Paris in Rizal's eyes

FRENCH Spring in Manila is upon us again. For the past seven years, the Embassy of France has been bringing films, music, food and other events to add spice to our cultural scene and, of course, make lasting inroads into Philippine life that is not possible through normal diplomacy or politics. Through a succession of ambassadors -- Samuel le Carruyer de Beauvais, Gilles Chouraqui, and now Renee Veyret -- I have gone through different French Springs in Manila and whatever unwanted pounds I carry like a lifesaver around my tummy is a testament to their success, for food and music are really shortcuts to a beast's heart.

If Jose Rizal were alive today, he would probably be attending the events of the French Spring. Based on his travel writings from Paris, it is fairly obvious that he was more partial to France than Spain. Writing to his family from Paris on June 21, 1883, he gives his address as Hotel de Paris, 37 rue de Maubeuge. If I'm not mistaken, the hotel is still in operation and now carries a historical marker by its doorway declaring our hero's stay there in 1883.

Today, one travels little over two hours by plane from Madrid to Paris. In 1883, Rizal described the same trip by train as "the best and fastest" he took -- at 36 hours. He compared the bare landscape of Spain with the pretty and pleasing landscape of France. He even noted the physical features of the Basques and commented on the industry of the women, some of whom he saw pulling carts that otherwise should be pulled by oxen. He shared the compartment with Spaniards who were traveling to London to learn English, so they all got good practice along the way.

Not much has changed since Rizal's time; Paris is still expensive. Rizal stayed in a budget hotel where other Filipinos were staying. His room cost seven "duros" a month, not including food or light. Little wonder he bought candles so he could read at night. Rizal complained that "here everything is dear." To save on transport cost, Rizal walked. He described his first walk around the city:

"In the first hours, I went around and from the big area I have walked and from the little I have visited, I can figure out how big is this which they call Babylonia. Fill the area of Calamba, Cabuyao and Santa Rosa towns with magnificent houses and you would have Paris, more or less; and I imagine it thus, because to cross it from one end to another by coach, more than one hour and a half is necessary. Here man is truly an ant; there are streets the end of which cannot be seen [remember, Rizal wrote this long before we had the Edsa highway], and nevertheless they are straight, wide and well laid-out; shops and big stores everywhere; coaches for hire are said to be as many as 25,000 [again, Rizal did not live to see our cities choked by taxis, jeeps, buses and other vehicles].

"Transients enliven and fill the streets, so do the stores, restaurants, cafés, buillons, beer saloons and gardens and monuments. On every street, however small it is, one finds at least a lodging house, and all these hotels are filled because travelers come and go from different parts of the world, such that one always sees new faces, trunks and suitcases on all sides, different vestments, foreign types, among whom we, ourselves, are. Here they call us Japanese, because these abound here in great numbers."

(Today the Japanese tourists are still a constant feature in Paris, especially in the Louis Vuitton shops, the only difference being that in his time Rizal was always mistaken for a Japanese, which doesn't happen so often to me these days. At one point, Rizal even impersonated a Japanese and pretended he was the son of a nobleman sent to France to learn Western language and civilization.)

Filipino tourists, being great shoppers, are often bought to the high-end department stores like Galeries Lafayette or Printemps. They rarely venture into the French equivalent of our own ShoeMart, called Bon Marche (literally meaning "good buy" or "cheap"), which was patronized by our national hero. He described the store:

"Here in these establishments, all and sundry are sold except food although I believe having seen there a café and a restaurant. This store occupies one whole block, the floors of the building as big as the entire space between our house and the post office. So that you can form an idea as to how big it is, it keeps inside 150 Norman and English horses whose only job is to deliver the merchandise to the house of the buyers, horses that occupy an entire big building. Apropos, Norman houses, mine looks like them although it is smaller, for these have wide haunches and big muscles. They serve only for pulling and are very strong; there are some which are like elephants."
A horse as big as an elephant? Maybe Rizal was referring to the pygmy elephant found by archeologists in the Philippines and christened "Elephas Beyeri" after H. Otley Beyer, the acknowledged "Father of Philippine Anthropology." Maybe Rizal was exaggerating to make his family back in Calamba laugh.

Rizal's travel letters show a Filipino dealing with the world, comparing it with the Philippines and the place of his birth. For expatriate Filipinos of the time, who would later become heroes, France was a muse, an inspiration.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.