Translation

One should never translate too literally. The meaning too often loses its vitality. Take for example: pharmacie. The direct translation of this is “pharmacy” (probably not too much of a mind-bender right there), but the institutions are completely different.

In the US, when I hear the word ‘pharmacy,’ I think of CVS. That’s the archetypal pharmacy. It’s the pharmacy as supermarket. It’s impersonal. It is the Swiss Army Knife of stores. Basically, it is a very convenient place to do drive-by shopping.

It was with this image in mind that I went to the ‘pharmacie’ in Paris. I was wrong. I knew that it was different—I knew that the exams to become a pharmacist were very competitive in France. But there is always a gap between what you know intellectually and what you know unconsciously. Unconsciously, for me, the ‘pharmacie’ was the perfect place to grab some saline solution and a contact case and leave.

Confirming my initial impression was the ubiquity of the pharmacie sign. The pharmacie sign is a green cross which flashes in different patterns and occasionally provides information regarding date, time and temperature. All pharmacies share the same sign, which to my American mind, signifies chain and hence impersonal, thus allowing for an in-and-out shopping experience. One thing I miss about America is the in-and-out shopping experience. There are times—when you’re buying something trivial, like soap or saline solution; or when you’re buying something embarrassing—when you simply want to dash in and out and continue living out your day. In France, however, every shopping experience is a social interaction. I generally enjoy this; the difference between friendly store proprietor and Silent Cashier Dude is often favorable, but not always. Anyway, I thought I would be getting this type of experience with the pharmacie.

However, upon entrance today, the difference confronted me immediately. France’s ‘pharmacie’ reminds me more of a beauty salon or boutique. All pharmacies are quite small: perhaps a smaller restaurant in the US. From what I can tell, having looked in quite a few pharmacies since now, most products rest against the wall itself, with shelves bolted in. There is usually only one shelf that is disconnected from the rest of the floor. There is no ‘cashier’ area; usually the cashiers are spread out. Actually, cashier is an approximation, only a slightly accurate one. A better word would probably be workstation. Each workstation has a pharmacist assigned to it. Purchases can be made there, but consultations also. The pharmacist serves as another rung in the health-care ladder. From what I could overhear, they suggest quite extensive treatments. There is also a sense of discussion between the pharmacist and the patient; the patient genuinely doesn’t know. In most of my other shopping experiences, the French are very definitive on what they want. They know what they want. If they speak to the owners or proprietors, it is only as an instrument. The pharmacist-patient relationship is one of means.

To contrast, the shopper-proprietor relationship is summarized by the question, “Could you get me this?” and the pharmacist-patient relationship is “What should I do?” I stepped into the pharmacy treating it as the former question, and so I grabbed my saline solution and was surprised by the surprise of the pharmacist, who probably expected me to have some arcane question on my health(a man next to me was complaining about his foot pains, which [and this is so incredible that I’m simultaneously sure I must have something wrong and not knowing what I could’ve gotten wrong], “recur two days every three weeks.”).

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Incidentally, to go back to the pharmacie sign: its green flashing is very vivid against the buildings. If ever there was or ever there will be a film noir movie set in Paris, there should be or should have been a black-and-white shot of a pharmacie sign casting its light outwards, in two directions, rhythmically. It would look eerie.

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I just went to a restaurant today that I had been certain had been closed every other time I’d passed it. It pulls its blinds down, and its door is recessed from the street, given the aforementioned impression that it was closed. But it turns out that it wasn’t.

This strikes me as a pretty inefficient advertising method, especially for wandering foot traffic. But, as I’ve mentioned earlier, I don’t think French restaurant proprietors are devoted to selling things as much as genuine pride in their own wares.

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I also had work again today. That was quite fun, especially since, on account of a lack of a strike, I didn’t have to walk.

We were there for two reasons. First, we saw editing of a rough cut of “Clothes of the World,” which focused on Los Angeles. From what I could see, editing film strikes me as something of a misnomer and somewhat different than editing in other enterprises. Like editing other pieces, editing film focuses, with microscope-like precision, on the small details. Should I end this scene a frame earlier or later? Which angle should I use? Where should I put my archival footage? Etc.

Now, what’s makes editing film different from editing writing, for example, is that editing is more a part of execution. Unedited film is a mess of angles and a hodgepodge of chronology. It needs editing to become coherent. On the other hand, for writers other than myself, editing is more akin to polishing. Something coherent has been executed. Editing writing is stripping away or adding on to enhance the structure already there. With film, on the other hand, editing is assembling the structure.

The rough cut was in English—all of the Angelenos spoke English, and their voices had not yet been dubbed over (we’ll actually be helping with transcribing and translating their speech), so we were getting the English words. Between the language and our cultural familiarity, we were able to turn the tables on our French editor—we knew what was going on. So when this one woman said, in response to the question, “What do you do?”, “I’m a writer…a stylist…I do some acting. Some modeling,” we knew to burst out laughing, while the Frenchman wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Everyone in Los Angeles, we had to explain, has a script and does some acting.

The other reason we were there was to carry out some of the grunt work, of finding photos for the documentary. It’s oddly hard to find pictures of surfers and surfer culture that are sufficiently large. The three of us, we all put our heads together, and we didn’t get much good stuff.

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The other major activity was an event variously described as a “cocktail” and a “rencontre” (meeting). This is another example of not translating too literally. This makes it sound like some sort of party or something. In reality, in an American college, it would’ve been called (with some degree of irony) “a mixer.” The mixer was with a neighboring school, EPP, or École de Psychologues Practiens. Like so many French institutions, its logo is a vaguely rendered, colorful, jumping person with arms outstretched.

The school, we had been told, was attended mostly by women, in contrast to ISEP, which is made up mostly by men. So guess who signed up for the mixer? 80% of the male population of Stanford-in-Paris, and 100% of the straight male population. Quite amusing. Also quite convenient, seeing as there were five or six (I forget the exact number) girls there in attendance, providing a perfect gender balance.

We started out, as with any good mixer, divided like a middle school dance. We discussed the typical questions: How do you like Paris? What are you studying? (Just us; the European system forces students along a certain path throughout college) What do you want to do? And so on. After ritual had been observed, we could then delve into the more interesting cultural questions.

Anyway, two of the girls expressed an interest to go to the United States after graduation for work. When we asked, where?, they didn’t really know. One thing that’s interesting about French attitudes towards America is that the French don’t have that unconscious, emotional conception of how big America is. They know intellectually how big the country is, but emotionally they seem to think it’s all more-or-less the same, and not quite as big as it is. In other words, they think of America as being a little more like France than it actually is. Of course, Americans are the same way about France. I’m the one who just complained about the lack of fast shopping experiences.

The other good thing was how little English was spoken. Unlike ISEP students, who want to practice their English at all opportunities, the EPP students steadfastly refused to speak back at us in English, making us all the more stubborn to speak in French. Which is the way.

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Worst dressed: where did you get a neon yellow dress shirt? I’m impressed by the dedication but horrified by the results.

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Nicolas-Cecilia continues! I wonder how long this story will stumble on.