Les Deux Magots in Paris

The café "Les Deux Magots" is still a place to see and be seen.  It started in 1813 as a drapery, selling silk and other luxury items.  It took its name 'Les Deux Magots' from a successful play of that time: 'The Two Magots of China'.  It was turned into a café in 1914.  It was once an intellectual center in Paris with writers and philosophers holding discussions on the café terrace.  It is said that every morning, Jean Paul Sartre with Simone de Beauvoir would take his seat at "Les Deux Magots" and write for hours. 

The café terrace was packed with people sitting obediently without complaining about others sitting too close or the café charging too high.  As if spellbound, we joined them in the ritual of ordering a silver pot of hot chocolate.  We then saw a typical photographer taking photos of Taiwan actress while enjoying their breakfast set (too lavish for us), a Jananese couple asking if they would block our view before taking their seats (too polite for us), a stylish senior executive reading his folders, possibly before meeting his clients (too stylish for us) until we read from menu that the café has opened a branch in Tokyo. 

A branch of Les Deux Magots in Tokyo ?  Has Sartre been to Tokyo writing in a café?  What is the point of opening a branch in Tokyo ? … What is the point of sitting in Les Deux Magots without reading Sartre’s philosophy?  We just took on the identity of a stereotyped admirer of Sartre sitting on the Les Deux Magots’ terrace, let the stereotypical manners of an admirer of Sartre determine how we should behave in the eyes of other admirers packed in the café.  Then I remembered Sartre’s waiter in a café who displays all the mannerisms which all waiters should possess – a little too polite attitude and voice, a little bit too rapid and automated movement, a little too solicitous interest towards customers’ order …  We were no different from Sartre’s waiter when we denied our freedom to be the sort of Sartre’s admirers who only know sitting in Les Deux Magots.  We could have been a Sartre’s admirer without having to follow the stereotyped code of ordering a silver pot of hot chocolate at Les Deux Magots. 

The waiters in Les Deux Magots can still demonstrate their swift movements while the two Magot statues on the central pillar of Les Deux Magots can still watch over Sartre’ admirers ordering a silver pot of hot chocolate, perhaps in the next century.  However, we choose to read more on Sartre.