Hidden Lives...

This year Jude and I visited Bretagne to see more of what there is to see.

After collecting our rental car we headed over to an organic food market to do a bit of shopping before we met the apartment owner in who's place we would be staying.

As I parked the car along a granite stone edged curb an elderly gent commented on my parking job and remarked on the distance to the front door of the market.  He was a nice guy and we had a pleasant, short chat.

Soon Jude and I were gathering our provisions when I happened upon the elderly gent for a second time.  One thing led to another and before we knew it we were talking about family origins and political histories.

He asked, of course, about my accent, so I told him where we were originally from.  I told him I grew up in the Los Angeles area but couldn't speak Spanish.  He was surprised so I explained to him how Americans tend to view citizens with a Hispanic surname.  To further illustrate my story I showed him my Carte de Sejour and my name.

The gentleman pulled out his Carte d’Identité to show me his name.  He asked if this meant anything to me.  My eyes grew big with recognition and I asked him if, perhaps, he was related to someone of the same name.  He smiled and said "no", but that his family up to the time of the first world war had lived in Normandy.

His grandfather had moved the family to northern Spain at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.  They were involved with the Republican efforts against Franco, the ultra-conservative nationalist Catholic fascists, and Germany.

While I'm not sure precisely what collective effort the family was involved in, but when the Republican struggle against Franco failed the entire family returned to France and went into hiding.

Out of concern for Spanish agents working on behalf of the regime they remained in hiding for the entire time Franco was alive.  It is only rather recently, in fact, that anyone feels safe enough to talk about what happened.  The man's son came to encourage his father to follow him to la caisse to pay for their own items so they could go make dinner.  The son confirmed his father's story.

I can't imagine the idealism and optimism for the future that encouraged a grandfather to move his family to a different country, to start a new life, and to defend those ideals.  I can't imagine the fear and concern he must have had once he realized the effort had failed and that he'd placed his family in danger.

How can an American experience compare with any of this?

RIP Regine

One of the first people we met when starting to attend a French/English conversation group here in Paris was a woman named Regine.  She had a kind, patient, and sweet disposition.  She had a wicked sense of French humor, too.

A year ago we talked to her after a group sing-along.  She told us about how difficult it is to deal with members of France's Bourgeois class.  She told us about the student uprisings of 1968.  She told us not to sweat the language strains and stresses as it's a nearly impossible language, and that we all can understand each other in the end. We told her we missed her at group  (she'd stopped coming regularly for various reasons).

It was a shock to learn this week that Regine had died suddenly.

Her enterrement was held on Friday under a dark sky that spit rain mixed with snow.  Very few people were in attendance.  There is seldom any justice in life, or so it seems.

Ah... the language... and counting...

Yes.  It can be exactly like this.

... they really can't help themselves...

A neighbor leaves le Canard Enchaîné at our door each week.  It's a great way to catch up on the things that make readers chuckle.  There's nothing like a good turn of phrase and this newspaper is nothing if not filled with good turns of phrases.  And they provide interesting news, too.

Something caught my eye this week.

It's been a few weeks since Jacque Chirac passed away and there was a mass held in his honor.  All the notables were there.  Ex-presidents of the French Republic, African and Middle-East leaders, and the Russian President Putin were there.

Apparently Valerie Giscard d'Estaing got a little impatient with waiting for the ceremonies to begin.  He was overhead asking when things were going to get going.  If you know anything about Giscard and Chirac it probably is this; Giscard roundly disliked Chirac.  So there were chuckles when someone in the crowd said that this was the first time they'd ever seen Giscard impatient to see Chirac.

Some time into the ceremonies a quêteur passed through the crowd accepting offerings.  He came to the French ex-Presidents and "Scooter d'Amour" Holland pulled out a bill and dropped it into the basket.  Ex-President "Bling-Bling" Sarkozy just stood there.  This prompted his wife, the famous Carla Bruni, to tell him that the man was waiting.

The offering basket then headed to the heads of state.  The Congolese President hauled out a big wad of money and made his offering.  Seeing this, the King of Jordan hauled out an even bigger wad "like a henchman wasting no time hauling out a second bundle." [hastily translated from the original French]

Trump's Best Friend "fusille" Putin was approached next.  He threw the poor quêteur a "metallique" look.  This sent the quêteur scampering away, leaving hanging all those who were waiting to make their offering.

Gawds!  ...to have been a fly on the wall of this event...  Good thing we have le Canard!

What is the hardest language you will ever learn?

We were recently sitting with Dominique at the Wednesday conversation group out near la Bastille.  He posed the following question:

What is the hardest language you will ever learn?

Naturally everyone listening to him scratched their heads and offered up some, for us, very difficult languages.  Chinese.  Japanese.  Some of the obscure languages from Africa.

After a short while Dominique smiled and said "it's whatever second language you try to learn.  Every language that comes after that will be easier."

What he meant, in part, is that while learning a second language you pay attention to the details of what makes a language usable.  Once you've developed an approach it can be applied to learning subsequent languages.

I quickly have come to see it similarly to Dominique.  Just the other day I read a short passage in the news in Spanish.  I swear I don't know Spanish.  After struggling to learn French maybe I know more Spanish than I realize?  Maybe I should try a little Italian?

I know.  It's likely a bit more complicated than all that.  Still...

A few phrases and their histories...

We find ourselves surrounded by intelligent, self-aware, articulate French men and women.  It's amazing what we learn by paying attention and listening.

For example, just yesterday a kind women explained the history and use of "vous" et "tu."

I learned that you nearly always vouvoyer someone until invited to tutoyer.  The exception being adults tutoyer children.  But that seems to not really be the case.

The subtle change in the regulation is this: One uses "vous" for anyone of authority and anyone older than you if you are a child.  "Tu" is used between everyone else.

Historically, around the time of the 1789 Revolution the common people took on the airs of the monarchy and "vous" was commonly used.  That seems to have changed culturally and "tu" is now the preferred way to address someone who is not in authority.

Similarly, historically the address of "madame" was reserved exclusively when addressing women of the aristocracy and "mademoiselle" was used between commoners regardless of marriage status.  It's only in recent times that "mademoiselle" came to be used for addressing unmarried women.

Expanding our horizons just a little, there are phrases that show up in everyday use that even the French might not know the origins of.

For example, in a local store window there are T-shirts that say "En Voiture Simone."  There is a charming little book of the same title.  What does it mean?

The phrase currently means something along the lines of "let's get going."

The entire phrase is "En voiture Simone, c'est toi qui conduis, c'est moi qui klaxonne!"

Historically, the phrase comes from the reaction to a young woman who in the early 20th century was one of the first women to have acquired her drivers license.  Only men were allowed this privilege at the time, so it's very easy to imagine this phrase is actually demeaning toward women.

Here is one more phrase that we find interesting.  It is "la der des ders."

The full expression is "la dernier des derniers" and comes from the Great War (WWI) and literally means "the last of the last."

In use it is sometimes used to indicate the last of a series of something.  For instance it can be used to describe the very last episode in a TV series or a book series.

So that's it.  C'est la der des ders pour aujourd'hui.

When an American fete'd la France...

I think I'll just leave this video right here.  It's self explanatory I believe.

RIP Jessye Norman.