James Baquet When I first moved to China, there were several new concepts I had to get used to. (That’s an understatement!) What I mean is, there were some differences in polity from what I was used to, specifically things like Hong Kong being a “Special Administrative Region,” Tibet being an “Autonomous Region,” and even Shenzhen being a “Special Economic Zone.” I think I have a better idea how these things work now, but the important point was to realize that I wasn’t “in Kansas anymore” (as Dorothy says to her dog in “The Wizard of Oz”); that is, things don’t work the world over the way they do in one’s home country. A case in point is what the French call an “overseas department.” First, a “department” is between an administrative region and the commune. There are only 18 regions and well over 36,000 communes, but just 101 departments. These, then, might be the closest equivalent to a Chinese province, or a U.S. state. Ninety-six of these departments are in “metropolitan France” — that is, what we might call “France Proper,” the French mainland and its nearby islands, all of them in Europe. The other five are far-flung: three in North America (the Caribbean) and two in Africa (the Indian Ocean). One of those is today’s topic: French Guiana, more properly called just “Guiana.” The designation “French” arises from the fact that there used to be three Guianas: Guyana (note the spelling difference) used to be called British Guiana, and Suriname was formerly Dutch Guiana. To compound the confusion even more, Guiana (the French one) is not merely a department of France; it also, like the other overseas departments, has region status. Thus there are only 13 regions in the motherland, and five located overseas. French Guiana is located on the northeast coast of South America, with the aforementioned Suriname to its west, and Brazil to the south and southeast. The Caribbean is to the north. About half of the nation’s population lives around the capital of Cayenne (which, by the way, was probably named after a well-known chili pepper, and not the other way around). French Guiana is the only territory on the mainland of the Americas that is still part of a European country. French is, of course, the national language, though a number of others are spoken. Vocabulary: Which word above means: 1. stating something in restrained terms, or as less than it is 2. the same as 3. a relevant illustrative example 4. come into being, originate 5. remote, distant 6. a major landmass 7. self-governed 8. the form of government of a nation 9. add to | 