There's No Place Like Home

I've been back in the UK for a week and a half now, and have experienced the strange feeling of examining your own culture from the perspective of a foreigner. I'm still in French mode, so I keep trying to kiss people when I meet them*, and talking to myself in French when trying to remember things. I haven't quite shaken off the slight feeling that we're driving on the wrong side of the road, or the surprise at how enormous banknotes are here.**

But there are also many things I'm grateful for about living in this country, things which I took for granted. Politeness, for one thing; whatever Lynne Truss says, most people will still say 'sorry' if you bump into them. The NHS, which I will never moan about or describe as inferior to the French health system again. Bourbon biscuits. And, as Dara O'Briain marvellously points out in his new book, Tickling the English, the fact that we Will Not Be Told that our country is nowhere near as crap as we like to think it is.

I went to Brighton yesterday to see some friends and also to visit the library since, thanks to my dissertations (and there's a word that should never exist in the plural), I have a hell of a lot of research to do. Within ten minutes of being on campus, I had been handed six flyers (two of which were for demonstrations against things I didn't care about) and offered an STD test. It's always nice to know that some things never change.

One of those things is the British sense of humour. I wondered why, despite the French propensity for physical affection and extremely personal questions, I always felt that they were always somehow more distant than British people, and now I realise what was missing. It's the constant joking. Almost every exchange you have on this pretty little island of ours - and that includes soul-baring, weepy conversations because we only allow a limited amount of self-pity - will involve some kind of sarcasm, irony, self-deprecation, or plain old piss-taking. It's a reflex as natural as breathing to us, and I didn't realise how much I missed it until I got to experience it again.

A quick example: when changing trains at Brighton, I had to show my ticket to the inspector so he could let me through the barrier manually. I mentioned that, for some reason, that ticket had been playing up all day and that it hadn't worked in any of the machines at any of the stations I'd changed at that day. With a completely straight face, he replied, "That's because the machines are fitted with a special chip that identifies all the pretty girls and sends them to us inspectors to make the day go faster."

Now, in France, the inspector in his position may well have said something similar, but the difference is that a) there would have been genuine intent in his flattery and b) he would have tried to get my number. But this guy wasn't being sleazy - he was a grey-haired fiftysomething, probably with a wife and grandkids, just joking around. I could make some deeply philosophical hypothesis that he was spreading joy and happiness by doling out cheerful compliments, but the truth is that he probably was doing nothing of the sort. He was just reacting in the only way he knew how. The British way.



* Fortunately, the first person I did that to had lived in France himself for a few years many moons ago, and completely understood my sudden onset of affection. Cue a lovely long chat about how wonderful the food is and how chiant the civil servants are, something that only a foreigner living in France can appreciate.

** Seriously, go look at a £20 note some time. I'm surprised they fit in our wallets.

I'm The King Of The Castle

There's a saying in France that, "Le client est roi" - the customer is king. It's often viewed as being rather tongue in cheek, because everyone has at some point experienced being totally ignored by someone supposedly in the customer service sector. I remember in my first week of being here, I was waiting in a long, long queue in Fnac (yes, yes, I know), which only had one girl on the till. After about ten minutes of queuing, another girl turned up to help her out. I, in my English naivety, brightened up, expecting her to throw her jacket off and get the till opened as quickly as possible to start serving customers, as I would have done. Oh no. Instead, she wandered leisurely over to her colleague, fait la bise, naturally, and then started up a little chat with her about the weekend. So now, instead of doubling the speed of service, she actually stopped the only cashier from working - and I was the only one who was surprised by this.

Yet the fact remains that, once you get used to little idiosyncracies like this, you do actually get great service in France. Shopkeepers and even fast food servers do actually speak to you like a human being and use full sentences. You might be nothing when you're in a queue (which may explain the French's distaste for such things) but when it's your turn to be served, it doesn't matter how long it takes. Unlike in the UK, you never feel like the person is constantly checking their watch and hoping you'll hurry up so they can reach their speed-of-service target. In a pharmacy, after I'd paid for my prescription and was about to leave, the pharmacist engaged me in a long, in-depth discussion about how pretty she thought my dress was, and after I had my travel vaccinations, the doctor kept me chatting for ten minutes about the imperial monetary system in the UK. Previously, I would have felt guilty about such time-wasting, but my head has become accustomed to this very French way of not caring about keeping others waiting. Right now, I'm the customer, and it's my right to be the king.*

Even in the supermarkets, you never feel rushed. One little act of politeness I will most certainly miss when I return to Blighty in just under two weeks is the fact that cashiers wait until you have finished packing your bags, putting your change back in your purse, and are ready to depart (with a bonne soirée, naturally) before they begin scanning the next customer's items. There's no pressure, just respect, and both the cashier and the person behind you will wait quite patiently because that's what's expected. You're not herded through with a two-minutes-per-customer target time like you are in certain UK supermarkets.

Furthermore, aside from in McDo (as the French call it) and Quick, you will never see a spotty, sixteen-year-old waiter or waitress. Putting plates on tables isn't a standby for the unqualified or a Saturday job for teenagers; it is considered an art form. I don't eat out very often, an assistant's wage being nothing special, but even in the cheap restaurants or family-run crêperies that I visit, every single waiter knows how to clear and carry plates in the 5*, silver-service fashion. Good service is seen as a God-given right here, and I can't help but love a country in which I can pay less than 10 euros for a two-course meal and a quart of local cider, and have that cider poured expertly for me by a guy who's probably got more qualifications than I'll have by the time I'm thirty.



* The French attitude to time infiltrates in other ways, too. While I was in Guiana, my boyfriend and I had an hour's gap between two of his lessons. He lives five minutes from the school, and I worriedly asked him if he thought we'd have enough time to eat lunch. He looked at me, shook his head, and replied, "You have become so French..."

Bisous

Let's talk about kissing.


The French do it a lot. An awful lot. No amount of swine flu paranoia can sway that near-stranger's lips from their inevitable path towards your defenceless cheek. It's just what's done.

I can safely say that I have kissed more people in the last four months than I have in my entire life up to my arrival in France. In fact, I probably broke that record in one night at a birthday party I bellydanced at just before Christmas, where I was shepherded round to meet everyone, complete with bisous.

I don't have any personal space issues but all this physical affection for people I've just met does jar a little with my English sense of restraint and propreity. There are people I saw almost every day at school for seven years of my life with whom I have never had any physical contact, and yet I'm expected to embrace every Jacques, Pierre and Jean-Claude that my housemates bring back to the apartment. Sometimes I'll forget, and when a random friend-of-a-friend is introduced to me as I'm chopping onions in the kitchen, I'll simply look up, smile and say, "Salut," then carry on with what I'm doing. Then I'll notice them hovering, a fixed smile on their face in an attempt to mask their thoughts about the rude, cold English, and remember where I am, before going over to faire la bise.

I hadn't realised just how important this was for establishing relations until today. Normally, when I meet friends/lovers/fuckbuddies of my housemates, it's very casual and we start off on 'tu' terms. This suits me down to the ground, because I hate the tu/vous distinction; I never know which one to use and generally end up talking in roundabout sentences to avoid having to say the word 'you' until I've worked out where I stand.* But today, I was in the middle of the delicate process of baking a banoffee pie when I was introduced to a housemate's friend, and so I simply greeted her from where I was. This was the first person I haven't kissed, and I don't think it was a coincidence that she was the first visitor to vouvoie me. I can only assume that she decided I'd set a certain level of formality between us by not doing the bise. The problem is that I refuse to offer tutoyer because of my age; I've heard too many horror stories about young people saying to older people, "Et si on se tutoie?" and receiving the crushingly civil reply, "Comme vous voulez". And so we ended up with awkwardly formal small talk until my housemate laughed, told us not to be so ridiculous and tutoie one another. All because of one bloody kiss.

Except, of course, that it isn't just one kiss; it's two. And that's just with reasonable people - it can be three or even four with some. It's incredible how much time this takes up, especially at work. I have to arrive in the staffroom at least five minutes early each morning in order to have time to do the rounds of kissing before classes begin. And if, on my way to a lesson, I happen to spot a pack of as-of-yet ungreeted 4-kissers (because they always seem to group together, like wolves), it's actually quicker to take a detour and go the long way round to avoid them. Then hometime comes, and it's the same kissy-kissy business again.

Bisous, everyone.



Update: according to Combien de Bises?, two is the average for my département, but if I go any further East, I'll be in dangerous four-bises territory...


* A while back, I was walking along the street in Montfort and met a woman who clearly knew me. I recognised her from somewhere, but couldn't think where. That would be an awkward enough situation in any language, but it was made worse by the fact that I had no idea if we were on 'tu' or 'vous' terms! The irony is that so many French people I've met must think I'm incredibly rude because of the strange way in which I speak and avoid asking questions, which is all due to my cringing fear of accidentally offending them...

L'amour et la Haine

So, it's almost one month in, and the effects of living in France are starting to show. I'm now a total convert to black coffee; I've already started to forget certain English words; I've stopped being surprised or even offended when other people queue-jump*; I've even caught myself making the Breton oy-loy-loy noise of exclamation. But the Anglo-Gallic pendulum is still swinging between love and hate.

What I Love About France

- The phrase je t'invite. It solves so many awkward money issues right from the start. If someone tells you, "Je t'invite à prendre un café," they mean, without being so crass as to actually say it, that they're paying for it. "Tu veux prendre un café?", on the other hand, means you're probably going to split the bill. Fan-bloody-tastic, in my opinion.

- Their strong sense of regional pride. Montfort is a tiny town, which probably wouldn't even be featured on a map if it didn't have a museum, yet the people refer to themselves as 'Montfortais' with no sense whatsoever of its utter absurdity. Someone asked me perfectly sincerely, "And how long have you been Montfortais?" and wondered why my mouth twitched with stifled laughter as I solemnly replied, "Oh, I've been Montfortais for three weeks."

- The word connerie. Not only does 'c***ery' not exist in English, but you'd never hear old ladies at the market say it. Only in France, my friends, only in France.

- The total lack of Health and Safety hysteria. At my local train station, there is no subway or footbridge to cross to the other platform. No, you simply walk across the track. There are no barriers or lights telling you when to cross; instead, it works on the ingenious mechanism of asking oneself: "Can I see a train coming?" and if the answer is no, then it's safe to cross.

- The fact that public transport is so efficient, disregarding the regular strikes. The train to Rennes was five minutes late the other day, and a man actually used the emergency telephone to ask what the hell was going on. In England, if a train is only five minutes late, we congratulate the company for its punctuality.

- The fact that harem pants are in fashion here; I can walk around town in half of my bellydancing costumes and actually look cool.

- Men actually do say, "Enchanté," when they meet you here. I know it's just a phrase, but I love the idea of someone being 'enchanted' to meet me.

- Schoolkids greet one another with a kiss on each cheek. I still haven't got used to this; it is so strange for me as a Brit to see stroppy fifteen-year-old boys gallantly faire la bise with a group of girls in the morning and again at hometime. When I was that age, if a guy nodded hello at you, it was practically a marriage proposal.

- Self-checkouts at supermarkets that don't say, "Unexpected item in bagging area," every thirty seconds.

- The hearing aid shop in Montfort whose owner has deliberately, I suspect, installed a light outside it which buzzes faintly. A stroke of genius.



What I Hate About France

- Bureaucracy (see various previous posts)

- The fact that most rude words also have perfectly clean meanings too, which results in me being absolutely terrified of accidentally swearing at old ladies or the headmaster. You have to choose your words carefully when talking about jumping the queue, for example, when 'sauter' also means 'to screw' and 'queue' also means 'dick'. Plus the strongest phrase I know includes the word 'branler', which means 'to shake'. If you're English, you can figure out for yourself what the rude word is, and if you're French, you can tell me if there are any worse ones out there...

- On the subject of ambiguity in language, the fact that copine/copain means both 'friend' and 'girlfriend/boyfriend'. Recently, a girl introduced me to another girl who she described as her copine and I still have no idea whether this means they're sleeping together or not. Surreptitious attempts at discovering whether either of them possess a pair of dungarees have so far been unsuccessful.

- The whole vous and tu thing. It causes so much stress because I never have any idea which is appropriate, and I don't want to be over-familiar or over-polite. I recently joined a local theatre group and they actually spent ten minutes deciding whether to tutoie or vouvoie one another.

- The fact that nobody eats on the hoof here. Go into any bakery and you'll find an array of the most drool-worthy cakes and muffins you have ever seen. How can they possibly expect you to wait even five minutes to find a place to sit down and eat it, let alone the time it takes you to get home? I simply don't have enough willpower and so I always provoke looks of disapproval as I walk along, happily devouring some delicious thing, usually with lots of chocolate in it. It's sacrilegious to the French, who really do seem to view food as a religion, but I don't care.

- Following on from that, the fact that everything closes for lunch. Not only that, everyone from banker to shopkeeper apparently requires two and a half hours for lunch. How the hell do they eat enough to warrant taking two and a half hours every day and not look like Nick Griffin's lardier big brother?




* But I haven't gone so far as to actually queue-jump myself, of course. There are some mortal sins that no amount of cultural immersion can make me commit.