I got back yesterday from a 3-month business trip to Paris. My company maintains an overseas office, and one of their workers was out on maternity leave when the office hit a particularly rough patch. I speak French, so I was shipped over to fill in.
I'd been to France before, but not recently and never in a non-tourist capacity. But during this stay, I lived in an apartment, mingled with French people and generally tried to live like a Parisian. I learned from this some very interesting things:
- If the world could vote, Barack Obama would already be president. Self-explanatory and probably obvious. But just in case you didn't already know... :)
- Contrary to the apparent beliefs of the US MSM, people can and will listen to thoughtful fact-based reporting on complicated subjects. The car that picked me up from the airport was turned to a news show which was running a 15-minute report talking about the contested Florida and democratic primaries in Michigan and what might be done about them, complete with specific information about how the primary process worked, what the process for appealing these votes would be and what the likelihood of success was. It was far more detailed information on the subject than I'd ever heard in any US MSM source, and it was on the radio, in France, and being listened to by taxi drivers and ordinary people. I found the news throughout the country to be much the same--fact-oriented, balanced and informative. And people listened. People watch Fox News in the US because it's what there is. But they can understand more. If there were something more informative, something somewhere between CNN and C-span, people would watch.
- Xenophobia is not just an American issue. Before going to France, I'd tended to think of Europe as some sort of a an idyll of peace and prosperity and national health care for all. While I still believe Europe has much to teach us, it has its own problems as well. For all that the US often does a bad job on issues related to immigration and diversity, in Europe the situation is far worse. Animosity towards Algerians and Arabs is open and unconcealed in the French press and in French society as a whole. Even American immigrants aren't welcomed to the same degree as European immigrants to the U.S. are welcomed in the United States. Most of the American ex-pats I ran into socialized only with other ex-pats. Even the Americans who had learned French, become French citizens and who had lived in the country for many years reported feeling excluded and even unwelcome in French society. The U.S. isn't perfect, and we need to work on getting better, but we're not the worst in the world, either. Xenophobia is not a U.S. problem--it's a HUMAN problem. And we all need to work on it together.
- Non-genetically modified food prepared without chemical preservatives tastes better. It also goes bad more quickly. Smell before you bite.
- Learning English is important. Yes, I believe in the importance of teaching our kids other languages. My mother was a Spanish teacher and enrolled my sister and me in a bi-lingual elementary school. In high school and college, I added French. But what I learned in France was that it was less often the American traveling abroad who expected service workers and other people to speak English than it was visitors from Asia and the Middle East. Tourists from these areas often knew 2-3 languages, but French usually wasn't one of them. Neither was Spanish. English was. Don't get me wrong--I'm not pushing for any of that "English is the official language of the U.S." nonsense. I still think voting ballots, driver's license exams and many other things should be printed in Spanish and English. I think the U.S. is moving towards being a bilingual country, and I think that's great--but the reality of the global situation is that without English people have a hard time participating in the global community. American citizens should speak English, not because we want to impose our vision of cultural purity on everyone who moves here, but because English is necessary to communicate with the world. If we don't encourage all of our own citizens to learn English we risk developing a permanent underclass of non-English speakers who are locked within the walls of our country while those of us who do speak English are free to roam the world at large. Maybe global English dominance not fair, but that's how it is. At least for now.
That's it for now. Living in France was an amazing experience. I'd done a semester abroad in college, but it was so sheltered (college kids on tour, mostly) that I didn't get the chance to learn and experience the things I did going back as an adult and a worker. I really recommend a period of living abroad to any and all who can manage it.
I learned a lot. Some of it made me feel better about the situation in the U.S., some of it made me feel a lot worse. But all of it was informative.
Edited to add: Thanks for all the wonderful discussion in the comments, and for putting me on the rec list. I especially appreciate the comments by all the immigrants living in the U.S. giving feedback on their vision of what it's like to live as in immigrant to the United States. Just based on my circle of friends, I've tended to see the brighter side of cultural integration in the U.S. Some of the comments remind me, though, that we still have gains to make, and I'm going to make a better effort in my own life to reach out to immigrants who I work with, who live in my neighborhood, etc, to try to invite them into my life, introduce them to my friends, etc. (assuming they seem to welcome the gestures, which--of course--they do not have to).