Letter From Paris
Paris Kiosque - October 2006 - Volume 13, Number 10
Copyright © 2006 Harriet Welty-Rochefort - Used with permission.
The last time I wrote this Letter From Paris I had just
returned from a vacation in Spain. By the time my readers get this Letter,
I'll be in the States.
But rest assured : this is indeed a Letter From Paris and from France !
In fact, although I'll be in the States, I'll be
giving a series of lectures on France so even though I'm
leaving France for a month, France won't be leaving me !
The series of lectures is for the France Semester at a small college in
southern Missouri, aptly named Missouri Southern State University.
MSSU, as it's called, has an Institute of International
Studies so that although the students may be firmly planted in
mid-America, the world comes to them.
The Fall 2006 France Semester features talks on everything from
« Social and Community Values in the Oral Tradition of French
Louisiana » to « L'Histoire de France pour les
Nuls » (French History for Dummies), or « French History
Made Easy, While You Eat » (I like that one !).
I'll speak on French Food, Franco-American
Cultural Differences, French Education, and last but not least, a new
subject for me : French Bashing. My husband, Philippe, a retired banker
and now a full-fledged student at the Sorbonne, will speak on
how to do business in France. As the French say, vaste
programme !
Since you, my readers, won't be there to hear these
speeches, here's a summary ( nutshell) :
French food and Franco-American Cultural Differences are
topics I'm quite familiar with, having written two books on
them. Of course, what's interesting is
what's new and what's new in the French
food world is that (a) the French are more and more inventive when it
comes to food, spiffing up tradiitonal bistro fare and proposing fusion food
with an Asian influence, (b) almost one out of five French children is
obese. The latter is sad news and the government (yes, the government
because in France everything starts and ends there) is desperately trying
to curb this new plague that's been visited on the house of
France. Why are French kids getting obese ? Mainly, because they
spend too much time in front of their computers, don't get
enough exercise, and eat too much junk food !
Simple as pie.
Franco-American cultural differences were the subject of my
first book, French Toast, and it's safe to say that not
much has changed. The French and the Americans will always be very
different from each other because of the way they are raised, the
education they receive at school, their history, and their value systems.
The fallacy Americans make is that they tend to think the French are like
them.
Not hardly.
They may wear tennis shoes and baseball caps and watch American
movies (mostly bad) on TV but their minds remain irrevocably and forever
French. We Americans are pragmatic and action-oriented ;
the French are theoretical and analysis-oriented.
It starts early : Little French kids are told from Day One at school to
« sit up straight » and « be good ». Little
American kids are encouraged to be comfortable and have fun. And on
and on... Mind you, as I'm telling the MSSU students, this
doesn't mean one value system is good, the other bad -
they're just totally different.
Yes, cultural differences all start at school and the French and American
school systems are so totally different that I have about fifteen slides to
explain the French school system. To begin with, expectations are
different. French kids are expected to go to school to learn and French
teachers are there to teach. Period. American kids are expected to go to
school to become well-rounded and teachers are there to help
them fulfill that goal. As far as the cost of education is concerned, the
French stick to the idea that it should be free or very low cost and it is. In
the U.S., we stick to the idea that you've got to pay a
bundle for a university education. Again, one's not good
and the other's not bad - however, it might be nice if there
were some kind of in-between system in which you got the
advantages of both systems without the disadvantages of each...
As for my final subject, French bashing, this is a topic I started thinking
about when in the States during the beginning of the Iraq controversy
between the U.S. and France. This Franco-American dispute
ended up with good old French Fries being re-baptized
Freedom Fries, which has now disappeared, and some really nasty
French bashing, which hasn't. If you want to listen to
French bashing jokes, just try Jay Leno, Regis Philbin, Glenn Beck and a
host of others. It's not very pleasant but it is an interesting
way to see what their stereotypes of the French are (cowards and
surrender monkeys, basically). As I'll tell my audience,
I'm not on earth to defend the French and I have nothing
against criticism. French bashing, though, is in a separate league, and
that's what I'm warning my audience
about. If you want to learn more, check out www.miquelon.org, a
watchdog site dedicated to putting a halt to French bashing whatever and
wherever its source!
So that's basically it for me. My husband's
speech on how to do business in France will be an
eye-opener. For one thing, he takes a French paycheck
which is about 30 lines long and explains each and every item on it. If
that was the only thing he did in the entire speech, it would be enough. A
French paycheck speaks volumes about French society and how it
protects the French citizen against him/herself. For example, we have
46 million people in the States who don't have health
insurance. This couldn't happen in France. On the other
hand, we pay a mere fraction of the high taxes the French pay.
Good ? Bad ? As we point out in our speeches, neither. Just different -
and it's always worth taking a look at another society to
find out just what those differences are.
My November Letter will tell you how these speeches were received -
that is, unless the result of the French bashing one is my being tarred and
feathered !
I don't think so. After all, Missouri is the « show
me » state. So « show » we will.
Who knows ? Maybe we'll even steal the show ! Or stop
the show !
At the very least, all this information about France will be food for thought
(an expression, by the way, that doesn't exist in French !).
Harriet Welty Rochefort is the author of
French Toast: An American in Paris Celebrates the Maddening Mysteries of the French and
French Fried: The Culinary Capers of an American in Paris.
French Toast was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "wise and devastatingly
funny". For world-famous chef Alain Ducasse, her second book French Fried
"in a lively and hilarious style ... gives an inside look at the world of
French cuisine and wine." Both books are published by St. Martin's Press.
Coming to Paris? Harriet gives
tailormade wine and cheese tastings to individuals as well as to university
groups. For more information, visit her webpages:
www.hwelty.com and
www.understandfrance.com .
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 requests for travel information.
Thank you for your understanding.
