Traveling Light

Though I've traveled in France four out of the past five summers, I've never seen a spectacle so bizarre or delightful as what I saw in the streets of Paris Sunday night.  At times, as I strolled through the streets near my apartment in the 5th arrondissement, I felt like I was walking through the halls of a lunatic asylum: every few minutes, I'd hear sudden screams of joy, abject howls of horror, or frenzied gasps of hope ringing out from the windows and storefronts and brasseries. 

Paris hadn't gone mad, of course — not literally, at least. The city was in the emotional throes of the World Cup soccer final, where France was playing Italy for the title.  What at times could feel like an infinitely diverse and complicated city was now, it seemed, breathing a unified breath as the fortunes of the French team flickered out on hundreds of thousands of television screens.  Paris typically exudes a demure, aloof quality during the summer tourist season — but on this night it had suddenly become perfectly normal for strangers to exult and embrace in the street.

I had been in France since the beginning of the month, teaching a class at the Paris American Academy, and I had come to enjoy these public emotions that filled the city whenever France's beloved "Les Bleus" took the field in a World Cup match. Tracking the tempo of the street noise when France dispatched Brazil and Portugal in previous matches was almost as much fun as watching the game itself.

Thus, on Sunday, I resolved to spend the first half of the France-Italy final walking across the city to the Champs Elysees, following the progress of the game mainly through the collective exuberance of Parisians in the street.  Only when I could no longer stand the suspense, I reasoned, would I find a television and actually watch the action.

Over my years of traveling, I've discovered that games of any kind are not just a joyous way to pass an evening: they are one of the surest ways to meet people and make friends in faraway places.  Before I went to Brazil, for example, I'd never heard of Flamengo or Fluminense — but watching these two rival Rio soccer clubs play for the national title in front of 95,000 screaming fans in Maracana Stadium provided me with my most viscerally thrilling experience in South America.  On a more intimate level, my travel memories of Cambodia are invariably tied to the pickup volleyball games that I played (and, invariably, lost) with friendly villagers in the countryside. Similarly, my experience of the Philippines wouldn't have been as enjoyable without blacktop basketball, nor the Dominican Republic as engaging without baseball as a conversation-starter. Unlike the more formal types of cross-cultural interaction, watching or playing sports carries an infectious energy that transcends language and culture. 

Wandering through Paris on Sunday night, I finally stopped in front of the Elysees Bonheur beauty shop on Rue de Berri (half a block from the Champs Elysees), where someone had propped a television on the sidewalk, and a crowd of about 50 people had gathered to cheer the French team.  A few months earlier, a media image of this noisy throng — which consisted mainly of French-Arab and French-African teenagers — would have evoked memories of suburban riots and ethnic tensions.  On this night however, everyone was united by the rhythms of the game. When the crowd grew to include American students and German tourists, people in the front squatted down so folks in the back could see the TV.  Short girls were hoisted onto shoulders, and when a pair of riot police walked by and wordlessly handed out a few oranges, the soccer fans standing in the back peeled the fruit and passed it around so that everyone could have a slice. Under the spell of the game, our randomly assembled sidewalk crowd had turned into something resembling an extended family. 

Every few minutes, the French-Arab kids started in on stadium chants — "Allez Les Bleus!" — but no chant was quite so addictive as when the American students started singing that French 101 classic, "Frère Jacques."  Soon, the French fans were singing along, laughing at the absurdity of hollering out a children's tune as a rallying cry:

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,
Dormez vous? Dormez vous?
Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines
Ding Ding Dong! Ding Ding Dong!

As the game stretched into overtime, our makeshift, street-side family grew to over 100 members, some standing on tiptoe and squinting at the little TV propped on the pavement.  When French soccer hero Zinédine Zidane got thrown out of the game for head-butting Italian Marco Materazzi, we groaned in confusion and chanted Zidane's name anyway. 

And — finally — when the game came down to free kicks and David Trézéguet's shot bounced off the crossbar to seal Italy's victory, we all gasped as one and fell into the disappointed silence that comes with second place.

In World Cup terms, France had lost the title — but in the spontaneous fellowship of that random Paris sidewalk, I felt like a winner nonetheless.

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Tip sheet

"How to get game on the road"

1) If in doubt, think small

As a spectator, it can be a thrill to watch major sporting events in legendary venues like Wembley Stadium or Wrigley Field — but usually it's just as fun (and much cheaper and more intimate) to seek out a neighborhood park and watch pub-league rugby or little league baseball.  I've seen the Naadam Festival horse races in Mongolia on two separate occasions, but I learned more about the intricacies of the sport (and the culture of Mongolia) the year I watched them in the little town of Erdensant rather than the national capital in Ulan Bator.

On occasions like championship matches, where tickets are hard to come by, never underestimate the charm of watching the game on TV, surrounded a pub full of rowdy locals.

2) Never pass up a pickup game

One of the best ways to get to know people is to join in on the games that invariably take place wherever there's fresh air and a few young people.  In Cuba, this might mean pickup baseball; in China, it could be basketball; in India, it will invariably be cricket.  Even mental sports — chess in Bulgaria, say, or backgammon in

Usually, all it takes to get invited into any game is to stand on the sidelines and look interested.

3) Bring your own sport

Bringing a Frisbee or hacky-sack on the road may sound like an old hippie chestnut — but it's also a great idea:  If your favorite game is small enough to pack, by all means bring it along.  I have a zip-up stuff-sack that puffs into a football when it's full of t-shirts, and one day I used it to teach a beach-full of Thai kids to throw tight spirals on Koh Tao.  To return the favor, they let me in on a game of takraw, which is played by kicking a woven rattan ball back and forth over a low net, volleyball style.

Next: A literary window on the South Pacific

Previous: Utterly lost in translation

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