Things that are just different in France

There just aren’t as many charitable movements as there are in the US or England. Mildred explained to me that rather than taking care of poor people or sick people because they want to be nice people, French see it as their duty as a citizen, so they authorize their governments to do it. The debate rages on.

The concept of a “hug” is almost non- existent. I keep running across the word in stuff I do with my kids (ie apples to apples “getting a hug” “giving a hug”) and not knowing how to define it, except to demonstrate, and then I get “oh, oh, un calin, un embrassade.” Not quite. Calin roughly means “cuddle.” Embrassade is too general. We just greet people with hugs. Just like they just do the “bisou.” Usually cheek to cheek, kiss in the air by each side, or three or four times in some regions of the country. And this is when you first meet someone. Sometimes someone who knows you a little better will actually kiss your cheek. Or hold on to your arms. Of course, this applies to girls meeting girls or girls meeting guys. Guys meeting guys just shake hands. Maybe a guy will use the bisou on a man he’s particularly close to (further study required) and some older men make a habit out of it, but there just is no manly bisou equivalent to our back thumping “see I’m not gay and/or into you.”

I’m getting used to the bisou. The problem is when I meet people from other countries, like other Americans, I never know what to do.

I love you: the French just don’t say it that often. Even to their parents. They’re more likely to say “bisous” (kisses). It’s just too strong, I guess. You can say “je t’aime bien” (I like/love you well) or even “je t’adore” or “je t’aime à la folie” (I love you like mad) but strupped of modifiers, “je t’aime” is too much.

Lots of things close at weird times. Like Wednesday afternoons. Or Mondays. As for the bakery at the bottom of the hill, I still haven’t found a reliable pattern for when it is open and when it is not.

No home room. Kids get periods off, get to go home for lunch if they want. They’re split up already by 1er or Terminale into different subject concentrations, so while they move from class to class, all the students stay together. (I’ll attempt to explain the school system another day.) Hall passes as far as I know do not exist.

Dogs are generally allowed into any building that doesn’t explicitly exclude them, including shopping malls and bakeries.

There are nuns in the comic book I checked out from the library, and they seem good and sincere, but the nuns in “Saint tail” just didn’t wear habits that were quite as form-fitting…(ok, so St. Tail is Japanese)

People make out in public and no one makes anything of it. The stairwells in my school and the escalators in the mall seem to be particularly popular places for this. I keep wanting to take pictures and then feeling shamed at the potential invasion of privacy and then remembering that privacy does not appear to be their first and foremost concern.

Banks have these weird antechambers where you have to press a button to be admitted, and then ring at another door, which will eventually open after the first one closes, ostensibly to help retard bank robberies. Does this exist in New York?

There are self- cleaning pay toilets in parks and big shopping/tourist areas. The toilets at the mall are free from 9am to 8pm, but they don’t tell you how much before or after those times they cost to use.

People don’t really say “Bless you,” when you sneeze. Not even the French equivalent (deliver us from Ben Affleck)

Teachers actually have time to plan lessons and grade tests built into their work week.

Political bumperstickers are just about unheard of. Bumper stickers featureing activities or places or something to the affect of “Baby on board” are much more popular.

Christmas isn’t considered “religious” enough, or maybe it’s just too much a part of the culture, to get it thrown out of schools on the pretext of laicity. Nothing up about Hannukah or Kwanzaa, at least not around my neighborhood.

English is generally spoken as it is in England (the other day Maud was trying to tell me something was maudlin or sappy and went through about six words in English and two words in French that I completely didn’t recognize before she managed to communicate what she meant. (Has anyone heard the term “mawkish” before? )

You can get a meal at McDonalds for about 6 euros fifty

They sell beer at McDo and Evian. And Yoghurt. And the Croque McDo, the golden arches’ version of the Croque Monsieur, traditional snack of a grilled cheese sandwhich with ham. Evidently introduced in the wake of Mad cow disease.

Also, evidently, the French love abbrieviations... more to come