Sticks and Stones

The first line was all it took to convince me. "Looking for an English mother-tongue person to help our 10 year-old son with his English." In French, your native language is your langue maternelle, literally "mother tongue." It was clear what they were looking for. But it made me chuckle each time I read it. It still makes me chuckle.

I called the number and a friendly-sounding man answered. He more or less asked me, "Are you really an English mother-tongue person?" I confirmed my English mother-tongueness. He told me I was the first person to call and conducted a brief phone interview ("What is your name?"). I was well-prepared (thanks, parents) and I got the job. A few days later I stopped by their house on Rue de l'Histoire (situated between Rue de l'Art and Rue de la Musique, what a cultural trio) to meet my new student. The parents welcomed me graciously and little Paul peeked his head out from the next room. I say little only because Paul is a very, very small person, not much bigger than his 6 year-old brother, Antoine.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Paul is really an American 10-year old living in Nantes in a little French body. Here's why: he loves football (the kind where they actually use their feet) and Youtube videos of crazy people doing crazy stunts. Admittedly, I was never a 10-year old boy, but that sounds a lot like Nathan Emmons minus 5 years. The morning of our first lesson, after we worked on his English homework and read a few soccer articles online, I showed Paul a video called "crazy Russian climbers." The video is 10 minutes of crazy Russians (if Youtube is telling the truth) climbing walls like Spiderman with rap-action music playing in the background. I looked over and saw Paul's eyes glued to the computer screen, his mouth slightly open, his hand hovering motionless above the mouse where it had been the moment the video started. I reasoned that with every passing minute, I won about 10 coolness points.

Paul is a mature 10-year old. I also have the opportunity, as part of my stage pedagogique (teaching internship), to work as an English teacher's assisstant at a high school with a group of students who are, frankly, not mature. They are nice boys, a class of Seconde, which is the equivilent of 10th grade. I thought it would a fun exercise to have them read aloud and then translate the lyrics of a popular song called "American Boy." What I didn't know is that one line in the chorus ("I really want to come kick it with you") would provoke so much laughter that we weren't able to make it through the song. The commotion was caused by the words "kick it," which apparently sound a lot like a French slang word for a certain male body part that is HILARIOUS. At first I laughed with them (haha, body parts, haha), but after a few minutes I realized I needed a new game plan.

So I suggested we talk about stereotypes (French stereotypes of the US and American stereotypes of France). This discussion lasted several class periods, and I've put all the lists together into one giant list of stereotypes of the US. Prepare to be offended, surprised, not surprised, saddened, and potentially amused. Remember that none of these students have been to the US, and all their impressions are based on TV, movies, music, and the news.

Question: What do you think of when you hear "the United States?"

-very fat people
-yellow taxis
-action movies
-fast food, junk food
-all houses are the same
-everything is big (houses, cars, roads)
-anti-communist
-cowboys, country music
-everyone is rich
-big consumers
-wasteful
-FBI
-Chuck Norris
-politicians are all religious
-good rappers, TV series, movies

Ouch. I knew most of these stereotypes existed (the yellow taxi was a new one), but seeing the list on the board was surprisingly painful. I reminded them that the US is a huge country, 3,536,278 square miles compared to France's 210,026 square miles. With that much more space, some things are naturally going to be bigger (though nothing can justify a Hummer). There are also 305,500,000 Americans compared to 64,000,000 French. While it's hard to defend the extravagant consumerism in America, it doesn't seem fair to just compare numbers. Consumption per person, now that's another question.

I then took a turn and told them some American stereotypes of the French:
-a French man standing beside the Eiffel Tower wearing a beret, a baguette in one hand and a cigarette in the other
-everyone smokes (I have seen many more young people smoking)
-wine and cheese, wine and cheese, wine and cheese
-fatty foods, skinny people, how does this work?
-they don't shower often and as a result they smell bad
-the women don't shave
-the French are arrogant and rude

The students laughed about the beret and were offended by the attack on their hygiene. I laughed about Chuck Norris and was disappointed that Americans are viewed as wasteful. It's hard hearing negative things about the United States, even if I agree that many things should be different. I'll be the first to say that France's social welfare system (if you're sick, you will receive care) and food culture (eat food that tastes good, eat food with vitamins, don't eat too much food), to name two things, make more sense to me. But on the other hand, in their last election the French weren't ready for a female president and they are years away from electing a black leader (or even nearly electing one).

A few weeks ago I received some good advice in an email from a friend. "Your life sounds pretty cool," he wrote, "just be sure you don't come back as one of those kids who thinks Americans are stupid and everything they do is Europe, Europe, Europe."

Point taken, friend. Now if the two worlds would just come together, I could eat unpasteurized cheese in the comfort of a yellow taxi.

La 5ème Corde

Each instrument in the orchestra attracts a specific kind of person. It's as though there's an unwritten code that musicians unknowingly follow when selecting an instrument. I'm happy to report that French musicians fit what is evidently a universal code for instrument personalities.

Cellists are friendly. The first French friend I made was a cellist named Lucie. We both arrived early for the first orchestra rehearsal, and she came right up to me and asked if she could sit down. We chatted about studying abroad (she spent a semester in Autriche), the funny differences between English and French pronunciations, and string quartets that we've both played. The other cellists are equally amicable, and I like spending our 20-minute pause in that neighboring section that has always made me slightly envious. Cellists are the cool dudes of the orchestra. You can really see it in the men, who very often sport ponytails.

The chef de l'orchestre, Stéfane, is a cellist. He's small and wears striped sweaters, slim jeans, and sporty Puma shoes. He has thick grayish hair and a stubbly beard that lends him a rugged look, like he would go hiking in the Alps with a cello strapped to his back. He has a stern face but makes dorky jokes during rehearsal.

The violists, altistes, are always the characters. My stand partner, Quentin (still working on that pronunciation, it's somewhat close to "kahn-ton"), is a wire-rimmed-glasses-wearing medical student who is always eager to practice his English on me: "We are now in the measure 56." "Here we are in the four time." "Your shoes are very special, but I would not have them for my own." The Quentins of the world are what make viola sections great.

The violinists are all across the board, as usual. Some chic, others frumpy, all they know is the melody. But I won't be too hard on them because they have the hardest music. And I will admit, it is a lovely instrument. The flutists are consistently cute, the clarinetists unfailingly funky. The bassoonist has a long beard. But the one that assured me of my theory was the French horn player. He wears round glasses with thick black frames like Harry Potter and scuttles like a little beetle. He seems oblivious to most things. A congenial man, but rather peculiar.

In English, the names for the different note lengths are indications of their value: half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth. In French, the names describe how the notes look on the page: an eighth-note is une croche, which means 'hook.' A sixteenth-note is une double croche. A quarter note is une noire (black), and a half note is une blanche (white). A whole note is une ronde, a circle. My favorite is the word for a rest: un souffle, a breath. One deceiving faux ami (false friend) I’ve encountered is l'harmonie, which refers to the woodwinds and brass. Well, my automatic response to a conductor asking for the harmony is to pick up my viola and wait for the cue. It happened only once, and I quickly observed that I was the only string player at the starting line. Quentin leaned over and whispered loudly, "This is not us, this is them."

In France as in the U.S., playing the viola opens countless doors. Since there are only four of us, I get to play Bach's 3rd Brandenburg Concerto with a small group of musicians. Just think of the opportunities, violinists.

I'm also singing the university choir, which is great for working on my French pronunciation and annunciation. The first half-hour of each rehearsal is spent making funny noises, I mean doing breathing exercises and vocal warm ups. Having never been in a choir before, and because I rarely get the melody in orchestra, I decided to be a soprano. Thanks to two years of sight-singing classes at Lawrence, I’m happily conversant in the language of solfège. Though I might not catch all the words, I can hum the heck out of those songs.

The university choir and orchestra are open to both students and adults. The choir is composed of more adults than students, and the adults love chatting with us international students. At our last rehearsal, I sat next to a woman who didn't have much musical background, so I helped her with the notes and she helped me with the words. We made a good team.

To picture the chef de la chorale, simply take the image you have of Stéfane and turn it inside-out. Ghislain Louvet is tall, completely bald (the shiny kind), and looks like an Armani clothing model. That just goes to show that in spite of my theory, every musician is unique. Just like everyone else.

Here I must give credit to my high school planner for that inspiring message of homogeneity.

La 5ème (cinquième) Corde is the name of the shop where I rented a viola. The luthier was a young woman with an accent I couldn't quite place. When I went to her shop, she was giving a violin lesson to a girl whose violin was the size of a small animal such as a kitten or a baby raccoon, or any other animal when it is still small. The shop smelled like wood and there was wood-dust all over the floor. The woman noticed my accent and said in French, "I could speak in English, but you probably want to practice your French, right?" I nodded. She understood.

Had I not spoken to her on the phone beforehand, right then I would have ordered un alto, s'il vous plaît. Next time.