If you drive everywhere and
never take public transit (or if you don't dare take it) you miss out
on some extraordinary experiences. Here are three of mine:
A few years ago I was on a noisy and crowded streetcar in Toronto
during rush hour. Two girls, probably in their early twenties, got on,
and took two of the last seats on the streetcar, several rows apart,
but within eyeshot of each other. Then, as the streetcar clanged into
motion, they began talking with each other -- using only sign
language. The conversation was very animated, and although the other
passengers could not understand what they were saying they became
entranced with this exchange, What was most remarkable was the facial
and body language of the two girls, which was probably completely
unnecessary to the conversation, but was nevertheless quite pronounced.
Does the absence of hearing tend to accentuate the use of visual clues
like facial and body language, I wondered. Within a few minutes you
could see the faces of other passengers responding to these visual
clues -- it was as if at some subliminal level they were 'remembering'
how to interpret another's meaning without language. Is this still
encoded in our DNA? At one point I noticed two passengers blushing and
showing signs of embarrassment -- a second before
the two girls broke into laughter and the one who had been 'speaking'
made a facial gesture indicating that whatever she had been describing
had been a very embarrassing event for her. How much more, I wondered,
could we really begin to understand each other if we were not so
constrained in our focus of attention on the narrow bandwidth of words?
As I thought this, one of the girls got off the streetcar, which was
caught at a red light. But the girls' conversation never let up for a
moment. It continued unabated out the window across the rush-hour din,
until the girl who had alighted had vanished from sight.
Two years ago I was in the Paris Métro, the subway system there, at
about six p.m. making my way to a dinner rendezvous with some business
associates. The subway was full of office workers, most of whom
probably eked out a living in that terribly expensive city, but, as
always, they were stunning -- immaculately and stylishly dressed,
nothing rumpled or out of place despite the heat in the crowded car. I
have a passable knowledge of French and was looking forward to doing a
bit of eavesdropping (the euphemism now is 'cultural anthropology') to
discover what young French men and women talk about at the end of the
workday. To my consternation I heard few conversations to listen in on
-- it was noisy and I guess people were tired after a long day. But
then I realized the real communication was not vocalized. Almost
everyone in the car was 'checking out' everyone else, and, if you were
attentive, telling you precisely what they thought. The French seem to
have raised this to a high art form -- it is extremely discreet and
subtle, and not at all impolite. The women seem to check out other
women from the bottom up: Shoes first, legs next, clothing and
accessories after that, and hair and face last, though a bit more
thoroughly, as they linger and acknowledge infinitesimally brief eye
contact. But in that instant there seems to be either a quiet 'nod' of
approval (though if you aren't paying close attention you'd miss it).
Extending that eye-contact by a tiny amount would seem to convey
something stronger, "I like what I see", short of an invitation
(there's a whole additional series of unspoken cues, I later learned,
involved in making or replying to an invitation, and they're not
appropriate to a place like the subway) but still ego-warming. And
there's a slightly faster averting of the eyes to convey -- distress,
not dislike or put-down for your sad appearance, but more like
embarrassment on your behalf that you just aren't quite able to pull it
off. The French women seem to check out men in the opposite sequence, from top to bottom, with the hair and face first, and the shoes being the pièce de résistance:
If she's embarrassed for you, she won't even move back to your face
(her dismay would perhaps be too obvious, and humiliating for you), so
she moves her gaze along, perhaps to the shoes of the woman standing
beside you. If she likes what she sees, she will return to your face
and quietly tell you so, with a movement of the eyes and mouth that to
the uninitiated is almost imperceptible but to those who know, I
suspect, speaks volumes. It's all in the angle of her head when she
looks at you, and the slight extension of the lips. Some French men
seemed to check out everyone
top-to-bottom, only returning to the faces they liked, while others
(perhaps the majority) started at the breasts and the hips of women
first, followed the line down and checked the face and hair almost as
an afterthought. They were slightly less subtle than the women -- the
gaze, everywhere, lasted a fraction longer, and the look of approval
was slightly more pronounced, though never obvious. This, after all, is
only a Métro car, and this is how the French convey important
information to people they will never meet, delightfully, and without
saying a word.
My third story took place on a Toronto transit bus about a decade ago.
The bus was packed, and I was standing in front of a long sideways
bench. A man offered his seat there, beside a woman holding a very
young child, to a young woman dressed to the nines in Goth apparel --
all in black, with pierced nose and belly-button, spiked hair, a tattoo
of a bird on the side of her face, heavy eye makeup and a lot of silver
jewelery. Suddenly, the young child raised his hand, pointed at the
Goth girl, began laughing, and said "Look Mommy, clown!" All of us were
taken aback by this remark, and the mother covered the child's mouth
and went to apologize, but to our delight the girl waved it off and
began making silly faces at the child, who began laughing with that
complete lack of reserve and embarrassment that only a child can pull
off, shrieking hysterically and doubling over to the point many of the
other passengers nearby started to laugh too. Now the Goth had an
audience, and she added embellishments to the act -- she used her
spiked hair as a 'handle' to turn her head, and then when she 'let it
go' she shook it furiously back and forth. When she pulled the ring on
her belly-button she would stick out her tongue and cross her eyes. By
now half the bus was in hysterics, and the child was laughing so hard
his mother had to hold on to keep him from falling off her lap. Then
the young lady rose, made a silly walk to the rear door, and announced
"Sorry folks, show's over, this is my stop". The passengers broke into
applause, and with a parting bow the young lady turned and stepped off
the bus.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
