On the French and the Parisian subway

The Parisian transport system is one of the best things I like about Paris. One can cross and criss-cross Paris easily, with out much of a problem. Built in 1898, it is considered as one of the oldest and most efficient transport systems in the world. Directed by RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens), the Parisian transport includes the services by bus (the best way to know Paris), Metro (trains travelling just inside the Paris) and the RER (the latest addition to the Parisian Transport System. Taking the Paris subway is like taking a cruise to the heart of the unique and colourful Parisian life.

One thing that baffled me though the first time I took the subway was that almost everybody in the train seemed to be angry with everybody else. I just couldn't make the whole sense of it, having been used to the disarmingly friendly smiles from our kababayans back home. During my first few days in Paris, I had a culture shock. I thought that I was in another dimension, probably in some forlorn planet called Planet of the Smug and that those poker-faced French commuters were probably programmed aliens ready to tear me apart and devour my insides. A friend once warned me that the French were cold and distant. No, cold was just an understatement, I thought- the French were dead.

I got it all wrong however. Most of my colleagues at the laboratory are French and after having known them that well, I can attest that they are very much like us Pinoys-alaskador and fun to be with. One of the common complaints I have heard about the French came from tourists I met on the subway. Not a few tourists thought that the French are rude and arrogant who hate Americans and anglophones and who spend the rest of their days whining why French is not the international language. This is far from the truth. La politesse is one credo the French take seriously. Rudeness is considered a sign of one being mal élevé (ill-bred). Even failure to greet a colleague "bonjour" at the start of the working day or to say "au revoir" when leaves for home could mean disapproval head shakes from the French and a repulsion that goes with it, "il n’a meme pas dit au revoir (he didn’t even say good bye)". And no, the French do not hate Americans. They hate American international policies. And for good reasons indeed. Who does not hate it when American leaders are turning the world into one American fiefdom while giving everybody an indigestion of both their Chicken McNuggets and their high-handed politics?

As for the French refusing to speak in English, this is not true at all. Many Frenchmen have a good command in English and if one meets somebody who does not speak English, it is probably because he really cannot articulate in English or he does not have the confidence to speak in it. And even if he knows English, why should he be obliged to speak in a foreign tongue in his own country? I had the same feeling when a former classmate from Manila dropped by in Dipolog for a worked-related visit. He complained about the tricycle drivers in Dipolog responding to him in Cebuano even if he would ask them in Tagalog. I told him that he should learn how to speak our own dialect because whenever we Mindanaoans visit Manila, we speak- or rather, we are forced to speak Tagalog. C’est logique, n’est-ce pas?

Anyway, one consolation one would have by riding the subway are the vagabonds and gypsies who play music inside the train wagon for a fee ("pour la musique, s’il vous plait"). These entertainers, who play either violin or accordion, provide colour to an otherwise monotonous and ordinary train ride. If I feel generous, I would sometimes drop a few coins on their plates, except when they play I Will Survive, which I must have heard more than a thousand times. In case you didn’t know, I Will Survive was the theme song of the French team when they won the 1998 Football World Cup in Paris and the Euro Football 2000 in Belgium (they lost on the first round of the recently concluded World Cup 2002, but that’s another story). Cashing on this, some vagabonds would play this song all over again until one reaches his tolerance limit. But the football-loving French, upon hearing this music, would squirm in proud reminiscence over their twin victories. One could then hear coins dropping on the plates. Very enterprising, eh?

During aux heures des points (rush hours) however, the subway could be- I consulted my thesaurus- "crowded," "congested," "packed like sardines". No, a packed of sardines will hardly do. A bottle of Spanish sardines made from my hometown Dipolog, is at least well-arranged and lined up facing the same rows. Passengers in the subways are none of that and they are closer to one another besides. One could perform a brain surgery with less contact than riding the Paris subway during rush hours. An important thing that I should mention here are the train controlleurs (inspectors) who prowl like lions in train stations looking for some potential victims. Once caught without a valid ticket, you have to pay a hefty fine on the spot, otherwise you are obliged to pay a larger amount later on. I was fined once a couple of years ago when I went beyond the ticket zone. Paris is divided into 7 zones and my monthly ticket was only up to the third zone. My French classmate, who lived in the fourth zone asked me come to his place and play petanque* with him. I wanted to buy a ticket for the fourth zone but my classmate told me not to worry since it was Sunday anyway and like most of the French during weekends, the controlleurs were probably hibernating in some places reading a good book or listening to a concert opera or sun-bathing in the parks. As fate would have it, I saw myself in front of a controlleur who barked at me and told me that since I went beyond my ticket limit, I had to pay the fine. I sighed as I handed out a hundred french francs.

*Petanque is one moronic sport similar to our own tumba-lata we used to play when we were kids except that in Paris and in other French cities surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, it is being played by adults and is considered a serious sport. They even had their World Championship just last summer with contenders mostly coming from- well, you’ve guessed it, France.