Coming to live in France was something I was always
prepared for. Being married to a
Frenchman, one has to be ready for that sort of thing. After all, my husband had spent ten years in
Malaysia and is very accustomed to eating roti
canai and dhal for
breakfast. Now it’s my turn, and I don’t
see any problems in eating buttery croissants for breakfast. The problem will be fitting into my jeans. Although, I confess I am a Penang girl at
heart, and a good kuey teow thng is
what I miss most some mornings. But it
was the first time I was going to live abroad as a parent, and I did have some
panic moments.
When you are single (and young), the unknown is an
adventure and you have only yourself to think of. With kids though, one tends to succumb less
to spontaneity and try at least to have some things planned ahead. You can’t crash on a friend’s sofa for a few
weeks. Registering for school is a
little bit more complicated than opening a bank account or getting a membership
at the local pool. Not only did we have
to have a residential address, we could only register the kids the moment the insurance
for the home kicked in, which is the day we moved in. So if we thought we were
being smart and had a lease prior to our arrival and could register the kids in
advance, we were mistaken.
I do speak French, and considerably well it seems,
according to my husband and my French in-laws and friends. Of course, could be they are just being
polite. The French language is full of
subtleties, and the true meanings of certain words I have only started to fully
understand now, more than ten years since I first learnt the language. Perhaps I’m just slow. And certain situations demand a precision in
a language I fear I have not mastered.
The image of being in an emergency room (and how to get there) with my
kids, stuck for words, strike me with fear.
I could go to the butcher with a picture of the cut of meat I want but
googling for a picture of a urinary tract infection or for a translation in an
emergency room seems like a not-so-funny episode of some old comedy on TV. And I am still working on being able to come
up with a smart retort to some obnoxious metro fellow passenger there and then,
not five minutes later.
My girls are 9 and 7, and had been coming to France
every summer. They both speak French
fluently and are easily adaptable. When
we announced to them that we were moving permanently to France, they were first
of all excited. Then they started to
think that their lives were being ruined, with their friendships destroyed and
their beloved grandmother left behind.
Their home, with their huge bedroom and a swimming pool would be an
unknown luxury in Paris. As we left our
house for the last time, they were choked up and although we had spent months
preparing them, wailed “Why do we have to leave? This is our home!”
We did not expect a difficult integration. There was no language barrier for them to
overcome although they do seem to speak it with much more fluidity now and have
certainly picked up some colloquial largo,
or dialect. The cultural affinity was
already there. After all, their father
is French. They had already been in a
French education system.
Two weeks before school started, they were both highly
strung. Excited, at the same time
anxious, they bickered. They couldn’t
wait to start school. I couldn’t either.
In France, school is not compulsory but education is;
although only a small 0.2% of the school- going population are homeschooled in
France. Primary school officially starts when a child turns 6. Equivalent to Standard one is CP, Cours Préparatoire.
Kids in France are generally not pressured to learn to
read before this age (they are only expected to be able to read their name),
and the focus in preschool, or what is known as maternelle, is to acquire a good level of spoken French. Being able to speak clearly is seen as paving
the way to thinking clearly and therefore reasoning, counting, classifying,
describing, all should follow suit.
At the end of each term, my kids came home with
enormous folders of drawings and paintings, often of lines, waves, semi
circles, circles – they were learning how to hold a pencil correctly and the
basics of handwriting: another important element focused at preschool. They are encouraged to explore their senses,
their feelings, and imagination. Most important at preschool is learning how to
be an élève
ie a student or a pupil, what school is about and being part of a social
group. Living with others requires
rules of civility, cooperation and independence. The child learns that the teacher is there
not for her only, but for others in the group too. She learns to be part of a group but also to
understand the constraints of being part of a group.
When my younger daughter was in maternelle (this was in KL, but the school maintains a French
spirit), the teacher in the report card praised her for her enthusiasm but
remarked that she needed to “wait her turn and raise her hand to speak”.
One thing to get used to in France is the French
workers’ proclivity to strike. This does
not exclude teachers. Protesting against
the proposed re-installation of Wednesdays (there was no school on Wednesdays
in France but this changed with the new school year in September) as a school
day, there had been two days where parents were expected to “be understanding”
and keep their children home while the teachers were on strike. And the French parents do understand. Strikes and demonstrations are part and
parcel of French life and everyone just deals with it.
One evening over dinner, my younger one said to me
“Mama, we’ve both made friends in school.
How about you? Have you made any
friends?” I explained that for adults,
it always took a little longer. My
considerate daughter, supportive and full of encouragement, said “Don’t worry,
next week there is a parents and teacher meeting. You will meet other parents there and I’m sure
you will make some friends!” How do I
tell her that French mothers are not inclined to say hello to you and be your
friend, just because your kids are friends.
So how are we adjusting a year later? I just know that its all easy to plan but its
never easy to know how you will adapt and what you will feel, until you are
there sur place, facing the life it
offers day after day. Today I feel the
panic going slowly but the craving for the kuey
teow thng has started…
