Why I'm attached to France
In January 2016, I landed on Nice. I was a mere 23 years old girl who didn't speak a word of French (I knew bonjour and merci, of course). What I had was some JPY equivalent to 6000 euros and courage. I often get asked why I chose France. I honestly don't have the exact answer. At that time, my ambition was to be a journalist who covered international affaires. I knew French language was widely spoken in the world. I met multilingual peers in the US, and many of them spoke French. Bilingual didn't seem to be sufficient in this modern world to compete with them. So young myself figured out that acquiring a third language would surely open the door of opportunity for her.
I also wanted to experience living in Europe. Coming from a countryside of Japan who's dreamed of seeing what she saw only in books, Europe was a completely foreign and fascinating destination. I travelled to Paris for the first time in 2014. I was a typical tourist taking a hundred of pictures of Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Montmartre, Musée de Louvre... Not knowing that 11 years later I'd call Paris home. I then headed to Morocco. In a plane going to Morocco, I heard a French passenger said "Excusez-moi". I went "wow I understand French! If I know English, French would be easy to learn." Aside from my naïveté, for a Japanese whose mother tongue is Japanese which has nothing to see with Indo-European languages, it was an eye opening experience.
1.5 years later, I bought a one-way flight ticket and flew to France with my heart beating fast.
Truth to be told, I didn't fell in love with this country immediately. Contrarily the pitfalls and bumps that I had to go through in a daily life made me want to return to Japan as soon as I completed French B2 class. I didn't have culture shock in the US (probably because I was at the West Coast where there were many Asian communities). But the first few months in France were full of surprises and challenges. Nothing worked as I expected for a developed country to work. I was coming from a country where its people are rigid, serious and punctual. Being respectful towards others are part of social customs. Everything was contrary in France. One of my French language teachers was eating an apple whilst she was giving her lectures. A UPS deliverer came to the house to ring the bell not to call me out but to leave an absence notification while I WAS at home waiting for my package. A cashier brusquely put my change on the counter while I extended my hand. A banker never smiled but only frowned. "I don't understand what she said, did you?" was a common phrase that was said behind me. Some were fair, some were outrageous to me.
What saved me and this sounds a bit too honest and harsh but I hardly heard a single positive reputation about France prior to my moving. Hence my expectation bar was set at the lowest. I didn't expect that people would be nice and helpful. I didn't expect that I would be accepted so easily. So I was ok to fight to prove. It was only frustrating when something uncivilised happened in one of, I thought, the developed countries.
As I started to be able to have conversation in French, things started to get better. And I loved that the feeling of coming through obstacles and challenges. And I think that's actually the reason why I feel so attached to this country. I fought tremendously in order to get to where I am today. I sacrificed, poured my heart into it, and worked harder than anyone thought possible. Not only language-wise but the efforts to get accepted by French society. France also gave me opportunities that no other countries could offer. Affordable education, housing support, beautiful cultures and history to explore.. I am truly grateful for that.
France holds my heart certainly not because of its glamorous and luxurious side or image. I've fought to claim the life I wanted and I got it. That's a personal achievement. I am more comfortable living in France than in Japan now. I use this metaphor to describe my feelings; Japan is my biological parents and France is my adaptive parents who actually brought me up. I can never dislike Japan. I am proud to be a Japanese. I don't want to change this identity. However I grew and evolved in France during my 20s, in a way that wouldn't have been possible in Japan. I feel that unexpectedly yet deeply an unbreakable bound had been built between me and France.
