My first year in Paris was terrible. Terribly bad. My days were filled with rudimentary French class and childminding. I didn’t hit it off with a troupe of African nannies who exuberantly took over all the benches at the local park with their double and triple prams. They chuckled at me chasing after my charge and my visible lack of authority. I learned that French kids ate chicken cordon bleu and learned nursery rhymes about bunnies and cabbages. I met a few fellow jeune fille au pairs and Japanese housewives at my obligatory French class, all with stars in their eyes about living in this great Capital of Beauty and Culture. But we were all mostly terribly bored and isolated. Things were tense with my host family. I had already lived alone for several years and it was difficult finding the right domestic balance who these people who were my both my bosses and housemates. I questioned the validity of my job when part of it included folding my bosses’ unmentionables. I spent my evenings out of the house just to give them space and to try to find my own place in this new city. Whenever I was sad or tired, my host mom would berate me with questions, asking if I was pregnant. It was like reliving the teenage years with a French stepmother steeped in her own assortment of insecurities and complexes. “You HAVE to learn French!” a friend insisted. “I am trying to!” I claimed defensively. I was trying to absorb the language and all the references, but total immersion was a downer. Why was I here? Why couldn’t I just do what was safe like go to grad school and start being a normal adult? I always knew I was an artist and probably wasn’t going to follow a straight-forward path, but this year was becoming a total waste of time.
Flash-forward 15 years and thank heavens I was able to find my own place in this deliriously difficult and occasionally hermetically-sealed-to-foreigners Capital City. Although I’ve acquired a good handful of French friends in all this time, my friendships with fellow Americans in Paris are like the warm hug of understanding you need every now and then, including forthcoming author of “The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time; A Memoir” Jane Bertch. Jane is a rare fellow true Chicagoan that I’ve met in the last decade. She is also the owner of La Cuisine Paris, the biggest non-professional cooking school in Europe. Her forthcoming book (*AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER HERE*) recounts the trying takes of moving to France and starting from the bottom up. Jane kindly asked me to illustrate the cover and interior of the book too so I’ve been on this journey with her for some time now.
Today I wanted to ask her some real questions about how she moved to Paris. Although it’s easy to pose with a selfie with the Eiffel Tower, there is so much more to living here than just that. We talk about identity, resilience and why you must preorder her book today.
Q: Jane, I can’t recall where I heard this but I heard a comparison of living abroad to an almost queer experience
. You have to dip in and out of different public-facing identities to find your place. I think what really discourages short-term “expats” is that your whole identity (your diplomas, your family credentials, your references) are completely erased when you move to France. You can gentrify yourself with a group of people from your home country, but integrating is a complete recreation of your identity. Any thoughts on this?
Well said Jessie! Finding ‘ones place and identity’ is a journey we all go on (and perhaps one that never really ends!) Moving to a foreign country where your reference points and anchors no longer exist, makes the experience all the more challenging. Almost 20 years later, I still struggle with trying to maintain my personal identity while identifying with the cultural norms of my new host, Paris and the people within. Rather than feeling outside of both countries, after all these years, I try to see myself happily in the middle. I have worked to adopt the ‘new’ while holding space for the ‘old’. Having said that, I believe this is a shared experience we all have when entering in to a new ecosystem. I like to think we are an ever evolving mosaic of the best things we choose to keep and patch together in this new version of ‘us’. While the little pieces of this puzzle rarely come together perfectly, when you step back an admire them in their totality, you often find a more beautiful picture to behold.
Q: I always thought I was way too sensitive and emotional, but finally I have built enough resilience to stay in France for 15 years. Any tips on how to build resilience?
Wow. Such a great question. Something I am faced with all the time – being resilient. I consider myself sensitive and rather emotional, but I see that my French friends are too! We just happen to be so in different ways, which of course means we express ourselves in different ways – even down to how we communicate! As an example, as a native English speaker where the cadence includes a ‘pause’ to wait for the other to speak, in French, this doesn’t really happen. So what I would interpret as rudeness or impatience, was just a cultural norm on communication. I had to teach myself to step back and reflect, and frankly not to take things so personally! My first step to building resilience is to understand how the world operates around me, and rather than be upset or sensitive to it, try to give space for it.
As person in business here in Paris, where expertise is valued above all, I’d add that resiliency is often paired well with persistency. Things do not always come easily here in France – but there is a one thing that helps to facilitate EVERYTHING. Relationships. And building those does certainly take equal doses of persistency and resiliency!
Q: We both know that books about Paris are a dime a dozen (we’ve both written them!). What is so different about your book “The French Ingredient”?
You are quite right. There are so many books, and each so unique in their view of this complex and beautiful city I now call home. But that is one thing I have come to learn, and love, about Paris. Each person has their own interpretation of her.
No surprise, my view of Paris is entrenched in my experiences here. I came for professional reasons, not because I loved or adored Paris (quite the contrary – I am very open to say that Paris was hard on me!) I do fuss about Paris. I do point out her blemishes. But I think when you come to know something (or someone) so intimately, you see the blemishes. And frustrating, and sometimes infuriating they may be, you learn to accept and perhaps even love them. So as I say in the book, I can complain about the US and France very much like I do my family, but you better not =).
So for those that might appreciate looking in to those experiences involved in living and building a business in Paris, then The French Ingredient will hopefully be a fun look.
Q: Jane, what advice would you give to your younger self about moving to Paris? Any resources to share with readers thinking of moving to Paris?
Assume you know nothing. Life is so much more exciting when you have something new to discover – something to pick up and look at it, and study very closely. Approach Paris with childlike curiosity. There are so many things to learn in this wildly diverse country, many of which take place below the surface.
Don’t assume that a cultural difference is anything more than that. We naturally look at communication styles, interactions, discussions with our own bias. You’ll save yourself a lot of heartache if you understand that things just operate different to your past experiences.
Time is important. Very little can be rushed in France. Not relationships, not procedures, certainly not dinners, nor should coffee with friends, etc. Do more than just accept it, savor it for its own beauty!
Thank you, Jane, for your wonderful insights!
Stay inspired, dear reader. And don’t drink the watercolor water. -jkw