I wanted to share a story about randomly meeting and speaking with a Japanese woman on a trip to the Musee du Louvre in Paris.
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While my husband tried to locate our tour guide for the day, I walked around the Place du Carrousel taking photographs of the Arc du Triomphe du Carrousel, the lesser known, smaller cousin of the Arc du Triomphe de l’Etoile. (That’s the big one at the other end of the Champs Elysée.)
I saw a Japanese woman, dressed in a bright pink kimono and clearly a tourist, circling the arch and snapping photo after photo. I’m not sure what possessed me to do so, maybe it was simply being in a foreign country, but as she passed in front of me heading in the opposite direction, I asked “日本人ですか？”
After she recovered from the shock of a random white person in Paris speaking to her in serviceable Japanese, we had a little chat about photography and framing—all in Japanese, no English, which of course earned me the famed “日本語上手です！” She showed me some of her photos and explained that she’d been attempting to photograph the Louvre pyramid as seen through the arch, and asked my opinion. I don’t really remember the exact wording, but I do remember both of us using the phrase ”この感じ”, “こんな風に” or both to describe what she was trying to accomplish. She also wanted a photo of herself standing under the arch, with the Louvre behind her. So I helped her take a few photos and she returned the favor. Then she went rushing off toward the Tuileries.
So after spending weeks studying French in preparation for the trip, the longest conversation I had ended up being in Japanese. Go figure.