Smile when French slap your face.

French are adorably no-good. Prepare to get slapped.

“Sh*t, I hate them. I hate them more than the death.” I said to my friend Val, as the waiter walked away from our small table with a triumphant grin on his wide French face. He was incredibly rude. French 1, Everyone else 0. It was one of those situations, when you pay to be offended…a norm in a French restaurant. First they moved us to another table in a corner next to the bar far from the window (no reason — the restaurant was empty), then the waiter impatiently came up to us; he didn’t say a word, just stood there with his left shoulder relaxed, left a bit down, as if it had been hours that he had to do with our two ignorant foreign faces. He looked so disgusted that I almost felt bad for his suffering. “Szou…? Wot will it be?” We ordered mid-priced dishes, one course only. That was it — his free card to get really arrogant. He put a finishing touch on all of it, when he gave us the wi-fi password: “Hamburger”.

I don’t hate them actually. In no other nation can members of all social classes b*tch so well about everything. It is very admirable. It must have been at least 100km that I did on foot, walking lost in Paris, during my second stay in this expensive city. Expensive, dirty, beautiful, orgiastic…Paris. I walked and watched. Like a mental voyeur, I observed them — the French — eating, talking, standing in Metro, complaining, reading thick French books in cafes, being cocksure of themselves.

My 3 a day:

I smiled inadvertently as I reached the crossing of Rue Breguet and Rue Sedaine and saw an old man in large star sunglasses sitting on a fishing chair. He sat in front of his art gallery — once a hip successful showroom was now a run-down space full of works of some unknown Chinese artist. It wasn’t bad, just Chinese. He wore shorts and was drinking a beer on a sunny spring afternoon. I continued walking, with a smile on my face, but then stopped and went back. I learned not to ignore those who laugh in the face of life’s cruelty. He was happy that I wanted to enter the gallery. Failure smells. It is hard to shake-off too. I couldn’t get rid off him, he walked next to me through the spacious rooms, speaking in French and trying to explain his story and something else about each of the paintings. The gallery was beautiful, but its expensive interior was now outdated, accompanied with junk — bits and pieces that usually surround a failed person. There were many photos of his travels through China, pictures of him standing next to men, women and children in villages. It all looked a bit uncomfortable, as if they wouldn’t want to pose with him; he’d grinned forcibly, looking like some contemporary version of a mad European colonist, like someone tasked with educating a bunch of savages.

French have this thing — they think they should teach others about life.

He knew that was it. Failure is hard to shake-off, all the more so when you are old. First, it’d made him half-mad. Now he was just happy and careless. I went out and started quickly walking away. When I looked back, he sat on his fishing chair again, grinning at the sun.

He stood straight for a second when she came in through the narrow entrance of the restaurant. A petit, slim woman in her 50s, with a bob haircut, dark red lipstick and a long summer dress. She kept her head down, as if she tried to hide her face behind the long side hair-lines. It took him only a moment before he put back on his nonchalant act. He smiled, but didn’t say a word. His slim blue shirt never looked bluer on his short slender French body — he was good-looking 40-something. It was his restaurant and his woman, but they were unhappy. She sat quietly and crossed her legs. Pompidou centre in the background, behind the window, its giant blue pipes contrasting with the color of her dress. It didn’t take more than 20 minutes before he reappeared walking up the narrow staircase from cellar, carrying two plates with their meal. Kitchen was under ground (tiny space typical for Paris restaurants). Salad for her; soup and croque monsieur for him. They ate slowly, but less so than the French typically would. They wouldn’t say a word during the lunch, except when he asked her about the food. She didn’t like it.

French have this thing — they complain when they don’t really mean it.

Despite giving her a lead, he finished eating earlier, stood up from the table and began dancing around the guests again. He moved elegantly, but quickly and with impatience, as if he couldn’t wait to explore what else life brings him that day. After a while, he went out — the terrace of the restaurant with a view on the strange mechanistic building, its exposed tubes and pipes, was much larger. She crossed her legs again and started listing through a thick magazine. Someone walked up the stairs from the cellar kitchen and brought her a bowl of fruit. She didn’t like it, either.

It was in a bar on Passage Lhomme, not too far from Bastille. He walked in with his nose up, making long strides and holding with left hand his long curly hair in a pony-tail. He was very showy, enjoying himself, making sure that people would notice him; that they would look at him. He was followed by three girls aged something under 30. He took his hand off his long hair. He was very good-looking, drunk and excited — like some famous rockstar, only without the money and fame, but with the same aura. He was American, the girls were British, German and Australian. Self-aware and in love with his own looks, he began talking to people around him. “So where you guys from…anyway?”, we were the first that he approached. Val smiled and answered shortly. We began talking. We wouldn’t really talk; it was rather like some mindless automatism, some sort of a psycho-hygienic exercise in a bar. I think Americans can do this — speak without really speaking or understanding. His charm worked on everyone around. Guys wanted to be like him, women wanted him. Except for the French. “Hey, so how are you doing?”, the American would ask some short French guy standing not far from us. The American was friendly, just trying to bring someone new to our mindless vocal exchanges. He smiled, but didn’t answer (at least not in words), “mmhm”. He didn’t understand and it wasn’t the language.

French have this thing — they hate Americans.