elles passent en un instant // they pass by in an instant

My host family took me to see Gorki's Les Enfants du Soleil / Children of the Sun / whatever the title is in Russian the other the other night. It was kind of a last-minute thing where they were like, "Thao, tu veux aller au théâtre avec nous ce soir?" And I was like, "OF COURSE I want to go to the theatre with you!"

So I still didn't know what it was about when I got to the theater. I'm proud to say that I understood most of what was happening (sort of), even if I failed to understand the overall theme. I can't tell whether it's because Gorki is complicated or because I fail at French. Probably a mixture of both.

It was so interesting for me to look at the kind of people that were at the play, though. A friend of mine once made a comment about how "straight guys just don't get that excited about operas"/plays. I guess that they do in France? There was your standard group of older folks, but there were also A LOT of couples out for a date that night. And these kids were probably still in high school/college.

M. from Middlebury once asked (rather rhetorically, I guess) what the French people do for fun. Yes, there is the party scene, and yes, there is the trashy American TV shows. But for the most part, I've noticed that the French are very well-cultured. I think it's due to the fact that cultural stuff is so readily available in Paris.

France is very centralized; Paris is the center for everything: government, arts, culture, etc. And it is so incredibly cheap for students. My host mom told me that with things like operas and plays, students can go for a significantly cheaper price than can adults. With a student identity card, museums are free (or almost free).

It's a very good business and cultural model, I think. By making cultural stuff so readily accessible to students, you expose them to it at an early age. And by the time they grow up, get jobs, and earn money, they'll be more likely to be willing to pay. In the US, I feel like operas and ballets give off this impression of being more high class and expensive than it really should be. I know that I have never been tempted to go to an opera in the US, for example.

But yeah, just something to think about.