Impressions of a local foreigner

When I undertake my annual transatlantic haul, I am all too content to finally get on the board of the plane, with or without dinner service, with or without 150 kg neighbours (as long as I am not in between!), with or without the window seat – simply because the procedures in France (and particularly flying out of Charles de Gaulle) is one’s worst nightmare, with no exaggeration. First, the airport which is located in the middle of timbucktwo and is naturally rather unconnected from the rest of the city. Add to this the check-in procedures and the security procedures the apparent objective of which is to prevent you from getting on that plane, without making you lose faith – at least until the last minute – that you will succeed in your mission to finally get to row x, seat y. Whoever directed 'Mission impossible' should have made it take place at Charle de Gaulle. Perfect setting. Consider the following scene:

Me (to the check in counter lady): Sorry I cannot lift up my suitcase to put in on the scale.
Her: yes, well…too bad
Me: (hinting that she might help me – an idea totally lost on her): is there not anyone that can help?
Her: you are funny, madame.

Now, I accept that sometimes I might be funny and normally would take it as a compliment, but somehow not under the circumstances.

Having succeeded to register, then there is the take-everything-off and throw-everything-out-ritual, and the start-your laptop-ritual (which naturally forces me to re-pack my suitcase while I am standing shoe-less and my purse has gone into the open on their lovely conveyor line). In essence, the familiar airport deal, just with no service but lots of attitude. I am trying to stay amused, but while I may well be amusing THEM, I am not finding this amusing at all.

On the return trip, leaving the immense Toronto Pearson which I am guessing was built on projections of it becoming the next JFK, I am thinking “this place is paradise on earth”. For me, the Toronto Pearson is like any decent Canadian house compared to the size of my French apartment – unusably large. This, coupled with its virtual emptiness, ease of passage and generally friendly employees – makes coming back to Charle de Gaulle a repeat of a nightmare for which I need serious psychological help. And yet, aside from all the logistics of it, I am normally happy to return to my status of a permanent foreigner in France, in return for my status as a temporary foreigner in Canada.

The first few trips I have made from France, I was still in my euphoria stage where just the idea of speaking English was a treat that I enjoyed, even at the expense of jetlag, relatively bad food, and the shock of seeing crocks for the first time. This time, the shock came from the question from a salesperson in response to my relatively straightforward request try on some shirts: “where are you from?” And here I was, officially a foreigner - again. I quickly considered the option of trying to explain to her the whole deal on my origins (too complicated and anyways she would have thought Ukraine is a city in the States or something along those lines). So I randomly babble out one word – France - which solicits the usual reaction along the lines of “oh, this is wonderful, you are so lucky!”.

I take my shirts and wonder along to my cabin wondering how can she know whether France is wonderful or not - after all, I could be living in some destitute village picking tomatos? Ps. Tomato pickers please don’t be offended, it just does not seem like a dream job for me. Tomatoes aside, this bring me to the moral of my story: despite the obvious difficulties of life in France (sufficiently highlighted by my airport comparison), and contrary to the common impressions of shirt salespersons, I was only too happy to be back to this side of the Atlantic where I am definitely a more obvious foreigner and where not many even bother to inquire as to where I am from because the very realization that I am from somewhere (ie. not French) is rather obvious (beyond three word sentences) and therefore does not interest anyone.

That being said, a realization that dawned on me is what matters more in this whole affair is not whether others see you as a foreigner, but whether you yourself see you as one and this latter requires point a consideration of what is important to you as a social context. Though I should by all objective criteria feel more ‘foreign’ in France, I could not help but think that this is somehow not the case. After all, home is where you decide to make it, perhaps minimizing or ignoring the differences between you and all the rest. And while to colleagues, friends and just nobodies here I am a confused Canadian, to me, I am a little French, at least for the moment. Which leads me to conclude that one can be ‘at home’ as a local foreigner and ‘abroad’ as a local traveler, all at the same time.