assimilation

When I was sixteen, I found myself coughing up blood and phlegm—fire in my chest—trying to tell a doctor what was wrong. The trouble was, no French class ever told me the words for medical conditions and my hysterics (combined with total lack of vocal projection) made me virtually impossible to understand.

This was the turning point for me. After months of assimilating into the French culture, I felt truly foreign. For the first time, I felt alone.

I was in bed for a week, taking God knows what, and missing my friends. I had spent every night watching French television with my French mother, playing with Conton—who was 5--, and listening to French rap. I started saying “oui” while breathing in, just like my French father, and I dreamed in the language.

The first night out after being sick, we went to the triangle—a series of blocks containing all the nightlife. We took a cab instead of riding our bikes, maybe out of pity for me, and got dropped off at The Garage, a British pub.

Sitting together, maybe ten of us at the table, we decided to get a pitcher of Xcider. I went to the bar, ordered the pitcher in the required English, and headed back to the table. But I was stopped on the way by a group of British tourists who asked me for a “vrai” French girl’s take on something or other, and I tried to tell them I was American but they would hear none of it so I lied, gave them some story, and got back to my friends.

I’ll never forget that because it seemed unfathomable at that time that a person could take on cultural attitudes and affects without a conscious choice. And it’s the first time I thought about how we become who we spend our time with.

The next spring, my choir was touring in Austria, and the lot of us went to a dance club in Salzburg. As we went through the night, I was painfully aware of how we were—how loud, how rude, how American. And I thought about that night in France, having people think I was French. What had changed since then? Had I really reverted back so far, taking on all the negative stereotypes Europeans have of Americans? Or was it simply the company I was keeping?

I’ve often wondered this as I’ve gone from city to city. And I realize now that I make very conscious decisions and observations to blend more into the culture of a place, knowing that it is possible to become one more person in that world. It’s partly in our choosing people, friends and family, and partly in our following unwritten rules, but it is possible to assimilate into a culture.

I still miss that semester in France, and one of my goals is to go back there and live for as long as I can. Paris, I think, will always feel a little like home; and Pau, the city where I got sick, will always seem a little like where my best friend is from. I made France a part of me, and once you have that feeling it’s very hard to take away.

So why am I thinking about this now? I think it's partly because I don't want to assimilate into the culture of my current residence, partly because I'd really like to get an opportunity to travel, partly because I'm a little nostalgic, maybe partly, too, because I spent some time recently with a French woman. Regardless of my reasoning, it's an interesting thought process. Why do some people get on so much better than others?