Paris Study Abroad 2014: 13th Arrondissement

It seems like all over the world there are mini china towns in big cities. Paris is one of these cities that have a little Asia town in the thirteenth district. I found everything in this district to be unlike the rest of Paris and its arrondissements because of the cultural difference. The food in this district was different along with the people, and types of restaurants. The cuisine was drastically different and new various things I hadn’t seen being sold could be found here. A lot of the stuff in the stores was also much cheaper here than most parts of Paris. The fruits and meats were considerably cheaper, which made for some good shopping. The Asian influence had a huge impact on the community and changed the culture in this area. I found this to be very intriguing and it gave me more reason to explore this new community. I also found it surprising that I didn’t hear many people speaking French but another foreign language I was not familiar with.

Commerical Business: Tang Freres

Some interesting look fruit in the Asain market.

Tourist Attraction:

Bibliothèque François Mitterrand

Another interesting feature of this arrondissement was the architecture of the buildings. It was significant because this area has a group of skyscrapers that can only be found in this area of Paris due to building regulations. This area is known as Les Olympiades. You won’t see any other tall skyscraper like buildings other than the Montparnasse Tower and the Eiffel tower inside of Paris.

Prominent Architecture: Les Olympiades

The park in this district lived up to the standards of the other parks in Paris, such as the groomed trees in the forms of squares and the perfectly trimmed triangle bushes. This park contained the characteristics of typical Parisian architecture and was the most similar feature of the arrondissement to the rest of Paris. I found this district to be very interesting because of the contrast it brought.