After French class, I hopped onto the Metro and found a young male classmate of mine. We had briefly exchanged a few conversations in class as he was new. He looked so innocent in his spiky hair, big eyes, denim jacket and his little school bag. When he told me his age, which was “20”, I jokingly called him “little baby”. Soon I was to find out that he was no little baby. He is Vietnamese and spoke little English, so we conversed in French.
Being the little busy body I am, or we shall call it “caring” in this instance, I decided to explore the mind of a young student living in France. I am soon to find out that there are just some things not worth knowing. Note that the following conversation happened in French….
“So do you have lots of Friends here?”
“No not much”
“What do you do for entertainment?”
“Go to disco”
“Oh so you must know a lot of people here then?”
“Not really, usually I just meet girls and ask them to ‘coucher’ with me”
Speechless with my eyes wide open wondering if I had heard what I heard as I was not expecting this from little baby. Oohhh.. he looks so innocent and at this stage I felt like puling his ears and saying ‘Bad boy! Bad boy’. I tried to hide my ‘shocking expression’ obviously he saw it and explained further
“You know, to ‘dormi’ with me”
Oh dear, I thought I had trouble hearing. He later went on explaining that sleeping together was like having a meal together. Oh! My mind went blank - ok, in that case I will not be having any meals with you, thank you very much. Having recovered from the shock and telling myself that everyone is different and we should not criticized them, I continued, trying to mimic Larry King in his interviews
“Is it something common for the French? As coming from Asian, I understand that we are a bit more conservative?”
He replied yes and explained that it was a very normal phenomena with Parisian.
Not all I hope. I then continued to explain that “Sex should be something sacred, and should be with the one you love”.. at this point, I could feel the age and cultural gap and felt like an “old aunty” giving a lecture. I realized that I was not getting much further with his “free love” concept and was relief when his stop came. I think he was too. He went off and I was left to ponder over he had just said. Being married now, I now understood the bound and commitment to another person. It is true that in France it is normal to co-habitat and have children without getting married. Something we don’t see often in Asia…. ah..next time I know not to ask too many questions if I am not ready for the response.
