"The French Look,"
by Roni Ben-David

Sweet Briar Junior Year in France

We all bought scarves. During our first few weeks in Paris nearly every girl on the study abroad program bought one. My first scarf was bright red with soft fringes, long enough to wrap around my neck four times. My host sister demonstrated how French women wear them: There's the double pull-through, the billowed knot, the one-shoulder toss, and the high-piled wraparound. I watched her movements carefully and practiced them in front of the bathroom mirror after dinner that night. Later, I taught these new techniques to my American girl friends.

But we didn't stop there - being a French woman was an art we carefully studied. Like star-struck groupies we watched the way they crossed the street, smoked their skinny Gauloises, brought tiny coffee cups to their lips. And we mimicked them. Some girls renovated their wardrobes, weeding out the Nikes ad Gap Jeans that branded them as Americans. Others took up smoking and lingered outside cafes perfecting a droopy-lidded, pursed-lipped expression.

Learning how to use the Metro and take notes in our French University classes were easy parts of the adjustment - the struggle came in blending in. We desperately wanted to distinguish ourselves from the clumsy American tourists that stumbled into museums clinging dog-eared copies of "Let's Go" with croissant crumbs on their chins. After all, what was the use of spending a year in France if we kept looking and acting like Americans? "We live here," we wanted to cry out to French people, "look at our temporary visas! We're one of you!" Looking French became an obsession.

One solution was to adopt a café. My friends and I met at "la Dome" every Wednesday night and were quick to call it our own. It was our way of taming a city that flustered us with its massive cathedrals, pulsing boulevards, and curt store clerks. We knew that once a week we could sink into our booth in the back corner and order the same pints of beer from waiters who recognized us.
One Wednesday night, Emily hurried in with good news.

"A French couple just stopped me to ask for directions," she declared, swiftly swinging off her scarf, "they thought I was French!"

"After you started taking?" I asked.

She flared her nostrils in disgust, "Well not after they heard my accent, but they must have thought I was French walking down the street!"

It was a victory, and we congratulated Emily with muffled envy.

Over the months our obsession calmed. As we fell into our routines we forgot about performing most of the time. I stopped stuttering with I spoke at the dinner table in my French home and I asked salesclerks questions with confidence. I no longer nodded with guilt when a French person noticed my American accent. I had a witty comment prepared when asked what I thought of the presidential election between Bush and Gore. Occasionally, I even dared to wear my Nikes outside of the house.
One afternoon while walking down Rue Daguerre, a colorful pedestrian street in my neighborhood, I suddenly realized something: No one was watching. Passing pyramids of oranges and blushing grapefruit outside the fruit market, and slowing to breathe in the sweet dough smells by the bakery, I realized that no one was paying attention to me. I had spent months worrying about how I looked to people that weren't even looking at me. The French were too busy toting their groceries home in rolling carts, dragging little hooded toddlers past crepe stands, and stopping to talk with butchers or waiters outside cafes. I felt a giddy sense of freedom as I ambled down the road.

By the end of the year it was hard to tell which habits I had come to Paris with and which I had picked up. On one of our last nights at la Dome, my friends and I talked about the reverse culture shock our teachers had warned us to expect back in America. We knew that we had to let go of some of our French habits - greeting friends with a kiss on each cheek, drinking wine with dinner, taking the subway around town. As for the subtle habits we had acquired over the year, we would just have to wait and see. Nevertheless, we decided we would not give up our scarves.

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