A Paris P.S. from monsieur Bruce

Bonjour! I will add a bit to Barbara's previous entry about our time in Paris. And I must start with where we started--at Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris--seen in the photo to the right (taken from the large square in front of the church, where long lines of tourists gather to enter). It's still a "living church" (masses and organ recitals are held), but for most visitors it's an amazing piece of 13th century architecture and one of Paris' "must-see" tourist attractions. We joined people from all over the world as we walked slowly through the sanctuary, in awe of the high interior and the beautiful stained-glass windows (below is a photo of one of the huge rosette windows). A few, like Barbara (though herself Jewish) lit a candle in memory or honor of someone known only to themselves.

A minority of French people who identify with their Christian heritage actually attend church regularly these days--as is true of much of western Europe in general. Yet some do, and the various "historic" churches limit or ban "visiting" those churches during actual worship services, to protect the quiet and sanctity of the space for worship. It doesn't always seem to be an easy co-existence: there are always some sitting or praying in the pews (as people are welcome to do at most large churches in Europe, at any hour during the day, unlike in American churches), even when tourists are wandering about, chatting, and snapping photos. We've played both roles (tourist and worshipper) at different times--in churches, synagogues, and mosques, and can empathize both with those seeking a true worship experience and those drawn to sacred spaces so awe-inspiring (and famous) they seem to belong to the world.

To the right is a photo of Notre Dame from the side, which I find a particularly impressive place from which to view the architecture; note the buttresses which help support the high walls.

In the photo below we see Barbara on the Simone de Beauvoir bridge (a leading mid-20th century French feminist, highly influential in what would become the modern women's movement). The French national library (about which Barbara wrote earlier) is in the background) (the Seine is the river over which the bridge took us, the waters flowing through the heart of Paris).


One of the things we like to do is to find local outdoor markets, some of which still flourish and often held one or two days a week. They are akin to farmers' markets in the U.S., though some have been happening for centuries, and they draw crowds looking for fresh produce or cheeses and breads, or foods and products from a variety of countries from which recent immigrants to France have come. We found one in the village in which we were staying; see the photo below for an enticing stack of fresh French baguettes. Barbara often buys more than I do--partly because in France she can more easily speak sufficient French!

Barbara mentioned we were staying in a small town (or "village" as some locals referred to it as--and it probably was, before it became partly a commuter suburb); the next photo shows Barbara happily working on her laptop in the "living room" of the flat where we were staying. The man of the couple teaches smaller children at a local school, and both he and his sweetie love to decorate their space with whimsical colors, plants, and items picked up on their travels, which we in turn were able to enjoy (being of a similar persuasion, fashion-wise).


In the next photo below, we see Barbara amidst the popular motorcycles and Vespas that zoom around Paris, amidst some typical Parisian architecture. Paris streets rarely seem to be laid out in a square grid pattern, but rather in streets radiating out from a number of large traffic circles or small parks--which means that buildings on those circles are often triangular in shape. And most of those buildings, at least in the older parts of Paris, are only 3-4 stories at most, making the city very human in scale for walking around in.

Since our last visit to Paris, a large new museum, the Quai Branly Museum, has opened (2006), dedicated to understanding various pre-industrial cultures around the world. We liked it a lot; the exhibits (such as the examples of traditional Vietnamese basket-weaving patterns shown in the photo below) are excellent and well-lighted to bring out the collection at its best. There were also special exhibits of Mayan civilization, and wood scuptures from an area of west Africa whose art was little known to the rest of the world until the mid-20th century.



Some of the best-represented parts of the world in the exhibits are from areas that were once part of the French colonial empire (Southeast Asia, what was once known as "Indochina" including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and French West Africa and North African countries). The theme of empire was one I had encountered in museums in Dublin and Edinborough, and would soon again in the Netherlands (from which I'm writing this)--France, Britain, Holland, and Spain all had substantial empires outside Europe for centuries, and earlier expositions and museum displays (around the turn of the 20th century) often were celebrations and ideological rationales of those empires. Part of those rationales, of course, was the belief (to justify empire) that either the civilizations or intelligence of non-European peoples were inferior to those of Europe.

This history (like our own as Americans regarding slavery) is, it seems, inextricably tangled up with current feelings, debates, and political developments regarding immigration to countries in western Europe today--often from the very countries which were once part of their colonial empires (perhaps ironic, but understandable: children in the former French West African countries were often taught in French in their schools, for example, and so are drawn to a France today for good practical reasons--as are those from South Asia to Britain, or those from Indonesia to Holland, or those from Ecuador to Spain). But old fears about cultural and religious differences, or racial inferiority, underly questions about the ways in which immigration from countries which once experienced unwanted European "immigration" are regarded. When Barbara and I walked through Paris off the path beaten by tourists, we often encountered (ok, sought) neighborhoods which were heavily African or Arab or Vietnamese/Chinese (see the photo above of a shop featuring a beautiful variety of African cloth for sale).

Even while enjoying our picnic at the feet of the Eiffel Tower, we couldn't help notice that virtually all the young men selling metal replicas of the tower were African immigrants (country unknown to us), who arrived in the park around the tower as a group, fanned out, wary of the occasional police who would pass through, yet perhaps engaging in one of the kinds of work that such immigrants might be able to pick up. France alone has an estimated 5 million Muslim immigrants (some of course, children of earlier immigrants), and recently put into force a ban on women wearing clothing which cover their faces (one political response to fears about the growing number of Muslims from former French colonies--even though very few Muslim women actually cover their faces rather than only covering their hair).

We will soon be returning to the U.S. It may be an adjustment, in many ways and on many levels. I've been realizing that I haven't driven a car in well over five months, nor made or received a phone call, or gotten a letter. At the same time, I've been well-connected with the wider world through e-mail and the internet, and our lives have been materially comfortable, safe, and healthy.
We'll be returning to our "normal" jobs and lives, though perhaps to an America which is even more politically and economically strained than when we left, and we're reluctant to return to a presidential election which seems already to have started. But return we must, and we do look forward to seeing friends whose faces have long been absent from us. Bruce