#chailail in cairo

[trivalentlinks]

My friends and I (one of whom has seen one episode of Emily in Paris and the rest of whom have seen none) had this idea for an alternate version of Emily in Paris that we'd have liked to see:

So episode 1 stays as it is, with Emily going to Paris for an unexpected marketing job, it's about Emily’s fish-out-of-water high jinks in Paris, it sets up the beginnings of a rom-com with her neighbour Gabriel, etc.

In Paris, right when she's at a low point thinking she isn't cut out for this, Emily meets seemingly minor character Aisha, environmental scientist, who thinks it’s really cool that Emily just upped and moved to the other side of the world; Aisha’s always wanted to live in South America, but never really had the guts to move.

The episode moves on, ending with Emily finally starting to fall in love with Paris and all that she entails, and Aisha doesn't appear again for the rest of the episode.

With no explanation, the 2nd episode opens with Aisha on a flight to Asunción for an unexpected research opportunity, and then you’re just following Aisha’s high jinks in Asunción, as she starts out having trouble adjusting (she knows castellano but only the kind from Spain) and eventually falls in love with this warm and beautiful culture.

In Asunción, Aisha briefly speaks to minor character Beatriz who’s engaged to someone from Thailand she met in study abroad, and she'd love to move closer but never had the right job opportunities, what with her Spanish Lit degree.

And episode 3, of course, starts with Beatriz on a flight to Bangkok for an unexpected job opportunity teaching Spanish at the best public high school there.

Beatriz in Bangkok high jinks--she speaks Thai (took a few classes and practiced with her s.o.), but nothing prepared her to navigate the intricacies of the traditions and rich culture.

Beatriz meets Chailail who’s studying archaeology with a minor in ancient Egyptian history, whose dreams all live in Cairo, (or maybe she's an engineering student whose dream research is happening primarily at IIT Chennai), etc etc

Just an alphabet of explorers seeking out and learning to love places and cultures other than their own, with all the misunderstandings, absurdities, heartbreak, and joy that it entails.

And maybe each main character (Emily, Aisha, Beatriz, Chailail, etc) describes the previous, the one who inspired her to move, or the one who brought the good luck of unexpected opportunity, or even the one who was such a disaster that they thought, ‘geez if she could manage moving to the other side of the world, what am I so worried about?’