As I touched on in my last entry, one of of the greatest - and awe-inspiring - pleasures of living in France is hearing the gratitude that many French people have towards Americans. Most of us don't think of our nationality when we are on our own turf, but when you are living abroad you become acutely aware of where you come from, especially being a somewhat "controversial" nationality such as American. There is such a love/hate relationship that the world has with America. On one hand, it seemingly worship our culture, evidenced by its desire for our movies, music, television, clothing, mediocre hamburgers, corn-syrupy carbonated beverages and even our "image" in general. On the flip side, America is decried as the wanna-be "saviors" of the world and viewed as self-designated global police. I don't dispute the criticism but sometimes I'm like "Yeah! Kickin' ass and takin' names!". (I keep those sentiments to myself, obviously.)Often times in France, people really seemed excited and interested when they find out I'm American, especially in my area where there are not a lot of Americans. I was at the D-Day Museum in Caen (officially: The Caen Memorial for Peace) and was speaking to an elderly French woman about a video clip we were watching. Upon hearing I was American, she shook my hand and thanked me for what America did for France. My goodness, what can you say? You're welcome? It is so humbling, it makes me goose-bumpy just typing this. All around here we have reminders and roadside memorials of American soldiers that died on those spots and you just feel the history. I have adopted one that I pass off the highway near my home. Occasionally, I stop, right the flowers if they've tipped over and am going to replace the now-weathered American flag very soon. With all of the perhaps dubious offerings my country has bestowed onto the world, thinking of all these young men giving their lives for the freedom of people they didn't even know makes me feel really proud.
2 comments:
That, more or less, happened to me the other day at a simple Saturday market in l'Indre where my Paris Franprix shopping bag attracted the attention of a woman with the same bag, who just happened to have been born in the same arrondissement as my husband had been in Paris!
I notice that you haven't updated your blog since may and I wanted to say that I liked your posts. Hope all is going well in the Loire (?) et Cher. Stop by and holler at me.
I hope you keep updating your blog because you have avid readers.
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