Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New with Expats from Oz, the U.S., and France

This pachyderm ended the year
being crowned Miss Elephant International
Chitwan National Park (Nepal), Dec. 29.

END-OF-YEAR QUESTIONS FOR KYM, DAVID & VERONIQUE

What does it mean to be an elephant seeker? Kym Hamer, David Hufford, and Véronique Martin-Place were among the first expats to help this blog answer that question. For this year-end post, I've asked them to share their holiday highlights, new year's resolutions, and any fresh insights on their adventures.

How did you spend Christmas this year?

KYM HAMER [Australian based in London]: This year was my first Christmas visiting my family in Melbourne since 2005. I arrived here early Christmas morning and walked out of passport control wearing a big bow. Hahaha... For the last six years, I've fervently wished for a white Christmas in the UK. It actually came true this season — and I missed it! C'est la vie...

VERONIQUE MARTIN-PLACE [Frenchwoman based in Chicago]: We stayed put in the United States. As I've written recently on my blog, I'm not a fan of returning to one's home country during the holidays.

DAVID HUFFORD [American based in Tokyo]: Christmas is not a holiday in Japan, so my wife and I usually work. But since December 25 was on a Saturday this year, we both had it off. In that sense, it was an unusual Christmas.

Have you tweaked your holiday celebrations at all since living abroad?

KYM: Particularly since moving to the UK, I've enjoyed the tradition of decorating my own Christmas tree. I love revisiting my travels through all of the ornaments I've collected from various places. This year I am away over Christmas and New Year and could not face the thought of coming back and having to "undress" the tree in mid-January, so I am sans tree... I did help some good friends with their tree so did not miss out altogether.

DAVID: Neither my wife nor I is religious, so there hasn't been much of a change in how we celebrate — except that we do much, much less Christmas shopping since there is no tradition in Japan for exchanging gifts. We still put up a tree and have a special dinner. Thus far we've been able to avoid the local custom of reserving a special Christmas menu from KFC, and we only rarely buy a Christmas cake.

VERONIQUE: In the United States as in France, we celebrate by doing lots of family activities: ice skating, going to the movie theater, museums, baking, and most important of all, playing with the new toys Santa Claus brings to our two daughters... But since settling in Chicago, my family has acquired a couple of new habits. My husband bakes cookies for the girls to leave out for Santa. And we listen to Christmas songs nonstop: at home, in the car, any and everywhere!

Have you had any new insights on your adoptive land since your interview appeared on this blog?

VERONIQUE: One thing I've noticed relating to the holidays is that American people usually say "Happy Holidays," not "Merry Christmas." I wasn't aware of it until I started living here. I guess it is a way to be politically correct. For me, it was both amusing and shocking.

DAVID: Nothing especially new, except that I am beginning to believe that the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the current ruling party, is totally incompetent. I blog about Japanese politics but was late to come to this conclusion.

KYM: Two big personal changes in the past months: I start an amazing new job in January, which I am insanely excited about; and I became a single girl again. The latter I wasn't so excited about, but I'm now on the mend and starting to revel in the joys of being completely selfish again!

Last but not least, have you made any news year's resolutions related to blogging and travel?

VERONIQUE: My Resolution #1 is to write, write and write — for new clients; for my blog, Expat Forever; and on behalf of personal writing projects. My Resolution #2 is to run, run and run — with the goal of doing the Chicago Marathon in 2011. And my Resolution #3 is to travel to Hawaii in 2011. Hmmm... I wish my husband will read this one!

KYM: My new job will involve some travel, so I am hoping to experience some new places/people and maybe revisit some former haunts. And Gidday From The UK will continue to chart my expatriate life no matter where it takes me.

DAVID: I never bother with New Year's resolutions. As far as Japan without the sugar goes: I never run out of things to complain — I mean blog — about. The most interesting trend at present is Japan's apparent moves in changing its defense posture towards China, and its move to become more involved with South Korea and the US alliance toward the DPRK. As far as travel plans, I hope to get back to the US for a visit next fall around Thanksgiving. I have been saying that for the last four years and haven't made it yet.

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If you missed the interviews with these three expats, here are the links:

• "French Expat: Chicago, My Kind of Town," Questions for Véronique Martin-Place
• "Melbourne Girl Gives London a Burl, Comes up a Doozey," Questions for Kym Hamer
• "Seen the Elephant — It's Not All Sweetness and Light," Questions for David Hufford

See also interviews with:

• Jamie Stokes: "If the Shoe Fits... An Englishman's Curious Devotion to a Curious Country"
• Beth Lang: "Babar to Burkina: All for the Love of La Langue Française"

This blog has been going since May of this year and has been a success due to the participation of these five elephant seekers, along with all of you commenters and followers (the thundering herd!). Thank you, and as they say in Japan on New Year's Day, kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu [please continue to help me in the new year].

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to New Year's Eve celebrations that include one or two pink elephants, preferably with painted toenails (see photo above). And with that thought in mind, à votre santé, cheers, kampai!

French Expat: Chicago, My Kind of Town

QUESTIONS FOR VERONIQUE
MARTIN-PLACE

This diplomat's wife and mother of two reflects on life in the city of broad shoulders, jazz, and deep-dish pizza, and how after two years she has come to own the experience.

Which part of France did you grow up in, and did you ever dream of living in the United States? I am from Lyon, in the southeastern part of the country, between Paris and Marseilles. Lyon is known as France's gastronomic capital. When I was a child, I would have laughed if somebody had told me I'd be living in Chicago one day. I wanted to move to Paris, but the idea of living abroad never entered my mind. It was not my plan at all.

And then you married a diplomat and traveled the world? Yes, my husband is a civil servant with the French Foreign Office. We have already completed one full expatriate cycle: three years in Norway, three years in Sri Lanka, and three years back in France (the city of Nantes). Chicago marks the start of our second cycle. We've been living here since summer 2008 with our two daughters. It's our first stay in the United States.

I have a soft spot for your resume as like me, you earned a Ph.D. in politics but chose not to stay in the academy.  I will always remember June 1999. My husband was about to receive his first overseas assignment — to Norway, though we didn't know that yet. Meanwhile, I got a phone call from the director of Department of Political Science at the University of Paris expressing interest in my candidacy for an adjunct teaching post. Without thinking too much, I answered: "I'm leaving the country." At that time I was writing my Ph.D. thesis. I could have stayed on my own for another year in Paris to teach at the university and defend my dissertation, but I didn't consider it. I wasn't passionate enough about academe to make it my career.

How does Chicago compare to Oslo and Colombo? It's been easy to settle here because I already speak the language, which was not the case in the other two cities. And the American way of life has been easy to adapt to. It helps that Chicago is family friendly compared to other American cities, Los Angeles for instance.

ON THE "TO DO" LIST: Bank of America
Chicago Marathon 2011

Is your family becoming Americanized? To some extent, just as we became "tropicalized" in Sri Lanka! My girls love celebrating Halloween, which isn't at all popular in France. This year, we decorated our apartment with fake pumpkins and spiders made in China (thank you, Target) and carved our own jack-o-lanterns. Also, my husband and I have started running like a lot of Chicagoans do. We've done some races and hope to run the Chicago Marathon next year, before we leave.

Have you made any American friends? As I'm fond of saying, I got to know more people after six months living in Chicago than after three years of living in Nantes, where we repatriated after Sri Lanka. But having a wide social network doesn't mean having many good friends. My daughters attend an American school so I often meet Americans, but in most cases the friendship doesn't go any further than a nice talk on the playground. To this day, most of my friends in Chicago are other expats.

NO COSTUME CHANGE: Ariel keeps
bikini top, even in France.

I imagine that some of the Americans you meet have preconceived notions of what French people are like. I have a funny story about that. The first year we were here, my younger daughter was in prekindergarten. At that time she was fond of the Disney character Ariel. She would draw Ariel at least ten times a day. One day at pick-up time, the teacher gave me one of my daughter's drawings and said: “At least, she drew her with a bra!” I answered: “Yes, it is very realistic: Ariel always wears a purple one.” The teacher: “Well, you know. Most often children draw what they see. Don’t you go to the beach all naked in France?”

Great story. Can I ask you to follow it up with a "blind men's tale" — an example of how Americans and French people can approach the same topic very differently? Coming from Lyon, I would have to say the style of eating. I still cook everyday which I think is not the case of most Americans. People here are much more convenience oriented — except on Thanksgiving, when they go all out with fancy gadgets. And, although I've picked up the American habit of having food delivered from time to time (I love it!), I always request: no plastic forks, spoons, or paper plates.

That's something I've had trouble readjusting to as well after living in England and Japan. It doesn't feel like a proper meal without real cutlery and china. It's not just that, it's also wasteful. When I first got to this country, I was really shocked by the way Americans consume paper cups and plates, plastic glasses, napkins, etc. all day long. I was doubly shocked when I realized that I would not be able to recycle my garbage in my apartment building. These days, I bring my garbage down to the laundry room for sorting into newspapers, glass, plastic bottles and so. Once a week, I drive out to a place where I can deposit these bags for recycling.

So life isn't "greener" in Chicago? I get demoralized whenever I see bags of garbage on the Chicago streets. Why am I bothering if no one else is?

Even though you've moved around a lot, have you always tried to have a job? I am a mother of two but I am not only that. If my brain doesn't work, I get depressed. My identity is linked very closely to my professional and intellectual activities. But when you are an accompanying spouse and move every three years, it is almost impossible to have a career. Actually, you should remove that word from your vocabulary. You have to find other ways to feel active and comfortable in your shoes.

Tell me more about the business you started up recently. I had always picked up jobs as a trailing spouse, although the work wasn't always suited to my background and skills. When we arrived in Chicago in summer 2008, I was optimistic about landing a more challenging job, but then the American economy tanked. Nine months into our stay, I had no leads, nothing, not even an interview. Almost a year had gone by, and I had only two years left. I enlisted the help of a coach. I began to change my thinking: why not develop a portable job? After a full cycle of life as a diplomat's wife, I had grown tired of having to hand in my notice and search for something else every three years. I wanted some continuity. Just over a year ago, I started my own Web site, Writer Forever, offering freelance writing and editing services. For years, writing had been my passion, and although most of my jobs had included writing, it wasn't always the kind of writing I enjoyed.

Who are your clients? Online magazines, Web sites, publishing companies, and media agencies. I specialize in producing articles in French and English on a variety of topics from a French expat point of view.

You also have a companion blog? I started up Expat Forever this past April to share my thoughts and experiences as a serial expat. People think that "seeing an elephant," to use your expression, is glamorous, but that is a myth. When I was living in Sri Lanka, for instance, I had to contend with the threat of dengue fever, water and electricity cuts, violence and civil war. Another myth people have is that they will solve their problems by going abroad, but this is a mistake. It will only make things worse. Besides writing about my own experiences, I also review books dealing with expatriation, and I just now posted my first interview with a French expat: a painter who has lived in Chicago since 2006.

The blogosphere seems to be full of Americans writing about living in Paris. I imagine they have plenty of French counterparts who are living in American cities? Mais oui. One of my favorites is New York La Dolce Vita, about a Frenchwoman's adventures in New York City.

I notice you recommend Julia Child's memoir on your blog. To be honest, I had no idea of who Julia Child was until I watched the trailer for Julie and Julia on the Internet — and then I knew I had to see the movie. I saw some of my own story in hers. She was an American woman married to a diplomat. When the couple landed in France right after WWII, she had no idea of what what she was going to do with her life. She fell in love with France and the food culture. Her passion became her business. After seeing the movie, I ran to Borders to buy her memoir, My Life in France. A few days later, I wrote an article for Femmexpat proclaiming Julia Child an icon to expat wives everywhere.

Can you channel Julia for a moment and tell us: if you had to design a meal that blends your favorite French and American foods, what items would you choose? I would start with a nice salad in the French style with a real vinaigrette. Then I'd prepare hamburgers and French fries, along with a choice of dips for the French fries — you Americans love your dips! For dessert, I'd serve homemade madeleines with strawberries. And nice wines, of course ...

No Chicago-style pizza? I've tasted it but am not a fan. It's too ... stuffed, too heavy.

LUCKY SIGHTING: Elephants at
Sri Lanka's Esala Perahera festival,
Courtesy S Baker

Finally, a couple of questions posed to all interviewees for this blog. First, have you collected any Treasured White Elephants during your stay in America? My daughters each have an American Girl doll, which I'd like to keep as a reminder of their early years in the United States and how they became a little like American girls themselves. Perhaps my grandchildren will play with one day? I haven't yet started my own collection, but I had one in Sri Lanka. Guess what it was? Elephants: small statutes, wooden children's toys (including a small representation of the Perahera, a yearly Buddhist festival consisting of dances and ornately decorated elephants), lamps with elephant bases, you name it. My younger daughter was born in Colombo, and I decorated her room using an elephant theme. To this day, the equivalent of her teddy bear is a small stuffed elephant.

BATH TIME: Pinnawala pachyderms,
courtesy Dominique Schreckling

I love the idea of elephants being your treasured white elephant. I presume you've seen some real life elephants during your travels? Not in Chicago but certainly in Sri Lanka, where we attended the Esala Perahera in Kandy, and I would sometimes see elephants in the streets of Colombo. I also visited the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage, where I was able to witness mother elephants and babies taking their baths in the river. C'était magnifique!

In Honor of Those Who See the Elephant Untrammeled by Xenophobia

We long-term expats are far from perfect. We're too often the empty chair at the extended-family table; we can come across as arrogant or aloof; and some of us are boozers. But one thing you can say for us, we don't fear the "other." We're not xenophobes. Thus one of the most difficult challenges of repatriation can be witnessing an outbreak of xenophobia in one's native land, as has been happening lately in the United States.

Immigrants, Muslims, President Obama: demonizing the "other" is rapidly becoming a blood sport. Never mind that most immigrants come to see an "elephant" (as did many of our own ancestors). Or that most Muslims aren't terrorists. Or that in this age of international travel, President Obama is hardly alone in taking the "x" out xenophobe and putting it into expatriate. In a cover story for this month's Forbes, conservative thinker Dinesh D'Souza asserts that because Obama spent “his formative years — the first 17 years of his life — off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa," he is an "other," doesn't think like an "American," and takes actions that benefit foreigners, not natives. (This barb from a man who was born and raised in India!)

As an antidote to these poisonous times, this blog will be issuing occasional Pachrydermophile Prizes in honor of Americans who are carrying on a love affair with the elephant, or "X," in a very public way, untrammeled by xenophobia. In this post, "best of" prizes will be awarded for the following categories:

• Wrinkles and All: For foreign-born or first-generation Americans who continue to embrace their native cultures in the face of vitriolic attacks.
• Grass Really Is Greener: For Americans who admire certain things about the "other" and aren't afraid to broadcast that fact.
• Feed Time: For Americans who, having fallen hard for another culture's food, try hard to get the rest of us to fall as well.
• Why Do Elephants Paint Their Toes Yellow? For Americans who express a love of other cultures through clothing.

And the winners are . . .

BEST "WRINKLES AND ALL"

Porochista Khakpour, an Iranian-American novelist, for facing down the American "elephant" since 9/11. Khakpour's debut novel, Sons and Other Flammable Objects, told of the travails of an Iranian-American family in New York post-9/11. But little did Khakpour anticipate, when she published the book in 2007, the "boiling hot summer of anti-Islamic assault" the nation has just experienced. As she wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times, published on September 11, 2010:

. . . it would take almost a full decade for the proverbial 9/11 fallout to fall out, for anti-Muslim xenophobia to emerge, fully formed and fever-pitched, ostensibly over plans to build an interfaith cultural center near ground zero.

Khakpour's family fled Tehran at the advent of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, when she was only three years old. They hustled from country to country, ultimately settling in Southern California. At that time, Khakpour spoke only Farsi; now she is a professor of literature Santa Fe University of Art and Design as well as an accomplished novelist. She did not embrace Islam and has become an American citizen. That said, she still considers herself to be a Middle Easterner culturally — an identity that sometimes clashes with her values, those of a political liberal. For instance, she cannot fully accept Western stereotypes of Muslim women:

. . . I used to experience so many mixed emotions when I’d see women in full burqa in Brooklyn: alarm at the spectacle (no matter how many times I’d seen it), followed by a certain feminist irk, and finally discomfiture at our cultural kinship. And then it would all turn into one strong emotion — protective rage — when I’d see a group of teenagers laughing and pointing at them.

BEST "GRASS REALLY IS GREENER"

Elisabeth Rosenthal, a medical-doctor-turned-foreign-correspondent, for combining an anthropologist's ability to immerse herself in other cultures with a journalist's ability to report back on her discoveries. As the health and environment reporter for the International Herald Tribune, Rosenthal has embarked on a quest to find out what makes Europe greener than the United States. She likes to tell an anecdote at her own expense: about how she struggled to get used to not having a clothes dryer or air conditioner in her apartment in Rome. All's well that ends well, she says: "I now enjoy the ritual of putting laundry on the line, expect to sweat in summer, and look forward to the cool of autumn." She is also of the conviction that if she can do it, others can. The average American produces three times the amount of CO2 emissions as a person in France. So if we are serious about lowering our carbon footprints, then it's time to forgo some of our energy-wasting appliances.

Before Europe, Rosenthal reported on health-related issues for the New York Times' Beijing bureau. She recently drew on that experience when contributing a front-page story to the Times's Week in Review addressing the debate now raging in American educational communities about the importance of testing. She tells the story of how well her children adapted to their international school in Beijing, which combined a Western curriculum with an Asian emphasis on discipline and frequent testing. She says that her kids mostly didn't understand they were being tested as the "tests felt like so many puzzles; not so much a judgment on your being, but an interesting challenge." What's more, they came to "like the feedback of testing." American educators would do well to heed Rosenthal's advice and learn from the Chinese example. Notably, her observations dovetail with some new U.S. research showing that not giving tests may be bad educational practice.

BEST "FEED TIME"

Ratha Chau and Ben Daitz, two members of the New York City restaurant scene, for founding the city's first Cambodian-American sandwich shop. Daitz and Chau were buddies at Clark University in 1992. Their paths crossed again some years later when both were working in the food industry in New York City. Daitz helped Chau open Kampuchea (New York's first Cambodian restaurant, now closed) on the Lower East Side. Daitz still remembers the first time he visited that restaurant, and Chau made him a sandwich using his Cambodian mother's recipe. He took one bite and felt he'd seen the "elephant." Eventually, the two friends joined forces to open up a tiny sandwich shop in the East Village called Num Pang, showcasing traditional Cambodian ingredients — fermented fish, shrimp paste, fermented shrimp, and lots of herbs — in a style (gourmet sandwiches) they hoped would appeal to Americans.

In a recent "At Lunch With" column in the New York Times, the actor Oliver Platt dragged film critic Leah Rozen to Num Pang and proceeded to order his favorite skirt steak sandwich topped with mayonnaise flavored with fresh cilantro [coriander]. Platt's father was a diplomat specializing in Asia, so the family (which also includes food critic Adam Platt) lived in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Japan. There are many Americans who think that cilantro tastes like soap, but for Platt, cilantro is the equivalent of what the madeleine was to Proust: the flavor that recalls his time abroad more than any other. No wonder he's a Num Pang regular. At the same time, Platt appreciates how well Daitz and Chau have made their Southeast Asian food concept work in a New York City's ultra-urban environment. "You’ve got all of New York in microcosm right here," he told Rozen. ". . . I can smell the exhaust, and that’s part of the whole palate.”

BEST "WHY DO ELEPHANTS PAINT THEIR TOES YELLOW?"

Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai, a team of up-and-coming fashion designers, for melding designs from far-flung corners of the globe with an American retro aesthetic. Mayock and Buhai met when they were graduate students at Parsons School of Design (home of Project Runway). Each was elated to discover a fellow Californian who was attempting to dress an East Coast "elephant." (In Mayock's view, West Coast style is much less defined than what's found in the East.) Upon graduating from Parsons, the pair collaborated on their own label, Vena Cava, which is distinguished for its hip prints and dresses with a worldly feel — clothes that, in New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn's phrase, "hint of Americana with a dash of another country."

Vena Cava's cultural references have included Egyptian history, japonismo, Wiener Werkstatte, and African textiles. Lately, Buhai and Mayock seem to have turned to the Tuscan region of Italy or France for inspiration. (Are they suggesting we'd all like to escape?!) Their Spring 2011 collection, shown at New York Fashion Week, "felt very Mad Men by way of Capri," according to Huffington Post contributor Nicole Berrie. "An Eat, Pray, Love of the 1960s if you will." (Sounds heavenly, in my current mood ...)

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Question: Long live the American pachydermophile spirit! Are there any other exemplars you think should be honored?

Babar to Burkina: All for the Love of La Langue Française

QUESTIONS FOR BETH LANG

This native Delawarean who is now a French citizen says that despite her life-long love affair with the French language, she has come to prefer French-speaking Africa to France.

We both grew up in Delaware — a state so small some people have never heard of it — and have been friends for decades. Were there any early indicators that we would one day be candidates for seeing the elephant? Well, we were both outsiders in high school — nerdy, maladjusted. You and I had a children's birthday party business, so we were more likely to be putting on puppet shows in clown suits than hanging out at the mall. But that didn’t necessarily destine us for international adventure. My family went to Canada on vacation — that was about it. And my mother had taught French, but for that very reason I rebelled against studying it. I wanted to do something different so tried Latin.



What made you change your mind? I took a French course in 10th grade and realized that I loved it. Maybe it was easy because of studying Latin first.



You've been to France countless times for prolonged visits, but have you ever really made a home there? My longest stay in France was the nine months I spent teaching English at the University of Bordeaux when I was a grad student. But even though I've never been an expat like you or others featured in this blog, I've been immersed in French culture for years. Now I live in Washington where I teach college-level French and travel to France at least twice a year. I also have French citizenship.



What motivated you to become officially Gallic? Marriage at the time, and now speeding through the EU line at immigration! And if you travel a lot, it's helpful to have a non-American passport, just in case we’re at war and hated by the rest of the world...

You’re immersed in French culture, as you say, but you don't seem all that attached to the country. I have an intellectual and emotional attachment to the language, but not so much to France itself. Years ago, my first serious relationship was in France, but with an Algerian — interestingly, I chose to be with someone who was also an outsider. Then later, I knew I wanted to marry someone who speaks French as the language is so important to me, but I didn't necessarily want to live in the country.

Is it fair to say that something has kept you from giving yourself over to France — from seeing the elephant in its entirety, wrinkles and all? Yes, I think I prefer making frequent travels, so that I can keep up with changes in the language and culture, rather than actually living in a place. That way I can also avoid the Rip Van Winkle syndrome when coming back to the U.S.

Would you live in France now if the opportunity arose? No, if I were to live somewhere else, it would be French-speaking West Africa. It's more interesting, and, paradoxically, I feel more comfortable with the people even though I am more of an outsider than in Europe.



Tell me more about your interest in Africa. When did it start? I was teaching French at Johns Hopkins SAIS where a number of my students were in African Studies or were Africans themselves. I tutored a student from Kenya, who got me interested in studying some Swahili. Again, it was language that first drew me in, though not French. Post-SAIS, I have worked for Cohen & Woods, a consulting firm which has done a lot of work in French-speaking African countries.



How many African countries have you visited? Six — one English-speaking, Zimbabwe; and the other five French- or Arabic-speaking: Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, and Senegal.

 

Where have you stayed the longest? In Dakar, Senegal's capital city, for a month.

Is Senegal your favorite? No, I prefer Burkina Faso — maybe because it's more like Delaware! The Senegalese remind me of New Yorkers: they tend to be more aggressive, hustlers. Whereas the Burkinabè are calmer, less in your face. I feel more comfortable there.

So, have you seen any African elephants? I've seen lots of monkeys but no elephants yet. I do have an elephant obsession, however, but it comes from my interest in France, not Africa. My aunt bought Babar the Elephant books for me and my brother as kids. Later, I started collecting Babar stuff: original watercolors, posters, books, stuffed animals... I love the illustrations and the old French cursive in the books.



Can you tell me any Blind Man's Tales — stories that demonstrate the differences among American, European, and African perspectives? An obvious one is the way they respond to the news that a prominent person is having an affair. At President Mitterand's funeral, his wife and his long-term mistress stood side-by-side at the grave, accompanied by their respective children. That would never happen here with American puritanism. Many Africans, even if they are Christians, accept and practice polygamy — traditional culture trumps imported religion. I have a Burkinabè friend who has 64 siblings because his father has I-don't-know-how-many wives. And of course Europeans and Africans were united in their ridicule for our attitude during the Clinton-Monica period.

Africa is a mystery to most Americans, though perhaps the World Cup will help to dispel that. What is the biggest cultural gap? Americans will open up to total strangers, whereas Africans are often extremely private. I have a Burkinabè friend who told me she had a boyfriend — but didn’t want me to tell her sister, even though the two of them are close. I know other African families where several sisters sleep in the same bed but will not undress in front of each other. Americans are puritanical, but Africans have more taboos.

Do you have any Treasured White Elephants — something useless or bizarre that you've collected from your travels that you're attached to nonetheless? I've been collecting traditional cooking utensils from West Africa. One of them, a kind of primitive whisk, is hanging on my kitchen wall. A Senegalese broom — a bunch of straw tied together with a bit of dress fabric — does a better job on the kitchen floor than our industrial ones.

Will you celebrate 4th of July, le quatorze juillet, or both? I don’t do much for either, but I will put out a French flag on Bastille Day but no American flag on the 4th. And a Québecois flag went out on June 24th for la Saint-Jean.

Lastly, let's talk food. If you had to design a menu for the summer season consisting of a favorite dish from America, France, and Africa, what would it be? Grilled capitaine (fish) kebabs from Africa, with spicy sauce on the side. A French puy lentil salad with garlicky vinaigrette. And my mom's sour cherry pie for dessert. She uses Crisco (yes, it still exists!) so I avoid the crust, but the filling is wonderful!