THE PARIS LETTER: Fancy Parties and Rude Parisians

Hello All:

It is a gorgeous day in Paris today - Sunny, with bright blue clear skies, reminding us all that spring may actually be on it's way - and that Matt and I have been here for almost 6 months now -

UNESCO Globe and Eiffel Tower

This week was particularly event filled because a friend of Matt's parents, Jill Banfield, was North American winner of thethe L'Oreal Women in Science Award, and was in Paris all week to receive it. The Award is presented jointly by L'Oreal and UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which is based in Paris. This meant we went to not just one but TWO fancy events this week - a cocktail party at the US Ambassador's residence, and the Awards Ceremony at the UNESCO Headquarters. We met a bunch of young State Department employees at these events, which was pretty cool - a whole new contingent of Americans in Paris. In addition, for this week's funny story, I will tell you about my continuing attempts to defend myself in the big city using my limited French - with decidedly mixed results.

1. L'OREAL WOMEN IN SCIENCE AWARD and the FRUIT TABLE

Jill's Fancy Poster

One thing I'll say for the French - they love scientists, and this award involves as much press and PR as I've seen at most movie press tours and premieres. The Award is given every year to five women, one from each major continent (sorry, Australia, you're getting lumped in with Asia again), and they're clearly trying to build it into something that's a predictor award for the Nobel Prize. As such (and maybe in part because L'Oreal ,a beauty company), they create this amazing posters of the awardees, that combine science with glamour and hang them around town ,including at Charles De Gaulle Airport - really turning these women into scientist/movie stars - At the UNESCO Ceremony they had each photo set off by neon for even greater impact. See photo below of Jill's poster, where she looks super tough and super glamorous at the same time.

I just love a town that treats scientists like rock stars. L'Oreal also sent a film crew to make a short movie about each winning scientist, showing what their life was like and their thoughts about their research, etc. They showed these at the Awards Ceremony - each one was maybe 3 minutes long - and they were beautifully made little pieces that captured the tenor of each scientists life (and showed Jill doing some awesome field work in a cave). You can see Jill's video HERE, as well as the videos of the other laureates:

http://www.loreal.com/_en/_ww/index.aspx?direct1=00008&direct2=00008/00003

There were a few funny cliches, however, for an award about Women in Science - including in the opening speech, given by a man who is a famous science writer in France, who saw nothing wrong with discussing how women do science differently from men, because they bring greater empathy and feeling to their research. Matt whispered "Are you kidding me?" next to me - But I really do think this kind of thing isn't seen as weird at all in France - they're still just coming out of the MAD MEN era in some ways -

As I said, we ended up meeting a few young state department types who had just moved over here in the last few months - they were all around our age, in their late 20s/early 30s. One guy was the science officer for the US Mission to UNESCO, and I think Matt is going to take him to lunch at the Pasteur cantine in a few weeks so he can see the lab. All of these state department folks were moved over here by the US government and are living in a very staid part of the 16th Arrondissement (like being moved to the Upper East Side), so they seem to be eager to see a little more of the fun part of Paris.

I can't leave the discussion of the Awards Ceremony without telling you all about the Fruit Table, a catering revelation that I had never seen before. After the Awards there was a large catered reception at UNESCO, involving your usual passed horsdoeuvres and whatnot. But there was also a table that was mounded with all different kinds of fruit ,from pears to kiwi to papaya to freaking dragonfruit, all cut into bit size portions that you were supposed to just pick up with your hands - it was an incredibly beautiful display surrounded by incredible savagery, as people gorged themselves on fruit and then threw the peels in silver canisters on the table, which were then picked up and dumped on trays by the catering staff -somewhere between a sort of luau feel and a roman fruit orgy. Made funnier by the fact that the whole event was cocktail dress, so it was people in suits and dresses doing this.

I will leave L'Oreal for the moment and go to story number 2 of the week:

2. HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF IN FRENCH AGAINST RUDE PEOPLE

That title is a little misleading, since I'm not sure I succeeded, but I ATTEMPTED to defend myself in any case. Paris, like New York, is a big city with a fair amount of pushy rude people, and often you have to really stick up for yourself to avoid being walked over. Now, while in New York I prided myself on having the right bon-mot for any occasion (or insult or swear word as the case may be), its much harder in Paris where I don't speak the language. An old man reached out an swatted me on the arm with his newspaper the other day as I was riding a bike down the street, and all I could do was give him an outraged look. Its demoralizing.

So here's what happened this week. I went to get a coffee with a few friends from my French class- two Russian women and a Japanese woman, none of whom speak much English so we all go out and practice our French together. We were standing outside the cafe saying a sort of long goodbye to one another, and were standing part of the way into the dip in the sidewalk where people cross the street.

A French guy came up to us and said "Excusez-moi, mais est-ce qu' on peut passer ici?" (Excuse me, but can I cross the street here?") - We looked around at the open crosswalk and gave him a very puzzled "Mais oui, monsieur".

At which point he continued "Car, vous savez que le trottoir ici est pour les gens qui traverser la rue, pas pour discuter" (Because, you know that the sidewalk here is for people crossing street, not for talking") - "Si vous voulez parler, vous pouvez bouger la-bas" (If you want to talk, you can move over there by thethe cafe) -

So that's a little rude, right - or as the French would say "Oh, c'est Chiant!" (shitty/annoying). But so what to you say in response to this very insistent dude? I think I started with "Vraiment? Vraiment?" (Really?? Really?? - but not quite the same in French, sadly).

Then I think I said something like "C'est vraiment ça que vous voulez dire à nous" (That's really what you want to say to us?")

He insisted that yes, he was providing us with positive INSTRUCTION on life in Paris and hte proper way to be. I think I then said "Mais je suis Americaine, je suis impoli tout le temps!" (But I'm american, i'm always impolite!) and then asked him "Ca vous gene tous le temps? " (Does this bother you all the time?') He said yes, it always bothered him -

Anyway, then I said in a very insincere way "Alors monsieur, je suis vraiment desolee de vous allez gener -" This is where my mistake came in! Because in the above, the verb is WRONG and i actually said 'I'm so sorry I will have bothered you" instead of "I"m so sorry to have bothered you."

Of course, the jerk pounced on this and said - "Non, non, c'est pas correcte! Dites : Je suis desolee de vous a gene, parce que vous M'avez gene!" (no, that's not right - you should say I'm sorry to have bothered you, because you DID bother me!"

Sigh. That's really all I'm going to say - we got out of it eventually, but let's just say I'm trying to defend myself even with my sometimes shaky grasp of verb tenses. But at least in this instance I knew the guy was being a jerk, instead of thinking it might actually be my fault.

A few more pics of L'Oreal/UNESCO Awards below - Everyone have a great week!

xo CTL