves it or not, is distinctly French. And I can’t imagine living in or visiting France and not being surrounded by local butchers and boulangeries and chocolateries and floral shops. I can walk into a fromagerie (cheese counter) and find hundreds of varieties of cheese along with fresh eggs, fresh butter that they slice off a big round wheel, yogourt in little glass jars, and fresh cream they scoop out of cauldrans with large ladles. The kiosque on the corner sells the newspapers and magazines, shoe repairmen are still in every quartier, and there’s a hardware store with everything from dishes to tools right across the street.
I met a man from Mali last night at a party, and we discussed the systemic racism in France. The way that laws are merely rules, and that the rules are always flexible, depending on who you are, the color of your skin, which country you come from, and if the person behind the desk or wearing the police uniform had a good night’s sleep. France is far from perfect, and too often they like to criticize other countries without looking at the problems right in their own capital. It’s a place where you have to ask several times and then demand before you get the answer you want. But as I see beyond the surface nuances of what’s wrong with this country, I also gain a slightly deeper love for what it’s doing so well.
