10 comments

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  faboomama

  10 months ago

  I'm sorry it didn't work out for you there. This sounds a lot like what my sister is going through now. She's lived there since the end of '02 and can't wait to come back to the States. As a black American, it's extremely hard on her, though her (white) Parisian husband denies that anything is wrong.
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  banane

  10 months ago

  I think it's tough to see your hometown as a hard place to live. Because of that Paris incident I'm a lot more sympathetic to people who think SF is expensive, hard to live in, etc. It's like, yeah, if the city is getting you down it's probably not for you. But I woudln't have been as open-minded if I hadn't have tried to live in another metropolitan area, you know? I'm not sure how much of it has to do with Paris, per se.
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  faboomama

  10 months ago

  I get what you're saying. It's similar with LA. Some people have a hard time adjusting to it because they forget that everyone's a transplant and insecure. That combo + traffic makes for some flaky people. So we hear, "People in LA aren't friendly." and it's not necessarily true. And as time goes on, if I hear people bemoaning LA, I suggest they either move out of the city or out of the state. But it does seem a lot of your problems were uniquely French, or rather European.
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  banane

  10 months ago

  on another note- Hey I love this threaded Disqus comment, it's really working! First time I've had a real thread comment.
  
  In Paris one of my work advisors said- you're going to be miserable in any major city- and I thought long and hard about that, and realized it isnt' true because I'm quite happy in SF, but you're right that its' a lot about a European major city.
  
  Working on 2 posts (in my head): things I like about France
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  thinkspace

  10 months ago

  That's too bad you had such a tough experience there. I remember when I live abroad for a year and the money actually ran out. That was a pretty scary feeling. I also remember thinking, I better get my act together and study hard in college so I can get a decent paying job.
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  banane

  10 months ago

  So true, Peter. It's like my second hard money lesson of my life, at that time, and well learned!
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  Miriam

  10 months ago

  This is fascinating to read. I just went through a very similar experience in Scotland. Well, similar in that I (mostly) knew the language before I got there ;) but the culture and the people have such different values and a different way, not only of looking at life, but specifically at job applicants. And being American, so much is assumed about you before you even open your mouth.
  
  The job market in LA is that if you stay in one place for over 6 months, you're viewed as really dedicated to a company, but when I showed my CV to one lady in Edinburgh, she commented that I must not have liked that job so well, since I was only there for a year. I was dumbfounded. LOL
  
  I had to do the same thing, too-- look at my expenses and realize that what I would make would not cover what I would have to pay and that I was burning though my savings. That phone call to the airline nearly broke my heart, because I had wanted to go out there for 10 years, and was finally there ... and I failed.
  
  This was all two years ago for me, and to be honest, it's still a little raw. I guess it's just sort of comforting to know that I'm not the only one who went through this. :)
  
  Anyway, thank you for sharing your story.
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  rocco

  10 months ago

  interesting on the LA stuff. I agree. People are fine here... you just gotta get past that "LA front."
  
  i was sort of amazed reading your post about your experience in Paris. i look forward to the other parts... the good stuff as well !
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  Baronne Nadine de Rothschild

  10 months ago

  You always have a choice. A choice to make. A choice to react... or not. A choice to "see" beauty or the worse things in life. Some psy will say there is a "victim" acting that make the same people always be in trouble.... Everywhere they will be in trouble. Maybe it's not Paris, maybe it's you. Maybe it's the way you act and the way YOU see things. The most important things to do when you travel abroad, is to learn patience. Learn the culture. Learn people. Do you think it's easy to go/live in Japan? No. There is a "strong" culture there... You need to "change" yourself to adapt. If you don't want to change your personality, which is totally understandable, you need to stay in your "family", your area, your country. Then everything is easy.
  Anything else is complicated, we call that LIFE.
  
  Spanish are lazy, Americans are speaking too loud and they know everything on everything, Africans are slow and they like music a lot, Japanese are "cold", French are distant, how many "clichés" do you want more? Why France is the first destination for English people for retreat and for buying houses in the South of France? (and they "mix" perfectly with French people...)
  
  That's a lot of questions (and maybe the answers are into the questions..) we need to think about it before giving definitely an opinion on a such big subject.
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  Kate Something

  10 months ago

  But how wonderful that you’ve done this!
  
  I can definitely sympathize with your comment on your personality in French. When I just came to the US more than a decade ago, I too marbled at how I had become this “dumb, uninteresting mute.” My name in my native language and my name grossly mispronounced by the Americans seemed to represent two very different people. It was quite a traumatic experience. (I guess it’s fair to say I’m still struggling with the language and culture in the US, but the truth is that I had never been at home in Korea either.)
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