Art Nouveau iron grillwork on a door in my neighbourhood
As in any big city, you never know what what might happen while walking around Paris. Yesterday, I went to a Banque Populaire cash machine in my neighbourhood. As soon as I inserted my card in the special "anti-fraud" device, the machine flashed and said "temporarily closed." Pressing the annulement button repeatedly did not release my bank card, which had vanished inside the machine.
A man behind me tried to help, to no avail and the bank was closed. So I went to a grocery store three blocks away to buy a pen, returned to the bank and wrote down the emergency phone numbers listed on its window. Then I went home to begin the process of retrieving my bank card.
When I found my card number and called my own bank (not Banque Populaire), I realised by the time my card was discovered, someone may have copied the information and my signature. When the bank advised the card should be cancelled immediately, I agreed.
This being France, home of bureaucratic cauchemar, (nightmare) that wasn't the end of the affair. I had to phone another number to report the card disparu (had disappeared), then fax a letter with the reference number confirming the card's cancellation, to my bank branch. Rather than faxing it, my husband carried the letter to the bank, but it will take "a few days" for another card to be issued.
This afternoon I went to the offending bank to register my displeasure. The manager was charming and helpful, to the point of unlocking the cash machine to look for my card. But it wasn't my card he brought back. Apparently someone else had suffered the same fate!
Full of apologies, the manager then launched into a lengthy discourse on how cash machines are after all, machines and they malfunction. C'est normal," he said, punctuated by a Gallic shrug. He said my card was probably routed to a central server at another bank, where it dissipated into the ether. So as long as I'd reported the "opposition" (loss) of my bank card to my own bank, nothing more could be done.
"90 ans, aide moi"
"Ninety years old: help me!" That's what was written on a sign an old man was holding in the Harve Caumartin metro station. In my post Shelter from the storm, I mentioned the homeless camped out in 300 tents along the River Seine. The tents were purchased by a local activist to draw attention to the plight of the large numbers of homeless people in Paris.
While Chirac's government has talked about the need for "inclusion" and providing more housing, not only for the homeless, but for immigrants, little has been done. No doubt he prefers to let the next president tackle the ballooning problem of low-income housing.
Staring contests
Many French people do not consider it rude to stare. Recently in a doctor's waiting room, a man stared at me so long, I held a magazine in front of my face. Did I have something on my face? Did I resemble someone he knew? Was he overwhelmed by my good looks? Hee hee. Who knows, but I felt uncomfortable.
Another time I was in a restaurant with friends, when the French family at a table across from us, turned and stared openly, for several minutes. Really, we weren't that interesting! Did they have nothing better to do with their time?
One day on the Line 9 metro an old man of Arab descent stared at me with undisguised hostility. Did I look too American? Was he angry because that day George Bush had announced he was sending 20,000 more troops to Iraq? I was angry and I'm American. But I don't go around blaming other people for George Bush's behaviour. Finally the man's staring - almost a look of hatred - became intolerable and I got off and got on another car.
Then there's the middle-aged Arab guy on roller skates. He's bearded, big and burly and always wearing a green hooded parka edged with fur and baggy jeans. Often I see him skating up and down the streets on his way to and from the Bois du Boulogne. Sometimes he ignores me. Other times, he'll make rude, suggestive remarks in broken English, then skate off as fast as he can go. (See, everyone can tell I'm not French!)
The last time this happened, I vowed to put a stop to it. So when he approached me again, I spoke to him in Arabic, calling him an animal. I don't know if he was more shocked by the fact that I was speaking Arabic or by the insult. But now he steers clear of me.
Funny how even mundane encounters in a crowded international city can prove so charged with tension.
What a great post! I wonder...I can't imagine...but could Banque Populaire somehow be affiliated with Banco Popular? (I didn't bank there, but it's a Puerto Rican bank we had in the V.I.) In my mother's (fairly new) city, Las Vegas, the mayor believes the homeless should not be assisted, but rather driven from town. He's instructed his law enforcement agencies to eject them from city parks (or so I read in the Vegas paper when I was there).
Posted by: Marilyn | 25 February 2007 at 21:25
Wow Tara this post is jammed packed with substance. It jacked my emotions all over the map, and left me laughing. Glad you got one up on the stare of hate. Seriously I was giggling out loud….funny stuff Tara. Not the lost bank card or the homeless of course which is happening more everyday. They have just busted two large identity fraud rings in the last few days in B.C. People are revolting about the 2010 Olympics being held here, as the homeless are shuffled into the corners. I really think mental illness and drug addiction need to be addressed with more conviction!
Posted by: giggles | 18 February 2007 at 09:32
Fascinating post. I'm glad you told off the rollerskate guy. People need to know we cdan defend ourselves. I found on occasion when I lived in Paris that when you called someone on their rudeness they were quite surprised and apologetic. I think they didn't even notice what they were doing.
Posted by: sarala | 15 February 2007 at 05:56
Art Nouveau... my favorite style.
Posted by: AscenderRisesAbove | 15 February 2007 at 04:59
Oh those damm machines, and then all the admin to get it returned or replaced.
Rudeness, unfortunately I think it is a fact of city life. In M&S I asked the guy behind me who was obviously on a lunch break if he'd like to go ahead of me, he looked stunned and moved to the head of the queue. He said nothing! Just kept looking at me as though I'd lost my mind. So I smiled at him and said, "I think the word you are struggling to find is Thank You?" There was a moment's awkward silence as he put his two purchases in a bag. Then he turned to me saying. "Thank you, I was forgetting my manners, but how can you be so laid back, everyones in a hurry, aren't they?" I laughed.
Personally I believe that if we need all of this ID paperwork, the government should pay for it. We are taxed enough.
Yes, I saw a docu about the Paris tent city.
In Ireland there has been a scheme to re-house City homeless in the countryside. The government offers financial aid to people to move. But of course this is just like saying you can live in the city if you can afford it.
Posted by: aineliva | 14 February 2007 at 10:44
Losing your bankcard - what a nightmare! Thank heavens you were able to cancel it though, before someone could use it. With all the seeming-red tape there, I can just imagine what you'd have gone through trying to straighten THAT out (if someone had used it).
We don't seem to have any real answers for the homeless here, either. In fact, yet another tragic situation for the homeless here, has recently been brought to light in the media: hospitals sadly 'dumping' ill or injured homeless people back onto skidrow (in the L.A. area). I don't know what the answer is - but we need to find a more humane way of caring for our fellow man than dropping someone off in skid row, when they're sick or injured or recuperating. SIGH.
As for the last
Posted by: tinker | 14 February 2007 at 06:58
i love the roller skating story for the obvious but more that you got your grrl power on and spoke to him in arabic, putting him in his place. you go!
Posted by: kristen | 14 February 2007 at 00:25
hahaha ....
I had newspaper wiggley people yesterday. One woman was so annoyed that I took the last remaining centimeter in the train that she was hoping to use for her paper. So instead she kept growling and shaking the paper. The girl on the other side and I just kept laughing at this 'passive and agressive' attitude (which probably did not help).
It got no better on the way one. This time I took the bus and had a big man who kept almost knudging me off my seat when he turned the page of paper.
Ah .. I love living in a city
Posted by: lacithecat | 14 February 2007 at 00:10
Love your blog! I wish I had seen the look on the guys face when you answered in his language, lol! I would find being stared at very unnerving. We have a huge homeless problem here in Sydney too. Breaks my heart to see elderly people at the end of their lives living like that, it's so wrong. Nel
Posted by: nel | 13 February 2007 at 23:55
Two things- my dad would have been 90 last November- even the thought of him possibly having to be homeless at that age makes me cry and knowing that there is a homeless 90 year old man sitting in the Harve Caumartin metro station right now makes me angry...
Secondly- just the other day, I went to get my haircut at a salon owned by a French man. He was standing outside the door of his salon, and I noticed him staring at me the whole time I got out of my car, walked towards the door and made my way past him... plus, he was smoking right at the doorway so I had to walk through his smoke. I complained, you betcha!
Funny thing that staring...
Posted by: Regina Clare Jane | 13 February 2007 at 23:37
I love that you could insult the Arabic roller skater in his own language! I'm sure you surprised him!
And bureaucracy here is getting about as bad as France, I think, especially where things like bank cards are concerned. I lost my driver's license last week and had to bring them three pieces of identification to prove that I was "me" ~ and my birth certificate wasn't considered satisfactory!
Posted by: Becca | 13 February 2007 at 23:29
Amazing--I wonder how it can be so "obvious" to others that you are not French...you've been there now a while, don't go walking around wearing a flag or a race car t-shirt, right? As cultured and worldly as you seem to me, this is so odd. I have had similar things happen with bank cards--yes, it is a nightmare!
Love,
D.
Tara responds:
Delia, I'm not thin enough or chic enough to be mistaken for a French woman! People tend to think I'm Dutch, German or American. All the time people start speaking to me in Dutch (which I don't speak).
Posted by: Delia | 13 February 2007 at 18:23
Amazing--I wonder how it can be so "obvious" to others that you are not French...you've been there now a while, don't go walking around wearing a flag or a race car t-shirt, right? As cultured and worldly as you seem to me, this is so odd. I have had similar things happen with bank cards--yes, it is a nightmare!
Love,
D.
Posted by: Delia | 13 February 2007 at 18:19
A most interesting post, Tara. It all sounds familiar somehow. I especially like the part where you addressed the rollerskate guy in Arabic. I get a lot of hostility from people from certain parts of the world, where, alas, a woman is nothing, a behaviour that shocks me. It's most noticeable in the subway where there's a concentration of people.
Chirac has been around too long. Un point c'est tout, as they say over there.
Posted by: Colette | 13 February 2007 at 18:18