Inside Notre Dame de Paris, before the fire
Last weekend I went out walking with my dogs and found myself having an attack of Frankish resentment at an impolite encounter. The hunters were out (la chasse), in which some people stand by a road with shotguns while facing the woods, while others take their dogs, circle around to the other side of the woods, and attempt to chase out something for the folks by the road to shoot. The bush beaters have shotguns, too, so maybe the folks by the road are just backup. Anyway, as I’ve written a few times, in France, it is obligatoire to say bonjour to anyone you meet well enough to lock eyes with. Not saying bonjour is the height of bad manners. You might get away with no s’il vous plaît, no merci, or even no au revoir, but bonjour is not negotiable. One says that, or apologizes if one starts a conversation without doing so.
Anyway, on Sunday the mutts and I passed by a number of people standing along the road holding shotguns. I’m cool with guns, and none of these people looked like they were obsessed with their guns, which are, of course, a tool to use of you happen to want to kill your prey animals yourself. I’ve eaten some of the wild boar from around here, and it is probably worth shooting. It’s very good. Most of the people and I exchanged bonjours, although one man we so intent on the tree line that I don’t think he even knew we were passing. But there was one small group, a man and a woman, who I looked at, nodded at, and said bounour to each of, who just stared at me as I walked past. Now, I’ll admit, maybe they were strangers to France. Maybe from someplace like Denmark where, I’m told, saying hello before getting down to business is considered impolite. I admit, maybe they had their reasons, but, you know, I found their failure to say hello made me angry. I mean, how dare they? One always says hello, boor!
I wasn’t that angry. I didn’t say anything to them about it (they should know better anyway, right?) But I was surprised to find out that they sort of pissed me off by not responding. I’ve lived here a total of just about a year, counting three months in 2022, and apparently that’s enough to start soaking up local cultural norms. Who knows what’s next? You never know, I might start eating pizza and beer and cheeseburgers like I see a lot of French people doing. And there’s just no telling where that might lead! Or, seriously, it is interesting that I would react that way. You don’t formally greet everybody you happen to meet the eyes of in the US, do you? I didn’t, although I did always at least nod and maybe make some sort of sound.
I guess I’m just moving along the continuum toward being a judgmental twit, huh? Well, life’s a journey!
