Hello and welcome to my blog - can't promise I'll write regularly but I'll certainly try whenever I get the opportunity.
When I was a student I used to keep a diary on a regular basis. Ever since I came to France I've always been too busy to continue. I guess I'm just trying to make up for lost time and fill in some of the gaps.
The objective of this blog will be to account for who I am, what I do, what I'm interested in and is dedicated to my loved ones, family, friends. So you might find that I meander between subjects as varied as friends, family, ancient Chinese mythology, photography, Guinness and where to eat duck in Paris, so for this I apologise in advance.
I arrived in France at 11pm on Sunday the 5th February 1995. It had been raining heavily and my flight had been delayed for over 45 minutes. I had a black 80-litre MILLETS rucksack and 2 cheap nylon hold-alls which I still have collecting dust at the bottom of my wardrobe. Because of the limited space in my bags and the fact that I didn't have a 'suit-bag', I wore my suit with my doc-martens boots for the voyage.
In the months that preceded my arrival I did some research at the Central Library in the Ilac Centre, the Alliance Française, the British Council and Hogdes & Figgis' (this all happened before Internet search engines existed). With the listings of primary, secondary and languages schools I gathered, along with job hunting tips, CV and covering letter models, I sent 51 CVs to different teaching establishments in the l'Ile de France region surrounding Paris within two weeks after my arrival.
I got 50 polite refusals (Yes, employers actually responded to applications back then). Two weeks passed and I filed one disappointing letter with another. Then one glorious Sunday morning at the end of February, just as I came home from the wonderful Sunday morning market in Vincennes I found a message on my answering machine that was to change my life. J. Huxter, head of HR of Berlitz had left a message. She wanted me to come in for an interview for the post of teaching English.
Two weeks of non-paid training later I was sitting nervously in front of my first student in a classroom in the school at Opéra in the centre of Paris. A week later I got my first pay-check for 500 Francs (about 70 euros). The timing was good as I had just run out of funds. Unfortunately I didn't have the presence of mind to open a bank account before then so at lunch time I went down to the BNP to which was on the ground floor of the building where the school was. As young as I was, 24 at the time, and as yet uninitiated to the excruciating bureaucratic machine that France can be, I tried to open an account but the teller took one look at me, a scrawny Asian kid with a measly little cheque for 500 francs clutched in his right hand that spoke terrible French, and decided it was probably a good time to grab a sandwich for lunch. I was deftly turned away and left standing on the magnificent marble floor of the bank wondering what to do next. I can't really blame him as it was probably not the ideal situation to open a bank account given all the facts but, in any case, this set my attitude toward this particular bank permanently.
The other 'profs' suggested I try 'La Poste'. And that is what I did. I opened an account there for 10 francs (1.5 Euros) and I have stayed with them ever since. They even gave me a credit card even though I only had 10 francs in the account.
The next week, while wandering around the neighbourhood near the Chateau de Vincennes I saw an office whose name mentioned something about young workers and housing. I stuck my nose in and with my rudimentary French asked a middle-aged woman sitting at her desk what they did. She smiled at the directness and the naivety of my question and immediately rang an English-speaking colleague. He was called 'Ny Aina' (pronounced 'Nine').
'Ny Aina' was from Madagascar and spoke with a Mancunian accent. He asked me questions on where I was from and what I was doing in France, then he told me was going to find me a place to live and asked me to come meet him at his office in Asnières, in the north west suburbs of Paris.
His office was cluttered and small and his PC had flying multi-coloured toasters on his screen saver and so I thought he was cool. He opened a file for me and within a few weeks he had found a flat for me in Suresnes. The flat was in a 'Foyer de Jeunes Travailleurs' a kind of hostel for young workers, only everyone had a private 30m2 flat to themselves. The flat was fully equiped and there were 2 communal washing machines, a dryer and a vacuum cleaner. All kinds of crap that I took for granted at home but having lived for almost 3 months without I fully appreciated. The flat was great and it made a huge difference from the 12m2 bedsit where I stayed before. I ran from one corner of the room to the other. Just because I could. Happy days had just begun.
When I was a student I used to keep a diary on a regular basis. Ever since I came to France I've always been too busy to continue. I guess I'm just trying to make up for lost time and fill in some of the gaps.
The objective of this blog will be to account for who I am, what I do, what I'm interested in and is dedicated to my loved ones, family, friends. So you might find that I meander between subjects as varied as friends, family, ancient Chinese mythology, photography, Guinness and where to eat duck in Paris, so for this I apologise in advance.
I arrived in France at 11pm on Sunday the 5th February 1995. It had been raining heavily and my flight had been delayed for over 45 minutes. I had a black 80-litre MILLETS rucksack and 2 cheap nylon hold-alls which I still have collecting dust at the bottom of my wardrobe. Because of the limited space in my bags and the fact that I didn't have a 'suit-bag', I wore my suit with my doc-martens boots for the voyage.
In the months that preceded my arrival I did some research at the Central Library in the Ilac Centre, the Alliance Française, the British Council and Hogdes & Figgis' (this all happened before Internet search engines existed). With the listings of primary, secondary and languages schools I gathered, along with job hunting tips, CV and covering letter models, I sent 51 CVs to different teaching establishments in the l'Ile de France region surrounding Paris within two weeks after my arrival.
I got 50 polite refusals (Yes, employers actually responded to applications back then). Two weeks passed and I filed one disappointing letter with another. Then one glorious Sunday morning at the end of February, just as I came home from the wonderful Sunday morning market in Vincennes I found a message on my answering machine that was to change my life. J. Huxter, head of HR of Berlitz had left a message. She wanted me to come in for an interview for the post of teaching English.
Two weeks of non-paid training later I was sitting nervously in front of my first student in a classroom in the school at Opéra in the centre of Paris. A week later I got my first pay-check for 500 Francs (about 70 euros). The timing was good as I had just run out of funds. Unfortunately I didn't have the presence of mind to open a bank account before then so at lunch time I went down to the BNP to which was on the ground floor of the building where the school was. As young as I was, 24 at the time, and as yet uninitiated to the excruciating bureaucratic machine that France can be, I tried to open an account but the teller took one look at me, a scrawny Asian kid with a measly little cheque for 500 francs clutched in his right hand that spoke terrible French, and decided it was probably a good time to grab a sandwich for lunch. I was deftly turned away and left standing on the magnificent marble floor of the bank wondering what to do next. I can't really blame him as it was probably not the ideal situation to open a bank account given all the facts but, in any case, this set my attitude toward this particular bank permanently.
The other 'profs' suggested I try 'La Poste'. And that is what I did. I opened an account there for 10 francs (1.5 Euros) and I have stayed with them ever since. They even gave me a credit card even though I only had 10 francs in the account.
The next week, while wandering around the neighbourhood near the Chateau de Vincennes I saw an office whose name mentioned something about young workers and housing. I stuck my nose in and with my rudimentary French asked a middle-aged woman sitting at her desk what they did. She smiled at the directness and the naivety of my question and immediately rang an English-speaking colleague. He was called 'Ny Aina' (pronounced 'Nine').
'Ny Aina' was from Madagascar and spoke with a Mancunian accent. He asked me questions on where I was from and what I was doing in France, then he told me was going to find me a place to live and asked me to come meet him at his office in Asnières, in the north west suburbs of Paris.
His office was cluttered and small and his PC had flying multi-coloured toasters on his screen saver and so I thought he was cool. He opened a file for me and within a few weeks he had found a flat for me in Suresnes. The flat was in a 'Foyer de Jeunes Travailleurs' a kind of hostel for young workers, only everyone had a private 30m2 flat to themselves. The flat was fully equiped and there were 2 communal washing machines, a dryer and a vacuum cleaner. All kinds of crap that I took for granted at home but having lived for almost 3 months without I fully appreciated. The flat was great and it made a huge difference from the 12m2 bedsit where I stayed before. I ran from one corner of the room to the other. Just because I could. Happy days had just begun.
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