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2004-09-01 - 6:14 p.m. Madame Baudel, the owner of my apartment, phoned me 2 days ago and informed me that I had over-paid her for the first 6 months of rent. Apparently my exceptional math skills were once again at work and I was owed nearly 100 Euro. Madame Baudel said she would drop a check in the mail as she was heading out of Paris for a few days. Today I received the check and her kind note and so therefore decided to take care of some other banking I had to do. I must admit, I try to just use the ATM whenever possible, but since I had never made a deposit by check I figured I should go in to my branch of Societe Generale and ask someone how to do it, additionally I had a bunch of cash I needed to deposit plus make a wire transfer from America.
The first thing you notice about French banks is their set of double doors. If you are on the street you must push a button near the handle, wait for the green Passez button to illuminate and then pull the handle. Once you open that door you are inside a small corridor of maybe 6 feet long with another door at the end. Now once inside the corridor you must wait for the door behind you to shut and lock, then you press the green Passez button of the second door and wait for it too to illuminate, once this happens you may pull the door and step inside the actual bank. There is a second set of double doors and corridor running parallel to the one�s you just came through that are used for people�s exiting the bank. Ok, so a perfect anti-robbery system, since one could not hold up the bank and then go through the double doors, because I would venture to guess that any bank employee has a button near his/her desk that secures these doors, so even if you were to rob a teller and make it through the first door, they could lock all the doors and you would be caught in the corridor, or, essentially a glass hallway where everyone could then stand around and watch you as they waited for the police to arrive. It would be like an aquarium that held a really dumb criminal. As I was walking along the river on what was, thankfully, a warm and sunny day, I took my time to meander through what is called Paris Plage. Paris Plage is a section of roadway that runs parallel to the river, 11 months out of the year it is owned by speeding motorists, but for the past 3 summers the mayor and city council have turned this long stretch of roadway along the river in to a virtual urban beach. Truckloads of sand are brought in, as well as giant palm trees in huge containers, and then come the hammocks, hundreds of them are strung from poles made to look like trees, a giant swimming pool is constructed for those folks under the age of 12, even the street lights along the roadway are covered with a plum colored cellophane so as to cast a rich warm glow, rather than the harsh yellow glow of a regular streetlight. There is also enough paved road left over so people can bike, blade or walk along this fake, but amazingly real looking beach. If one just came to Paris and saw this, one might assume it was like this all year round. So along Paris Plage I walked, ipod in back pocket and earphones plugging both ears. Listening to more recent purchases from the Apple itunes music store I danced in my head to some old Bananarama. Smiling, I remembered how fun it was listening to this group when I was so young and just as the chorus for Venus started I found myself standing in front of what many (mostly straight men) would say was an actual Venus, a beautiful blonde woman, at least a head taller than me and she wasn�t wearing heels, in fact as I stood with mouth agape I realized she wasn�t wearing any top either. Uhh, then I looked at her companion, a shorter woman just about my height, she too, as I scanned her body quickly wasn�t wearing a top. I turned around abruptly, oh God, I�ve gone and entered the women�s changing area, oh God, and these two are coming to yell at me, oh God Bean, why do you walk and listen to ipod at the same time you know you lose focus. But then the two women passed me and said nothing, in fact they nonchalantly walked to the outdoor showers and rinsed off the sweat and sand from the day. Oh right, this is the far end of Paris Plage, where you aren�t supposed too, but many women sunbathe topless. Calmed a bit, I continue down my path and then climb the stairs at the end of Plage and cross Pont Marie. Hiking up to Place Monge I walk towards my bank and once there I get to play with the fun buttons and walk through the corridor. Inside the bank it is very quiet, no music, what little talking going on is in very hushed tones. There are two tellers and about 6 people in cubicles as well as a few stern looking folks wandering about and looking very Supervisory. I grab a deposit envelope and start to fill it out. In France, you write on the outside of the envelope what is inside and how much, for example; my check for 100 Euro and 200 Euro cash, then you remove the strip of paper to expose the adhesive (so civilized, no licking needed here) and seal the envelope. Once you approach the teller, she or he will enter the information from the envelope into the computer and hand you a receipt. The teller will then place the still sealed envelope in a drawer, to be counted later after the bank has closed. This is all done quite quickly and very quietly. Money is kind of a taboo subject in France I am learning. Money is not to be discussed, and when it must be it is done behind a cubicle, in an office, or very quietly with a teller. I learned that the reason the sealed envelopes are not opened when you hand them to the teller is because that would imply the teller did not trust you, which would be considered very rude of the teller. Walking home I started thinking about how money and finances are very hush hush subjects here and how discreet everyone is inside the bank, or waiting on line for an ATM (everyone stands far back while you use one). But also about how nakedness and sex is right out there and shown and discussed. There are City of Paris condom ads all around Paris; I think they say, �Paris believes in love. Paris believes in safety� and then there is a picture of a famous Parisian monument (Eiffel Tour maybe) and 3 colored condoms. All part of a HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. Plus, along the river you have many women topless with no one freaking out, no one picketing, no one covering their children�s eyes. Farther down the river, past Paris Plage I discover an area that is more than topless, it is down right nothing! Yes, everyone is pretty much nude. And further down from that, I find the gay section where it is a thong festival. No one flipping, no one judging, no one blowing a conservative gasket. I needed to understand this better. After a few days of checking out more examples of sexual and physical freedom; walking along Rue Saint Denis and looking at the prostitutes while the business women and men bought bread at the boulanger right next to the working ladies, at the X-rated DVD shops next to the internet caf� filled with teenagers on rollerblades, none of whom (in the half hour I stood outside) tried to go in the DVD shop, at the gay men in the Marais wearing their best end-of-summer-sale-slut-wear mesh tops on line to buy falafel pitas with the half-dozen 16 year old Orthodox boys from the yeshiva around the corner. No one seemed to notice. No. I�m wrong. No one seemed to care. A body is a body. You have the right to clothe it the way you want to. You have the right to use it the way you want to (although, I don�t think prostitution is legal, I will check, I didn�t see anyone getting arrested). It is none of anyone else�s business it seemed, so long as you weren�t bothering or hurting them or someone else. I decided to phone Madame Boudel and ask her opinion. After a brief discussion involving how some things have changed (gay people more visible) she summed up the conversation with: �Bean, all men have the same body, and all women have the same body, but not everyone has the same amount in their bank, so you should not be surprised to see a naked body, because you know at a very early age what you look like and soon what the other sex looks like, but banking amount, that is different from everyone and should remain private� �You understand, Bean?� �I think so,� I said �Bonne� she said Placing the cordless phone back in the cradle I thought about how much money was discussed in America. In fact the day before I left I was in the bank with a friend and the teller 2 windows down was telling this woman of about 22 that �YOU DON�T HAVE SUFFICIENT FUNDS TO COVER THAT AMOUNT� Grady and I looked at each and both felt sorry for this girl, she was obviously overdrawn and the teller was so indiscreet. And banks in America are all about openness and space, not private rooms to discuss why you are being turned down for a mortgage of loan for a new RV. Nope, it�s all out in the open. And yet sex and nakedness is such a bad thing in America. Hmm. Which system makes more sense? Not a difficult question. I am going to Seattle in a few weeks for a visit. I wonder if I could somehow find that girl Grady and I saw at the bank. If I could I would tell her to move to France. No one will ever scold her loudly and publicly about her inability to manage her money. And she can sunbathe topless. Breasts and Banking. Seems we have them reversed. � � 
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