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I. \u00a0BELLEVILLE<\/p>\n
The buildings make long shadows in the morning in Belleville in the 9th<\/sup> arrondissement. I blink as I walk out of the Metro. The streets here, just outside the Metro station, are filled with signs advertising Chinese markets, shops and restaurants. Pauline from the Chinese Cultural Center and Alain Frachon from\u00a0Le Monde<\/em>\u00a0had both told me that Belleville was the \u201creal\u201d Chinatown of Paris today.<\/p>\n I try speaking to the florist, and to the women loitering outside of the largest supermarket, but am rebuffed. I wander hopefully into a hairdresser\u2019s shop. When I explain to them that I am a journalist and a student, they ask me which Chinese-language U.S. newspaper I represent. \u201cNone,\u201d I say. \u201cBut my professor wrote for The New York Times<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n They don\u2019t know what\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0is. \u201cLe Monde<\/em>?\u201d I try. They don\u2019t read French, either. But they do follow politics. As soon as I ask them for their thoughts on the upcoming French presidential election, the entire salon\u2019s staff of five hairdressers (except for the young man with the perpetually bored air) is debating the merits of each candidate with me. Jie, the assistant manager, is particularly keen on drawing comparisons to the United States. \u201cTrump is great, isn\u2019t he?\u201d he asks, and I realize that these hairdressers, all relatively new immigrants, hardly have consistent sources of news in their lives. \u201cWell, no,\u201d I say. \u201cHe\u2019s a white supremacist. And I would be careful of Le Pen, too.\u201d They are shocked by this.<\/p>\n They show me the newspapers they read. There are two main Chinese-language newspapers in Paris, one called Seeing China<\/em> and another simply described as \u201cvery nationalist.\u201d Do they see themselves as French, at all? I ask. \u201cNo, of course not,\u201d says Jie. \u201cWe\u2019re Chinese. And we love our country.\u201d<\/p>\n As I leave, they ask me to share their pictures in all the Chinese-language newspapers in the United States. I laugh and say I can\u2019t make those promises.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n II. \u00a0OLYMPIADES<\/p>\n After Belleville, it is only fair that I check out the 13th arrondissement, the Chinatown proper of Paris, south of the Seine. Pauline and Alain told me Belleville is the \u201creal Chinatown\u201d now because of the many French Indochinese or Southeast Asian immigrants in the 13th<\/sup>. It lives up more to its name of the \u201cQuartier Asiatique,\u201d an Asian area, rather than simply Chinese.<\/p>\n The Olympiades stop in the 13th is eerie in its silence. I emerge from it, from three floors underground, to reach the Olympiades shopping center plaza. The plaza is framed by residential towers, higher than anything I have seen yet in Paris, except perhaps the Eiffel Tower.<\/p>\n I wander my way through the restaurants and supermarkets and shops. I pop into the office of a cultural association of French Indochinese, a small and dim office with newspapers on the counter and a large blue curtain drawn to close the Chinese language classes from view. An unofficial wall. I can hear the chatter of children in my parents\u2019 tongue from behind the veil. An old, pursed-lipped Mr. Chen gives me curt answers in Mandarin to my questions about the association: \u201cWhy did you come to Paris?\u201d \u2013 \u201cI was fleeing my home country.\u201d \u2013 \u201cDo you like Paris?\u201d \u2013 \u201cAs a refugee, I\u2019m not allowed to have that preference.\u201d I walk to a street lined with small markets, and chat my way from the frozen foods store to the \u201cBig March\u00e9\u201d supermarket to a dusty and quiet Chinese\/French bookshop to a small boutique that only sells imported outfits from China. It is around noon, and all the store owners are out for lunch. Their attendants say that they can only tell me so much, unless I want to wait for the managers to return.<\/p>\n \u201cEven then,\u201d says the old woman tending the bookstore, \u201cshe probably won\u2019t tell you much about what you want to know.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n III. \u00a0LAFAYETTE<\/p>\n So I hope on the Metro again, wondering if being modern-day fl\u00e2neur or fl\u00e2neuse allows for the Metro. Either way, the Galeries Lafayette on Boulevard Haussmann is too far to reach by foot. When I reach the busy, tourist-filled intersection, I have already forgotten about a newspaper clipping my professor had given me days ago. The clipping was a report that a new building of the Galeries had opened, and that this building was completely dedicated to Chinese tourist customers. With the beginner\u2019s luck of a fl\u00e2neuse, I walk right into Building 21, and chat with Sylvie Jin, a Coach representative, for almost half an hour. I tell her that I have only seen Asian or Chinese attendants in this building.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the one,\u201d she tells me. \u201cThis one is all for Chinese tourists.\u201d She also tells me that she grew up in the 93rd<\/sup>. The 93rd<\/sup> district is a banlieue<\/em>, a suburb of Paris, known for having the highest population of immigrants anywhere in France. It also has an incredible crime rate. I tell her excitedly I\u2019ve been there, been to the Sunday market, and she smiles politely and changes the topic.<\/p>\n If Belleville is Chinatown and the 13th is the Quartier Asiatique, then the Galeries Lafayette is halfway there to a new kind of Chinatown, one founded on tourism and constant change, rather than the desire for stability.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n VI. \u00a0MOUFFETARD<\/p>\n My friend Andrew and I have agreed to meet in front of the Sorbonne. This is my last formal appointment of the day, and as I sit on the steps, my red hat is flapping in the breeze and the dried flower blossoms are sweeping in circles around my feet. After a small mix-up on which side is the real \u201cfront\u201d of the Sorbonne, we find a caf\u00e9 and chat about his experiences as an Asian American student in Paris. Afterwards, we wander around the Quartier Latin. We see the Pantheon, the Rue Mouffetard, and we use the bathrooms in McDonald\u2019s. He remarks on how funny it is that the French even have the word \u201cfl\u00e2neur,\u201d as though they needed justification for something that should be done regardless of its status as a \u201cproper\u201d activity. He is surprised that we visited the 93rd<\/sup>, and tells me that banlieue<\/em> is no longer a neutral word. \u201cIt\u2019s like, the hood,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He lets me fawn over the cr\u00eaperies and macarons and teaches me how to pronounce the \u201cai\u201d sound in French. He corrects my pitifully few French phrases to a convenience store owner like a seasoned Parisian, although I know from our coffee chat that \u201cParisians\u201d don\u2019t typically include people who look like us. At least, not yet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n V. \u00a0AU REVOIR, NOT ADIEU<\/p>\n I take off my shoes in the hotel at 2 A.M. As I put them down, I examine them, this pair of pale wingtip flats. I have worn them for the last four days, and I am marveling that they haven\u2019t peeled yet from the sole. Last time in Rome, my boots gave in. Back in Princeton, my shoes typically only last a year or so. Perhaps Paris is lighter on the feet than many other places are.<\/p>\n I think of the young American couple who went running one morning. They left their keys with the concierge before breakfast. \u201cWe\u2019re going for a run,\u201d the woman said.<\/p>\n \u201cParis is not good for running,\u201d the concierge said flatly.<\/p>\n \u201cI know,\u201d said the woman. \u201cBut we still have to give it a try!\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps Paris is lighter on the feet, and that is why it begs walking and wandering rather than running. Running misses too many sights; disallows them the proper time they deserve. There is too much to smell here, too much to see, and, anyways, running is inherently an emptying thing. For example, I run to stay thin, and to lose weight. I run to clear my head or \u201cclear up\u201d my body when I feel full. I run to feel light.<\/p>\n But Paris is inherently a filling thing. The smells of butter and fresh baked viennoisserie and the honking of cars on the Boulevard Saint Germain fill the air. The wind runs in and out of the gates of the Sorbonne, over and around the sign that reads \u201cCollege de France.\u201d It fills in all the negative spaces between the iron bars, and the city and my heart are so full, and my shoes are still intact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY LAVINIA LIANG I. \u00a0BELLEVILLE The buildings make long shadows in the morning in Belleville in the 9th arrondissement. I blink as I walk out of the Metro. The streets here, just outside the Metro station, are filled with signs advertising Chinese markets, shops and restaurants. Pauline from the Chinese Cultural Center and Alain Frachon … <\/p>\n