Study Abroad. The term tends to conjure images of luxurious, tropical, learning resorts, overflowing with spectacular food, fun and friends, and where the “what happens in X town, stays in X town,” rule is evoked on a weekly basis. What the glossy study abroad magazines neglect to mention is that the experience does not come without a certain amount of angst and awkwardness. For most students, this comes in the form of the language barrier, the conniving culprit of all miscommunication. I am, however, a particularly well-rounded study-abroad student. My awkwardness has manifested not only in the form of language difficultly, but also with the recent visit of my very own parents, whose resemblance to the parents in “National Lampoon’s Family Vacation” is uncanny.
I anticipated their arrival with a mixture of emotions: excitement to see my kin and fear and dread for all of Europe. Their last trip to Germany almost resulted in the deaths of countless unsuspecting pedestrians and bikers. In my parents’ perpetual feverish search for directions, a total of no fewer than 207 German citizens were accosted — a figure I carefully tracked in my journal as the number became increasingly outlandish. A teenager at the time, I almost perished from parental mortification, the leading cause of fatality among adolescents.
As my parents’ trip approached, I was confronted with the irony that though several thousand miles of Atlantic Ocean separated us, my parents had still successfully managed to interfere with my love life. A French pilot had wanted to take me flying the weekend of their visit, but I begrudgingly rescheduled with him, giving preference to my parents. Hopefully this was the last time I will have to choose between my parents and a French love interest, because I would miss my parents.
Though their arrival was ill-timed, my parents arrived bearing gifts of nearly forgotten American staples, mainly peanut butter and money, both of which were sorely lacking. After devouring the peanut butter, the pain of missing my French lover was slightly alleviated, and we proceeded to Carcassonne, a medieval fortified city that was our main agenda for the weekend.
My parents reminded me of what France is like for foreigners: Americans taking their first tentative, tottering steps from the airplane, armed only with a few survival phrases and a MasterCard to conquer formidable France, touted as the home of all haute culture. However much the French grumble about the Anglophones, they love the way Americans spend, even in the midst of an international economic crisis.
While my folks relished their pastries, simpered over the food and fawned over the castles, there were certain times when they were alone and lost. France can be a dark and scary place for the unsuspecting American tourist. I had to stop my parents from walking into the hotel restaurant in search of their room on the “first floor,” which in France, is really the second. I explained that, “Cedez le passage,” was in fact not a road name, but instead a road sign indicating the driver to yield. When I asked my mother for shampoo I was presented shoe shine polish, since for her the words “chaussures” (shoes) and “cheveaux” (hair) were indistinguishable.
The most unforgettable cultural confusion occurred with my father. Always interested in my future and perhaps slightly worried about my liberal arts French major, he pressed, “Kendra, why exactly are you studying French?” As I launched into my flowery explanation of the profound beauty of the language, he interrupted, stating flatly, “Well, doesn’t French have an enormous amount of vulgarities and blasphemies in the language?” Puzzled, I asked him to elaborate.
“Well, in the United States, whenever someone is about to say something with curse words, they preface the statement by saying ‘Pardon my French.’”
After I’d finally stopped laughing, my hiccups had subsided, and I managed to pick myself up off the floor, I tried to correct my poor Papa’s misunderstanding.
“You see,” I explained, “It’s just a phrase that people use to excuse their profanity, under the pretense that the curse words are part of a foreign language.”
“You mean we’re unjustly blaming the French when we curse?” my father asked, astonished. Whatever the linguistic intention of the phrase, we had successfully butchered it. Exhausted from laughing, I dozed off as my parents again tried to take “Cedez la Passage” home.
Kendra’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at k.kirk@cavalierdaily.com.
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