Under the Parisian Sky | Naoyuki Agawa (Vice-President in charge of Shonan Fujisawa Campus)
2011.12.22
I visited Paris for the first time in ten years. A little over twelve hours after departing from Narita, Japan Airlines Flight 405 to Paris began its gradual descent for landing. Below, the rich land of Île-de-France spread out with its gentle undulations, dotted with settlements here and there. The French must have been cultivating this land since the Middle Ages. The appearance of the villages seemed to have changed little since that time.
The Boeing 777, with its flaps fully extended and tilted, descended further. Just as all the crew members were seated and the cars on the roads below seemed close enough to touch the aircraft, the approach lights of Charles de Gaulle International Airport came into view. A few seconds after entering the airport grounds, the rear wheels gently grazed the runway, and we touched down.
Although I frequently travel abroad on business, I have had very few opportunities to visit France. My destinations are mostly the United States, various Asian countries, and the United Kingdom. The last time I set foot in Paris was ten years ago, on my way to a speaking tour in Israel. I arrived in the afternoon and was scheduled to stay overnight at a hotel in the airport before taking an early morning flight to Tel Aviv, making it just a layover. However, since it was still light out, I took the subway into the city.
On the crowded train, I asked the man next to me in my halting French, "Where should I get off to go to Notre-Dame Cathedral?" He nodded and told me which station to get off at. I believe it was either Saint-Michel or Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame. The moment I got off, climbed the stairs, and stepped outside, the great cathedral of Notre-Dame suddenly appeared before my eyes. On a clear winter evening, under a pale ink-gray sky covering the Île de la Cité in the middle of the Seine, the magnificent cathedral soared.
Including that time, I have only visited Paris five times. The other visits were twice for tourism and twice for business. As each stay was only for a few days, I know almost nothing about this city. I have no acquaintances here. I don't know the language. Nevertheless, every time I visit, I am struck by what a beautiful city it is.
My first visit to Paris was about thirty years ago. During the summer break after my first year of law school in the United States, my wife and I bought Eurail passes and set off on a trip to Europe. We flew from Washington and landed at de Gaulle Airport. Carrying our bags, we took the subway from the airport, heading for the Gare de Lyon. We were scheduled to depart for Rome by train that night. However, in the vast metropolis of Paris, on our first subway ride, we had no idea where or how to transfer. Even when I asked people around me, "Où est la Gare de Lyon?" I couldn't understand their fast-spoken replies.
As we stood there, perplexed, a woman nearby came to our rescue, asking in English, "Where are you trying to go?" I explained that we needed to get to the Gare de Lyon first, put our trunk in a locker, and then walk around Paris until our train departed that night. This lady then went out of her way to accompany us to the Gare de Lyon, found a coin locker and showed us how to use it, and even guided us to the SNCF platform where the train to Italy would depart. On top of that, she wrote her home phone number on her business card and gave it to us, saying, "If you stop by Paris on your way back, give me a call. You're welcome to visit us at our home."
As it turned out, this lady was the wife of a judge, and the two of them had just returned from studying at Harvard Law School. She was nostalgic for America and said that Americans had been kind to her, which is why she was so kind to us, who had come from America (though we were actually Japanese). My American friends had told me that Parisians deliberately refuse to speak English and are unfriendly, but that wasn't my experience at all.
That night, we left for Rome by train and, in just two weeks, traveled through various places in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal: Florence, Venice, Ravenna, Assisi, San Gimignano, Genoa, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Madrid, Toledo, and Lisbon. We didn't plan an itinerary or book any hotels; we just wandered as we pleased.
After staying two nights at a guesthouse in Lisbon, we took an overnight train back toward Paris. On the way, we happened to meet a train-loving MIT student who persuaded us to wait two hours in Bordeaux to take an express train called the TEE. That was our mistake. By the time we arrived at the Gare d'Austerlitz in Paris, it was already past 11:00 p.m. I called about twenty hotels from a pay phone at the station, but there were no vacancies at all. A large international conference was being held, and everything was fully booked. A station employee told us we had no choice but to sleep in the waiting room. My wife was in a state of panic.
What should we do? Just then, a brilliant idea struck me: we could just get on another train to sleep. I checked and found there was an overnight train to Lyon. We took a taxi to the Gare de Lyon, shared a narrow compartment on that train with a good-natured Italian couple, and managed to lie down. We arrived in Lyon at 6:00 a.m. the next morning. We immediately jumped on a TGV departing from Lyon to Paris and were back in a sunny Paris by 9:00 a.m. I called a hotel on the Île Saint-Louis that an American friend had recommended, and they had a vacancy for that day. We took a taxi there right away. I felt a true sense of relief when we entered the room and put down our luggage. Thirty years ago, when we had this adventure, my wife and I were young. Thirty years younger than we are now.
This business trip to Paris was at the invitation of the French government. An organization called Campus France was holding a conference called "Journée Japon" (Japan Day) at the Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris to promote study in France for Japanese students. I was asked to give the keynote speech. They offered to cover my airfare and accommodation. It was a chance to revisit a nostalgic France. Although I had just been on a business trip to London two weeks prior, I adjusted my schedule and accepted the invitation. I then asked the Campus France representative to book the same hotel on the Île Saint-Louis where I had stayed thirty years ago. They graciously agreed, and upon arriving at de Gaulle Airport, I took a taxi to that nostalgic hotel.
The Île Saint-Louis is a small island in the river located next to the Île de la Cité, where Notre-Dame Cathedral stands. The city of Paris is said to have developed around a ferry service that operated here during a period in the Middle Ages when the Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis were merely sandbanks in the Seine. Compared to the bustling, tourist-filled Île de la Cité, the adjacent Île Saint-Louis, connected by a bridge, is always quiet, with only a single narrow street, less than 200 meters long, running through its center. Along this street, lined with a bakery, a butcher shop, a fruit stand, a cheese shop, a chocolate shop, restaurants, cafés, and an ice cream parlor, there are a few small hotels, one of which was my lodging.
This small hotel, said to be a converted 17th-century building, was almost unchanged from my memory of thirty years ago. A calm lobby, small but with a large sofa placed at an angle. A desk next to the entrance where one person sat, serving as the reception. A tiny elevator and a narrow, slightly slanted staircase. At the back, a small dining room for breakfast that would be full with eight people. The room was small, but the window overlooked a courtyard. Rafters ran across the ceiling.
When I went down to the dining room in the morning, they served a breakfast of a large pot of hot coffee, warm milk, orange juice, a pain au chocolat, a croissant, and a mini-baguette, along with eggs, yogurt, cheese, and ham. The café au lait, made by mixing coffee and milk half-and-half, was delicious. It reminded me of a poem by Jacques Prévert, "Déjeuner du Matin" (Breakfast), which I learned in a French class during my student days at Mita.
Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
He poured coffee into the cup
And poured milk into the coffee
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
He put sugar in the café au lait
With a small spoon
He stirred it
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler
He drank the café au lait
And put down the cup
Without speaking to me
Il a allumé
Une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
He lit a cigarette
And made rings with the smoke
He put the ashes in the ashtray
Without speaking to me
Without looking at me
Il s'est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
He stood up
Put his hat on his head
Put on his raincoat
Because it was raining
And he left
Into the rain
Without a word
Without looking at me
Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré
And I
Took my head in my hands
And cried
There was no one sitting in front of me, and there was no talk of parting, but the café au lait was still very delicious.
Of course, I didn't spend my entire time in Paris lost in reminiscence. I visited two leading French universities with which Keio has close ties and discussed future exchanges. I had a meal with a former colleague from my Washington days, who now works at the Japanese Embassy, at a small restaurant near the Champs-Élysées. On the flight over, and in my hotel room on the night of my arrival and the following morning, I frantically wrote an outline for my speech. And at the actual Journée Japon, I gave a thirty-minute lecture on the theme of "The Internationalization of Japanese Universities."
It is said that young people in Japan are becoming more inward-looking, but that is not necessarily the case. I feel they have changed somewhat, especially after the Great East Japan Earthquake. They want to see the world if they have the chance, and they want to test what they can do in it. As a university, we are eager to send them abroad. We want to send them to France, too. Even for a short period, we want them to see the wider world. We want them to make friends all over the globe. To that end, the university will do everything it can. That is what I talked about.
Since I was giving a speech in France, I thought I should deliver part of it in French. With that in mind, before leaving Japan, I had a French student studying at the Faculty of Science and Technology review my text, and I began my speech in French.
J’ai etudié le français pendant trois ans lorsquej’étais étudiant à Keio au Japon et à L’Université Georgetown aux Etats Unis. J’ai travaillé dursur mon français, particulièrement à Georgetownparce que ma professeur était une demoiselle très jolie et très attirante.Mais, Je n’ai pas passé assez de temps en France pour garder et améliorer monniveau en français.
When I said that, the French audience laughed and applauded. I wonder if they understood me.
Although my stay in France was effectively only three days, various scenes are etched in my memory. The many different cheeses of all shapes and sizes lined up in the cheese shop on the Île Saint-Louis. The festive atmosphere of the Alsatian restaurant near the Place de la Bastille where I had dinner with the people from Campus France on the night of my lecture. The old car of the Paris Métro I rode after slipping out of a meeting in the afternoon. The large lock on the canal beside the road near the university I visited. The unusually shaped transmission towers standing beside the highway to de Gaulle Airport. And the several charming French people I spoke with at the university, at the lecture, in dining halls, and in shops.
Although I studied a little French in my youth, I ended up studying in the United States and my ties with America deepened, so I never had the opportunity to study in France and never got to know this country well. Even now, here in Paris, I am nothing more than a stranger. If I had studied France more seriously, if I had studied abroad in France, would I have acquired a completely different education and culture, and made many French friends?
On the last night of my short stay, on my way back from dinner, I looked down from the bridge crossing to the Île Saint-Louis. Under the completely darkened Parisian sky, the Seine flowed, swirling on its black surface.
(Date of publication: 2011/12/22)