-A friendly old man greeted me as I dropped my backpack into my seat after boarding the long flight to Paris. Like most people I know, I generally enjoy solitude during a flight - not so much chit-chat, and a little more movies, wine, and Ambien. I could tell right away that this wasn't going to be that kind of flight. I usually open my book as fast as I can in order to avoid any preliminary formalities, but this particular man, and his wife, didn't get the memo that headphones + book = I don't like airplane convos. They proceeded to tell me about nothing in particular, their son, their home in Utah, their travels, their cat's age/weight/favorite toy... They asked where I'd been in the world and when I mentioned teaching in Thailand they were flabbergasted. "Was it a calling you had from God to do that?" I smiled and told them no, that it was basically just for the experience - to which they responded with facial expressions resembling those they might have given had I just told them I had no belly button. That was when I pieced together the puzzle: Utah, friendliness, callings. These people lived Under the Banner of Heaven, this man probably had 40 children, this woman probably competed for his love. (Okay, so maybe they're not extremists... but you never know.) This couple was Mormon. I politely ended the conversation after a while and clicked on the movie "The Duchess," a film in which Kira Knightly has intercourse a good portion of the time. Not the holiest of movies but having it on definitely kept their mouths shut.
-I've found that in different countries, people answer their cell phones with various words. In Thailand, it is very formal: sawatdeeka or "greetings." In Spain they say bueno or "good." In America some people say their first and last name. Others say hi, or hello, and some say yeah go. Similar to this last one, in Italy, they simply say pronto which means "I'm ready."
-I think the most interesting part of the fair, besides my realization that there are hundreds upon hundreds of children's book publishers across the globe, was looking at the differences in women's fashion. The line for the ladies' room was always ten women deep, and since nobody knew what language each other spoke, everyone was intent on looking one another up and down, silently taking note and making guesses as to where the others were from, and wondering where they could find yellow pumps like that.
-Most of my meetings were with international publishers who spoke perfect English, or at least understood it well enough to follow my schpiel. There were a few, though, who came with translators by their side. I went through our list of Fall 2009 titles, telling the story of each, and then patiently waited for the translators to recount what I said. I found it interesting that with some languages it took quite a bit longer to retell my tales, and with some only a sentence or so would sum it up. One meeting in particular made me wish I didn't speak Spanish. I sat with a group of 4 women from Barcelona, each exotically beautiful and exquisitely made-up. I began telling them about Dark Life - one of our newest, most sought-after titles at the moment - and they began speaking Spanish to one another as I was giving the synopsis. I've never been good with interruption, so I simply stopped talking. Four sets of beautiful, light-brown eyes looked up at me. I continued, they jumped right back into conversation, and I stopped again. This went on throughout Dark Life, Shiver, and Lips Touch - and because of how long this particular process went, those were the only titles I was able to present. They may not have spoken so freely had they known that I understood them, especially when they commented at the end, "she must be new."
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