Bored and Old

I didn’t slam the door when I left. I closed it qui­etly. I just saw the world and got addicted to it – I can’t be blamed, can I ?

Leav­ing France was not an oblig­a­tion but just an option. A very tempt­ing one, mind you. The world might be watch­ing us eat, smoke and have sex with a dis­dain­ful smile, yet it casts envi­ous eyes. But we know the other side of the story : no jobs, almost impos­si­ble to rent a place to live, a coun­try stuck in the days of its glory.

I wasn’t angry though. France is still a nice place to grown up in and I’m grate­ful for the edu­ca­tion I received there. All in all, there’s noth­ing wrong about being French. But noth­ing to brag about either.

I’ve never felt the slight­est hint of patri­o­tism, thus mak­ing things eas­ier when I left. Nonethe­less, as every sin­gle immi­grant mov­ing to a new home, I got a mild case of “bet­ter at home” syn­drome when I first came here. Cana­dian food wasn’t as tasty as French’s, the TV pro­grams sucked, there were no cul­ture and no his­tory and, of course, snow was too cold (and ice too icy, that goes with­out say­ing). This is com­mon­place. Immi­grants are sup­posed to go through this phase, a love/ hate rela­tion­ship with their adop­tive coun­try. Some will never get over it and will des­per­ately try to bring home with them, more or less suc­cess­fully. But I think I was cured some­times dur­ing my first year in Canada.

What I wasn’t aware of was the reverse cul­ture shock.

Once I adapted to Canada, French lit­tle fail­ings stuck out miles. Watch­ing French news on TV5 became a painful expe­ri­ence – I just couldn’t stand the con­stant whin­ing, the polit­i­cal iner­tia, the his­tor­i­cal resent­ments that had been build­ing up for years and made mov­ing for­ward impos­si­ble. It was even more painful con­sid­er­ing I’m left-wing. I just wasn’t sup­posed to think in terms of profit, effi­cient and respect for the rules.

I watched the last again last night, where French were com­plain­ing about speed checks. A dri­ver caught by a speed trap was inter­viewed and bitched about hav­ing being arrested for going 180km/ hour on the free­way : “but it’s a straight line !”. Gee, the speed limit is already 130km/ hour, what else do you want ? But no, if the gov­ern­ment is fin­ing these need-for-speed dri­vers, it’s just because it needs the money. Not because France lags behind en term of road safety in Europe. Not at all.

When I first came to Canada, I stared at the news­pa­pers box out­side won­der­ing how long it would be before some­one trash it. Guess what : it never hap­pened. Peo­ple put in 25 cents, pick one news­pa­per and close it. Try the same thing in France and it won’t last the day. For God sake, the pave­ment was removed and replaced by asphalt in Paris because demon­stra­tors would throw them at the police ! French have to rebel, that’s just the way it is.

When I was in France, it sounded like the right thing to do. I did it too : I don’t think I ever paid for a bus ticket and I would have never paid for the train either if it weren’t for the ubiq­ui­tous cops every­where. We like to chal­lenge the gov­ern­ment, young or old, rich or poor. But see­ing that from aboard and real­iz­ing it made me real­ized how stub­born we can be sometimes.

I’m still a rebel at heart. But I know my ene­mies. I try not to be against change. North Amer­ica, a con­ti­nent I had been told so many stereo­types about, gave me a future. What am I sup­posed to believe any­more ? Obvi­ously, there are some down­sides here too. I some­time wish peo­ple were a lit­tle bit more com­bat­ive, wish they would demand account­abil­ity from the gov­ern­ment, I wish they took more part in politic. But I cer­tainly respect this “com­mon­sense” which pre­vail upon blind rebellion.

I feel like I turned old and bor­ing. If my mum would read that… she’d prob­a­bly demon­strate against it !

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