Auld alliances
Feb. 2nd, 2006 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustI have eaten Chinese food in New York (and Greek in Finland), but I had never eaten Chinese in France. Apart from anything else, the year I lived in France they didn't have Chinese restaurants, they had Vietnamese instead. It was a very long time ago: in fact, it was the year I met Guilàn, and as she pointed out, we hadn't seen each other for 33 years.
Guilàn was one of my students when, as an undergraduate, I spent a year as a modern language assistant in a school in Versailles. My job was to give classes in English conversation to those students who chose to attend them. This meant that day pupils, who could go home when they had no classes, mostly chose not to attend, but boarders, whose spare time was more supervised, were more likely to opt in. My favourite class consisted of two final year (eighteen year old) students, Guilàn, who was French-Iranian, and her friend Manne (Marianne), French-American. They both spoke fluent English, though the English teacher struggled to "correct" Manne's American accent, which would not score highly in her exams. Once a week we met and talked about whatever subjects we chose, and so long as we spoke English this counted as work for all of us.
When the year was over, we corresponded for a while; Guilan and Manne made a trip to Durham; and then, gradually we lost touch. Now, thanks to the wonders of the internet (more precisely, thanks to Google and to Guilàn's unusual surname), I found her again, and we arranged to meet. Guilàn and her husband Guy were living in the same district of Paris as Jenny, with whom![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler and I were staying, and since their flat was in Chinatown, we would all meet and go to a Chinese restaurant.
It was a very happy evening: old friends and new seemed to fit together very comfortably, and there was much exchanging of news, and discovery of commom interests. There was a curious symmetry in the fact that Guilàn and I had known each other so long ago as outsiders in Versailles, and then not seen each other for so long; she had met her husband Guy comparatively recently, but then discovered that he was Versailles born and bred, and that they had acquaintances there in common. I particularly liked the story of Guilàn's Saturday job working in a draper's shop. Her employer was colour-blind, and one of her tasks was to sort the embroidery threads by colour, while the draper extolled the virtues of her son Eric, whose much anticipated visit never seemed to happen. This anecdote became one of Guilàn's party pieces. But when she recounted it to Guy, he said "Eric was my best friend when I was a child!"
After dinner we went back to Guy and Guilàn's flat, on the 31st floor of one of a group of tower blocks known as Les Olympiades. These were an ambitious development, intended to be a smart modern address with an Olympic theme (each block was named for an Olympic city - in this case, Helsinki) but Parisians had shunned them, and they had been used to house Vietnamese refugees. Which is how it was possible for our friends to buy their eyrie in central Paris, with its view of the boulevards, the Eiffel tower and a number of other landmarks to see which it was necessary to lean further out of the window than I found entirely comfortable. It was an immense contrast with Jenny's little house tucked snugly into the Cité Florale, twenty minutes walk away, and I was entertained to note that Guilàn was as intrigued by Jenny's picturesque address as Jenny was with Guilàn's soaring view.
Guilàn was one of my students when, as an undergraduate, I spent a year as a modern language assistant in a school in Versailles. My job was to give classes in English conversation to those students who chose to attend them. This meant that day pupils, who could go home when they had no classes, mostly chose not to attend, but boarders, whose spare time was more supervised, were more likely to opt in. My favourite class consisted of two final year (eighteen year old) students, Guilàn, who was French-Iranian, and her friend Manne (Marianne), French-American. They both spoke fluent English, though the English teacher struggled to "correct" Manne's American accent, which would not score highly in her exams. Once a week we met and talked about whatever subjects we chose, and so long as we spoke English this counted as work for all of us.
When the year was over, we corresponded for a while; Guilan and Manne made a trip to Durham; and then, gradually we lost touch. Now, thanks to the wonders of the internet (more precisely, thanks to Google and to Guilàn's unusual surname), I found her again, and we arranged to meet. Guilàn and her husband Guy were living in the same district of Paris as Jenny, with whom
durham_rambler and I were staying, and since their flat was in Chinatown, we would all meet and go to a Chinese restaurant.It was a very happy evening: old friends and new seemed to fit together very comfortably, and there was much exchanging of news, and discovery of commom interests. There was a curious symmetry in the fact that Guilàn and I had known each other so long ago as outsiders in Versailles, and then not seen each other for so long; she had met her husband Guy comparatively recently, but then discovered that he was Versailles born and bred, and that they had acquaintances there in common. I particularly liked the story of Guilàn's Saturday job working in a draper's shop. Her employer was colour-blind, and one of her tasks was to sort the embroidery threads by colour, while the draper extolled the virtues of her son Eric, whose much anticipated visit never seemed to happen. This anecdote became one of Guilàn's party pieces. But when she recounted it to Guy, he said "Eric was my best friend when I was a child!"
After dinner we went back to Guy and Guilàn's flat, on the 31st floor of one of a group of tower blocks known as Les Olympiades. These were an ambitious development, intended to be a smart modern address with an Olympic theme (each block was named for an Olympic city - in this case, Helsinki) but Parisians had shunned them, and they had been used to house Vietnamese refugees. Which is how it was possible for our friends to buy their eyrie in central Paris, with its view of the boulevards, the Eiffel tower and a number of other landmarks to see which it was necessary to lean further out of the window than I found entirely comfortable. It was an immense contrast with Jenny's little house tucked snugly into the Cité Florale, twenty minutes walk away, and I was entertained to note that Guilàn was as intrigued by Jenny's picturesque address as Jenny was with Guilàn's soaring view.
