Taxicab confessions

After reading about anti-Americanism abroad in both the Prince and other less prominent newspapers, I felt the need to address the issue in a column. When an American student in Beijing has to lie about her national origins in order to get a lift, something is profoundly wrong with America. Or maybe the world. To investigate this dilemma, I boarded my Gulfstream IV for a weekend jaunt to Paris. Let me briefly say that nothing beats private jet travel when you want to look down on Europeans.

I hopped into my first taxi at Charles de Gaulle airport, where my English was immediately noticed but far from unexpected. I immediately informed the driver (somehow the word cabbie seems New York-specific) that I was an American working for Morgan-Stanley-Dean-Witter-Salomon-Smith-Barney-Pierce-and-Pierce-Group-Corp-Inc, here to conduct an acquisition of the Banque de France. I was immediately thrown to the curb with a sense of urgency that could only have been surpassed if I had claimed to be launching a hostile takeover on behalf of Deutsche Bank. I was glad that I hadn't told my joke about the new French tank with five gears to go backwards.

I decided to be more careful in the next cab that I hailed. I once again began the conversation in English, announcing that I was an American tourist in town to see the Loo-ver or however you pronounce that museum. I saw the driver fight back his gag reflex. He then asked me what I thought of George W. Bush. Recalling a clever column that I read in the 'Prince' in early November, I announced that he was "the best President ever." And once again I was back on the side of the road.

When the next taxi pulled over, I decided to temper my political views a bit. I proclaimed myself a liberal Canadian to the driver, and I found myself forced to take an antiwar stance. "The Iraq war is a travesty. The havoc that my country has wreaked upon the Muslim world nauseates me," I said, in faltering French. The driver nodded in agreement. "I mean," I said, "we shouldn't interfere with other cultures." More agreement, but a slightly glazed look. He must've been thinking about le weekend. Becoming more confident, I continued, "And if Muslim girls and women want to wear head scarves in society, they should be able to live however they choose." And I was suddenly reacquainted with the curb.

Dusk was falling, and I began to recognize the need to stop offending the fine Parisians who were my means of conveyance. Pulling myself together, I prepared for what was to be my final ride of the evening. Upon leaping into this last cab, I decided to be a French citizen who had been covering the presidential campaign in America for CBS. When the driver asked me what I thought of American politics, I took a deep breath and began, in perfect French, the rant that I had learned from Christmas vacation:

"I'd like George W. Bush brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Pennsylvania Avenue, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, lowlife, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, bloodsucking, dog-kissing, brainless, friendless, hopeless, heartless, lard-o, bugeyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey crap he is! Where's the Tylenol?"

A huge grin broke across the driver's face, and I was ecstatic for having finally mastered diplomacy. In my euphoria, I forgot all about my assumed identity, and when he asked me about my destination, I blurted out, "Take me to the McDonalds on the Champs-Elysées for some frickin' freedom fries!"

And all of a sudden, I was alone on the street, still less than a block from the airport. Like the French in, well, every war anyone can remember, I decided to retreat. I climbed back aboard my jet, wishing I had been so clever as to claim to be Icelandic or something. In the future, my preferred method of international relations will be Goose's: "the bird." You know, the finger. (I'm sorry, I hate it when it does that.) Powell Fraser is a politics major from Atlanta, Ga. He can be reached at pfraser@princeton.edu.