{"id":297105,"date":"2010-02-09T08:14:10","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T13:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalvoicesonline.org\/?p=121920"},"modified":"2010-02-09T08:14:10","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T13:14:10","slug":"france-international-students-in-paris-blog-on-cite-babel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/297105","title":{"rendered":"France: International Students in Paris Blog on Cit\u00e9 Babel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The International City of Paris <\/a>[Fr] is a complex that houses a community of international students living and learning at French universities. The Cit\u00e9 <\/em>was created at a time in between the two World Wars in a pacific spirit that grew during that time in France. Their founders, based on an humanist ideal, envisioned a place that could bring together students from all over the world who would be studying in Paris and give them a home in which they could interact and learn from each other. As it is stated on their website, La Cit\u00e9 Internationale Universitaire de Paris <\/em>is a \u201cschool of human relations for peace\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The International City of Paris <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

There is a blog in which many students write about these experiences in this community. This space is called Cit\u00e9 Babel<\/em><\/a>, and is a place in the blogosphere in which thoughts, impressions, and experiences are shared, both in French and also in other variety of different languages. <\/p>\n

Three printed publications also are related this blog, and they are all available online. The publications are the work of a team that addresses issues related to identity, interactions, cultural exchanges, languages, translation, ideas, and views of France and the world. Thus Cit\u00e9 Babel<\/em> is the essence of a journey lived by students and professionals who are experiencing become an international citizen of the world.<\/p>\n

To have a little view of how this blog works, here are some pieces of work written by members of the community around different subjects.<\/p>\n

\"CIt\u00e9Babel2\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

In his article \u201cWhy Paris sucks (and why I don\u2019t want to leave)<\/a>\u201d Jake Heller, an American student explores the basic ideas that his peers from the States have of a life in Paris and the shock of the reality of a vibrant and complicated city:<\/p>\n

\n

The steep price of my exchange hasn\u2019t in fact been due to the outlandish cost of living here; turns out that rectifying my actual experience with others\u2019 expectations of what it should be has taken the much greater toll (\u2026) When people ask me about Paris\u2026well they usually don\u2019t actually ask me anything. They rather frame statements like \u201cYou must be having a great time!\u201d or \u201cTell me about your French girlfriend!\u201d as questions, or pose their questions with the answer already in mind, as in \u201cHow amazing is it there?\u201d Unhappy with their own regular lives, they expect me to be living their dream, so \u2013 at the risk of being castrated for being a whiny, unappreciative asshole upon my return \u2013 my answers to such \u201cquestions\u201d must always include the words \u201camazing,\u201d \u201cunbelievable,\u201d or \u201cincredibly hot.\u201d The problem is that, like most comparisons between idealised fantasy and reality, the Paris of the North American imagination really doesn\u2019t stack up to the Paris of the real world. (Note: I understand that many North Americans conceptualise \u201cthe real world\u201d as a TV show instead of as actual reality, but I think that that only reinforces my point.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A. Aoufil, a Palestinian student writes about the views of the French media in the <\/a> complex conflict happening in Gaza [Fr]. While he discusses the attention that the conflict has been given by the mainstream media (in this case the primetime of French TV news), Aoufil puts serious questions and statements on the table. As the Gaza bombings arrive to their first anniversary, this student points out how the public opinion chooses to ignore a chapter of the circumstances that for so long have tormented the life of both Palestinians and Israelis:<\/p>\n

\n

Apparemment, les tribulations de Berlusconi, et de Johnny Halliday, sont plus importantes que le sort de 1,8 million de palestiniens enferm\u00e9s dans la ville-ghetto de Gaza (\u2026) m\u00eame chez les progressistes ou les soutiens du d\u00e9but 2009 \u00e0 la Palestine, l\u2019apartheid et la ghetto\u00efsation d\u2019un peuple, est moins important qu\u2019une bonne bouffe en famille (\u2026)<\/p>\n

Ah\u00a0 Palestine! Ce soir, la majorit\u00e9 silencieuse te pleure encore, et ses larmes sont gonfl\u00e9es par l\u2019outrecuidance de ces escrocs et de ces hypocrites de m\u00e9dias et de collaborateurs qui veulent nous faire avaler des couleuvres que leurs gorges rejettent pour \u00e9viter leur propre \u00e9touffement. Ah, j\u2019oubliais\u2026 Bonne ann\u00e9e 2010 !<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Apparently, Berlusconi\u2019s and Johnny Halliday\u2019s tribulations are more important than the 1.8 million of Palestinians trapped in the ghetto-city of Gaza (\u2026) even for the progressive groups that supported Palestine in the early days of 2009, the apartheid, and the \u201cghettoisation\u201d\u00a0 of one people is less important than a family meal. (\u2026)<\/p>\n

Ah Palestine! This evening, the silent majority cries for you again, and their tears are swollen by the presumptuousness of these crooks and this hypocrites from the media, along with their collaborators, that want to makes us believe naively what they themselves are incapable to accept in order to avoid their own asphyxiation. Ah, I forgot\u2026 Happy 2010!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

At the same time Chen Miao, from China, discusses the common image of the Chinese people in her post \u201cAre the Chinese shy<\/a>?” [Fr\/Ch]<\/p>\n

\n

Un jour, un de mes amis qui habite la Cit\u00e9 Universitaire m\u2019a dit \u00ab je pense que les chinois sont timides, r\u00e9serv\u00e9s et renferm\u00e9s. \u00bb (\u2026) Mon ami n\u2019est pas le seul \u00e0 penser cela\u2026 Bien que cela ne soit pas une critique, il existe quelques malentendus.<\/p>\n

D\u2019abord \u2013 et nous ne sommes pas les seuls \u00e0 ressentir cela, beaucoup d\u2019\u00e9trangers en France, ont la m\u00eame impression \u2013 on se sent solitaires quand on s\u2019\u00e9loigne de son pays natal (\u2026) Les chinois peuvent faire preuve de grandeur d\u2019\u00e2me et de largesse d\u2019esprit. Si cela venait d\u2019un pays o\u00f9 habitent des \u00ab timides \u00bb, alors cette timidit\u00e9 serait associ\u00e9e \u00e0 un charme certain et \u00e0 une sacr\u00e9e s\u00e9duction, bas\u00e9s sur une culture profonde, vigoureuse, saine et puissante ! Les chinois ne sont plus ferm\u00e9s au monde. Nous sommes sortis et nous regardons dans tous les coins de plan\u00e8te, nous poss\u00e9dons des id\u00e9es innovantes et des ambitions nobles.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n

One day, one of my friends, living like me in the Cit\u00e9 Universitaire <\/em>told me: \u201cI think the Chinese are shy, reserved, and withdrawn.\u201d (\u2026) My friend is not the only one with that impression. Even if he didn\u2019t mean to criticize, I think there are some misunderstandings here.<\/p>\n

To begin with \u2013and we are not the only ones that feel this way, a lot of foreigners in France feel the same- we feel lonely when were far from our birthplace (\u2026Nevertheless), the Chinese can prove that they have a big spirit and a great soul. If that comes from a country inhabited by \u201cshy\u201d people, then this shyness would be associated to a real and seductive charm based on a deep strong culture, that is at the same time sane and powerful! The Chinese are not closed towards the world anymore. We are out there and we observe all the places of the planet<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The subjects and the ideas are wide and very vibrant. This is, indeed, an international community of people aware of the wideness of the world and how, with every day passing, peoples find themselves closer than ever before. With every blog post on Cit\u00e9 Babel, the discussions and observations get to be seen and discussed. No matter the language, the origins or the academic education, the students find in Cit\u00e9 Babel\u2019s blog a space in which they use their voice and show their own vision of an international arena that has been considered as one of the most multicultural, diverse and cosmopolitan of the world: the Paris of the 21st century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The International City of Paris [Fr] is a complex that houses a community of international students living and learning at French universities. The Cit\u00e9 was created at a time in between the two World Wars in a pacific spirit that grew during that time in France. Their founders, based on an humanist ideal, envisioned a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5505,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5505"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}