Bonjour de Montréal!
Some thoughts on traveling abroad (from last week when I was actually in Québec).
Let me set the scene for you: It’s raining (hard) in Montréal, and although I looked at the forecast many, many times before I left, I have remembered to bring an abundance of sweaters, a winter coat, a puffy, a baseball cap and my sunglasses. No rain coat. So, when I need to get groceries to fuel my self-imposed shut-in for my self-guided writers’ retreat, I put on the heavy coat and the baseball cap and brave the rain.
None of this is a huge deal because I’m never appropriately dressed for the weather, and I need to maintain my brand, but I am definitely getting soppy and cold. When I arrive at the grocery store in Little Italy that’s approximately a six-minute walk away, I enter to find a wonderland.
Aisles and aisles of pasta, the good mushrooms—ones that would be $20 for two in the States but here are $3 for an entire pack, homemade sauces, cheeses for days, bread that would prompt me to gesture “chef’s kiss” again and again, if I weren’t in a store with other people who didn’t need to use an Adidas hat as their main means of protection against precipitation. I go, in a word, nuts in this small grocer, and soon, my basket is heavy and full, and I’m balancing the persimmons precariously all the way to the checkout.
Now, most people know that Montréal is the French-speaking province of Canada. In recent years, I learned the day prior from my Uber driver, who speaks five languages, none of which are French, the government has put a tremendous focus on making French the primary language. It used to be that French and English were spoken somewhat equally. Not the case these days.
All Québécois are strongly encouraged to be Francophones, and there have been laws put into place to foster this, including a mandate that all children must be educated in French until the end of secondary school, unless they have an exception stating otherwise. In 2022, Bill 96 made French the official and common language of Québec. It has areas of compliance and penalties for non-compliance.
I’m aware of most of this as I head to the checkout with a ton of groceries and no bags in which to carry them home. I kick the conversation with the cashier off with one of the few French words I know, “bonjour,” have my credit card out and hope for the best.
I’m already the crazy soaking-wet American without grocery bags, so how bad could this possibly go? Except that the cashier doesn’t immediately clock me for a crazy American with minimal French language skills. He greets me and then asks me, I learn moments later, if I have any bags or if I need one.
I smile at his question. “I’m sorry?” I say, and he says, “Oh” and repeats the question in English. I tell him I’d like to purchase a bag, thank him in French, pay with my card and go merrily on my way. Even a couple years ago, though, I would have been distraught over this interaction, horrified that I was a stupid American who couldn’t communicate in the predominant language of the land. I’d beat myself up about it endlessly or, worse, I’d avoid going anywhere that wasn’t Spanish or English speaking, so I didn’t have to experience the discomfort of my ignorance.
But recently, I’ve had a shift in perspective that would have been handy when I was apologetically muddling my way through Thailand with horrible pronunciation and little to say. That perspective is this: If we believe ourselves to be pieces of shit for not mastering fluency in every single language of all the foreign places we want to go and experience, then people are going to treat us like ugly, dumbass Americans (or whatever nationality you are). But if we do our best, speak kindly and give ourselves a lot of grace, other people will mirror the way we act and treat ourselves. They will respond in kind.
And I think we should give everyone, including ourselves, the benefit of the doubt because we often have no idea what other people are really thinking. A couple days later, I went to the same grocery store to stock up on items that R. and E. would eat. They were joining me that evening, and I wanted to be able to feed my favorite weary travelers. When I reached the checkout, again with too many food stuffs but this time with a bag, I spotted the same cashier.
When he looked at me, it was clear he recognized me. I could have said to myself that he was thinking, “Oh, God, there’s that crazy American who doesn’t know anything,” but I stopped myself from doing that. Because he just as easily could have been thinking, “Oh, I remember her. She was nice.” And this time, I surprised us both by conducting the exchange entirely in French. Granted, I only said “bonjour,” “trés bien” and “merci” twice, but that was good enough. We came through the transaction unscathed.
A day earlier, before R. arrived with the Bean, he asked me how things were going. I responded by telling him that people spoke to me in French right off the bat, and I’d never been so honored. It was a joke. One, because everyone in Montréal is speaking French to everyone, regardless of whether they think they’re French or French-Canadian or not, but also because is there anything more flattering for an American woman than being misperceived as a French woman? That’s kind of the goal for us, isn’t it?
When I thought more about this, I realized that one of the main things preventing me from making my way to Montréal, a place I’d wanted to visit for a long time, and eventually Bordeaux in France, was the intimidation factor. In America, we often have this perception that French people collectively view us as crude and unsophisticated, overly prideful and expecting everyone to accommodate their dismal foreign language skills.
But I think the universe had been trying to get me to stop worrying about what French people might think about me for a long time. This is evidenced by the fact that every French and French-speaking person I’ve ever met or worked with has been one of the nicest humans I’ve interacted with, and somewhat humorously, they always seem to be apologizing for their less-than-fluent English…to which I always tell them that my French is much worse and thank them for speaking English.
So, I’ve mostly stopped self-flagellating for the things I don’t know. It would be one thing if I were demanding and demeaning when I went abroad, trying to insert myself into another place’s culture by being defiantly ignorant and expecting everyone to change for my comfort.
But I try my best not to do that. I learn some language basics for the places I’m going, and I work hard to be kind and patient and not immediately resort to English at the first sign of discomfort. I’ve also found that a few words and a lot of pointing and gesturing can get you very far indeed.
And if we want to give the most generous, bright-side interpretation of imperialism (which has, as you know, very few shining aspects), it’s that people from all over the world go all over the world and tend to communicate in the common language of English. It’s unfortunate that so many people have suffered for the English language to find its way around the world, but there’s an interpretation of that in which it has brought more people together. That it has allowed people from wildly different places who might never be able to communicate otherwise to connect in beautiful and profound ways.
At the end of the day, I believe travel is so important that we shouldn’t restrict ourselves on the off chance that we might make a few inadvertent cultural or linguistic blunders. We’re all out here trying our best, and we’ll never learn anything new if we’re so afraid to fuck up or be uncomfortable that we never go anywhere at all. The more we travel, the more compassion we have for others, often people whose lives look nothing like our own.
On that note, I’ll leave you with one last thought. The most comforting thing I ever read about travel was written by Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love. I couldn’t find the whole quote, so I’ll do a bit of summarizing. Ms. Gilbert starts by explaining that if there are adept travelers for whom everything goes well on their adventures, she is not one of them. If there’s a person who’s going to take the wrong train or be sold a ticket to a tour that doesn’t exist (or, as I have experienced, end up at a suit retailer when you’ve paid someone to taxi you around to the temples and monuments in Bangkok), it’s going to be her.
“I was not a natural traveler,” Gilbert writes. “I was, in fact, a terrible traveler, which meant that every single misstep, every wrong turn, every moment of confusion was an adventure in itself. Still, despite all this, traveling is the great true love of my life.”
“I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice,” she continues. “I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless, newborn baby—I just don't care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it's mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to—I just don't care.”
And none of us should care either. If we are determined to go, we should simply go and accept whatever weird, wacky and wonderful experiences come our way as a result. Our potential discomfort is a cost worthy of our potential growth. We don’t have to be natural travelers. We just have to commit.
With pleasure,
Bored Aquarian
P.S. In case you were wondering, the self-imposed solo writers’ retreat was a huge success. I finished the so-called “vomit draft” of my novel, and I’m so proud of myself I could burst. The next step is to clean things up and send it along to my one-and-only beta reader, my friend M., who I trust with my work (and thus my entire heart and soul).
M. is also a writer herself, so she gives incredible feedback based on what she knows I’m going for, which is a rare trait in writers, who might have their own agendas. All this is to say that I’m grateful for good people in my life, and I cannot fucking wait to share this book with you when it’s ready. Have a wonderful week!