"Tu viens de si loin... mais je ne te demande pas qui tu es."
François Cheng wrote this in his work Le Dit de Tianyi, which appears in the anthology of French literature that the Sorbonne gave me my first day of classes. We weren't scheduled to read this piece but even still I just happened to stumble across this page and found the passage fit entirely with what I feel now.
I am not, nor will I ever be, French. The French know this. I think they can see it in my hair, in my skin, in my walk. And if not there, then in my accent and my half-wit words. I can only say enough to get by, they can understand. And even in this, they let me pass and pretend that I can speak French.
That's enough for now, I guess. It will have to be at any rate since I can't change it now.
François Cheng wrote this in his work Le Dit de Tianyi, which appears in the anthology of French literature that the Sorbonne gave me my first day of classes. We weren't scheduled to read this piece but even still I just happened to stumble across this page and found the passage fit entirely with what I feel now.
I am not, nor will I ever be, French. The French know this. I think they can see it in my hair, in my skin, in my walk. And if not there, then in my accent and my half-wit words. I can only say enough to get by, they can understand. And even in this, they let me pass and pretend that I can speak French.
That's enough for now, I guess. It will have to be at any rate since I can't change it now.
No comments:
Post a Comment