It's three weeks now. Without much blogging, to be sure. Too many things to do, too many diversions. But now I'm here, finally, with enough stuff to keep you busy for the next ten minutes.
After a short stay in Lyon with an interesting and attentive host, Eric, I moved on to Aix-en-Provence, where I stayed for the next ten days. It gave me a bit of time to get acquainted with the language and culture (the couchsurfer-culture as well as the French culture in fact).
The first week was a bit disappointing. The weather hadn't been that bad in a while. It was constantly raining and it was cold. And although I didn't really complain that much, I had to listen to others complaining, and that was equally bad. "Il pleut" means besides "it rains" also "he cries," and I had more trouble with the latter to be honest. Towards the end of my stay I had some good times nevertheless, with some female hosts and their friends. Didn't have any sex though. But I met a lot of people who could have easily been close friends - if my life had run just a little different.
Friendship is important. It seems almost too trivial to articulate it. - Almost, but not quite. I also noticed that a lot of French people turn their head right first, when they kiss you to greet. One right, one left, that's how it goes. Sometimes another one follows, but that depends on the region you're in. Intercultural differences are interesting, but hey, let's not make it too formal. What is kissing for, anyway? Yes, let's go back to that friendliness thing.
At first I hesitated quite a bit to do the things I usually do. I didn't saw it as appropriate: I wanted to be polite. In Avignon I had some great conversations about this topic. I stayed with Yannig, in his beautiful apartment next to the place where some dissident Pope lived. (A boring story in fact: but the main thing is that they built half a bridge; and now you can walk to the middle of the river for 4,50 euro.) But Yannig and I talked about people who are so polite that it makes others feel uncomfortable. I agreed with him that it's better to act familiar, to act as friends, instead of adopting some guise of politeness, that imitation of good company that unmovingly follows prescriptions of appropriate conduct. Let's just assume we are friends, assume respect, assume trust, and act familiar.
What I learned from my stay in Aix-en-Provence is well summarised in this. In particular when it comes to money, generosity is often thought very formal, as if the exchange has to involve concrete valuta in both directions. - "I am generous because it benefits me on long term." But exchange loses it's property of social interaction, of being an interaction of opinions and beliefs, an interaction of values and interests. And it stops being valuable, it stops being enriching, - unless in that one, narrow sense. "I host you if and only if someone else will host me later."
When staying with Yannig in the city of the famous unfinished bridge, I met two Canadian couples, other couchsurfers. I had some great conversations. I was delighted to move my tong in a way in which my thoughts were habituated to move. Yet after our encounter I did notice a kind of residual discomfort, an intellectual discomfort in fact. I wondered what travellers like us, more specifically, what world travellers valued the most: the contact with the local inhabitants or the contact with their fellow travellers? Because, in the end, a traveller can identify himself/herself far better with another traveller than with someone who just came back from working four hours in a kitchen, or with someone who is in his last year of high school, who hadn't had the chance to travel all that much. Is all that talk about 'experiencing the world thought the eyes of others' just an empty rhetoric? In the end, travellers experience travelling - locals experience their local culture: we might need to keep these two apart.
In Avignon I didn't found a clearcut answer, that's sure. It's a tourist city, it is beautiful yes, but it seems to lack real public places: real, public, places, beyond their superficial simulation of antiquity. Montpellier is completely different. It's modern, hip, tendy, young, it's different. I'm in a place where I seem to be able to stay as long as I want. They say that I'm friendly. - I try to be so, too. I made my six hosts a spaghetti alla bolognaise today for example. And they loved it: they didn't just said so to be polite.
Politeness can be seen as a form of economy, it seems. An economic mind shall agree that someone that cleans the house, fills the refrigerator, cooks, and washes the dishes, is good company. Those things can be considered to be criteria for politeness. It gives the economic mind reasons to say that he is in good company. After all, having reasons makes one strong in social discourse. But it doesn't make you any friends though... It lacks the sincerety, it lacks that seductive capacity that makes you want to go beyond criteria, beyond norms and models.
So let's forget the norms for appropriate conduct, let's act like home, and let's have fun with these people who are here now today. It might turn out that we've become friends.
