C'est pas normal

The other day, Kim and I went for a drink at our neighborhood dive bar, Dirty Old Town. Modeled after an Irish Pub, the Dirty (or Dirty Old Man, as we call it) is a dark, wood-paneled refuge plastered with Irish paraphernalia. Flags of Ireland, green clovers, and signs hailing past and future Saint Patrick's Day celebrations provide the main decor inside, while a chalkboard by the entrance lures potential carousers with a bit of Irish wisdom: "A Guinness a day keeps the doctor away."

It is, hands down, my favorite bar in Saint-Étienne.

Kim and I sat there, deep into our Snakebites (made here with a shot of Cassis syrup) and mused over Saint Patrick's Days past. She told me about her (mis)adventures back in Milwaukee, like the time she was accidentally cast on the evening news as an early bird Saint Paddy's Day drunk ("I was at the bar at 9 pm! Not 7 AM!"). I related the traditional 24 hour pub crawls back in Boston, and how I've (sadly) never participated in a single one. And how I wanted this year to be different.

We looked at each other and had the same thought: what better venue could we possibly have for this year's Saint Patrick's Day than the Dirty?

Clearly, none. Kim whipped out the tiny agenda she carries with her everywhere to plan her life (I think she puts me to shame) and flipped to the week of March 17th.

"Normally, I don't have any class that day! You know what that means!"

No. Stop, I said. Do you realize what you just did? You said the N word. In English.

She paused, and laughed in full realization of what she'd done.

I'll explain.

If there's one word, one phrase in particular, that upsets me in its French use, it is the word "normal" and it's frequent attachment to the prelude "c'est pas."

C'est pas normal. It's not normal. Or C'est normal, it's normal. Or Normalement... Normally...

In English, we tend to say "usually." Or "typically." Or "most of the time." To invoke the word normal in statements about our daily lives feels very, very wrong to me. If something is "normal," then its opposite is "abnormal."

Synonyms for abnormal: deviant, aberrant, bizarre, gross, queer, weird...

Normal or abnormal, it all feels like judgment.

It works in certain cases. For example, a French rap group called the Neg Marrons have a great song entitled "C'est pas normal." It begins with the refrain:

On prend la parole pour délivrer la vérité
Pour tous ces gens qui vivent dans la précarité
C'est pas normal, c'est pas normal, non

(We take to words to deliver the truth
For all the people who live in precarity
It's not normal, it's not normal, no)

The song is about the dire straits of the immigrant poor in France, and I wholeheartedly agree that their situation "is not normal." The context merits use of the word "normal" because the situation, as it stands, is an aberration.

Meanwhile, when I showed up to the prefecture earlier this week to pick up (at long last!) my carte de sejour, I was informed that my medical examination had somehow been misplaced.

C'est pas normal, the attendant assured me.

I stared at her, blankly, trying to mask my anger at the situation. And at her response. I'm glad it's not normal, I shouted in my head, otherwise I'm not sure how you would manage to run the goddamn country!

Or, take for another example, the ski getaway I indulged in last weekend. When I arrived late Friday evening with my ski mates, Ilka and Corinne, we waited outside the welcome center while the trip coordinator fetched room keys for all. Only the room keys weren't matched with the rooms they belonged to, so we were forced to wait while the coordinator tested each key on the rooms available. Upon receiving our room assignment, we were informed that, due to a lack of space at the resort, we had been placed in a room for six with two complete strangers. Normally, one would expect to have advanced notice of such a drastic change, especially given that we had paid more for a 3-person suite. The coordinator offered the following by way of apology:

C'est pas normal.

(We also later discovered, after having been reminded various times by the travel agent of the urgent need for us to bring our bathing suits to take full advantage of the slope-side swimming pool, the pool was actually closed on Saturday night. The only night we could have possibly used it, that is. When we reported back to the travel agent, she shook her head and said, regrettably, C'est pas normal.)

Morgan, a French friend of Kim's and native stéphanois, has told Kim that her accent in English, well, "It's not normal!" Kim's English sounds a bit like Fargo-speak: undeniably hilarious, but not what you would consider a deviant form of the language.

Well, alright then, two can play at this game! I've observed a few things myself that are "not normal." Like the advertisement below for Orangina.


Really, Orangina? A buff, naked bear, licking his chops and thrusting his pelvis at a bottle of your beverage? C'est pas normal, okay?

Or the local creep who frequents the bars in the Place les Martyrs des Vingres, Saint-Étienne's happening late night square.

C'est pas normal.

I begged Kim to erase that word from her vocabulary. We must hold fast and fight the Frenchification of our language skills! We've been in France for four months now, so I suppose French is bound to impact our English to some degree. It's normal. But...

Crap.

In which I am exposed to the perverse nature of adolescent French boys

I had my first all-boys class last week at Terrenoire. A group of troisièmes, ranging from 14-16 years old. Now, I usually rely on the presence of at least 2 or 3 members of the fairer sex to neutralize the boys' raging hormones. Just a couple of girls can provide the temperance necessary to survive 50 minute sections relatively unscathed.

The morning in question, however, Lady Luck absconded and left me to the wolves. The wolves being young French boys of various sizes and in various stages of physical maturity, some sporting traces of facial hair, others with smooth-skinned, angelic faces, all possessing the same distinct smell. French boys of the collège age secrete a noisome scent, a cross between onions and the stink of crotch. It's not just in my head: my teachers have told me repeatedly that it's necessary to air out the classrooms after each class. Even in winter, after each bell goes off and students pile out, you'll find windows thrown wide open as teachers gulp up the cold, fresh air.

I've already related the banana story which set the bar pretty high for pubescent perverts. I haven't written about the countless times I've witnessed a male student performing air fellatio while holding an imaginary penis in his hand, all for the enjoyment of his buddies, but much to his chagrin and embarassment the moment he realizes I've spotted him and understand quite well what the gesture means, thank you very much.

There's also the time I had a group of students create rules for a series of scenarios. One group was assigned "Freedom Beach," a fictitious, nude beach. I thought prompting the students with something slightly scandalous would provoke amusement and a more enthusiastic engagement with the task at hand. I didn't foresee the possible rules that might surface.

Rules for Freedom Beach:
You must take of your clothes.
You must tan.
You musn't be gay.
You musn't rape.
You musn't fucking.

I explained to the students that "You musn't fucking" wasn't really an elegantly phrased rule. "You musn't have sex" would be more appropriate. As for "You musn't be gay," I vetoed that rule immediately.

(As much tolerance as I might have for the sexual innuendo and jokes, I can't deal with homophobic adolescent boys. Or homophobic anybody, for that matter. Duh.)

I suppose, in retrospect, my all-boys class could have been a lot worse. They were all genuinely nice, if not a bit oversexed.

Random student: Do you like Yan's hair?
Me: Who is Yan?
Random student: (pointing) Yan is there. Do you like his hair? It's very nice, yes?
Me: You think so?
Random student: His hair is nice and he love you. He think you are very beautiful.

Yan looks like he's 18, incidentally. He does have gorgeous, flowing chestnut locks, complemented by smooth, tan skin, a good build and stature, and a winning smile. And he will probably grow up to be an attractive man. Once he learns to stop scratching himself in public.

When I asked the boys what they had done over the weekend, one of them, Yassim, told me he bought a girl.

Yassim: I buy a girl on Saturday.
Me: What? What do you mean? You bought a girl?
Yassim: Yes I buy her.
Me: Is she a prostitute?!
Yassim: (laughs with buddies) Noooo, nooo! She is a girl!
Me: ... Okay, how nice for you.

Yassim is in love with Jessica Alba. He and another student had a 2 minute argument in English over who is "most sexy": Jessica, or Megan Fox.

The boys also kept bringing up "The big Momo" throughout the entire class. I have no clue what or who the big Momo is. I was too sketched out by what the explanation might be, so I didn't ask for specifics.

At the end of the class, after the bell rang, a soft-spoken student named Joris approached me. Joris is one of the angel-faces still stunted in prepubescence. He is a boy of diminutive proportions (especially compared to his peers) and wears glasses that occupy a good third of his face. He always goes out of his way to say hello and good bye, and I make a special effort to let him talk in class (since the bigger, more brazen boys tend to dominate most conversations). I think he might have a bit of a crush on me.

Joris walked up to me as the others threw their bags on and shoved each other out of the classroom.

"Je suis desolé pour le bordel, Madame."

Translation: I'm sorry for the mess.
(Alternate translation: I'm sorry for the brothel.)

Brief hilarity

You all remember, right? Tom and Jerry. The cartoon we (or at least I) grew up with, before Pokeman et. al. Tom chasing Jerry. Jerry outsmarting Tom. Formulaic but entertaining.

Well, the French kids remember Tom and Jerry. Quite well, in fact.

I'll explain.

Cindy, one of the English teachers at Terrenoire, showed me some test results this morning. The troisièmes took a cumulative exam before the break, testing what they've learned so far this year. On the exam was a section on past continuous. The section was quite simple: a series of images in which two cats wait outside a mousehole, presumably for a mouse, then set a trap, but ultimately the mouse gets away. Students were meant to describe the photos using the past continuous, i.e. While the cats were setting a trap, the mouse waited.

Fine.

The performance of most students was pitiable. It's unclear to me how so many of them could have obtained a 1 out of 9 possible points on this section.

But that's not the funny bit. The funny bit is this: a good half of the students could not find the word for mouse in English.

Instead, they opted for "The Jerry."

The Jerry was eating cheese while the cats waited.
While the cats were waiting for the Jerry, the Jerry escaped.

And so on and so forth.

Oh, and a couple of students chose "The Mickey" as their English word for mouse.

Snapshot of Paris: Barbès - Rochechouart

The Barbès - Rochechouart Metro stop is on the 2 and 4 lines which appear, respectively, as blue and hot purple strips on the Plan de Metro. Populated in large part by immigrants (seemingly north African), this is not the Paris of the Trocadero or Champs-Élysées. The streets are mobbed with vendors peddling wares that range from cheap Malboro cigarrettes (smuggled by the Eastern European mafias) to Dolce and Gabbana purse knockoffs. It provokes the sensory overload you might expect at a giant outdoor flea market, with men shouting "Malboro! Malboro!" and pressing the red and white boxes on you, while others stalk you for a full block trying to sell you a fake Fendi watch. I had an older man, cloaked in the charming scent of alcohol and stale cigarrettes, approach me without anything to sell. Nonetheless, he struck up a slurred conversation. Upon learning that I was American, he bent over and confessed that he loved me.

"I loooove youuu."

I thanked him and went on my merry way.

I had made my way over to Barbès on my friend Gaby's suggestion. Gaby, having spent a year living in Paris recently, was chock full of good ideas for exploring the "other side" of Paris, the part that tourists rarely see or even imagine. Me, having already done the tourist circuit of Paris, well, I was favorably inclined towards his suggestions.

So after finally dragging myself out of bed at 1 pm, I ambled over there last Tuesday with Linda, who was visiting for New Year's. We decided to make a lunch of it and enjoy some delicious and cheap ethnic food while in the neighborhood. Which we did, entering a small establishment (read: hole in the wall) that promised a 6 euro menu consisting of just about every food group.

Of course, we were the only women in sight. But aside from a few surprised looks and modest head turns, the attraction we drew was most welcome, offered by the only waiter (and, perhaps, owner) of the joint.

He launched immediately into an explanation of the menu which I tried to decipher with little success. Fast and truncated, Parisian street French is hard enough to understand when it is spoken by the French. When the speaker is an immigrant with a heavy accent, it is near is possible. I repeated the few words I could make out - couscous, soupe, et poulet - and hoped for the best.

The waiter then brought out a heaping plate of couscous, a steaming bowl of vegetable stew, and a roasted chicken leg. I ladled the stew onto the couscous, adding some harissa for a kick, and tucked in. The food, served in generous portions and prepared like a home cooked meal, was excellent.

I washed it all down with an ice cold Coke.

Linda and I parted from the restaurant after thanking our waiter. Warm and stuffed, we waddled back to the Metro station, where I was accosted not once but twice in the span of about 2 minutes.

First, a group of men and women bearing palms full of Metro tickets approached me, offering to sell the tickets at a greatly reduced price. The word "offer," however, falls short of describing their gestures and cries. And of how they actively cornered me by the ticket machines, where I remained until Linda rescued me.

As it turns out, I didn't need the ticket after all. In the crowd of people trying to squeeze through the bottleneck that is the entrance to most Paris Metro stations, one particularly aggressive gentleman behind me decided not to wait for me to insert my ticket. He simply popped his in and pushed us both through the turnstyle. I can't say I was displeased.

Following the turnstyles, a series of stairs leads down to the trains. I flitted down the stairwell, and in a most becoming and graceful moment, lost my balance and took a tumble.

In less than 5 seconds, a herd of Malboro men flocked to me. I had picked myself up, dusted myself off, and was about to thank them for their concern and wave them away. But they beat me to it and opened their mouths first.

"Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle... Malboro?"