Over the past two decades-plus, I have spent close to a year in Paris. I prefer to believe that puts me somewhere beyond “tourist” status … but I suppose it does not. Especially in the eyes of the full-time locals. A serial tourist, perhaps.
But it is more than enough time to have brought me to an unfortunate place:
I cringe at the notion of other American tourists in Paris.
I am not alone. This seems to be a fairly typical state of mind among Americans who have spent more than a few weeks here.
It was outlined almost perfectly by an American student during a long bus ride today.
He got on the bus at the same stop we did. Blond guy. Maybe 22, 23. Attempting to cultivate some vaguely Belle Epoque-style mustache/mutton chops. My first guess: “Scot.”
He sat behind us on the bus, and soon after a guy from India sat next to him. They fell to talking, as often happens when an American is involved. As a people, we will talk to almost anyone about almost anything and offer opinions we believe to be valid — when they often are not. But we mean well.
The rest of the world, including the French, tend to find this unusual and generally charming/refreshing — but also a bit intrusive. (And yes, we do speak more loudly than people from the rest of the world. It’s true.)
Anyway, the American kid identified himself as a student from New Orleans to the guy from India, a Paris first-timer, and off they went. (The Indian guy was from Delhi, and he clearly had no concept of New Orleans. “The birthplace of jazz?” Nothing.)
The voluble Yank told him about this or that neighborhood, the history of it, how long a walk it would be from Point A to Point B, what he would do if he were in town for only a few days … and also mentioned where he would be able to find expatriate Indians.
The guy from India said he wasn’t all that interested in meeting with other Indians, thank you, and the American seized on that.
“I know what you mean. I hate it when I find myself around other Americans here. Everybody wants to think they’re the only person from their country in the city, and even when you know it’s not true, you like to believe it, and it’s disappointing when you go somewhere and everyone around you is from your country.”
Yes. To all that. Now that I think of it, it applies to almost any hot tourist spot. (It brings to mind Yogi Berra on a New York club: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too popular.”)
When we go somewhere exotic, we like to believe we are unique among our countrymen, and not just another face in a cast of traveling thousands. Even when we are not. Especially in Paris.
That was particularly true towards the end of the 20th century, when Americans had more money than they do now, and middle-class Yanks who would have been challenged by the culture shock in another U.S. state landed in Paris, and blundered about the city wearing shorts and fanny packs, sunburned, overweight, hemorrhaging money and speaking French loudly and badly — or not at all.
At one point in time, most of us were those people. And hate to think we were.
Most of us who come back to Paris a third, fourth, fifth time … pick up a sense of the place, and become a bit more reserved, and try to blend in, at least a little — always wearing black, never wearing shorts, knowing the basics of French, avoiding McDonald’s and grasping that the ultimate in haute cuisine is not to be found on the Champs Elysees.
Later that same day, we were looking for a place to eat in the 6th arrondissement, near Odeon, and we kept walking and walking … and every resto was packed with tourists. We no longer find comfort among tourists, as we once did; we expect higher prices and half-assed efforts by the local staff.
We got in the bus and went over to the 7th, near the Eiffel Tower, and it was just as bad. Every tourist in the city (and, thankfully, Americans are now in the minority, even if they might still be a plurality) was going out to dinner.
We actually sat down twice. The first time we left because the prices were ridiculous. The second time we left because four fiftysomething Yanks who seemed crabby about … something … sat down next to us.
We ended up in the cafe up the street here in the 17th, far off the tourist path. The cafe is popular with locals, and not expensive, and they don’t always respond to our French with their own English. It’s an authentic neighborhood place, that is.
Americans who return to Paris hope to find a city of Parisians, not Americans. Maybe that’s what it all comes down to.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Ben Bolch // May 27, 2012 at 11:05 PM
My favorite moment in Paris came in a department store when I asked, in halting French, “Parlez-vous Anglais?” The clerk, seeing right through me, had a snarky retort, in English: “What do you want?” I was crushed. I know what you mean about being embarrassed by my fellow countrymen when traveling abroad. The worst was seeing some loud, obnoxious dude wearing a CIF Southern Section shirt on a boat in the Great Barrier Reef. At the time I was covering preps, which left me all the more aghast. Is there no escape? On a completely random side note, I suggest you and Leah try the restaurant Frenchie while in Paris. Terrible name, I know, but one of the best restaurants I have tried in a long time. I promise you will like it.
2 Gene Hiigel // May 30, 2012 at 7:08 PM
I have very mixed feelings about your post. On the one hand, I understand the feeling of being embarrassed by your countrymen and making the effort to blend in to discover the real France. (Two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic in a time when it was a very conservative society made me avoid tourists — American or European — at all costs.) But how far do you go? Do you really need to avoid your native dress—I am not suggesting shorts in the city, but do you have to wear black or are khakis okay? Do you have to eat in the continental manner or can you continue to switch the utensils from hand to hand (a perfectly polite thing to do at home)?
And then, having 30 years of experience in working in a serious office job near Bloomingdales and later in Times Square in NYC, I am not so sure that Americans are the only guilty parties when travelling abroad. Europeans were not the worst (the packs of 20 or 30 Japanese tourists clearly won that competition), but the habit of European visitors of walking 3 or 4 abreast and blocking the sidewalks certainly irritated NYers. And then there was their belief that laws, such as Don’t Walk signs, were meant to be obeyed. Blocking the curb and keeping NYers from standing 15 feet out in the street while waiting for the light to change certainly branded them as annoying outsiders. I suppose they were not particularly loud, but there certainly were many shorts and inappropriate tee shirts worn by tourists speaking French, German and British-accented English.
I suspect that to some extent this is what happens when anyone leaves their home and becomes the stranger. The locals are always somewhat annoyed and it is not completely clear to the visitors how far they need to go to blend in.
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