Tag: differences

Categories
Culture France

Back from the USA

For the record, I really was Born in the USA, and I know what that Springsteen song is really about!

I was in Denver, and for a few hours, in Las Vegas, for the past two weeks. Yesterday I mostly sat like a lump wondering what happened (if you’ve never travelled 8 or 9 time zones east overnight, you might think I was being lazy or something.) Today, I’m back, mostly, and here are some impressions of the USA after I was away for over fifteen months.

First, those commercials! Many Americans report being anxious and worried, and I think I know why. Good grief, you can’t even see an ad for a sandwich without hearing YOU JUST HAVE TO BUYL THIS BURGER!!!!

Uh, sure. I guess. And that’s just for one sandwich at one fast food joint. You know, folks, psychological research has determined that upset people buy more stuff, so do you think it’s a coincidence that the news, and even the ads, are designed to keep you on edge? Do you? Hmmm? There are plenty of ads in France, but few are edgy. Some are funny. And I remember one that involved singing vaginas. No kidding, and one of them was attached to a real human. That was odd, even for France, but not upsetting. Are the children of France morally destroyed after seeing that? I just report, you decide. I’ve noticed a lot of American ads that seem to set the viewer up for disappointment. For instance, no matter how nice a car you buy, you’ll never get to park directly in front of the opera house and walk in smiling. It just ain’t gonna happen. Also, one car is a lot like another, no matter how much you tell yourself otherwise, and the traffic is just as terrible in a Lexus as it is in a ’68 Superbeetle. It sucks in French cities, too, but no car ad suggests that it’s particular brand will offer any relief. They simply ignore the unpleasant parts of automobile ownership.

America bustles compared to rural France, but then I suppose it bustles compared to rural America. It feels good to be able to slow down a bit and catch my breath, as it were.

Americans really do talk loudly, although I can say from local (in my village) experience that Brits talk louder. Still, French people frown on loud speech in public, and I noticed the difference. It didn’t bother me (I was born there, remember) but I did notice a higher volume. This, I suppose, goes along with the general level of anxiety, or maybe the music they play in restaurants, as French restaurants don’t have any background sound playing. And, to be fair, the worst experience, noise-wise, I’ve had in France was in Paris, in a restaurant with a table full of drunken French people.

Which brings up another phenomenon. Americans drink more than the French. And, in America, being drunk is laughed at. In France, it’s severely discouraged. Nobody in that restaurant was laughing about those drunks in the corner. Alcohol is important here, but drinking too much is a big no-no. And, quick aside, beer has replaced wine as the top selling alcohol in France. True story. A lot of bars sell Budweiser, in fact.

American roads are generally better, in the sense that they are roomier and easier to navigate. That’s the good part, because they’re also in a lot worse shape in terms of rough pavement and potholes.

All that said, the people are remarkably similar. If you’re nice to them, they’re nice right back to you. In America that means saying Hi or something similar and smiling a lot. In France you can skip the smile, but do say hello, which is in fact bonjour. In both countries we found plenty of helpful people, and of course a few, uh, you know. Mostly, though, everyone is pretty nice on either side of the Atlantic, and that’s encouraging.

I’ll be back with more next week. Some things America does well, and poorly, coming soon to a browser near you!

Ciao!*

*Ciao is a typical way for friends to say goodbye in France, and yes, that is Italian.

Categories
Culture Food France

Stuff You Might Miss

A menu from the Banquet du Chasse yesterday. Lots of food.

BONJOUR!

Sorry for my extended absence. La grippe can be a harsh taskmaster. Anyway, this is about some things you may miss if you visit, or move to, France.

  • Good Mexican (Tex-Mex anyway) food. French food is undeniable fine, but the French never have come to appreciate the tang of a chili. They do have chilis, of course, but they all seem to be the mild variety. I grew up in a household like that: Mom thought that pepperoni was “too hot to eat” so we never ate it, or anything like it. Same with the French, although they do use Spanish chorizo on pizza.
  • Pepperoni. You might think that pepperoni is a basic Italian sausage, but it isn’t. In fact, pepperoni was invented by Italian immigrants in New York City. Yes, the most iconic pizza topping of them all is absent from French pizzarias, even though the pizza is, in general, pretty good.
  • Mac and Cheese. They do sell the stuff in boxes, but it ain’t Kraft, buddy. Not even close. Of course, you don’t have to miss Mac and Cheese if you learn to make your own, which, in fact, is pretty easy. Still, Kraft we don’t have. Sorry.
  • Hershey’s chocolate. It seems that people who didn’t grow up with Hershey’s chocolate tend not to like it, probably because it’s made with a different process from other chocolate products, a process that turns the milk ever so slightly, which is why Hershey’s tastes uniquely like Hershey’s. This extends to chocolate syrup for ice cream, where everyone “knows” that Hershey’s is the best of the lot. Oh, well.
  • Grabbing a quick lunch outside of fast food. Eating in France is an experience all its own. That banquet that we attended provided us with four hours of sequentially presented EIGHT courses! Yoiks! A “quick” lunch will run you about an hour, and many people take two, right out of their work day, to enjoy a leisurely lunch. Of course, if you go to Mickey Ds (McDo) you order from the screen and can leave as soon as you snarf down your food. Question is, for most of us most of the time, why do that? France is the second most popular country for McDonalds, by the way. Also the second biggest consumer of pizza per capita.

Some things you won’t have to miss include Snickers bars, Ben & Jerry’s, Hagen-Daszs, potato chips (not crisps, it says chips right on the bag), pretzels, burgers, hot dogs, pizza of course (Italian style, cooked hot and fast), paper towels, automobiles, freeways, toll roads, DIY stores (Bricos), supermarkets (even hypermarkets), movies (they always have showings of “VO” or version originale, with French subtitles of American films. You can ignore the subtitles.) And there’s more. The similarities, in fact, outweigh the differences.

I’ll do my best not to get the flu again, so I hope you’ll read on in my next post!

AU REVOIR

Categories
Culture France

Differences

A view of the village of Bitche

This is a view of the village where my grandfather was born. It’s called Bitche, which is from the Latin for “fort on a hill” and not about dogs.
I still haven’t gotten my copy of WordPress to upload new photos, so I can’t do a picture of my own village, which is smaller.

This is just about a few more differences that I’ve noted. Not social ones this time, rather physical differences between France and the US. First, although I’m sorry I can’t use a photo of my own street, you will note the materials used in the houses in that picture. Stone, tile, and concrete are the usual building materials employed for residential construction. This has implications for how long your house is going to last. For example, portions of our house are over a century old, and aside from a few cracks in plaster from a recent earthquake (nothing serious) is still completely intact. We do, of course, want to upgrade all of the windows, but some of them already are double paned and reasonably good at keeping the outside out.

Something you would notice if I could post a better picture is that the houses sometimes are not up to what you might call “Homeowners’ Association standards.” That’s because there are no such associations. In fact, there is no zoning, and each case for a business is decided by the commune’s council, chaired by the Maire (surely you can translate that word.) Part of our house used to be a Fish and Chips shop, for example. We plan to make it into an en suite bedroom, but the approval for it being a shop came from the commune, not a zoning board. Basically, one can put a business anywhere if one can build a case for it. The local bar is connected to the owners’ house.

Sidewalks. This is an odd one, because while they exist, the sidewalks are mostly narrow and sometimes have light poles right in the middle of them. What to do? Walk in the street, of course! It seems there are also no laws about jaywalking. In fact, in the US, such laws were first promulgated at the urging of the automobile industry. In France, anyone needing to use the street has the right to do so. If someone is walking there, drivers are expected to respect that person’s right to the street and drive accordingly. It is illegal to block a street, though, which makes sense. One thing that is illegal nationwide is parking on the sidewalk. I read that described as the least enforced law in France. I hope so, because I’m parked on the sidewalk out front, as are a number of my neighbors. You can walk past the cars on the building side, usually, so nobody is forced into the street. Usually.

And, of course, those old buildings look old. There is moss and mold growing on them, vines too. In as many as nine centuries a place can accumulate a lot of growth. And the corners don’t stay sharp for the better part of a millennium, either. Add the common roman tile roof, and you get that quaint, sometimes medieval looking, village that tourists like to rave about. Just remember, we do have electricity, high speed Internet, computers, phones, and all that other modern stuff. Mostly inside, of course.