Letter From Paris
Paris Kiosque - November 2002 - Volume 9, Number 11
Copyright (c) 2002 Harriet Welty-Rochefort - Used with permission.
When in France, Beware: Commercial transactions - and everything else -
are personal!
As all my readers know, I've lived in France for "simply decades" (no, no,
I'm not one hundred years old!) and still from time to time find myself
stymied by the French even though I married a Frenchman and produced two
(fantastic) half-French, half-American sons.
One would think that having a French husband, French in-laws, French friends
and half-French children would make me the Queen of Understanding the
French.
Forget it.
In fact, just when I think I've got every single nuance figured out, every
gesture decoded, every unusual (to me) piece of behavior accounted for, I
run into something that confirms that even if I live here the rest of my
life (which I undoubtedly will), I'll never ever get the French mentality.
One of the areas in which the French shine in by being so incredibly French
is The Commercial Transaction.
In the States, you walk in a store and get a "Hi, how are you? What can I
help you with?" (Well, if you're lucky...)
In France, IT DEPENDS. It depends on:
- The day (rainy, cloudy, sunny, windy--one could, for example, think "sunny"
would be good but not necessarily because the salesperson might resent being
in the store when it's so nice outside....)
- The salesperson's mood (hey, in what frame of mind did he/she get out of the
old lit this morning?)
- The salesperson's deep personal character (now there's something we can do
nothing about)
- The salesperson's political views (if he/she is on the far left, he/she
might hate waiting on you, a detestable bourgeois)
the salesperson's view of YOU (you are indeed a customer but you may also be
an INTRUDER if you, say, interrupt the salesperson's phone call or important
chat with a colleague-this is NOT GOOD; another possibility is that he/she
may simply hate you on sight)
- Whether it's time for lunch (self-explanatory)
- Whether he/she feels like helping you (totally arbitrary)
It does NOT depend on whether you are American or not, which is a common
fallacy. French salespeople treat the French exactly the same way they do
foreigners, if not worse.
And if you don't believe it, here are two recent examples.
Last Saturday my dear French husband, who was in a rather explosive mood
after a week of stress at work (did anyone say "35 hour work week here?
JOKE), decided for some imperative reason that he needed to fasten the
bookshelves to his wall in case they decided to fall down. I pointed out
that since they'd been free-standing for the past ten years I didn't see
why they would suddenly tumble down and kill us all but he insisted.
Off we trotted to the first neighborhood quincaillerie (hardware store) we
found. An old man, whose face and expression was as gray as his uniform,
looked at us suspiciously and asked us what we wanted (but the subliminal
message, even before we opened our mouths was, whatever it is, dudes, WE
DON'T HAVE IT).
My husband patiently (as patiently as a stresed-out person can get)
explained the nature of his mission and described the piece of hardware he
needed to accomplish the task of forever attaching the bookshelves to the
wall. He called it a "cornière".
The fellow shook his head mournfully all the while looking at us like we
were dead rats dragged in from the street.
"You don't have cornières?" my husband asked incredulously.
"We don't carry everything," muttered Monsieur Gray Man in a monotone, again
giving us a look that strongly indicated that if he things his way we would
vanish down a big hole into the face of the earth.
We did vanish (but not from the face of the earth) and proceeded to the next
hardware store.
There the transaction was completely different. It was, shall we say, on a
more exalted plane.
Upon hearing the request, the salesman, a young fellow, fairly jumped up and
down, with a smile/snarl/smirk on his face. "You're looking for a what?
Cornière? Are you sure it's not a crèmaillère? "
My husband then proceeded to describe in minute detail exactly what it was
he was looking for. Since said husband is a) articulate and b) logical, he
managed to give the salesman an exact picture of the desired object.
"Ah, yes, that's it!" he exclaimed, his snarl/smirk disappearing, leaving
only the smile. "Ah, Monsieur, you cannot imagine the things people come in
here and ask me for. They don't know how to formulate what they want, they
ask for the opposite, I run all over the place because they DON'T KNOW
ANYTHING."
By the time my husband left the store, the two were in cahoots in a
close-knit fraternity of two against all those other stupid ignorant
customers. For sure, my husband can go back there any time and get the
royal treatment (from THAT salesman at least).
The question is: Why in one store did he almost get booted out and in the
other end up being buddies for life? Why in the first store was the person
so bored and in the second so recalcitrant at first and helpful and
enthusiastic in the end?
I have several theories on this, most of which are half-baked but all of
which must conceal a nugget of truth.
The first of these is that French salespeople don't want to be salespeople.
They want to be aristocrats or movie stars or rock singers or hey, even a
CUSTOMER. One thing they all DON'T want is to WAIT ON PEOPLE.
The second is that even if the above is untrue and they adore waiting on
people, they want the transaction to take place on THEIR terms. THEY want
to call the shots and not vice versa.
This explains to me why I always feel like I am begging for approval
whenever I just go out to buy my daily baguette. Will the baguette lady be
nice to me today? Or will the nice baguette lady be gone and be replaced by
a new one whose behavior and attitude I have not yet scrutinized and cannot
be sure of?
All of this makes shopping in France a daily adventure! You never know who
you'll get or what mood he/she will be in! Keeps you on your toes!
And the worst of this is that when I return to the States and get some
salesperson who is NOT INTERESTED IN ME, I'm puzzled, frustrated and bored.
Hey, where's the fun?
The exciting news is that I just got the lowdown on WHY the French (and the
Americans) act the way they do!
French psychoanalyst Pascal Baudry, who married an American and has lived in
the U.S. since 1985, has published (in French) a cyberbook called "L'autre
rive: Comprendre les Américains pour comprendre les Françe;ais" (The other
side: Understanding the Americans to understand the French"). If your
French is good, you can read his book on www.pbaudry.com. If it's not, here
are a few gems from his fascinating and psychoanalytical analysis of
Franco-American cultural differences.
According to Mr. Baudry, the reason the French grow up to be eternal rebels
defying laws, going on strikes and being generally cold to those they don't
know or hostile in hardware stores, is that they have been incompletely
weaned from their mothers.
Yes, to those of us who, like me, are largely clueless when it comes to
psychology, I must admit this does sound a bit far out.
But let's hear him out. This is great stuff!
Baudry's theory is that American mothers push their children out of the nest
as soon as they can. When my kids were little, I was indeed fascinated by
the different ways American mothers and French mothers bid good-bye to their
young ones as they left them off at school.
"Have fun!" the American mothers would yell.
"Be good!" the French mothers admonished.
At the park, the American mothers would encourage their toddlers to pick
themselves right back up when they fell down and didn't fret about their
dirty clothes. French mothers would watch the little ones like hawks to be
sure they wouldn't do anything risky or get hurt. Their pretty little
clothes remained astonishingly clean.
For Baudry, the French child is "fusional" and remains attached to his
mother all his or her life long. The American child is quickly independent.
The result? The French adult is constantly worried about whether he is
independent enough. The American adult is worried about whether he is
loved.
The American embraces the outside world; the French considers it with
suspicion and wariness.
So back to our hardware stores: in both cases, the reaction of the French
salesman was normal. According to Baudry, "Because of his incomplete
weaning, the Frenchman displaces his cloudy personal frontier with his
mother to other individuals and institutions in an interpenetration where
each person seduces, cajoles, possesses, avoids, combats, criticizes,
controls and obeys one part of the other." And since this is a given in
French society, the French find the "predictable" and "arm's length"
relationships Americans have with each other, really quite sad!
I don't know what you think about this but I LOVE it. The next time I get a
hostile or cold salesperson, I'll just think about his or her "fusional"
relationship with mother and forgive him or her. And since I know that
we're just in a game of inter-relating, I'll just let it happen.
And while this game goes on, I'll definitely stop wondering - or caring -
if or why I'm not loved.
Harriet Welty-Rochefort, is the author of
French Toast: An American in Paris
Celebrates the Maddening Mysteries of the French and
French Fried: The Cu
linary Capers of an American in
Paris.
Both are published by St. Martin's Press.
For more of Harriet's prose on Paris, check out her
website.
If you've had some funny, startling, satisfying, or dismaying
food experiences in France you'd like to share,
you may contact Harriet directly at
harriet.welty@hwelty.com.
Editor's Note:
Dear Readers, while our writers are always
delighted to hear and to receive comments, both about their columns in the The Paris Kiosque,
as well as your experiences in Paris,
they are unable to answer any requests
for travel information.
Thank you for your understanding.
