The Wall

Bu·reauc·ra·cy (by??-r?k’r?-s?) : An admin­is­tra­tive sys­tem in which the need or incli­na­tion to fol­low rigid or com­plex pro­ce­dures impedes effec­tive action: inno­v­a­tive ideas that get bogged down in red tape and bureaucracy.

I’m a white female, 5’7, 20–30 years old. Sounds fairly com­mon, doesn’t it ? I mean, really, I don’t have any­thing spe­cial. So why don’t I fit in these bloody boxes ?

It all started when I turned 18. For the first time of my life, I could sign my excuse note if I felt like skip­ping school (i.e. Math class on Mon­days from 8:00 to 9:00 – do they actu­ally expected me to show up ?). Loved it. My scrib­ble was worth some­thing. I didn’t need any­one in this world but a pen. I would have signed anything.

But with power came along a bunch of unpleas­ant things. Like responsibilities.

For exam­ple when I had to renew the pass­port I had done when I was 12 years old. In France, pass­port are valid for ten years – great value for your money but the pic­ture is rarely life­like 10 years later. So on a Wednes­day after­noon, I walked to the Pre­fec­ture with a bunch of papers in my bag – birth cer­tifi­cate, pic­ture ID, proof of address – and my still-valid pass­port. I handed them to the counter clerk. And I learned I didn’t exist. No, no, he didn’t ignore me. Don’t get me wrong. No, I learned I lit­er­ally didn’t exist in French computers.

See, my par­ents have been hap­pily liv­ing in sin for almost 25 years now. They never got mar­ried and don’t plan to do so any­time soon. So I have two last names : my father’s and my mother’s. And if ten years ear­lier it was fine for a child to have both of his par­ents’ name, it wasn’t the case any­more. So the French admin­is­tra­tion sim­ply erased me from its file, think­ing I was some kind of mis­take. I spent the rest of the after­noon explain­ing I, in fact, did exist. It took me about 6 months to renew my pass­port and to have both of my names back. Wel­come to France !

The same year was my last year of high school. In March, all stu­dents must reg­is­ter with the board of edu­ca­tion for the national final exam, due in June. At this time, we were to choose our elec­tives. I had taken Chi­nese. I had stud­ied the lan­guage for the last 8 years. When I keyed the code for Chi­nese as a sec­ond lan­guage in the com­puter, it biped. I knew it wasn’t a good sign.

Indeed it wasn’t. Appar­ently, no one in France ever reg­is­tered for Chi­nese as a sec­ond lan­guage for the final high school exam. I was told I sim­ply couldn’t take the exam and I’d have to take Span­ish instead, like every­one else. Too bad I didn’t speak Span­ish. I had to fight for three months and a teacher flew from Paris espe­cially for me. Some­times it pays off to fight with the French administration.

But some­times it doesn’t. After I grad­u­ated from high school, I decided to keep on study­ing lan­guages at Uni­ver­sity. I would take Chi­nese and Eng­lish as a major and econ­omy as a minor. In June, I vis­ited the local uni­ver­sity. When the lady in charge of the For­eign Lan­guage depart­ment asked me, out of curios­ity, why I wanted to take Chi­nese, I replied that I had stud­ied the lan­guage for a few years and that I’d love to work in China.

I received a blank stare. Was she anti-communist ? No. She smiled, obvi­ously embar­rassed.
– So… you took Chi­nese before ?
– Yes, I stud­ied it for 8 years in sec­ondary school.
– I’m afraid we can’t accept you here then. The Uni­ver­sity pol­icy spec­i­fies that only begin­ners in the lan­guage are accepted.

So I didn’t go to this Uni­ver­sity and actu­ally ended up doing dis­tance study and pass­ing my Bac­calau­re­ate while on the road around the world.

The same year, I attempted to take my dri­ver license for the first time. I passed the writ­ten test, took the com­pul­sory dri­ving les­son, booked a dri­ving test… and ended up los­ing my writ­ten test. How ? Well, the dri­ving test exam­in­ers were on strike for 12 months and the writ­ten test is valid for a year. Of course.

Then I left for Hong Kong. And Latin Amer­ica. Canada. Never looked back much. Last time I dealt with French admin­is­tra­tion, I was stuck in Panama where my credit card was stolen. I was in the Ambassador’s office, on the phone with my bank which fig­ured out it would be “quicker” to send me a new credit card by reg­u­lar mail. From France to Panama. I, of course, never received it and fin­ished the trip car­ry­ing my money in my bra (long story, really).

Bastille day in com­ing up. Long live French admin­is­tra­tion, we only freed the jail !

Related arti­cles:

1. From Teacher To Student
2. Eight Ran­dom Facts About Me
3. The Wall
4. Cit­i­zen­ship Exam Day In Ottawa
5. Ten Things I Can Do