What a small dose of CNN can do

Following on from yesterday's brief muse on new world vs. old world living, it's true that I am beginning to notice the degree of my separation from life as I used to know it.

I've lived in small-town France for three months now, and I know all my neighbours by first name. I stop to talk to old men playing bowls in the small villages I ride through. I lean out the window and watch children play in the narrow old town streets beneath my apartment. I will spend up to five minutes practicing the pronunciation of a word that contains the vexing double 'll' in French with a patient friend. I wouldn't dream of missing my post-lunch siesta without a very good reason and I don't sit down to dinner before eight, and I always sit down to dinner. The idea of getting either food or a coffee to go seems absurd and come to think of it, I haven't seen a Starbucks in a very long time (the French have done the best job of resisting North American chains of any western European country I've visited).

Today I did something that had me really sit up and take notice of the extent to which I have become cloistered from the new, or English-speaking world (for me, the two have become synonymous). Thinking that it's been a week since I updated myself on current affairs, I tuned into CNN radio online this morning. I could only take it for ten minutes. I've never had much of a tolerance for mainstream American journalism and have not been a fan of CNN in particular, and while I didn't tune in as a means to stimulate some critical thinking or bolster my social awareness - I just wanted to hear the headlines - I was shocked at how quickly the soundbites of 'news' sickened me.

I turned it off and walked down to the market to talk to my favourite vendor, Jerome. Other than being the only vendor in the market who speaks a little bit of English, Jerome became my favourite when I tasked his cheeseless aubergine gratin a few months back. It was a little piece of vegetable heaven in a plastic tupperware. Having given up a career in four-star restauranteurism in Paris, Jerome returned to his native region in the south of France in search of a life that would be less likely to lead to burnout. He now resides in a nearby village with his wife and two children, with whom he's free to spend time with in the afternoons after the market closes. In the evening, he prepares the selection of plates that he sells hot and cold the following morning, and people like me can dine on a potpourri of dishes - I eat all the vegetable side orders - made by a chef with four-star Parisian restaurant training, all for a couple of euros. Jerome tells me stories of life on the restaurant circuit, his travels to work in hotels in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Dallas, and why life is better now. I counsel him on his fitness regime: he is up to running an hour at a time and recently bought a rode bike. Ten minutes of this was a good antidote to the CNN exposure and left me feeling a little encouraged by the state of the human condition, but still wondering if I will ever be able to cross the chasm back into a world where News is Entertainment.