A Stranger on the Metro

I was sitting on the metro line 1 on my way from Vincennes to Rivoli to meet a friend at a café near the Louvre. It was early afternoon and still off peak hour. As I had forgotten my usual paperback/magazine/iPod, I killed time watching the people around me. You see, people-watching in Paris is a very fascinating experience, as the city is inhabited by heaps of weird and unusual-looking people. I've seen women wearing the strangest costumes, men with lipstick, and dogs and dog owners with matching clothes.
I've seen the typical cliché; man in his fifties with a black French béret on his head and a baguette under his arm, reading Le Monde, I've seen women with 15 cm stiletto heels, and men with shoes so pointy you can't help but wonder if they have flip flops ready under their desk as soon as they arrive at work.

And then you have all the seemingly normal people who stare blankly out in the air one minute and then procede to sing "Sound of Music" very off key the next, or simply having long passionate conversations with themselves. Chic women with perfect make-up and stunning Chanel suit picking their nose. Drunk homeless people complaining about the ridiculous French gouvernement, suburb teens wearing bling-bling from head to toe, beggars, musicians, businessmen, foreigners, wannabes, and on and on.

On this particular day I encountered a stranger who changed my way of thinking about people in Paris, but also about Paris in general. It is so easy to categorise people, judging by the way the look, the way they talk and what they wear. Sometimes I find myself judging people more than I should or have the right to. In fact, I shouldn't judge at all. (I know...). It's not so much about looking down on people, it's more the habit of putting them into categories.
I was sitting on one of the single chairs close to the doors. A man was standing in front of the door, with a big rottweiler who was wearing a mask around its snout. At the man's feet were two bags, both of them worn and old, one of them even had plastic straps around to keep it from falling apart. I looked up and met his eyes for a brief second. His skin had a deep dark tan, the kind of dirty tan you get when you spend all your days out in the sun. I immediately took him for a homeless person. I looked away, feeling that staring at him showed a lack of respect. I am very aware of the number of beggars and homeless people in this city and even though I rarely give money, I always try to be polite, as if they were any kind of random person in the street. Plus, often I find that a smile and a hello means a lot more to them than just passing by tossing coins in their cup.
Having labeled him as homeless (I am ashamed to admit), I turned to look out the window, letting my mind wander. Suddenly the man started speaking loudly, asking the people around me about where to get off to change for Gare de l'Est. His accent was very strange, but I assumed he was French.
"Excusez-moi, can anyone tell me where I should go to get to Gare de l'Est?"
"Get off at Chatelet and take line four," a woman replied, from the seat behind me. The man nodded and thanked her, glancing up at the line map on the ceiling.
"Actually, it's easier to get off at Bastille and take line five," another man said, leaning forward and pointing on the map. Grateful for the help, the homeless man smiled and nodded, thanking him. And prompted by the other man's politeness in helping, he continued:
"Merci Monsieur, merci, it's not easy for me to find my way around here. It's the first time I've ever taken the metro and it's a bit confusing. I'm from the countryside."

I looked up at him again, and it dawned on me that he wasn't a homeless person at all, and upon noticing how proper and seemingly new his clothes were, how polite he was, how kind and bright his eyes were, I realised how wrong I'd been, how I'd judged him without even giving it a second thought. It was as if I saw a completely different person now. The dark tan wasn't due do being dirty and sleeping on the streets, it was due to working outside all day. His worn bags was a striking contrast to his nice clothes, and coming from a family of farmers, I know that you always dress up when you go in to the city, simply because you don't care about style when you're working at a farm (obviously..).
I felt bad for having judged him so quickly, and even more when I realised just how narrow my perspective of French people were. I mean, I knew about French people, being around them all day long, but my idea of the typical French is not French at all, it's Parisian. There's a whole country out there, full of different variations of the French culture, with dialects, traditions, customs, lives, habits. I now found the man completely fascinating, as he for that brief moment to me represented the rural France, all the small towns and villages truly French, with a whole other way of living than you find in Paris.

They say you haven't seen France unless you've been in the providence, and though I've only been to Fountainebleu (which is more like an extended suburb of Paris anyway), I believe it to be true. I really haven't seen much of France, I realised, slightly sheepish. I've been living here for two years. My idea of France is Paris, and France and Paris are two very different things. Paris is full of foreigners and a fascinating mix of cultures, and though the majority remain French, there's a metropolitain way of life that has nothing to do with France.

Note to self: Move my bum out of the capital and explore what this country has to offer, in hopes of widening my ridiculous perspective a bit.