I know that I have been neglecting this blog a little bit as of late, but I have been sick and busy...and sick...and busy. Please expect a deluge of posts to come--I am probably typing up even more entries as you are reading this one.Anyhow, I think that I will make it a point to visit more Parisian cemeteries. As maudlin as it may sound, I have yet to find any other place in Paris that gives me such a sense of peace and relaxation. As you are walking past the various graves, the sense of history is poignant and the passage of time is almost tangible. You are at once nothing and everything, shrouded in solitude and yet not at all alone.
A couple of weeks back, I visited a cemetery in Montmartre, right next to Pigalle. Within a few minutes' walk, I was transported frm the boulevards of screaming neon signs and dimly-lit sex shops (it
is Pigalle, after all...) to a quiet world where wild cats peek at you from behind the bushes and birds chirp from on high as you stroll by on the cobblestone paths. It was immensely comforting to know that even in the hustle and bustle of metropolitan Paris, it was possible for me to find a moment where time went by more slowly.
We'd read a text in class about
les exilés; it was a letter from one expatriate to another that described her experiences with assimilation and adaptation. I found it interesting that while the word "expatriate" does exist in the French language, this woman chose instead to use the term "exile." Maybe in my heart of hearts, I could relate to that...I and others like me who try to straddle the line between one or two or three cultures.
As is wont to happen in discussion classes, we talked about our experiences with foreign cultures and in foreign countries. There were personal anecdotes and there were stories recounted from secondhand sources. There was talk of homesickness and there were complaints about one's inability to find affordable cream cheese in the city. Through it all, I stayed silent. What was there for me to say?
I think of myself as an American -- it is what I relate to the most (or is it the only thing that I relate to?), and it is the only thing that I know. Of my Vietnamese heritage, I am not sure that I retain anything but my immense appreciation for its cuisine...and perhaps a certain stoicism. I am, at all times, too open and extraverted to be Vietnamese (the "traditional" Viet girl, anyway) and too reserved to be American. My reserve, while similar in level to that of the French, is, alas, not of the same type. So I'm definitely not French, either. In short: I don't belong. This, I think, is at the heart of the immigrant's dilemma. It is not assimilation into a new culture or retaining the old, but it is learning to reconcile those two sides of yourselves that you might not have known existed save for the occasional discordant tug at your heart.
In many ways, I am lucky--I am, by nature, a more logical person than an emotional being (although that, too, changes by the day). I do not have problems with homesickness. I adapt relatively easily to situations. I can stomach things that I find unpalatable, although I do not bother to if I do not think it is worth it. Perhaps it is my inability to "belong?" Instead, I build my roots in people. This is why, I suppose, I am slow to trust and slow to love. I can let go of a situation/place/thing with a blink of an eye, but I cannot do so nearly as easily with the people I have known and the relationships I have forged. I think a friend once likened me to a durian--spiky on the outside and soft on the inside. Potentially smelly. For those with a particular taste. Or something like that.
In any case, while I am sure that my experience is by no means unique, it is not something that is easily discussed face to face in a room full of strangers. How do you describe the singular feeling of living in a world where you hear every word spoken, but only as meaningless sounds? How do you recount what it felt like to smile and nod, only to realize later that you'd likely admitted to some wrongdoing and would be punished? How do you put into words what it felt like to do all this as a child of six years of age?
Maybe that is why I said nothing. Had I opened my mouth, I would've made some callous-sounding statement like, "Adapting to France is nothing. At least you have a modicum of the language." I am not a saint. I wouldn't have felt bad about saying it.
So I guess it's good that I held my tongue and waited to do all of my reflection as I was walking in the cemetery...
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