Les Fêtes: A solid basis for cultural misunderstanding.

The French, in many ways, seem very similar to Americans--they're efficient, driven, and modern, and, walking among them every day, I could be among the people of any big city back home. I think this is why the little differences I find seem so much more interesting and pronounced, and amusing.

Parisians are completely obsessed with time. My host mother, in giving us any instructions, always includes an exact account of how long it will take to carry them out. "Meet me downstairs in 5 minutes, I will spend 10 minutes showing you how to use the washing machine." And then, "A load of laundry will take 1 hour and 27 minutes, or 1 hour and 37 minutes, depending on what materials you want to dry." A friend's host father informed him that the walk to the train station would take him 7 and a half or eight minutes, depending on the traffic at key cross streets. And the trains, oh my, the trains. They represent the worst of it. Paris is served by a fantastic metro system: at major stations, you can expect a train headed your direction every two minutes. And even where I am, well into the suburbs, I never wait for more than ten minutes. And les horaires, the electronic timetables, are constantly updating, letting you know exactly when to expect your ride. But the French, always conscious of the time that would be better spent eating any of their various delicious cheeses, sigh and tap their feet if their train rolls in even 30 seconds late. And (and this is one of those things that's hilarious to witness and just downright uncomfortable to be a part of) they will never pass up a train to wait for the next one, no matter how full it is. The average car can comfortably hold 8, maybe 10 standing passengers, and 12 would be pushing it. But I watched in horror last week as the door to my already-fifteen- passenger-deep car opened and 9 more people shoved their way in. There were no more handholds available, but we were packed in so tightly that it didn't matter, no one was going anywhere. All that to avoid waiting the two minutes for the next train.



The food. C'est delicieux. But there are a lot of rules attached to food here. Not so much rules, I guess, as social customs that, if not followed, peg you as an outsider. The French traditionally take at least three courses for their dinner: an entrée, le plat (main dish), and then le fromage, eaten alone or with bread. Emily and I managed to make it through the first two courses without much trouble, but proved ourselves thoroughly American during the last. M. Grandmaison set first a tub of butter, and then a large wheel of Coulommiers before us, and gestured for us to help ourselves. The expected procedure a mystery, Emily used her butter knife to slice off a tiny wedge of cheese, which she placed on her plate, and, unsure of what to do next, passed everything to me. I followed her lead and passed to M. Grandmaison, who had been watching us in silence. He grabbed a piece of bread, smothered it in butter, cut off a huge piece of Coulommiers and spread it on the slice, too, and then laughed at us while he ate. The French also do not snack on the go--walking while eating is a major faux pas (except in the Jewish district, where everybody seems to do it), and we've already received several disgusted stares from strangers for forgetting this one. Eating is supposed to be an enjoyable break, and any attempt to make it faster or more convenient really just doesn't fly here--most pâtisseries and boulangeries don't even have seats of any kind. I bought a tomato quiche at the bakery near the institute building, intending to sit at their little bar and eat it in the time between my classes. But when I bought it, they double wrapped it and put it in a bag, without any utensils and only one napkin. The message was clear: don't eat here. I did anyway, and ended up looking like a total neanderthal--tomato sauce squirted out with every bite and the one napkin was barely enough to keep one of my fingers, let alone my face, clean.

My favorite cultural-disconnects, however, have come in discussing holidays. Shortly after we arrived, the Grandmaisons left us alone one night in order to visit and eat dinner with their married son and his wife. The next night, they explained that they had celebrated a late Fête des Rois, a Christmas-time celebration of the gifts the wise men brought the Christ child. The key part of the holiday is the cake, wherein is baked a bean or a tiny figurine. Whoever finds the bean in their slice is then crowned Le Roi or La Reine and gets to choose their reine or roi, respectively. Mme finished telling us about the custom, and then asked if our families observed any Christmas traditions. I hesitated for a moment before trying to explain mine, hoping my French was good enough to pull it off.
"Oui, chaque Noël, mon père cache un cornichon sur l'arbre de Noël, et tous les enfants essaient le trouver, et la personne qui le trouve gagne un prix." (Each Christmas, my dad hides a pickle on the Christmas tree, and all the kids try to find it, and the person who finds it wins a prize.)
"Un cornichon???"
"Oui. Eh, attendez, non, pas un vrai cornichon...c'est un... ornement?"
I assured her again that the pickle was of the ornament, and not the Vlasic, variety, but I think her belief in my sanity dwindled a little bit anyway.

And, if the Grandmaisons had any faith in my mental health left, it was surely depleted after February 2nd. Le 2 février is La Chandeleur in France, also called Candlemas and Jour des Crèpes. It originally had religious ties to the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus (what doesn't in this Catholic, Catholic country), but is now just an excuse to light candles and win good luck through the flipping of crèpes. Or just to eat crèpes, if you're my host family.



Sitting and enjoying pancake's more delicious cousin, I started to explain to the Grandmaisons that February 2nd is a holiday in America, too. "Oh," said Mme, "what do you celebrate?" This is where I figured out that I had made a mistake in even mentioning it, but it was too late.
"Umm...il y a un animal, comme un rat, qui s'appele un... couchon de terre? (There's an animal, like a rat, that's called a... pig of the ground? Mme's eyebrow raised.) Et, le 2 fèvrier, nous le prenons de son...maison? et nous lui demandons s'il voit son ombre. (And on February 2nd, we take him out of his...house? and we ask him if he sees his shadow. The eyebrow got considerably higher.) Et s'il dit qu'il le voit, nous avons six semaines plus d'hiver, et si non, nous avons le printemps en avance. (And if he says that he sees it, we have six more weeks of winter, and if not, we have an early spring.)"
"...s'il dit qu'il voit son ombre??? Comment est-ce qu'il parle? (..if he says that he sees his shadow??? How does he talk?)"
"Oh, non, c'est pas vrai, c'est...Je ne sais pas exactement--il y a un homme, peut-être le maire, qui décide pour le...couchon de terre...Il fait semblant d'ecouter, et alors il nous dit ce que le...couchon...a dit... (No, he doesn't really talk, he...I don't know exactly--there's a man, maybe the mayor, who decides for the...pig of the ground...He pretends to listen to it, and then tells us what the...pig...said...)"
Mme, thoroughly confused, not that I can blame her, then looked over, helplessly, to Emily--"And you know zees story also?"
We couldn't help but laugh. I eventually brought my laptop down to the table and played, with French subtitles, the Punxsutawney groundhog festival scene from the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, and let it clean up the mess I'd made. Mme and M. both thoroughly enjoyed it, Mme even hitting the side of my arm in an "oh, stop" kind of laughter. At the end, M. said "Well, I've always said that the British are eccentric, and the French are a little crazy, but I don't know what to make of Americans." Maybe they'll have to invent a whole new phrase for us--aussi fou comme un couchon de terre*, as crazy as a ground-pig.

*Turns out they don't have groundhogs in France. They call them marmottes d'Amerique.