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francofile chronicles

Dec, 5th 1999 "Paris at the End of the Second Millenium"

by David Applefield

The nice part of all this millennium hype is that it gives us a prime excuse to strap on the wide angle lens and look ourselves in history.

If every New Year you´re supposed to make a resolution, then the last New Year of a century should require a really special one, and the last New Year of a millennium, well, that should demand an especially penetrating personal resolve. Although perhaps the greatest non-event of living memory, the passing from 99 to 00 only happens to earthlings every 30 generations or so. Thus, a moment of sacred stock-taking for hybrid-expats is perhaps in order.

If your lack of enthusiasm for this abrupt passage of time is intensified by your seemingly insignificant plans for the 31st, take comfort in the cool fact that more than two-thirds of the world´s six billion residents live in countries whereby the local culture doesn´t even use the Judeo-Christian calendar. In other words, for most of the world´s people this is not the year 2000! So what´s all the fireworks about?

These two points (the millennium as a time to take-stock, and the culturally relative importance of this mega-event) kind of join at the hip chez nous, the expatriates of the world, those of us that live on the cusp of cultures and hop-scotch on the fine-line of frontiers. With Paris as our expatriate capital-the city-state of self-inflicted exile- we should ponder a bit our state of being at this most momentous of non-occasions.

How many are we? The number of Anglophone expats in Paris at the end of the Second Millennium remains rather unknown. Why? Because the statistic is of little use to anyone. The consumer habits of this group are so disparate that the size of the community alone helps no one get rich overnight. So, for the sake of conversation, we´ll tag the community at 100 000 permanent residents. Who we are, how long we´ve been here, what we do, and what we think are all virtually unanswerable questions. All we know is that the expat community keeps replenishing itself, remains sizable and noticeable, and lives in a general flux between harmony and discord with the native culture. We hate it, we love it, we have no choice.

When two or three people mention the same thing at relatively the same time you can be pretty sure you´ve spotted a trend. These days I keep hearing American expats in Paris refer back to the home country as "I couldn´t imagine living there ." Why? Because that place no longer resembles the America they left. Because it doesn´t include the daily stuff they prefer about France. Because back home people no longer understand you. Because your aesthetic appreciation for life, everything from buying arranged flowers to taking time for an extended family vacation--belong to "here" rather than "there". "Here" with all its problems has grown more familiar than "there." And face it: "here" is where we live.

As we observe the United States grab a leadership role in the globalization of business activity, who else but the expat abroad can see as clearly just how parochial this understanding of "things international" really is. Being international in the American mind-set is the ability of others to adapt to their way, as if it were not only the best, but essentially the only way. This isn´t even arrogant- the French can be arrogant-and this is the real danger: existence in the US is simply impervious to foreign cultures for most Americans to even consider what it is like to be from beyond its domestic walls. Expats visiting former homes end up feeling like complete strangers.

Expats are the true ambassadors of our age.

Try to use an American pay phone without an American calling card. Try changing a 200 FF note downtown anywhere other than an airport. Try speaking anything but English (and sometimes Spanish) and observe what happens. International means the ability of getting Ethiopian food delivered quickly. It means the finding of great package trips to the Bahamas. It means selling your company´s goods abroad without high import taxes. It means getting CNN in a Hyatt hotel and paying for it with a credit card that gives you additional frequent flyer miles. Globalization to citizens of the world today does not mean that you´ll feel at home everywhere or that it´ll even be easier to live in a foreign country. It means that wherever you are your habits as a consumer are known in astonishingly nuanced detail and your economic value is part of scores of commercial strategies from the maker of breakfast cereal to your online supplier of novels.

Living outside of a past life obliges you to compare and contrast. It forces you to ask questions, and to see perspectives otherwise hidden. That questioning is at the core of expatriate life. The expat´s greatest asset is the unsettling feeling that underlies every moment. Try to convey that to your friends and family back home and they look at you funny as to say "you´ve been away too long." And you have. When we go back, we try to pull the place into focus with our own way of seeing. It doesn´t gel. I was walking out of an airport recently, Baltimore or Providence, and it struck me. I got it. Like that, after all these years. The culture of franchises and easy-to-board planes and friendly signs in hotel bathrooms with coffee makers....rang out and I heard it. Here´s a country where you can make money. There are lots of nice ways of spending it. So shut up, and partake. That´s it. This was not Henry David Thoreau´s America speaking, nor Ralph Waldo Emerson´s, but it is the America of the day. And if you´re not in sync with the musak, you better take up residence in some enticing Parisian fourth floor walk-up and learn to love kirs.

Earlier, I spoke of a mammoth resolution for the Millennium year. Looking over the scores of articles I´ve composed for Anglophone expats in Paris over the years I´ve noticed a fair share of bashing, complaining, harping, whining, longing, regretting, hoping.... standard verbiage for the expat trying to hang onto what he or she once was while living in the present. And for many of us, we came to the conclusion that you can´t have it both ways. Thinking American is not the same thing as thinking French. Ultimately, the head and the body have to belong to the same creature.

The 21st century expat can be that creature. The new attitude is positive and the stance embraces both quality lifestyle and material gain. I´m not going to complain anymore about the check-out lady in my Monoprix or the 40-minute lines at the post office. The TVA will no longer be the brunt of my abusive humor and the rude driving practices will go unacknowledged. The helplessness we often confronted in the face of an inefficient and expensive French bureaucracy, the frustration of dealing with what seemed like a commercially brain-dead nation of stubborn smokers, will archived into the last century. The new century´s visage is characterized by a simple new belief that in all countries and within all systems it is people and their passions - one at a time - that make a difference. Replace the act of complaint with the gift to inspire someone, anyone, and you´ll see a change.

Expats are the true ambassadors of our age.