The French celebrate their national holiday on July 14, Bastille Day,
and in a way it parallels the American Independence Day. After all, the
French were so inspired by our gusto in 1776 that they decided to have a
revolution of their 13 years later. In 1789, a bunch of angry French
citizens (in fact, many probably weren’t even “citizens,” because they
were mostly poor, some women, and I doubt most owned any land) stormed
the Bastille. And now, 221 years later, France celebrates Bastille Day
on July 14th.

The annual festivities are quite similar to those in the good ‘ole USA –
parades, fireworks, “barbeques” (though all y’all know what a real
barbeque is), parties and picnics. And just like kids in America think
it’s fun to run around with sparklers and shoot off fireworks from their
backyards, kids do the same thing here. Unfortunately for my ears and
for my sleep, kids begin to do this at least a week before July 14th.

The first time I heard the loud popping noise, I thought maybe there
were gangs in my neighborhood shooting off guns. It made me jump. After
a few pops, I strayed from the gang theory, but began to think that
maybe kids were throwing those popper things out in the street. But
surely they wouldn’t be that loud – would they?. Every time I looked out
the window, the bandits had mysteriously scattered off. After a week of
this, the gun noises bothered me less, and I simply attributed it to
annoying French kids (nothing against French kids, there are annoying
American kids too). However, the sheer frequency of the delinquency and
the hours that these kids would throw their uber large poppers into the
street was absurd. For a week, I had a continuous thought run through my
head: Where are their parents?

Perhaps kids running around at one o’clock in the morning is normal
here. I don’t know. The more plausible answer is that it’s the
neighborhood in which I live. I live in the 19th arrondisement
technically, but I’m not a far walk from the 11th. I’m a 3 minute walk
from Metro Belleville and a 5 minute walk from the Parc des Buttes
Chaumont. The first thought that comes to mind when people think of
Belleville is Edith Piaf. She grew up in this neighborhood in the 1920s
and earned money singing in the streets. At that time Belleville, though
its name literally meant “belle ville,” or beautiful city, was dirty,
over-crowded and full of poverty and debauchery. Though it has certainly
cleaned up quite a bit since then, Belleville is still a working class
neighborhood with a lot of immigrants and high-rise buildings, most of
which are probably HLM’s (low-income housing in the states, and stands
for habitation à loyer modéré). Paris’ Chinatown is technically in the
13th, but the second highest number of Chinese immigrants in Paris live
in Belleville. Around the corner from me are a handful of Chinese
restaurants, grocery stores, travel boutiques and even a few Chinese
restaurant supply stores.

Back to the problem at hand: kids running around late at night throwing
around explosives. Forgive me if I’m extrapolating here, but I believe
the abundance of young teens causing my ears to hurt may be a lack of
discipline on the part of their parents, or perhaps even a lack of
parents. It’s during these times that I appreciate my wonderful parents
and the discipline they gave us Glenn children, the lessons on
responsibility we received and the constant “act like you’ve been
somewhere” mantra. I don’t mean to dis my neighborhood, most certainly
not. I absolutely adore where I live in Paris because I am constantly
interacting with new people, cultures, languages and nationalities. It
is me that is the outsider, the foreigner, the stranger, and I quite
like being the minority…..at least for a month.

The night before Bastille Day, I sat outside at a café near my apartment
and watched as said teenagers set off actual fireworks in the street. By
now, of course, I was used to it. Nonetheless, it was dangerous.
Pedestrians, oncoming cars, trees above that could’ve easily caught on
fire, and real fireworks – not poppers or sparklers, but M80s and
firecrackers.

I stayed at chez moi the night of Bastille Day and lounged atop my
advantageous rooftop which doubled as a viewing platform for the
fireworks show that was to take place, comme habitude, over the Eiffel
Tower. The usual din of poppers and firecrackers was going on below, but
above, blues, whites and reds lit up the sky (of course the French share
the same colors in their flag as the U.S.), illuminating Paris. Ahhh, la
vie Parisien.