Music Monday: French Pop for French Lessons

Hi Meltingpot Readers,

So the push to parlais francais is on. And while I've been watching toddler videos and sometimes switching to the French version on some of my favorite films, I thought about listening to some French music to help me along. Of course I had no idea where to start. And then I remembered.

Way back in the 1980s, somewhere around 1987 I believe, my sister came back from her AFS summer abroad experience in France. I was so in awe. In just three short months she had become totally Frenchified. She ate her French fries with mustard instead of ketchup. She wanted to put raisins in the chicken! And the music. My sis brought back a handful of vinyl records that she played over and over again in her room, while I listened just outside her door. I couldn't understand a single word, yet I fell in love with the music anyway. When she told me that the young singer, Daniel Balavoine had died tragically in a helicopter crash, I was even more impressed. French music. Tragic death. Romance and Drama? As a 13-year-old girl in suburban Milwaukee, wanting to escape her hum-drum existence, Daniel Balavoine gave me a reason to believe.

Here's a song that I used to sing. I could sing this entire song phonetically but had no idea what I was saying. I never saw the video. So, here it is. If anyone would be so kind and tell me what the song is about, I sure would appreciate it. Sadly, my French skills, still aren't that great. Merci!

Even German Girls Get Kinky

So I got a really interesting response from a reader of my new memoir, Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain. A German woman in her mid-50s just finished my book. She lives in Milwaukee and is the mother to two grown children and a teenager.

She knows my mother and called her to tell her how much she loved the book and that she really identified with my feelings of not quite belonging in my suburban, White world. I was intrigued. How did this German heiress feel alienated in Wisconsin, AKA, little Germany? Where Bratwurst and beer are the local favorites and Oktoberfest is a real holiday?

Well apparently it wasn't in Wisconsin where she felt the sting of rejection, it was in France. She commented that whenever she goes to France, which is often, she can never get over the feeling that the French are still clinging to their hatred of Germans. This woman is very fair-skinned, blond and I guess looks stereotypically German. If you ask me she could pass for Norwegian as well. But she says that people in France are rude to her, won't help her with directions and one time, someone actually spit at her in the street.

She also told my mother though that she understands their hatred of Germans, obviously from the wars. And she recalled how during WWII, French prisoners of war were actually treated like slaves and made to work in German homes. This woman recalled that her Grandmother had "French slaves" in her home but she, despite the laws of the land, tried to treat them humanely. Even though she did not allow them to eat at her table, she did allow them to eat the same food. Even though that was verboten! I was shocked by this story. French prisoners of wars as slaves!

I obviously knew that there wasn't much historical love between French and Germans but I never knew that it was so intimately felt and that the hatred is still so raw. But why not? It wasn't so long ago.

I am overwhelmed and overjoyed to know that so many different types of people are reading my book and that it is sparking these thoughts and discussions. I couldn't have hoped for more. It is my intent, with my words, to bring these issues out into the open so the healing can begin.

Let me stop here before I go all Kumbaya on you people.

But I have to know. Do other Germans-Americans feel discriminated against in France? Are there other historical sins that cling to us that do not allow us to travel freely? I'd like to hear your story.

Peace.