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My invitation to China came from a classmate at Harvard. She taught English in southern China for the month of July and invited me to explore the north with her ‘because it would be easier to travel with a Westerner’ (she was born in Manchuria and moved to California when she was ten). I assumed this meant she – a petite, pretty Asian – would feel unsafe traveling alone. But I was a bit confused: I may be tall, but was I really the best choice for a bodyguard?

My martial arts skills were never called for. In fact, I felt more comfortable walking down the street in China than I do in continental Europe, where any woman with two legs, no feathers, and possessed of a soul* can count on unwanted attention. Foreigners, especially, are treated with immense respect. Whenever I was on a crowded train or bus, people would insist I take their seat. This giving spirit does not, however, extend to the marketplace. Foreigners with their favorable exchange rates are the natural prey of knockoff-Burberry-clad merchants. I only narrowly managed to escape buying a ‘Rolex’ worthy of a French President.

We joined the obligatory herd of tourists at the terracotta army outside of Xi’an before catching a fifteen-hour train ride to Tai’an, a town in Shandong province south of Beijing. The train was basic: six boards intended to function as beds to a compartment, a hole at the end of the car for a toilet, and a fan which probably last functioned under Mao for ventilation. Sharing our compartment were a middle-aged man who snored, a Blackberry-toting businessman, and two shirtless boys who stared at me for hours at a time. And I thought the businessman in Common Class would have been a more unusual sight.

Two days in Tai’an were spent climbing on foot and descending by cable car Tai Shan, the ‘first of the five sacred mountains in China’. Taking to heart the posted warning ‘Obey the rules and have a good trip’, we mostly stuck to the path, which has been a pilgrim route since before Confucius’s time (571-489 BC) and is dotted with ancient temples and dramatic carvings on seemingly inaccessible cliffs. The last .2 kilometers – of 10.7 – of the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ had 1600 steps, a fact I would have been happier to learn in retrospect. Suffice to say it was a good workout.

We moved on to Qingdao, an old German colony with one of the most unappealing beaches I have ever seen: brown, rocky and weed-strewn, tidepools that smell more like cesspools, and a horizon dominated by ill-conceived modern architecture.  We stayed for two days, and I headed back to Beijing on my own. On my way out of the city, I marveled at its size: it seems like there are enough skyscrapers to house all the jobs in the world. And yet there are cranes everywhere – dormant while the city struts its stuff for the Olympics, but ready to roar back into action. Celtic tigers and lions notwithstanding, it is hard to imagine a future not dominated by the Chinese dragon.

* Reading: Candide

It is said that he who tires of London tires of life. She who tires of Madrid has reason. If the intermittent wind blowing stale, 110 degree heat across your face doesn’t get to you, the smoking and the local’s propensity for public urination might.

Don’t get me wrong: for all its squalor, Madrid is an unforgettable city. Each of three big museums - the Prado, the Reina Sofia, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza - has a collection that would be worth a detour on any European trip. For those who would rather eat pig’s ears than be stuck looking at paintings, you could get them, served with salt, in any bar, along with an endless list of foods more or less deserving of the term ‘delicacy’. And while at that bar, you might make the acquaintance of a talkative of Madrileño/a, as the people of this city are generally friendlier than car salesmen. He or she might offer to show you the city, and you might find yourself arranging to meet at 2am, when the heat of the day has subsided to a comfortable 85 degrees. And then you might get an inkling of what La Movida was like. Or is like, depending on your interpretation: some people contend it’s still not over. The movida was an outbreak of joyful hedonism in the years that followed the death of Francisco Franco, the dictator whose oppressive, repressive rule defined Spanish life for nearly half a century (1939-1975). I imagine it as the Weimar Republic without the sense of impending doom.

Joyful hedonism notwithstanding, I got tired of Madrid. I spent the last weekend of July and the first weekend of August in Burgos and Basqueland, respectively, and took my summer vacation from my summer job in China. WIth a nod to the fact that this blog is supposed to be about living and working in Europe and similar disrespect to chronology, I’ll start with China.

The smog is not very noticeable, thanks to draconian measures taken by the government in the weeks leading up to the games. Beijing’s legendary traffic is likewise gone. The only vehicles on the road seem to be official Olympic transport (usually ominous black Audis with tinted windows that zoom by on the reserved lane on every highway), buses, or taxis. The taxi drivers generally have no idea where they are. Telling them a landmark like, say, Tiananmen square will not do; you must provide an intersection and optimally directions. You cannot buckle your seatbelt because there is a nice white cover with the Olympic logo on the seats. Public transport, by contrast, is a dream: the metro (which four years ago had two lines and now has 13) is spotless and equipped with TVs which endlessly broadcast whatever sport in which China is currently doing well. I have seen the synchronized diving enough times to have the entire routine memorized and might have memorized the shooting were it not so incredibly boring. And am I the only one to be disturbed by the fact that the average age of the Chinese gymnastics squad seems to be around 7?

Smog might be lessened, but the city does feel like it’s been engulfed in a cloud. The humidity is through the roof and visibility is ten New York blocks or so. Which makes the seemingly temperate temperatures miserably hot. If it weren’t tonic to my lungs after Madrid weather, I would be more bothered by the fact that my shirt is soaked through after a five minute walk.

I managed to get tickets to the quarterfinals and repecharges of the rowing events held on the 11th from a friend. While waiting to meet with her, I talked to one of the Olympic volunteers, who spoke excellent English. He wanted to convey how much China wanted to be respected and open to the rest of the world. I told him I’d had a wonderful time and everyone had been incredibly friendly (true) and it seemed like the Olympics had brought a lot of positive change. But I also heard that 300,000 people were forcibly displaced from their homes to make space for the Olympic green with its iconic Bird’s nest and AquaCube. ‘I think they would tell you they were happy to move,’ he said. I was skeptical, and said as much in an email I sent to my rowing teammates back at Harvard. But one of them, an ABC with lots of family back in China, informed me my suspicions were baseless:

‘It is very clear to me that though there are likely
exceptions, most Chinese people feel that they have won the lottery
when they are informed that the government (or some business) wants to
take over their property. The reason is that they are often
compensated to ridiculous excess. For all of the Chinese government’s
problems (and we are all aware that there are many), it does refuse to
force the people from their land. Business people are often upset
because the Chinese citizens usually don’t actually have formal rights
to the properties (though many of them built their own houses and have
families who have lived in the same place for generations- it brings
up good questions about ownership). There have been many cases of
Chinese citizens refusing to sell their properties to the government
until they are offered an amount that is satisfactory to them. That
amount is generally unreasonably high. If the people who gave up
their properties in Beijing for the construction of the Olympic venues
were able to get good compensation, then it is definitely possible
that they weren’t terribly upset to move. And the fact that they can
tell their friends that the Cube and the Bird’s Nest was built on
their land will probably give them immense pride- an extra benefit.’

I narrowly missed seeing the US women’s 8, stroked by Caryn Davies, a Radcliffe alum, coast to first in their heat, which lets them bypass the repecharge and proceed straight to the semifinal. They went on to win the gold, but failed to set a new world record, which they have both of the last two years. This is by no means a measure of athletic incapacity: in rowing, weather can make or break even the strongest set of oarsmen. A strong tail wind, ie wind going in the same direction of the racing, will boost speed, but make the boat less stable, which means that a well-balanced, technically expert crew stands a good chance of making a record.

I did get to see Michelle Guerette, the US women’s single sculler and Radcliffe athlete, coast to an easy first in her quarterfinal and then saw her chief competition, the Belarusian Ekaterina Kaarsten, ‘beast’ her heat, as some might say. In the semi-finals on Wednesday, Michelle led her heat for nearly the first 1750 m (out of 2000) of the race but was passed by a Chinese sculler with one of the most fantastic sprints I have ever seen, no doubt aided by the roar of the Chinese in the stands by the finish line. Both first and second place progress to the final, however, and I had a hunch Michelle was saving her fireworks for the more important race. Kaarsten likewise finished second in her heat. Sure enough, Michelle went on to an impressive silver to Bulgaria’s Rumyana Neykova, the current world record holder, and Kaarsten gained a bronze to add to her golds from Atlanta and Sydney. Another highlight was seeing the Winklevoss twins, the Harvard grads who contracted Mark Zuckerberg to program a facebook-like program called ‘ConnectU’ only to have him procrastinate and then publish his own version. They might not be billionaires, but stood a chance at being medalists, thanks to a spectacular last 500 meters that saw them surge from 9 seconds behind the leader and fifth in their heat (out of six) to second in their heat. They ended up placing sixth in the final.

I spent the evening after racing with a rowing coach I met in the stands and a friendly group of British men who live in Beijing and coach football. The semi-native Beijingers took us to two of their usual haunts in the center of town. At the first I ran into a friend from the church choir I grew up singing in. I seem to have a knack for this kind of thing (see ‘Why not?’).

After Beijing, I went traveling with a fellow Harvard student and Chinese native. We spent the first two days in Xi’an, which was the capital of China for, oh, 13 dynasties or so. Highlights include the city walls - 59 feet thick at the base, and still nearly perfectly intact, though they were built in 600something. Evidently the Chinese make better walls than Europeans. Or maybe Europeans are just better at breaking them. We also visited a sacred Buddhist pagoda that was cracked in an earthquake in the fourteenth century, and then seismically restored to perfection by another earthquake in 17something. Feeling holy, we continued with a mosque built in 742 - that’s 110 years after the Hegira, which marked the founding of Islam. Those Muslims traveled quickly. Seeing the religious buildings highlighted an interesting difference between Western and Eastern cultures: while many of us Westerners seem so preoccupied with religion that we see the world coming to a catastrophic battle between Islam and Christianity (Clash of Civilizations, anyone?), the Chinese have managed to exist for a few millennia absent any significant religious conflict, at least until the Cultural revolution. From the peasants to the emperors, they have been happy to identify themselves as Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and seemingly any other thing that came along that encouraged them to better themselves. And often multiple religions at the same time. My aunt’s take:

‘I’m not well versed in Asian religions, but I do know that Confucius stressed the collective over the individual (ie, family is more important than the individual; community trumps family; and state trumps community ) so an individual’s relationship with a higher being has little importance in one’s daily life in China. Actually, what an indivdual thinks, period, has little to do with affairs of state. By contrast, the three monotheistic religions in the West (Christianity and Islam, and their ‘parent’ Judiasm) stress an individual’s ties to God, so religion perhaps has greater importance to the average person in the West than it does in the East. We take it personally and emotion plays a role, hence our fuse is shorter when fervently held beliefs collide.’

To be continued.

I went to a concert last Thursday with Maria, the girl who owns my apartment. The group, Marco Fernandez and the Backstabbers, consisted of a translator as lead vocalist, two of his friends from school on guitar and drums, a pretty brunette who occasionally pushed the keyboard to no audible effect, and a bassist who looked like a cross between Ted Kennedy and Jack White.

The club was misty with smoke: the ban which has recently illegalized the sacred pasttime of smoking in a French café has not spread as far as the Iberian peninsula. Marco Fernandez spent much of the forty minute set pulling up the back of his jeans, which despite being stretched like the skin of a chorizo across his thighs kept sliding downwards to reveal shiny black boxer briefs. He also occasionally fell on his knees and started beating the floor, all the while shouting into the microphone with the intensity of a Spice Girls fan on the reunion tour. He sang in a Spanish-accented English which I found almost incomprehensible, except for the word ‘quiver’, which he used more often than I imagined necessary. I asked Maria why he chose to sing in English rather than his mother tongue.

‘It’s the only way to be famous, really. And why make music other than to be famous?’

I thought that was a novel idea. In my world, you make music either because you love it or as a way to stave off the reality of going into a 9-5 job for as long as possible. But Maria was getting at a crucial point of Spanish pop culture: most of it is American/British import. Britney is still getting plenty of airtime over here, along with her evil twin Amy Winehouse. Operacion Triunfo, the Spanish version of Pop/American Idol, was nearly won by an American, and almost all the songs on the show were in English. Clothes with English graphics are clearly hip, regardless of what they say: I saw a girl on the way to work this morning wearing a shirt that said ‘Push fashion enchantment doors blister future,’ which either holds deep mystical significance or shows the inefficacy of online translators. In a twisted way, it makes me feel better. We Americans have spent our entire history trying to emulate and improve upon European culture; it’s strangely satisfying to see them return the interest.

But back to Marco Fernandez and the Backstabbers. Jack White/Ted Kennedy was a friend of Maria’s, and he came to hang out with us after the concert. I asked him his name.

‘Me llámo Emmanuel, pero puedes llámame Mortimer, o Señor la rata,’ he said, and growled at me. Literally, he growled.

‘Did he just say his name was Emmanuel, but I should call him Mortimer or Mr. Rat?’ I asked Maria.

She nodded. ‘He’s so cool. He’s the best of the Backstabbers.’

It turns out Maria has a rock band too. She told me something about it one of the first nights I was living in the apartment, but, with my lack of proficiency in Spanish, I thought she said she was trying to form one. Which made sense, given the sort of sounds I heard coming from their rehearsals in the room down the hall. I’ve never actually heard a stuck pig, but it might sound similar.

So it was with some trepidation I went out to Nasti, the club where Maria’s band (Maria Teresa and the Double-Crossers? I didn’t catch the name) was playing, last Saturday. They put on a good show, though, if you keep in mind the theory of public presentation that seventy percent is how you look, twenty percent is how you sound, and ten percent is what you say. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on the words, they were eighty percent of the way there.

I didn’t meet Alberto, my Italian roommate, until my third day in my new apartment.  He’ll be continuing a master’s in political science this fall but is waiting tables for the summer.  It’s not unusual to go out for dinner at 11pm here in Spain, so I assumed he got home well after I go to bed.  Sure enough, I ran into a stranger with an aggressive case of bedhead on Sunday afternoon.

In the ensuing conversation, I learned that Alberto was well-traveled.  He’s visited much of Europe and has been to New York, San Francisco, LA, and San Diego.  I asked him what he thought of the States.

‘I like New York, but California me encanta.’

This is a phrase I love: [California] enchants me.  What about Miami, though?

‘Well, I like Miami, but.. don’t get me wrong, yo no soy racista, pero hay tante cubanos allí.’ I’m not racist, but there are so many Cubans there.  Then he grimaced and waved his hand as if to imply that Elián Gonzáles and all his brethren were akin to a new kind of algae invading the Miami beaches.

A week later I met a Spanish man, Pablo, in the Retiro park behind the Prado.  We got to talking about the upcoming US Presidential election, and he asked me who I was voting for.  I told him I hadn’t decided: I think both candidates are interesting prospects.

‘Yes, but you know, Obama is black.’

I had been expecting a slur on Republicans, a comment about McCain’s age, or a sort of thin-lipped disapproval at my indecisiveness.  What exactly did he mean?

‘He’s just not really American.  What you Americans need is a new Kennedy.’

I said I didn’t understand why being black made Obama un-American, and countered that many people were calling Obama a new Kennedy.

‘Yes, but Kennedy was Irish, and Catholic.’

Now I was really confused.  Obama is not American because he is black and Kennedy was American because he was Irish.  I asked Pablo to clarify.

‘Yo no soy racista, pero… Let’s just say it would never happen in Spain.’  I’ve been warned that you can never change a Spanish man’s mind about two things: football and politics.  I tried to reason with Pablo anyway.  But: ‘ You don’t understand.  I work with a lot of black women.  Yo no soy racista, pero son todas putas.’  The conversation was going nowhere.  We moved on to bullfighting.

Racism, like religion, is one thing I’ve never been able to understand.  Much less the kind of self-righteous disclaimer that Alberto and Pablo use - yo no soy racista - as if beginning a sentence that way can cancel out the way you end it.  It’s like saying ‘I’m Spanish, but I think Germany should have won the European Cup.’  It just doesn’t make sense. 

Why can’t we all just get along?  Maybe if there were more people like Matt Harding …

My last semester in Paris taught me that the worst thing I can do is take myself too seriously as a researcher. I showed up in Paris, ready to write a Social Studies junior paper about race in France (something, anything within that giant area of study), armed with contacts I had made while at Harvard. I met with a number of professors, took sociology classes at French universities, then I angsted for a month. Then another month. I was stuck: Where was my magical, fascinating research topic? What was my contribution to the not-yet-existent field that was race in France?

Turns out, said field was already budding, and that’s what I ended up studying. I looked at books with the word “race” in the title since the 1990’s to study trends in its usage. (Side note: race is a very taboo word in France, except in relation to the US e.g. “They are so obsessed with race,” or colonialism, so it is a bold move for a French author to frame it as a pertinent contemporary issue.) Not a groundbreaking study, per se. 20 pages really isn’t that grand of a paper. But I finally realized I was not writing a book, and chose an interesting and remotely feasible topic.

So this time, even with a more serious intellectual endeavor—a senior thesis—I have to remember that, at the end of the day, I am still a student. Though I may find interesting results, they will be humble, and Paris is also a great place to just enjoy life. If you let go of expectations, something serendipitous might just fall into your lap. Then, maybe I’ll finally know what I’m writing about!

I should probably mention that I am interning for a film company. Slingshot Studios, an independent UK firm. They produce films digitally (as opposed to on film) with budgets between one and two million pounds. They are beginning production on “Tormented”, a teen horror movie. In weeks to come, this film will make me live life between Birmingham and London. Currently, as one of six people in the production office, I assist in a variety of tasks, including (but not limited to) making tea and coffee.

I should probably mention that they do not have propper coffee machines in the UK. As brits spend most of their time sipping tea, even places where you would definitely expect a coffee machine (ie, a film studio) lack one. Instead, they have a device called a “press pot”, which is merely a glorified jar with a strainer. As if I were making coffee in, I don’t know, 1885, I add boiling water to coffee grounds and use this device to strain the coffee. Baffles my mind.

That is not to say I only make coffee and serve lunch. I also occasionally clean and move boxes. Ha. My other duties include writing script analysis, and certain special projects. This week’s “special project” is to transcribe a series of british animated cartoons, so that the transcribed script can be sent to translators and subtitled with foreign languages for international distribution. Although I am not really sure how “bullocks”, “rubbish”, and “bloke” will translate. Among my other jobs is professional mover.

This week, we moved offices from Ealing Studios to Edgware Road. Now, instead of sharing offices with the cast and crew of “Prince of Persia” (Jake Gyllenhal, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, the new Bond Girl), we share offices with an UK independent record label (which is almost as cool). Each situation had its perks. Last Monday, my first day on the job, I witnessed Alfred Molina wreck his Aston Martin in the Ealing Studios parking lot. This week the independent record label put me on the guest list for a White Denim concert. White Denim, I am told, is the next great american rock band.

Oh, my bag finally arrived. Two weeks late. Nonetheless I am thankful to have all of my stuff back.

Until next time.

TH

My last night in Paris, I unexpectedly ran into an old friend at a club.  Perhaps unexpectedly is an understatement.  I last saw the man three years ago when we were singing in the choir of the American Cathedral in Paris.  I assumed he and his wife and two children had long since moved back to the land where they drive on the wrong side of the road and spend an hour and a half making tea, from whence they’d come on a two-year appointment for his wife’s job. 

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked non-judgmentally.

‘My work mates and I are out on a lash’ – a lash, translated into American, roughly being a memorable night of drinking which, in all likelihood, you won’t remember – ‘because Giles here is moving to Gambia to teach English.’

‘That’s fantastic,’ I said, and turned to Giles.  ‘Are you going through World Teach? Or some organization like that?’

Giles giggled, and I realized he was probably a little ivre. ‘Why, then? Why Gambia?’

‘Why not?’ he countered, took a sip of his beer, and came up with a foam mustache.

Why not, indeed.  I’ve decided to appropriate Giles’s moyen de vivre for the summer, which may help explain my apartment search.

I stayed my first few nights with the fiancée of a friend from home, but mindful of the adage that fish and houseguests go bad after three days, I had my eye out for a place of my own. Compared to most capital cities, Madrid is very affordable: a centrally located studio runs in the 450-700 € range, and a room in a shared apartment can be as low as 250 € a month.  I scoured a few Craigslist-type websites and narrowed my search to five habitacions (rooms in a shared apartment) which were reasonably priced and a comfortable distance from work.

I looked into the cheapest first.  It was in the heart of Chueca, the gay district, where shirtless men with the kind of muscles only elsewhere seen in Roman statuary can be found in abundance at any time of day or night.  With my limited (but improving!) Spanish, I called the owner.  He said something I interpreted to mean we would meet in front of the fruit shop with the pink awning at 5pm.

Pink may be an uncommon color in most urban settings, but in Chueca, I was surprised they managed to refrain from painting the fire hydrants magenta.  Finding a pink fruteria in between the pink bars and pink convenience stores and pink travel agencies sounded about as easy as finding a gay Catholic priest.  They may exist, but they sure are hard to distinguish from their surroundings. 

In search of the fruteria, I got a chance to survey my prospective neighborhood.  A dull thumping music was emanating from a bar with a pink awning and painting of a naked man looking coquettishly over his shoulder on the door: apparently 5pm is by no means too early to start the night’s partying in Chueca.  There were about as many shoe shops as there were grocery stores, Tabacos, butchers, and bakeries put together.  Most selling women’s shoes.  There were also a number of people with pink eyes: I have not smelled so much marijuana since the Fridays in high school when the kids in the back of the bus would indulge in recreational chemistry instead of their usual Marlboros.

I was pretty sure I found the fruit shop in question at the appropriate time and waited.  I smiled vaguely at passerby, none of whom were over forty or looked like they had been out of a gym for more than four hours.  I sent a text message to the owner of the apartment – ‘donde eres? Estoy delante de la fruteria’ – and within a minute, a ball of paper fell on my head. 

Two stories above the fruteria, a bearded man with very good aim was waving and shouting ‘BUSCAS HABITACION?’ (‘You’re looking for a room?’).

The bearded man and a 20-something woman wearing a purple shirt covering just enough of her conspicuously fake breasts to be considered decent welcomed me on the second floor.  They were offering a corner room with a slightly mildewy mattress (which is a feat, given Madrid’s dry climate) and a view into the airshaft.  It gave off an unconventional odor of drying laundry mixed with ganja.  The two burners in the kitchen looked like they hadn’t been cleaned since Franco’s era and the couches in the common area didn’t look much better.

‘So, are you interested?’ the bearded man, whose name was Pepe, asked.

Why not, I thought.

‘Yes, very!  I’d move in right away, if you want.’  Say what you will, the place had character. 

‘We’ll have to get back to you: we have three more people coming to look tonight.’

I was surprised.  Did they really think they were going to find someone else willing to live in that hole? Was I too uninteresting to fit into their boho world?  Was that something that should bother me?

The second apartment was a five minutes’ walk north in the student district of Bilbao.  The entrance and the stairs were made of spotless white marble and the door was substantial: more than eight feet tall, green, with an elegant gold screen covering the peephole.  I’ve always thought a door can say a lot about the people who live inside.  I guessed that the inhabitants were rich, older than they admitted, and probably had a small white dog with curly hair that would shed on my laundry.

The girl who let me in, though, was wearing sweatpants and couldn’t have been over thirty.  The living room was painted a light purple with a cheetah running across the walls.  Everything looked lived in, but clean: a few cracked tiles, a few stains on the kitchen counter, the hardwood floor starting to come apart so that it clicked under my shoes as I walked down the hall.  I gave her the money for the deposit – the place was forty euros a month more than the one I’d seen in Chueca - and left a guidebook on my new nightstand to hold my place. 

So here I am, living with a Spaniard, an Italian, a Colombian, and a Venezuelan in my very own auberge español.  I just got a call from Pepe, though. 

‘Are you still interested in the apartment? We’d love for you to move in right away.’

‘No, thanks,’ I said.  ‘I’ve found one.’

A few Sundays ago, I went to a “barbecue” at the home of a Parisian family.  It was given by Elsa’s best friend from high school, and her younger brother.  (Elsa Paparemborde ‘10 is graciously hosting me this summer in her Paris residence.)  Elsa asked her friend if she could bring me and Becky Cooper ‘10 along, and so we were invited.

After two years studying at Harvard, I think Elsa may very well have adopted the American model of the summer BBQ - or at least she was picturing it when she thought about including us, the visiting Americans.  As it turned out, what this family had referred to as a barbecue was in fact just a French dinner party, moved outside into the garden.  It’s important to point out that in Paris, having a garden is a rare luxury.  Statistically, only 3000 of the over 1 million apartments in Paris boasts a private garden.  So, if you’re fortunate enough to be among the privileged 3000, I suppose you can’t just have any ordinary barbecue.

This particular luncheon, as it should be called, involved a select group of invitees, all very close friends of the brother and sister who hosted it.  It was clear right away that Becky and I were new to the group, but the family welcomed us warmly nonetheless.  As this party had been carefully planned in advance, it lacked much of the casual-ness of its would-be American equivalent.  In place of beer and soda, they had champagne apéritifs.  Where one might have found pretzels, there were mini-quiches.  Instead of lawn chairs, the family had moved an indoor table and chairs out into the garden for the afternoon.  Real glasses replaced solo cups, and the table was laid with a clean white cloth.  Most of all, there were no hamburgers or hot dogs in sight.  The grilling fell to the brother, who had just graduated from high school.  We all gathered around eagerly and watched - for over an hour - as he placed sausage, then lamb, then full-size steaks onto the ironically miniature (but appropriately small, as all European appliances are in comparison to our own gargantuan counterparts) old-fashioned charcoal grill.

Once the grilling ceremony was complete, the mother and father guided us to the fancy, pre-set table, and ad-libbed a wedding-esque seating arrangement: alternating boys and girls, and separating those who knew each other well.  I must say that the conversation was very interesting, as this was a very accomplished group of French high-school students.  Like Elsa, they had all attended the competitive Lycée Bilingue, and therefore not only spoke French and English fluently, but had a wide and informed sense of the world.  I was especially impressed with the maturity of these “mere” eighteen-year-olds and the level of conversation they could carry.  Perhaps it was the experience of a series of such sit-down meals that had taught them these skills; all in all, they seemed far more advanced - culturally, intellectually, and socially - than Americans their age (of whom I know many, thanks to my nineteen-year-old sister).

Over the “course” (no pun intended) of the requisite four courses of the [normally indoor] French meal - meat, salad, dessert, coffee, and wine all throughout - I got into a fairly serious discussion, or debate rather, with the young host himself.  Well-traveled and well-spoken, Pablo (who also speaks Spanish fluently because of his Mexican mother) confidently pontificated on the finer points of French culture, the legacy of the colonial world, and, most memorably, why he would never live in the United States.

His main point was that in the U.S., everything centers on production (he came very close to describing Weber’s Protestant ethic, but I didn’t think I had the ability to explain that properly to him).  Whereas Americans place value only on the products of work, the French appreciate leisure and the value of not working, on simply “existing.”  (Again, I was not brave enough to try to go into existentialism - with a French education, Pablo could have probably bested me in “philo,” anyway.)  The examples of capitalist industry are obvious, but the example we dwelt on most was that of academics.  I say “academics,” and not university professors, or researchers, because in France, there are men and women who simply think.  That is, the socialist state supports them, as members of the Académie Française for instance, to just ponder.

I insisted that there were, at least, some ridiculous elements to this system, because these academics were under no expectation or obligation to write books, or publish research data.  In effect, their thinking benefited no one, while they consumed state funding.  Pablo jumped on this comment with a victorious reminder to me of just how American my confusion was.  When I added that intellectuals should, in my opinion, be part of university communities, he argued that universities would put too much pressure on these thinkers to “produce” books or attract students.  Private universities, he claimed, made a product out of learning.  In France, on the other hand, most higher education is public (I went to the Sorbonne for a semester in the fall for less than $400).

There were several points of irony in Pablo’s argument, though he was right about my mentality being distinctly American.  First, and most simply, Pablo attended an elite private high school, thereby rejecting what the state offered in terms of education.  Second, the French higher education system does not use a liberal-arts curriculum.  Rather, one pursues a college-equivalent degree in the professional field one wishes to enter.  Law, for example, is an undergraduate field.  Therefore, all opportunity to “learn for the sake of learning” is more or less unavailable to the majority of French youth.  If you were to take up a subject in the humanities, you would be expected to teach in that subject, plain and simple.  The lucky few who make it to the higher ranks of the French intelligentsia have succeeded on test after test to finally be accepted to the most prestigious of academic institutions, the École Normale Supérieure (ENS).  What continues to baffle me is what is expected of ENS graduates once they receive their diplomas.  That the people and the government expect nothing (even if they do welcome a good book), is, according to Pablo, the beauty of French cultural-intellectual life.

This conversation, mutually futile as it was, confirmed to me how important it is to understand the differences in educational philosophy around the world, and how much education informs culture (and vice versa).  At Harvard, it is easy to consider that we have the best of the best in education, and efficiency, and diversity, and a public-private balance.  At the end of the day - at the end of my semester abroad - I still prefer the American system.  And now, I am willing to admit that the United States and an American education have inculcated in me a value for production, for proving one’s ability to the world, for working for one’s own benefit and hopefully also for that of others.

There are surely many downsides to this culture of production, many of which I’m sure my classmates are realizing in their summer banking and consulting internships.  The leisure-work balance is delicate in the U.S., and perhaps our society could appreciate a little more free time: for contemplation, for vacation, for long conversations, and for sit-down “barbecues.”  After all, had we been in the States, we would have finished our buffet-served hot dogs hours ago.

I’m spending my days in Spain working for Suffolk University’s Madrid Campus. As of yet my job lacks formal title but I’m sure I’ll have imagined something compelling by the time I send my resume to prospective employers in the fall.

The campus is located in the heights (relative to the rest of the city) of Ciudad Universitario, which most of the universities in Madrid call home. My fellow staff – a mix of American, English, and Spanish – and I share one big office, save Raul the Computer God in his subterranean lab and the number crunchers hidden somewhere on the second floor. The receptionist has a beautiful name, África, and the building is not air-conditioned.

That’s really all I have to say about work at the moment. Though I do feel bound to share this tidbit I stumbeld upon while doing research yesterday.

It took me an hour and a half to make tea today.

But before I launch into this tragic episode that exposed my very un-British self (as if the accent and the American diction hadn’t already), I must point out that even as an intern, I had escaped making tea for six entire days at an average of two cups of tea a day (excluding the one for breakfast).

It all started with a rancid packet of milk. To my defense, I don’t understand why we keep milk on the cabinet outside of a refrigerator. To their defense, the director next door has a refrigerator, but storing it there would be inconvenient to say the least. Anyway - after filling the water filter, boiling it in the same electric kettle I have at Harvard, and pouring it in the lovely teapot whose tea filter I had filled with three tea bags, I certainly waited long enough. But there began the troubles. I had poured the milk into some of the cups first (so as not to scald it, as I have heard), so when I added the tea, I managed to ruin three of the five cups immediately.

Not to be deterred, I tossed the offending brown with white-flakes slurry down the drain. Once more, I filled up the filter, boiled the water, and poured it into the teapot. I figured that by letting it steep long enough, the once used tea bags would still have enough zest to flavor more cups. So after waiting and getting three new mugs, I repeated the entire procedure. The next milk packet, while fresh, dribbled onto the carpet (did I mention that the opening is a hole on the top of a rectangular carton?). The result: two cold mugs of plain strong tea, three mugs of weak milky tea.

I admitted defeat.

However, I was not pronounced guilty because I hadn’t been instructed in the “proper art of making tea.” Of all the British stereotypes, their tea drinking appears true, unlike this article’s opinion.

What followed was an extensive, interactive lesson in tea making. After washing out all the mugs and teapot (and realizing that I had accidentally used the director’s green tea mug!), we filled the kettle, boiled the water, filled the teapot with three bags, and poured in the water (which should be poured in while still boiling). Then, we waited.

“How long,” I asked.

“Five minutes.”

“It’s been five minutes.”

“No, longer.”

“A long five minutes.”

Interjection from 3rd person: “Well, it has to be longer than five minutes. Five minutes gives you the color. But it has to be longer to taste well.”

While I waited, I opened up the package of biscuits (the first British diction to stick) to begin to look. Because my oh so esteemed instructor and I apparently looked so amusing while examining the chocolate covered treats, my boss, the lovely 3rd person, decided candids with the camera would be a great idea. By the time that was done, a good fifteen minutes had passed. And so, we could pour the tea - four mugs with an appropriate amount of tea, and one with a little less for the one person who prefers more milk (and half a packet of sugar). So far so good. “Ah, what a lovely color,” I was informed. Brown, in other words.

In with the milk. Which to be culinarily correct should go in before the tea, but to be socially correct must go in after. Then again, with plain tea, you musn’t put in any milk at all. And so to be logically correct…

Esteemed instructor: “To be nice, you should always pour the milk into your own mug first, to check.”

3rd person: “No, you should always put his in first.”

EI: “And then stir it around for a while”

3rd: “And you can use a spoon, not a fork”

EI: “Well, not if you want the froth.”

3rd: “Or if you want to annoy people with the sounds.” EI scrapes the sides of the mugs an extra bit.

Tea finally completed and passed out, I sipped at it a bit anticlimactically, while defending my honor “Swedes drink coffee!” Besides, as my coworkers remembered, the last American intern hadn’t been able to make tea either. In fact, when one of my coworkers had visited a girlfriend in New York, he had been offered a drink in the evening. “I could kill for a cup of tea,” he had said, whereupon the family had exchanged uncertain glances. Unearthing their kettle had taken a while, as had heating the water on a stove and hunting down a packet of tea. “I should have asked for a beer,” he recalled.

More tea trivia:

Did you know that you should only boil water once because otherwise it loses its oxygen content?

Tea should be about 65 C, so that “vulgar slurping” does not occur, according to a BBC slideshow. Without a tea cosy.

A seller of electric tea kettles claims that boiling in the microwave is inferior. And they don’t have any hidden motive?

And it must be room temperature milk. With a tea cosy (contradictions abound!)

Or, if reading is not your style, here’s the most watched youtube clip on “How to make a British cup of tea.”

Finally, for the obsessed, you can take a 175£ masterclass in tea making from the Official UK Tea Council. Somehow, I don’t think that they would approve of this adorable tea timer.

Before you perfect you tea making abilities though, this sage advice offered on BBC will do:

For best results carry a heavy bag of shopping – or walk the dog – in cold, driving rain for at least half an hour beforehand. This will make the tea taste out of this world.

~Ingrid

Listening to: For the Price of a Cup of Tea, Belle & Sebastian