The French have developed the reputation in America of being rude and unfriendly. Well, let me tell you I've been treated worse in an American post office than I've ever been treated in France.
It's true the English word 'friendly' doesn't translate well into French. In fact the French aren't particularly 'friendly', at least in the American sense of the word. They don't automatically smile at strangers in the street, they aren't prone to start up conversations in the elevator, they don't automatically exchange names when they meet a new person, and if you're with a French person when s/he meets an acquaintance, they may ignore you while they talk.
Here are a few personal experiences that shed some light on what sort of people the French are.
Last week I was out chasing churches on my bicycle. (For those who don't know, I'm trying to photograph all the churches in the Gironde to put on a Web site I'm developing.) Near the town of Créon is the village of le Pouts with a lovely Roman church dating back to the 11th century. In front of the church is an open field with a well whose opening is partially covered by a metal grill. Standing beside the well, I took several photos of the church and set down the camera on the rim of the well. When I reached for the camera, I knocked it into the well! Being a compact digital camera, it slipped between the well wall and the grill and fell about four meters (13ft) to the bottom of the well. Made me sick when I heard the click of the camera hitting the bottom. In the hope of getting some help, I walked over to the mairie (town hall), but found it closed. Heard voices over a hedge about 30 meters (100ft) away and walked around the hedge to find a French couple. I explained my problem and he said 'pas de souci' (no problem). He walked over to the well, took a quick look, repeated 'pas de souci', disappeared into his house for a few moments, and came back, buckling on a belt with hooks and lines attached to it. He went down the well, retrieved the camera, and was back faster than I could say, 'How stupid is it to set a camera on the edge of an open well!' Turns out Michel is a retired fireman who belonged to a team that specializes in underground and overhead rescues. To top if off, although it got a little wet--not immersed, thank goodness--, the camera still takes great pictures. The point of the story: how helpful the French can be. Note that Michel remained a Frenchman. We never did introduce ourselves as Americans would in similar circumstances.
I got Michel's name from the mayor, so I could thank him properly for his generous help. When the mayor heard I was there to photograph her church, she got up from her work on the village budget and took me on a quick tour of the church, so I could get some photos of the interior. And she offered to give me the deluxe tour when she had the time. Some of the decorations and floor tiles in the church date back its construction.
One Sunday a year ago Danièle and I decided to go biking together, so we rigged the bike carrier on the car and loaded the bikes. This involves removing a small case that attaches to the frame of Danièle's bike. I set the case on top of the car while we finished loading the car. Then off we went. Of course I'd forgotten to put the case in the car. When we got back from the outing, I walked through the neighborhood along the route we'd taken on our way out that morning and found the case, sitting on a fence. Someone had found it lying in the street and set it on the fence. Typical French move.
Final story: Shortly after Michel rescued my camera, I was out riding again, this time to the village of Croignon near le Pouts, where there is another Roman church. It was closed, so I walked over to the wall surrounding the churchyard. On the other side was a workman, tending a fire of burning brush, and I asked if he knew who had the key to the church. We got to talking and before we had finished, Arnaud had 1) arranged a place for me to eat my lunch waiting for the mayor's secretary to return, 2) gotten the key to the church from the secretary, 3) taken me on a tour of the church, 4) told me about the crypt in the church at Baron five kms away, 5) told me where to find the key to the crypt (at the mairie in Baron), and 5) arranged for me to meet him in Baron the next Monday, so he could get the key if the mairie wouldn't give it to me. I then rode over to Baron and they gave me, a complete stranger, the key to the crypt that holds a statue of the Virgin filling in for a statue of Our Lady of Fear that's been stolen twice.
Don''t misunderstand. It's true that just like in America 'il y a des cons partout!' (there are as****es everywhere! [Expletive deleted to avoid problems with nanny filters]). I've had a digital camera snatched from me in a suburb of Paris. And the French don't smile automatically if they catch your eye on the street, as Americans do. And Parisians cut in line without apology or remorse. And the French value wit and cleverness more than content, which can look like sarcasm. OK, it's a different country with a different culture and different ways of relating to people--it's not America. But the French are lovely people, naturally helpful and ready to smile when there's a reason.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
You can't get there from here
Dave arrives at the end of April. He's an old buddy from Houston who will stay with us in Bordeaux a week and then return to Paris to spend a week there with his wife (don't ask - I have no idea why he's meeting his wife in Paris instead of bringing her to Bordeaux!). While in Paris, he's going to rent a car and drive over to Normandy. That got me to thinking about Americans driving in France. Will he know what to do when he comes on a pedestrian crosswalk or sees the sign 'Autres Directions'? Here are a few thoughts for an American driving in France.
First, contrary to the stereotype, the French are not insane drivers! In fact, as a general rule, French drivers are better drivers than Americans, at least those in Texas. You can expect French drivers to be paying closer attention to what's going on around them. One result is they tailgate more that Americans since they assume you're paying attention too. (In another post I'll talk about how the French are more flexible when it comes to rules in general and traffic laws in particular!) However, just like in America, drinking is a problem here, and so is speeding, the young can be as careless and carefree as in America, and the elderly as unaware and slow. And you're going to have the shock of your life when a motorcyle passes you on the expressway-- between two lanes of traffic!
As for pedestrian crosswalks, pedestrians have the right of way here, and they exercise it! As in Texas, at an intersection controlled by a traffic light, the traffic light rules. However there are many other places where there is a pedestrian walkway across the road, indicated by parallel white stripes. Cars are supposed to and do stop for pedestrians in these crosswalks. Be aware that elderly people and teen-agers glued to a cell phone often don't check whether you're stopping!
You get around by driving from town to town, not by following route numbers. When you're visiting an area in a car, you'll discover that signs are by town, not by route number. The road signs point out which way to go to get to the nearby towns and occasionally a large town that's further away. (Once you're on the route, you may notice a little route number sign.) The one exception is the autoroutes. On traffic signs the numbers of the autoroutes always appear with the name of the city you'll get to by taking the autoroute. So plan your trips by the towns you 're going to pass through. What makes it challenging is that occasionally you come to an intersection without signs. So be prepared emotionally to occasionally get lost. That's part of the adventure. A good road map and a good navigator help. (Normally Danièle drives and I navigate, as she drives better and I'm better with a map.)
You'll also discover two very strange signs when you're in towns. One says 'Toutes Directions', the other says 'Autres Directions'. The first translates as 'All Directions', the other 'Other Directions'. (You don't normally see both of them together! ) It is really strange to be driving along and see 'Other Directions'. I mean, are you interested in knowing how to go in the other directions? Fortunately these do make sense. 'Toutes Directions' tells you which way to go to get out of town, no matter where you're going. 'Autres Directions' normally accompanies one or more signs that point the way to certain destinations; it refers to all other possible destinations.
Unless posted otherwise, the speed limits are: 130kph/80mph (110kph/70mph when it's raining) on the autoroutes (the big expressways, mostly toll, that tie France together), 90kph/55kph on the open road on ordinary highways, 50kph/30mph in town. Other speed limits are posted. However changes back to the standard speed limits are not always posted. For example you normally see signs telling you of changes in speed limit when entering and leaving towns, but not always. So slow down when you enter a town or village and don't hesitate to speed up when you're out of town, marked by a sign with the town name crossed in red.
Another adjustment that takes some getting used to is the placement of traffic lights. In France you stop at the traffic light, not at the intersection. The traffic lights here are always on the right before the intersection. They have two sets of lights on the pole, one down low that can be seen by the car sitting at the traffic light, the other higher up for the cars further back. Since there is not a traffic light hanging over the intersection or on a pole on the other side of the intersection pointed at you, you must stop at the traffic light on your side of the intersection, so you can see when it truns green. Be warned that the light may be at the corner or quite a ways before the intersection. (That leaves room for turning traffic on narrow streets.) Normally there'll be white stripes across the road level with the traffic light, but not always.
There's no right turn on red. However a flashing orange light means that a lane can go, often a right turn. However if the flashing light reads 'BUS', then obviously it only applies to buses.
You might come across a section of road being worked on with a sign that says 'Trafic Alterné' (pronounced traff-eek ahl-ter-nay). This means that only one direction of traffic can go at a time, i.e., one side waits while the cars going the other direction drive through. To control which side goes, you'll find workers or temporary traffic lights at each end of the work. Normally you'll see a sign warning you before you reach the section where 'Trafic Alterné' is in effect. Try to avoid such sections since you can spend inordinate amounts of time waiting to get past. A frantic search for an alternate route around a 'Trafic Alterné' site can pay off.
First, contrary to the stereotype, the French are not insane drivers! In fact, as a general rule, French drivers are better drivers than Americans, at least those in Texas. You can expect French drivers to be paying closer attention to what's going on around them. One result is they tailgate more that Americans since they assume you're paying attention too. (In another post I'll talk about how the French are more flexible when it comes to rules in general and traffic laws in particular!) However, just like in America, drinking is a problem here, and so is speeding, the young can be as careless and carefree as in America, and the elderly as unaware and slow. And you're going to have the shock of your life when a motorcyle passes you on the expressway-- between two lanes of traffic!
As for pedestrian crosswalks, pedestrians have the right of way here, and they exercise it! As in Texas, at an intersection controlled by a traffic light, the traffic light rules. However there are many other places where there is a pedestrian walkway across the road, indicated by parallel white stripes. Cars are supposed to and do stop for pedestrians in these crosswalks. Be aware that elderly people and teen-agers glued to a cell phone often don't check whether you're stopping!
You get around by driving from town to town, not by following route numbers. When you're visiting an area in a car, you'll discover that signs are by town, not by route number. The road signs point out which way to go to get to the nearby towns and occasionally a large town that's further away. (Once you're on the route, you may notice a little route number sign.) The one exception is the autoroutes. On traffic signs the numbers of the autoroutes always appear with the name of the city you'll get to by taking the autoroute. So plan your trips by the towns you 're going to pass through. What makes it challenging is that occasionally you come to an intersection without signs. So be prepared emotionally to occasionally get lost. That's part of the adventure. A good road map and a good navigator help. (Normally Danièle drives and I navigate, as she drives better and I'm better with a map.)
You'll also discover two very strange signs when you're in towns. One says 'Toutes Directions', the other says 'Autres Directions'. The first translates as 'All Directions', the other 'Other Directions'. (You don't normally see both of them together! ) It is really strange to be driving along and see 'Other Directions'. I mean, are you interested in knowing how to go in the other directions? Fortunately these do make sense. 'Toutes Directions' tells you which way to go to get out of town, no matter where you're going. 'Autres Directions' normally accompanies one or more signs that point the way to certain destinations; it refers to all other possible destinations.
Unless posted otherwise, the speed limits are: 130kph/80mph (110kph/70mph when it's raining) on the autoroutes (the big expressways, mostly toll, that tie France together), 90kph/55kph on the open road on ordinary highways, 50kph/30mph in town. Other speed limits are posted. However changes back to the standard speed limits are not always posted. For example you normally see signs telling you of changes in speed limit when entering and leaving towns, but not always. So slow down when you enter a town or village and don't hesitate to speed up when you're out of town, marked by a sign with the town name crossed in red.
Another adjustment that takes some getting used to is the placement of traffic lights. In France you stop at the traffic light, not at the intersection. The traffic lights here are always on the right before the intersection. They have two sets of lights on the pole, one down low that can be seen by the car sitting at the traffic light, the other higher up for the cars further back. Since there is not a traffic light hanging over the intersection or on a pole on the other side of the intersection pointed at you, you must stop at the traffic light on your side of the intersection, so you can see when it truns green. Be warned that the light may be at the corner or quite a ways before the intersection. (That leaves room for turning traffic on narrow streets.) Normally there'll be white stripes across the road level with the traffic light, but not always.
There's no right turn on red. However a flashing orange light means that a lane can go, often a right turn. However if the flashing light reads 'BUS', then obviously it only applies to buses.
You might come across a section of road being worked on with a sign that says 'Trafic Alterné' (pronounced traff-eek ahl-ter-nay). This means that only one direction of traffic can go at a time, i.e., one side waits while the cars going the other direction drive through. To control which side goes, you'll find workers or temporary traffic lights at each end of the work. Normally you'll see a sign warning you before you reach the section where 'Trafic Alterné' is in effect. Try to avoid such sections since you can spend inordinate amounts of time waiting to get past. A frantic search for an alternate route around a 'Trafic Alterné' site can pay off.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Let them eat bread
I have a biking buddy named Roland. He knows the roads of the Gironde better than the back of his hand. From riding with Roland I've learned for example to recognize the abandoned underground galleries (where this area produced 20 tons of mushrooms sent to Paris every three weeks) and to find the name of towns if I miss the roadsign on the way into a town. I was complaining one day to Roland that I couldn't work out a town's name once I was in the central square. It wasn't marked on the townhall or the church you find there. Without hesitating, he said check the memorial to the war dead (le monument aux morts)--every village has one. Sure enough, it will say something like 'To the Glorious Heroes of Sadirac (or wherever) Who Died for France in 1914-1918'.
There's no point in calling Roland between 10:30 and 11:15 in the morning. He's out running his daily errands (il fait ses courses). His most important errard is to get a fresh baguette.
Roland is retired and lives alone if you overlook his tyrannical cat. You can tell he's not from around here by his accent, though he's lived in the Bordeaux area since the second world war when his mother moved here to get away from the Germans in their native Alsace-Lorraine. Roland's an inveterate cyclist--in fact he's been a member of the FFCT (French Federation of Cyclotourism) for over fifty years. He used to ride all over the Gironde with his wife till she died--she took up cycling with him when she discovered how well he knew the boulangères (bread ladies) of the Gironde! Though going on 80, he can ride me into the ground.
Like most French, Roland loves a fresh baguette. (We often stop when we're out cycling together so he pick up a baguette for lunch and flirt with the boulangère). When the French go out shopping in the week (not everyone can go every day like Roland), it's most commonly to buy bread at the local bakery. Where Americans go out in the week to get milk, the French go out to get bread.
Every neighborhood in the bigger cities like Bordeaux has several bakeries. We've moved a couple of times since I came to France. My wife will systemically visit the nearby bakeries till she finds one she likes. And that's where we buy our bread. The French are content to eat the same bread day after day. Roland and his baguette, Danièle and her 'pain polka'. Most Americans would get bored eating the same bread, not the French.
There's no point in calling Roland between 10:30 and 11:15 in the morning. He's out running his daily errands (il fait ses courses). His most important errard is to get a fresh baguette.
Roland is retired and lives alone if you overlook his tyrannical cat. You can tell he's not from around here by his accent, though he's lived in the Bordeaux area since the second world war when his mother moved here to get away from the Germans in their native Alsace-Lorraine. Roland's an inveterate cyclist--in fact he's been a member of the FFCT (French Federation of Cyclotourism) for over fifty years. He used to ride all over the Gironde with his wife till she died--she took up cycling with him when she discovered how well he knew the boulangères (bread ladies) of the Gironde! Though going on 80, he can ride me into the ground.
Like most French, Roland loves a fresh baguette. (We often stop when we're out cycling together so he pick up a baguette for lunch and flirt with the boulangère). When the French go out shopping in the week (not everyone can go every day like Roland), it's most commonly to buy bread at the local bakery. Where Americans go out in the week to get milk, the French go out to get bread.
Every neighborhood in the bigger cities like Bordeaux has several bakeries. We've moved a couple of times since I came to France. My wife will systemically visit the nearby bakeries till she finds one she likes. And that's where we buy our bread. The French are content to eat the same bread day after day. Roland and his baguette, Danièle and her 'pain polka'. Most Americans would get bored eating the same bread, not the French.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
French pumpkins come from the market--American pumpkins come from a can
Living in France changes your perspective.
I was talking about pumpkin pie with my French wife one evening. And we got hung up on a previously unidentified Franco-American difference. Danièle only knows pumpkin as something she buys raw at the marché. I only knew pumpkin as a paste that comes out of a can. For confirmation I reached for my cooking Bible, the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook. Sure enough every recipe I could find involving pumpkin started with canned pumpkin.
That's what this blog is about, the little differences between living in the US and living in France, like where pumpkins come from.
I'll leave it to the great philosophers and sociologists to write about the grand differences--America's myths of the open road and the Western frontier, its love of guns and violence, its easy friendliness, dynamism, and naiveté, and so on, or France's myths of being Cartesian, the superiority of French culture and the French language, the integration into French society open to all its citizens, and so on. I don't pretend to the wisdom or experience to appreciate the differences on that scale. However there are others, and if you want to spend any time here, it's good to be aware of them. So I propose to write about the little things that the books on cultural differences don't cover.
France is a great place to live--I'll come back to this as we go along. But it is different from living in America. Americans know France about as well as the French know America. [chuckle] That is, both have enormous holes in their understanding of the other. What we know of France comes mostly from Hollywood movies, superficial coverage on TV and in the papers, and books by humorists. What France knows of America comes mostly from Hollywood movies, lengthy stories on TV and in the papers, and books by intellectuals.
The prejudices and misunderstandings on both sides are staggering. I was once introduced to a French lawyer as an American. She looked me up and down and said, 'But you're not obese!' You know, it's true, over 50% of Americans are overweight or obese. That leaves more than 125 million who aren't!
And it's amazing how many Americans believe they can move here and take up life as if they were doing no more than moving across America. We have this romantic idea that France is like America, only better, what with the joie de vivre, good wine, and all. On some visceral level we understand that living in Beijing, New Delhi, or Cairo is going to be really different. The people look different, they dress different, the smells are different. If we've got enough sense to knock two stones together, we expect cultural shock and a period of adjustment. But France, come on. They look like us--for heaven's sake they wear Levi jeans. The French McDonald's are the most popular in Europe. And we use their perfumes, look up to their couturiers, and drool over their actresses.
Well, it just isn't so. France is not America, only with an accent. They've had over two thousand years of history to develop a culture, style of living, customs, government, and institutions that are different from America's. The US has survived one civil war and is still working on the aftermath. The French have spent hundreds of years forming a country out of chunks of this and that and trying to hold it together--one of the reasons all the main roads in France started in Paris is so that the troops could easily get to the place where a rebellion or invasion, either one, was going on, i.e., to help hold the country together. That marks a country in ways Americans don't easily appreciate.
And I've already broken my promise not to write about the big subjects, but to stick to the little differences. I'll try to do better.
I've lived in France for a couple of years, seduced into changing my life by love for a lovely Frenchwoman. Home used to be Houston, Texas where I was a software developer for twenty years, first as a singleton and then as president of my own company. Eventually I sold the assets of my company and went to work for the acquiring company. When I started coming to France, I hoped some of my work would follow me here. When it didn't, I retired.
Danièle still works which gives me the time to hang around as I've always wanted to. And that's made it easier to notice the little differences that make living here interesting for an American.
A bientôt,
Harvey
I was talking about pumpkin pie with my French wife one evening. And we got hung up on a previously unidentified Franco-American difference. Danièle only knows pumpkin as something she buys raw at the marché. I only knew pumpkin as a paste that comes out of a can. For confirmation I reached for my cooking Bible, the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook. Sure enough every recipe I could find involving pumpkin started with canned pumpkin.
That's what this blog is about, the little differences between living in the US and living in France, like where pumpkins come from.
I'll leave it to the great philosophers and sociologists to write about the grand differences--America's myths of the open road and the Western frontier, its love of guns and violence, its easy friendliness, dynamism, and naiveté, and so on, or France's myths of being Cartesian, the superiority of French culture and the French language, the integration into French society open to all its citizens, and so on. I don't pretend to the wisdom or experience to appreciate the differences on that scale. However there are others, and if you want to spend any time here, it's good to be aware of them. So I propose to write about the little things that the books on cultural differences don't cover.
France is a great place to live--I'll come back to this as we go along. But it is different from living in America. Americans know France about as well as the French know America. [chuckle] That is, both have enormous holes in their understanding of the other. What we know of France comes mostly from Hollywood movies, superficial coverage on TV and in the papers, and books by humorists. What France knows of America comes mostly from Hollywood movies, lengthy stories on TV and in the papers, and books by intellectuals.
The prejudices and misunderstandings on both sides are staggering. I was once introduced to a French lawyer as an American. She looked me up and down and said, 'But you're not obese!' You know, it's true, over 50% of Americans are overweight or obese. That leaves more than 125 million who aren't!
And it's amazing how many Americans believe they can move here and take up life as if they were doing no more than moving across America. We have this romantic idea that France is like America, only better, what with the joie de vivre, good wine, and all. On some visceral level we understand that living in Beijing, New Delhi, or Cairo is going to be really different. The people look different, they dress different, the smells are different. If we've got enough sense to knock two stones together, we expect cultural shock and a period of adjustment. But France, come on. They look like us--for heaven's sake they wear Levi jeans. The French McDonald's are the most popular in Europe. And we use their perfumes, look up to their couturiers, and drool over their actresses.
Well, it just isn't so. France is not America, only with an accent. They've had over two thousand years of history to develop a culture, style of living, customs, government, and institutions that are different from America's. The US has survived one civil war and is still working on the aftermath. The French have spent hundreds of years forming a country out of chunks of this and that and trying to hold it together--one of the reasons all the main roads in France started in Paris is so that the troops could easily get to the place where a rebellion or invasion, either one, was going on, i.e., to help hold the country together. That marks a country in ways Americans don't easily appreciate.
And I've already broken my promise not to write about the big subjects, but to stick to the little differences. I'll try to do better.
I've lived in France for a couple of years, seduced into changing my life by love for a lovely Frenchwoman. Home used to be Houston, Texas where I was a software developer for twenty years, first as a singleton and then as president of my own company. Eventually I sold the assets of my company and went to work for the acquiring company. When I started coming to France, I hoped some of my work would follow me here. When it didn't, I retired.
Danièle still works which gives me the time to hang around as I've always wanted to. And that's made it easier to notice the little differences that make living here interesting for an American.
A bientôt,
Harvey
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)