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  French people don’t speak in English even if they are good at the language. That’s what I was told when I was enjoying small talk with my colleagues from overseas, one from Britain and the other from the U.S.
  The Brit told me about his bitter experiences he’d had to go through travelling in France when he was a backpacker fresh from a Univ. He tried to communicate with French people he met, who he knew were able to speak English, but they didn’t seem to feel inclined to use his language – English and they looked so unfriendly that he gave up trying to exchange words with them as he was not strong in French. Ever since, he said he had developed some sense of antipathy toward “frog eaters” as some people refer derogatively to French people as. Well, he was practising the English proverb – He who hates Peter harms his dog. – when he said ‘ I don’t like French people. I don’t like French, the language either.’ That made me feel sad. Incidentally, we Japanese do have the saying that means the same - `坊主憎けりゃ袈裟まで憎い’ literally put, if you hate a Buddhist monk, you will also hate his surplice.
  Are French people biased against English?
The guy from the U.S. also told me about his unlucky experiences with French people he’d met in Paris, who made faces when he tried to communicate in French (at which he was poor, he said). So he had no other choice for communication but to speak in English, which made the French people make faces again. He looked disappointed and discouraged even as he explained to me the experience he’d had in Paris.
  Now, getting back to the two young lovely women, who looked at a loss when I asked them if it was all right for me to speak in English. They did look at a loss. But, why? Because, I thought, based on the talks I’d had with my colleagues back then that these French women must simply be reluctant to speak English. But, I was totally wrong as I would later discover.

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  French people don’t speak in English even if they are good at the language. That’s what I was told when I was enjoying small talk with my colleagues from overseas, one from Britain and the other from the U.S.
  The Brit told me about his bitter experiences he’d had to go through travelling in France when he was a backpacker fresh from a Univ. He tried to communicate with French people he met, who he knew were able to speak English, but they didn’t seem to feel inclined to use his language – English and they looked so unfriendly that he gave up trying to exchange words with them as he was not strong in French. Ever since, he said he had developed some sense of antipathy toward “frog eaters” as some people refer derogatively to French people as. Well, he was practising the English proverb – He who hates Peter harms his dog. – when he said ‘ I don’t like French people. I don’t like French, the language either.’ That made me feel sad. Incidentally, we Japanese do have the saying that means the same - `坊主憎けりゃ袈裟まで憎い’ literally put, if you hate a Buddhist monk, you will also hate his surplice.
  Are French people biased against English?
The guy from the U.S. also told me about his unlucky experiences with French people he’d met in Paris, who made faces when he tried to communicate in French (at which he was poor, he said). So he had no other choice for communication but to speak in English, which made the French people make faces again. He looked disappointed and discouraged even as he explained to me the experience he’d had in Paris.
  Now, getting back to the two young lovely women, who looked at a loss when I asked them if it was all right for me to speak in English. They did look at a loss. But, why? Because, I thought, based on the talks I’d had with my colleagues back then that these French women must simply be reluctant to speak English. But, I was totally wrong as I would later discover.

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I felt like playing my 尺八、but was afraid I might disturb those people around by the noise I make, i.e., my poor performance on the bamboo flute. After a lot of hesitation, however, I screwed up my courage and took the instrument out of my bag. Should there be people who feel bothered, they will complain - I thought and furthermore - I'd regret forever unless I play here and now. I'd have to live with the regret the rest of my life - even though it's not to be very long. Anyways I must avoid this sort of regret at any cost as I know how bitter the taste of it is. 

 Softly I breathed into the 尺八 mouthpiece and, encouraged by the sound I was able to get, I started off with such songs I used to sing when I was a primary school pupil as 浜辺の歌、a song by the seashore, 歌を忘れたカナリア、a canary that forgot its song, et cetera. When I finished playing part of the 2nd movement of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, from the New World, two young lovely women came up to me asking in French if the music I'd played was a `souviens-toi` or something like that. I barely understood their words but I happened to remember a flower name, 忘れな草、in Japanese, that is, foreget me not in English or souviens-toi de moi in French. So I replied the name of the music was `le Nouveau Monde` i.e., the New World, not `souviens-toi` and I watched their faces cloud over. Here again the Nat King Cole song started to play in my ears - wish my French were good enough, I'd tell you more,,,,,,!

 "May I speak in English?" When I asked, they looked nervously at each other in silence. 

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I felt like playing my 尺八、but was afraid I might disturb those people around by the noise I make, i.e., my poor performance on the bamboo flute. After a lot of hesitation, however, I screwed up my courage and took the instrument out of my bag. Should there be people who feel bothered, they will complain - I thought and furthermore - I'd regret forever unless I play here and now. I'd have to live with the regret the rest of my life - even though it's not to be very long. Anyways I must avoid this sort of regret at any cost as I know how bitter the taste of it is. 

 Softly I breathed into the 尺八 mouthpiece and, encouraged by the sound I was able to get, I started off with such songs I used to sing when I was a primary school pupil as 浜辺の歌、a song by the seashore, 歌を忘れたカナリア、a canary that forgot its song, et cetera. When I finished playing part of the 2nd movement of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, from the New World, two young lovely women came up to me asking in French if the music I'd played was a `souviens-toi` or something like that. I barely understood their words but I happened to remember a flower name, 忘れな草、in Japanese, that is, foreget me not in English or souviens-toi de moi in French. So I replied the name of the music was `le Nouveau Monde` i.e., the New World, not `souviens-toi` and I watched their faces cloud over. Here again the Nat King Cole song started to play in my ears - wish my French were good enough, I'd tell you more,,,,,,!

 "May I speak in English?" When I asked, they looked nervously at each other in silence. 

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  7 - My first day in Paris - continued

  As soon as I got on the metro train and sat on a seat, a metro musician spotted me right away and approached me playing some familiar tune on his accordion. The tune was all right, reminiscent of some Mediterranean scenery rich in sentiment, but he played it standing so close to me, it was more deafening than pleasant. He seemed to have singled me out in an obvious attempt to get an easy tip from an obvious traveller from the Orient, but he ruined my first experience of riding in `le metro` by overwhelmimg me with his loud music. The moment the train stopped at a station, I popped out. Sorry, Mr. Musician, but I just wanted to enjoy my first ride in a metro train and your music was just too much.

  Now, Monceau was the name of the station I found myself at.  All at once, I was reminded of a littel story in a book titled `パリ二十区の素顔` - literally put, `the true face of Paris' 20 districts` - written by Ms. Motome Asano about `Marcel Proust`, very famous for his `A la Recherche du temps perdu`, translated into `失われた時を求めて` in Japanese or `in Search of Lost Time` or `Remembrance of Things Past` in English. Proust is said to have spent most of his life in this 8th arrondissement where Parc de Monceau is located, which appeared just in front of me when I came out of the metro station.

  I entered the park and enjoyed myself a while strolling around and sat on one of the benches placed along the path. It was near noon. There were people jogging past me or sitting on the grass before me all relaxing under the clear blue sky.  Next to me, by the way, sitting on another bench was a French getleman clad in a thick coat as if he was still in the middle of winter. I was keenly interested in him since Proust himself is said to have been so afraid of cold that he also was always warmly clad. The gentleman, unaware of my attention, stood up suddenly and went grumbling his way until he disappered behind a grove.       

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  7 - My first day in Paris

  I planned to spend my first day in Paris walking along the Champs-Elysees. Of all places, this fine avenue lined with chestnut trees has a lot of appeal for me, perhaps because of the song, for one thing, Oh! Champs-Elysees, which is familiar to us and also I play the tune on my 尺八. I hoped I might find some chance to play to entertain people and thus become friendly with them. 

  However, there seems to exist somewhere something all the time that dictates my course otherwise. 

  Getting out of the hotel, I walked a while to get to the metro station `Blanche` on the line no. 2, and was already lost. A disoriented Oriental old man, I just stood in the middle of the sidewalk wondering, then, there came walking toward me a French lady apparently in her early forties, who responded smiling to an old Japanese man's asking for help. Moreover, she was kind enough to go back her way to a crossroads where I made a wrong turn.

  I thanked her and about to say good-bye, when she came up with a question in English - "What does `Kon-nichi-wa` mean?".

  Caught a bit off-guard, I instantly answered "aujourd'hui" unthinkingly as the word "Kon-nich-wa" popped into my head in Chinese characters, namely, 今日は, which can also be pronounced - Kijau, Kyou, or, Kyoo, sorry I don't know phonetics, but anyway, the word means today, viz., aujourd'hui in French. "Aujourd'hui !" She exclaimed right after me. Obviously, she'd expected some totally different French word that was eqivalent to "Kon-nich-wa". 

  She was right, After all, the answer should've been "Bonjour".

  Realizing my mistake after parting with her,  I hurried back to correct myself, but she was nowhere to be seen any more. 

  This is the first of many a regret brought about by mistakes I've made in Paris. She was ineterested in Japan, in a way, through the expression for greetins and I'd had her misunderstand by giving her a wrong answer. Now, I only hope that sometime later by some chance she would've got it right and understood that the old man from Japan was mistaken. Thinking this way, I can feel a little relieved. 

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ちょっと休憩、パリ、モンマルトル、冬の1景