a month in france
reflecting on my time living on a farm in the midi-pyrénées.
I began to gain much more perspective once Marie and Sébastien* left. There was more time alone with my thoughts and more space to reflect on the last twenty days, which had passed in a blur. The blurring of these days felt to me like pebbles in a river, smoothed over by constant motion and a deluge of information and action that washed away imperfections. My first twenty days on the farm were lived in the present; struggling to communicate in French, speaking little and listening a lot, enjoying and appreciating the mountains and nature around me. This is not to say I didn't yearn for home or find myself frustrated with my lack of communication. And I did have contact with friends and family; long video calls while I sat myself in the grass and attempted to harness the torrent of english that I had nowhere else to unleash. My time on the farm is a pebble of time and experience which I now lift out of the rushing stream to examine closer, to learn from. I cannot necessarily see things clearer now. I think both perspectives have value and clarity; hindsight and presence bring their own bias and beauty to my time on the farm. That said, this reflection is written, for myself, to balance both joy and contemplation, present and past.
My time in France can be simplified, diluted, if you will, into three sections; language, spirituality, and racialisation. This delineation is not meant to oversimplify but instead allow room for the nuance of my reflections in a way that makes sense to me, as I interpret my experience. These categories overlap and influence each other, and I’ve decided to use them as methods of analysis for my own growth and understanding of my time; a digestion of things I might otherwise forget or overlook.
Language. The most visible, tangible, and shocking aspect of this month. It colored my days, my nights, my time alone and with others. I was surrounded by French, overwhelmed by it, consumed. I don’t know if I overestimated my capability in French when deciding to come to the farm or simply ignored it, but I threw myself into the deep end. My inability to understand was humbling. It was frustrating and silencing but I am grateful for it nonetheless; it offered me a chance to truly slow down, stop and think about what words mean, how sentences are created, how to speak with intention. I did not do much talking. For a few days I thought of it as my own meditation retreat, a forced silence in the midst of others’ personalities, thoughts, and feelings. I think this was the most frustrating; being devoid of my full personality, my intellect, interest, and experience that I could otherwise share. I instead became a listener, a calm and content witness to the constant stream of other people. In many ways my listening approach was an anchor among the swirling and overwhelming torrent of French. I felt that by tapping into the side of myself that listened, observed, and flowed along with the rhythms of the farm I would feel safe and content with my place in it all. And I won’t lie to you, I did feel content. I was happy to go along with anything, using oui, d’accord, and ça va to form the basis of my identity; agreement and contentedness. I was determined to be easy and I think some part of me believed that I was teetering on the edge of becoming an annoying, unwelcome, high-maintenance, American presence. Even with all this listening, a lack of French vocabulary is bound to lead to misconstrued meanings. Wait, is he saying something sexist or describing the feminine and masculine energies of Yin and Yang? More on this later. I kept my thoughts to myself though, and let conversations play out like I wasn’t even there, preferring to observe rather than interject with my skewed understandings.
I think in some ways I became too good a listener, receiving, alternately, the life stories of Marie and Sébastien in both English and French. Even in English, I didn’t talk much, realizing that my own meanings might be misconstrued, arguing that I hadn't come in order to speak English, and most of all being slowed, in English and French, by a lack of fluent communication. This barred me from the freedom to speak my mind. Even in English I listened, saying okay, I see, yes, interesting to continue building this persona of contented listener, fascinated by their stories and ideas. It was not a lie that I was building. I think, in essence, it was just a half truth, the side of myself that I felt the most ease inhabiting in an unfamiliar space. I became an ear to their stories, a blank canvas for their ideas and teachings and assumptions. Being eighteen, I was also the youngest person there, maybe seemingly the most impressionable. My go-with-the-flow affirmations were fueled by an open-mindedness; I really was willing to listen and learn, although I’d like to think that I’m less impressionable than I may have seemed. My approach to language and communication was an easy and safe way to become Marie and Sébastien’s friend. I was diluted and easily digestible for others, but anchored myself in knowing the intentionality of it and the reality of who I am. And with this approach, I soaked in my surroundings, stayed present, and felt content with where I fell into the group dynamics. Language undoubtedly influenced all other aspects of my time in France — how could it not? — and looking back now it is clearer to see how the dynamics of my relationships and conversations allowed for both open-mindedness on my part, but also others’ racialisation and assumptions of my identity and personality.
Spirituality was a big topic of discussion at the farm. Sébastien had a huge amount of experience, knowledge, and even ability with regards to his spiritual beliefs and ideas of the world. I would describe it, in brief, as a sort of New Age interconnectedness of nature and humanity, pulling from different religious traditions and cultural ideologies (chakras, the holy trinity, yin yang, traditional medicine, indigenous knowledge forms, reiki, dantian, etc., etc.) to create an overarching framework. He was more than excited to discuss this. Or maybe teach, impose, and convince better describe his transmission of knowledge. Not to say that it wasn’t interesting. With my open-mindedness I was willing to accept his story of the world, suspending doubt just like I suspended my own tongue. He passionately discussed this at length in French (recall my confusion between sexism and yin yang) with everyone and in English with me. We learned from him the properties of medicinal herbs and how they connected with spiritual understandings of structure, form, color, and energy in relation to the universe and the human body. For example, Aubépine. A five petaled white flower whose smell clears and strengthens your mind. The five corresponds to a centrality, which corresponds to the heart (centerpoint of the body) and its stabilisation. White represents a masculine energy (see yin yang) but also a purity in its powerful reflection of other color vibrations. Its smell and effect on your mind inform you of its strength and spiritual power; it is supposedly useful for mediums. This method was applied to a number of plants — Surreau, Consoude, Melisse — and always included connections made by Sébastien for us to follow, awe-inspired. I would often sit there, waiting for a break in his monologue, to interject with répéter s’il te plâit? It might sound crazy but the connections did make sense. It made sense to me that there was meaning behind plants, a deeper understanding of the natural world that we had lost, and Sébastien’s explanations led us to satisfying aha moments. It was a fascinating dive into the type of knowledge I previously had little experience with.
The little experience I did have was with my dad’s Qi-Gong practices and energy work. He had shown me how to feel the energy in my hands by opening my fingers and allowing my palms to face each other. Simon was excited when I told him about this — he had discovered energies for himself at seven years old and had worked with them to heal people and learn the different vibrational frequencies of the natural world. I, you guessed it, listened attentively as he told me all this. I genuinely was and still am fascinated by his experiences and abilities. Beyond energy work he told me he can see auras, has had many out of body experiences, and used to meditate for hours as a teenager. Whether or not you believe all this, I went into these conversations trusting and open to hearing his story; I might as well listen and nod along now and process later, I thought. Yet I had some faith in it all; I felt the vibrational frequencies he showed me of the four elements and the plants we studied. Was part of this learning process simply nodding along or telling him what he wanted to hear? Maybe. He’d ask me what I’d felt and I’d hesitate and speak slowly, describing the vague feelings and letting him jump to fill in the blanks. I still don’t know what to think of it all, but I do know that it was fascinating and intriguing and unique, and I am grateful for any learning opportunity, however out of the ordinary. In addition, I know that I felt closer to the natural world than I ever have in my life.
Nature was wholly, beautifully surrounding me for twenty five days, and I was soaking it up. It was another area in which I listened, received, and accepted, but in many ways it felt more balanced than my non-fluent and slightly one-sided conversations with others. The natural world was giving me peace when I listened, comfort when I slowed, beauty when I was willing to receive. This peace which surrounded me allowed me to stop thinking, overthinking, who I was and who I became on the farm, especially in the presence of others. It reminded me that I knew myself, and I anchored myself both in my knowing of who I really am and my connection with the natural world.
Racialisation is a stickier topic, but a necessary analysis. I had never been to France before this month. It is not a place I know well, not in the same way I know the character of the United States through reading and learning and experiencing. My time at the farm exposed me to a sliver of what France is like, potentially an odd and unique sliver of French-ness, but French all the same. What I process here is my own experience with this sliver of France and the people I spent time with who, like myself and all people, are informed by their surroundings and situation in life. It is a personal experience that I am analyzing to better understand myself and the real world manifestations of what I study and write about.
It was fascinating and a bit jarring to go from university to rural France. University, where I’d been writing and thinking and studying race and social issues for the past year, discussing passionately with my friends, and discovering my own ideas and learning sociological and racial frameworks laid out by great writers and thinkers. And then, drastically different, France. Where I spoke little and listened a lot, frantically learning French and unable to process much else in the moment, where race was not spoken of critically but more vaguely, overlapping with culture and overly blunt assumptions. Race and culture were abstractly discussed in a religious or spiritual context, like Traditional Chinese Medicine or Native American spiritual beliefs. Often I would hear the names of cultural (slash religious slash racialised) groups rattled off in French as supporting evidence for one of Sébastien’s theories; amérindien, sud-américain, hindouisme, chinois. It would always be a slightly odd, mismatched list making me question whether it was race, culture, or religion he was discussing. Mentions of race seemed blunt, lacking nuance, jumbled together in these odd lists and wielded as evidence for spiritual theories and observations.
Beyond these abstract mentions of race (slash culture slash religion), I was also the subject of racial confusion and oversimplification. As I said before, I felt as though my listening skills made me into somewhat of a blank canvas. Once they ‘discovered’ that I was Chinese and spoke Chinese and had a Chinese father who practiced Chinese spiritual practices, I became an embodiment of all things Chinese. I remember one conversation I had in which Marie was telling me, and I was agreeing, about the negative aspects of American culture and its influence on the world. It was a conversation which I would otherwise passionately engage in, discussing the nuance and complexity of Americanness as I knew it. As it was, I simply agreed with her, prompting her to remark that it’s lucky, you could always say you’re Chinese and escape the American stereotypes and that she sees me, and sees a Chinese girl. I laughed and ignored it and moved on, seeing no chance that a real explanation of my identity would make sense. How could I be a good listener and slow talker if I try and explain that I am fully and completely American, Chinese American and white American but American all the same? That my identity and appearance is not a handy trick, to switch as I please and as is convenient? No, it was better to leave it unsaid. Another time, Marie and I spent an afternoon in peaceful silence (my favorite kind, far outranking awkward silence and the silence in which I realized someone expects me to understand the French they just spoke). I had sat on the floor of the yurt, legs tucked under me, curled around a book. Comfortable and quiet as Marie napped on the bed a few feet away. She told me afterward, in the kitchen, how much she appreciated our quiet time — oui, moi aussi — and how, when she looked over at me sitting on the floor she had thought of the beautiful quiet Chinese women in movies. I laughed awkwardly and she tried to elaborate, but I still couldn’t really understand what she meant. Now I realize that my misunderstanding was not our language barrier but a cultural barrier and gap between the real me and the person, the blank canvas, I was to her.
There were many other circumstances of racial ignorance; Sébastien assuming I knew all things Chinese until I told him I had only ever spent two weeks there so no, I did not know whether there were wild pigs there but I’m guessing so since it’s a large country. A woman asking me tu vien d’ou? tu es née dans les etats-uni? tes parents aussi? okay wait so how long has your family been in the US for? Basically, it was a very roundabout where are you really from? that threw all the other mentions of my race into stark perspective. Before this last one, I had let them slide, laughed it off, held my assumptions and moved on with my silent listening. But the familiarity of the last one reminded me that this is what I discuss with friends, what I write and think about, what I study. This racialisation and racial ignorance is not new to me, in theory or in practice, but experiencing it in France disconnected it from my past understandings. Finally, in a call with my dad I just started talking and couldn’t stop, words rushing out, connecting and processing and thinking. Sébastien and Marie had gone, I had only three days left in the country, and I was waking up a part of me that had been put aside for the past twenty days. I was recognizing who I’d become in the eyes of others, who I’d maybe let myself become, and processing what this meant for who I am.
The assumptions that people made did not only have to do with race, they also had to do with my goodness, my calmness, my gentle quiet and ability to listen. While any assumptions about race are more informed by society than my presentation of self, the other assumptions are at least partially informed by who I was on the farm. I suppose we, as humans, make assumptions about each other every day, in relationships and conversations and even walking past one another on the street. The proximity of these assumptions to the reality of who the person is in many ways represents the strength and clarity of our relationship with that person. I think this is why, after reflecting on my month in France, it feels especially uncomfortable to contemplate Marie and Sébastien’s friendship, fueled by their assumptions and perceptions of who I am. They both spoke to me as if they had a deep understanding of me and a deep connection and friendship with me. But now the friendship I supposedly cultivated, by listening, nodding, and learning, feels false, like a half truth of myself. I am distanced from it, returned to university and my ‘normal’ self. Yet I don’t think my experiences and friendships from this month lose all value. Marie and Sébastien, and the others on the farm, were hospitable and kind. I connected with them in a way, found their stories and thoughts interesting, learned from them and from who I was with them. I have so much gratitude for my month in France, and within that gratitude I am able to balance the nuances of my time there, both positive and negative, and learn from it all.
*names have been changed.
