So classes started.
As you may already know, all of the the classes are taught in French. The professors know as much English as you probably know French. I expect challenges.
My main professor is a small woman named Roselyne. She is energetic and magnetic; she captures your attention. Good thing, because classes are four and a half hours long. We get twenty minutes for lunch.
For the rest of the semester, I will take all my classes with the same core group of sixteen people. About five are American; two are Turkish; one Russian, one Korean, one Indian, one Canadian. Brazilian, Japanese, Chinese, German. We have one language, and its the one we are here to learn.
I cannot articulate the overwhelming and humbling experience of communicating with someone in this way. A huge part of the world is expected to learn English or vanish. Before today, if I was to communicate with someone from a different culture, the onus was on them to drop their mother tongue and articulate on my terms. I have never had cross-cultural dialogue in which I was not laterally, structurally elevated.
There’s this (largely correct) stereotype that Americans are unwilling to become bilingual because of a nationalistic belief in the supernatural authority of English. That’s been my whole life. Everyone I have ever spoken to had to accommodate for me, and I never had to worry about it.
There is a girl in my class named Merve. She is from Turkey. She does not speak English. We sat next to each other and talked about our homes, our families, our interests — on equal footing. It isn’t perfect (French is a colonial language itself) but it is something. She did not have to twist and bend for me. Well, she did, but only as much as I twisted and bent for her.
Using this new language with these new people evokes powerful emotions for me that I did not expect. I am a stranger, in a strange land, surrounded by fellow strangers. What a moment this is. What a feeling.
Cordialement,
Allison
P.S.: The sugar they give you for your tea here comes in little cubes, like what you give to horses. I always put them in my purse to take home, but I don’t use them. Maybe I am hoarding as a way to cope with culture shock?
Flan in France 