Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Isn't it a bit early for Bastille Day? 

Two things reminded me of why I'm doing French today. Literature and eavesdropping. In the morning, I had an hour of Texts and Society with my new tutor, studying "Fant?mes dans la rue" by J.M.L Le Clezio, a story from Elle in 2000. It's told from the perspective of a surveillance camera watching a clochard and a girl. He tells her of his experience as a human resources director at Renault, where he organised work for the North African immigrants. He tells how they were all known as "Fatima" or "Mohamed", or collectively as "Couscous-tapis".

"They had beautiful names, Omar, Fadel, Ouled Hassan, Abel, Abdelaziz, Abdelha. And their wives, I remember A?cha, Rachida, Rania, Habiba, Aziza, Jamila. But at Renault, the management never sought to find out their real names. All the men were 'Mohamed', all the women 'Fatima'. For the upper management, even for the foremen, these people did not exist, they were all the same.

...

They never asked what the names of their wives, their daughters were. They never asked them, how is it at home, and what are your children's names, how old are they, how is it for them at school, are the others nice to them? They never asked them if they had good news from back home, about their family who were still there, to whom the workers sent a part of their salary each month. Never, never.

They didn't even think to ask how their wives lived, how they managed, far from their relatives, with their growing children, illnesses, worries, the high cost of living, how they managed to read the prices in the shops, the street names. They didn't think to ask how it was in their kitchens that were too small, airless, dark, underground in Marly, in Sucy-en-Brie, in Lagny, in Drancy. They never asked if they missed the blue sky, the sun, the wind, their girlfriends who would come to drink tea in the courtyard."

I can't do it justice. I can't find any mention of it online anywhere, unfortunately, so if you want the real thing you'll have to go to the USyd copy centre.

Anyway, after that I went outside the library for lunch and to study. I happened to sit next to a guy who was talking on the phone in French. The girl next to him happened to be a French exchange student. They struck up the usual expat conversation ("where are you from", "where are you staying", "aren't Australians unfriendly" [sic, I swear], etc). I was pretending to read my law case but of course I was very unsubtly eavesdropping. Gleefully.

I actually had a third French encounter today, in the hospital where my grandma was having some tests. My mum had heard the lady in the opposite bed speaking to a French interpreter, so she dared me to go up and talk to her. See, I'm one of those people who loves knowing languages but hates speaking them for fear of appearing a dolt. I mean it's bad enough in English. It didn't go so well, since a) her first language was Kanak, as far as I could tell, b) I suck, and c) she was pointing to her head all the time which I took to mean "excuse me, I can't really think straight" but which might also have meant "I have a huge feckin headache, please go away". It could also have meant "um, I don't speak French but I'll humour you anyway". Eh, she offered me her Sprite. Food, the universal lingua franca.

Do you ever start writing and can't stop? That's me now. Ugga bugga bee diddle dee bee bum.

# posted at 3:43 pm

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