My boyfriend lives in France right now. When he was here, he had a lot of friends from France, and since I don't speak French, I was the odd man out in my own homeland whenever we hung out. Pretty funny and pretty sad. When I went to visit in France, I spoke very minimal French and otherwise he was my translator. His friends also for the most part spoke English. Am I the typical American that doesn't speak any other language but my own? Maybe. It's not to say that I haven't tried to pick up a foreign language. I've been working on Spanish ever since high school. OK maybe I haven't really put that much effort into it, but I always want to improve. And now I feel the need to learn French on top of that because I don't like not understanding what people are saying around me.
There is all this typically "French hate the Americans" and "Americans hate the French" stereotypes floating around, but for the most part I don't think they really hate America. I mean most of the French people I've met think NY is cool, although many people think NYC is it's own country and is not like the rest of the US. The point is I don't think there is any hate against the people of America. What I do find is however a strong dislike for our President. Well some people may say that is the same as hating Americans, that is if you agree with the policies of the Bush administration. My French friends already feel that Kerry won (even though the elections have not taken place yet). And I told them that the US is probably split 50/50 and we can't tell yet who will win the elections. I think possibly the Americans who hate the French don't personally know anyone from there. How can you hate a country without truly knowing it's people? And once you visit many countries, you see that we are all very similar. There are nice people and not so nice in any place you visit. This goes the same for people you meet here, whether it be Boston, NY or California.
I went to Morocco this year for my summer vacation. My boyfriend's friend lives in Casablanca. So we decided to meet there. Here another example of being the odd man (WOman) out...They speak Arabic and French there. So once again I was lost in translation. His friend speaks English and ofcourse my bf speaks English so around them I was ok. But for the most part my boyfriend did all the talking especially in Marrakech- negotiating cab rides, getting directions etc. When it came to bartering for goods, however, most people could speak English as well. Money is a powerful tool. But here I was an American venturing into an Arab/Muslim Country. I was a bit apprehensive about going. People also warned me that it might be dangerous, etc. Not sure if they meant dangerous b/c I was American or dangerous for other reasons (theft, etc). I am not sure if Moroccans hate Americans. When they found out I was from NY, they seemed to be ok. As our Moroccan friend explained, they don't hate Americans - as a tourist etc, we shouldn't worry, because it is Bush and his policies that they hate and they know we individually are not to blame for our governments actions so they don't hate us as people. Although, I'm thinking if you had an I love Bush T-shirt on, you might get spit on. I didn't try it but then again I would never own such a shirt. I would call that more than a major fashion faux pas. I definitely felt like I was in another world in Morocco. It was an exotic place to visit...I couldn't live there but it was an interesting place to see. I was only able to go to 2 cities while I was there, and would have liked to see more.
I think we need to spread more love around the world...Not war.
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