Follow the adventures of Liesha Stone –a sister trying to make a new life in the city of love, Paris. This week Liesha discovers that a radical change in appearance is definitely a faux pas…
It’s been two months now since I stepped across the Channel, but although I am only 400 miles from London, it may as well be 4,000. There are many things I am beginning to love about Paris, from the great cheap public transport to the relaxed café lifestyle, where work is something you do inbetween socializing. Unlike New Yorkers, Parisians believe you work to live rather than the other way round, and with the 35-hour week many people – myself included – manage to take most Fridays off. Also, for some reason, the weather is so much better here than in London; yes, it’s cold, but the sun is out and the sky seems always blue, encouraging people outdoors to enjoy the delights of Paris, which is a blessing, considering the size of my flat.
However, every time I feel I am starting to get a handle on the French and their view of life, they seem to throw in a curve ball just to unsettle me and send me off balance.
A case in point: I have discovered that the French love – no, it’s more than that – they need conformity. I realized this after a rather embarrassing episode. After my first week at work, I decided to dye my hair orange for fun – a mild shade of orange, but orange nonetheless. Now, I expected a few looks of surprise on Monday morning, but when I was met by a procession of jaws hitting the floor as I entered the office, I started to wonder if I had gone a little too far. It took me exactly three minutes to get a definite answer. At the speed of light, news of my hair colour had travelled from my office on the third floor all the way up to senior management on the 18th, and I was summoned to make an immediate appearance in my director’s office. Shit.
I was told in no uncertain terms that I looked ridiculous and, as I was expected to meet clients, I would bring shame on the company. The French don’t hold back – I had not had such a dressing down since I got caught cheating back in fifth grade. I was told to leave the office and come back looking respectable, and that was that – no sign of the great French art of diplomacy there.
As I returned to my office to get my bag, my PA Cristelle came running up to me in tears: she had also been strongly reprimanded for not schooling me well enough. We left the office together and went to a café, where she explained to me one more rule. But this one was simple: fit in and do not stand out. Unlike Britain, where eccentrics are welcomed and appreciated, here individuality is frowned upon. This conformity extends to people of different cultures and races. They can only get along in France if they abandon their cultural vestiges and adopt and embrace the French way of life. Simply put, multiculturalism does not exist in France.
For example: you will not find a brother with dreadlocks with a job anywhere in Paris – believe me, I have looked. Dreadlocks, I now realize, are too much of a statement of cultural identity. The French only accept one culture, their own, which they believe is the best. You either conform or you’re socially and professionally ostracized. Companies and society try to screen out any individuality, but here’s the contradiction. The French adore certain aspects of these other cultures. I have never been to any western city where I have heard so much Arabic, African and jazz music being played in its bars and clubs. In fact, I was amazed to find out that American hip hop’s second-biggest market after the US is right here in France, and they do not even speak English.
They also have a far greater appreciation of African and Arabic art than the British, with vast wings of some of their museums given over to it.
So how can they love some aspects of other cultures while forcing them to assimilate into French culture when they move here? This is the thought that was running through my head alongside the black hair dye as I tried to regain “respectability”.
I may be able to speak the language, but it is going to take me some time before I understand the French.
