Return to The City of Whispers & Ancient Stones

I lived in Paris with my parents, in the Cité des Arts. My father was an artist; his paintings were strange, dreamlike, like things you see in a half-remembered story.  I went to primary school for two years. My classmates were younger - three years younger - because I had to learn French fast, even though I was already ten.

After a tough first year, Paris grew on me, though I stayed only two years, when I was ten and eleven.  I still see the sunset over the Seine and Notre-Dame, glowing across the river like a quiet promise.

The first year was hard. The French school was strict, much more than English schools, and I had to catch up. The next year we moved to a better apartment in a quiet neighborhood in front of the iconic river Seine.

I changed schools, and a kind, elderly teacher helped me find my step. I believed God sent her so I would not carry a bitter memory of the French. Every morning I walked half a kilometer, past the busy Rue de Rivoli, by the Arab spice shop and a small church with a red door in Saint-Paul.

At the Cite de Arts, I made friends - a Jewish boy Avril from next door, and a long haired Chilean boy Sebastian, older than me by three years. One day I saw him from my window, standing by the traffic lights at the Seine, wearing dark glasses and holding a white cane. He wasn’t blind. He was playing a game, pretending, waiting at the red light to be helped across. He laughed when I told him I saw. I wondered if his mother knew.

In late ‘73, the spike in oil prices broke the country. The boom was finished. It was called the Trente Glorieuses, 30 years of robust post-war economic growth. The paintings did not sell in Paris. There was too much art for sale. So we went back to Malaysia, and my father took work as a designer for his brother’s business.

Epilogue

After 50 years, I return to this city for a 5-day trip on 1st October 2025. I expected to be disappointed after reading how the place has changed for the worse with petty thieves, riots and illegal immigrants. But after going to the Louvre with my wife, Paris remains a city with grandeur in its stones, wide spaces and chilly air.   

We stayed at a wonderful, cosy apartment on Boulevard de Clichy with a street view on the 6th floor. The owner was an established screen writer who has tons of books on his bookshelf, including ones on Kubrick, Leonard Cohen and other French film directors. The one book that I read was a fantastic short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer called Gimpel the Fool.  

                                                 

On the French habit of sitting in cafes and drinking in bars after work, the people seem to either take the beauty of the city for granted or live in it fully. I told a taxi driver that the French seem happy. He replied they may look happy, but that was not true: some cope with stress using cannabis or sometimes cocaine. That, he said with a smirk, was happiness for them. 

The Ascent

On the day of departure, I woke at five in the morning. It was the last day. I had to see the church, the Sacré-Cœur. It sat at the top of the Montmartre. The walk was twenty minutes and I climbed about two hundred steps to reach the summit at six am, breathing hard. The steps had done their work.

They built the church for penance. A debt owed to Christ. France had been beaten by Prussia with 143,000 dead. They said it was the country's moral decline that did it. Oddly, that decline - the old one, maybe the new one - had been on my mind the whole trip. I stood in the cold stone and looked out. The debt remained.

If I had to give one word to describe the French character, it would not be “bon vivant,” but a cool, contented indifference. Whatever happens - good or bad - they say, “Ça fait rien.” It doesn’t matter. Perhaps that philosophical mindset is the root cause of it's moral, political and economic decline. 

Politicians may talk of war. It doesn't matter until one fine day, the foreign troops come marching in through the Arc de Triomphe like the Germans once did. Then the tears will turn into tearless mourning.  And the sun will still shine bright over this city of whispers and ancient stones.

The Know-It-All and The Know-Nothing Dilemma

The man who thinks he knows everything walks blind. He holds his head high, sure his view is clear. When the storm comes, when war comes, he is caught without a plan. The flood rises, the bombs fall, and he stumbles. His confidence is his ruin. He never saw the oncoming danger. 

I was told about this type of person - a shopkeeper in Madrid. He had read the papers and heard the talk about the civil war that was about to break out. He believed he understood politics and the war. But when the fighting came, he told his family it was nothing to fear. He kept his doors open, his shelves full, and his drink strong. When soldiers marched down the street and bombs fell close to his shop, he stood frozen in disbelief. His plans for the future unraveled before his eyes. His confidence was his undoing.

On the flip side, there is another type of character who is full of doubt. He knows he does not know enough. But this knowing does not help. It freezes him. He waits for others to move first. When the time comes, he stands still. The world crashes around him, and he stands still, powerless.        

In fact, I once heard of such a type. His name was Gonzalo, a quiet clerk in Barcelona. He lived in a small flat with a window that looked out onto empty streets. He had always doubted himself and everything else. When the war broke, he hesitated at every order to join the army. He feared acting wrong, saying wrong, moving wrong. When the city burned, he stayed inside, silent and waiting. He was powerless because he could not summon the will to act.

Both men met the war unprepared—one with bluster, the other with fear. Neither was ready to live or die well. Both men were caught by events that sneaked into their lives like a thief in the night. One was caught by pride, the other by fear. Neither was ready.

If you know your time can end at any moment, what then? You cannot know all. You cannot know nothing. You must stay awake. You must face the day with eyes open, steady and strong. Watch people and the world as it is. And with the fullness of wisdom at your disposal, do what is right. Act as if your destiny has prepared you for this moment.

This is survival. This is the truth.