"Bonjour la Politesse"

“Bonjour la politesse” (hello politeness) is a sarcastic French expression used when someone is actually rude.  That means it’s used pretty frequently where I live in the Paris area, and I have plenty of examples.  In France, it’s a lot more acceptable to be rude than in the US.  Here, people will skip queues and push past you for no reason other than saving their own “precious” time. 

A few days ago, my dad and I were waiting in a line at the phone shop so that I could get a new cell phone: mine was broken.  We waited for an hour, and when it was our turn, we started talking to the salesperson, and suddenly someone pushed us out of the way and started talking himself as if nothing had happened.  When the salesman didn’t react, my dad said “bonjour la politesse”, and got a dirty look and rude hand gesture from the man, and a chuckle from the people behind us in the line.  The pushy guy got served first.

In my old school, we had to go up and down four floors about five times a day, and every single time, we would be pushed and shoved all the way.  In my new international school, I was shocked the first day when someone bumped into me and apologized for it!

Recently when we were buying a birthday present for my brother in a small toy shop, we were suddenly asked to leave because the salesman wanted to take a break.  We were flabbergasted at this abrupt request.  We ended up buying a chess set, and found out we had three queens, and only one king.  When we asked the shop to replace it, they handed us a spare piece from another set. 

Add to this the insulting gestures and shouting from drivers and near death experiences I’ve had trying to cross the road on the crosswalk, I’ve concluded that this behavior is considered normal in France. 

In tune with my own French nature, I’ll say : get lost.  (just kidding).

Au revoir la politesse,

Pierre

Very Striking

Just to prove that strikes are a French way of life, most of the the teachers in my sister’s middle school were off work again, for the fourth time.  I’m lucky because most of my high school teachers don’t go on strike.  My sister feels pretty lucky that she had the day off, but there was no bus and my parents had to drive her to school, pick her up for a five hour break, and then take her back for her last class.  My mom really grumbles about having to take her back and forth to school, and some don’t even bother.

The French are striking for an indefinite amount of time on the retirement issue.  It could last for weeks.  The strikers don’t want their retirement to change from age 60 to 62.  But it seems inevitable with longevity increasing, and a lack of funds to provide for such generous retirement conditions.  I think we have one of the youngest retirement ages in the world.  But in my economics class today, we discussed this issue and the teacher criticized the government’s proposal, saying it could put people out of jobs.  There would be fewer jobs for young people, he said, and already the unemployment rate for people under age 25 is about 23 percent, about the highest in developed countries.  Unemployment now is at 10 percent, the highest level in a decade.

My grandfather retired at age 57 on full pay, so it was understandable that he wouldn’t want to keep working after 40 years in banking.  But to pay for everybody to do that indefinitely, with people living older, is not going to be possible.  So this is going to be tough for France as I get older.  There is the idea in France of ‘avantage acquis’ which means literally acquired advantage, so the French are basically saying that they have a deal with the government that  has to be honored, or that nothing can change to their disadvantage.

Thousands of protesters paraded in the Paris streets two weeks ago.  My mom got stuck in the middle of this ring of protesters encircling the city.  Anybody who was there with a car was trapped for many hours.  People told her only an American would be dumb enough to drive to Paris on a strike day, but she had a special tour of the French Senate she didn’t want to miss. 

A lot of people support the strikes but a lot of people also get annoyed by them.  There are a lot of disruptions to transport, services and schools. 

Our French teacher had suggested changing the date for a test in our morning class since she expected people to be late because of bus strikes.  In the end, the last person was ‘only’ half an hour late for our two-hour class, so unfortunately she went ahead with the test.  Meanwhile my sister was blissfully watching TV and enjoying the beautiful autumn sunshine, and chasing our dog Muffin around the garden.  If I could do that, I’d support the strike!  See you soon!

Pierre

Crepes VS. Pancakes

Today is Sunday, and I don't know what we're going to eat.  If my dad is cooking breakfast, we'll have crepes and if it's my mom, we'll have pancakes.  No wonder I'm such a crazy, mixed up kid! When I order a burger in a restaurant, I get dirty looks from my dad.  When I order steak tartare, my mom lectures me on the dangers of raw meat.

An American has to be quite adventurous to try all the foods that can be found in France, including almost all possible parts of the cow, from the guts, to the tongue, to the liver, to the bone marrow, and to the brain, all of which I have tried, and enjoyed.  Other delicacies include snails, frogs’ legs, and rabbits.  I like getting all these foods fresh from my French great-uncle’s farm deep in the Burgundy countryside.  With him, we eat freshly laid eggs, that we pick up warm from the nests.  We work hard, while staying in his dirty farm house, fattening up the rabbits that live in his barn in cages in hopes of one day eating one.  I want to see how the meat makes it's way from the rabbit to my stomach... All the way.  Uncle Didi promised me we'd do it next time we visit him.

The French are meat eaters, and in France, vegetarians are almost unheard of.  In my school, an American vegetarian was pulled out of class and told off for her eating habits twice! She was told to start adapting to French ways. 

In France, when you eat meat, you eat the animal, when you eat a pig, you eat a pig, not pork, and when you eat a cow, you eat a cow, not beef.  In France, the fact that meat comes from animals is not hidden, when you go to the butcher’s, they chop the head and feet of the fowl that you're buying in front of you and burn off its remaining feathers.  In the US, heads and feet never appear.  The French are unapologetic carnivores, but are very sentimental about their dogs, and I'd like to tell you about my "bichon Maltais", Muffin… But that’s another story.  See you soon!

Pierre

French Bread

Being French-bred, I eat French bread almost every day. Our village bakery is just around the corner from our house, less than a minute away on foot. Recently, I’ve been going to the bakery as soon as it opens, at 7 am, to buy what my family orders for their breakfast. Usually it’s a “croissant” for my mom, a “pain au chocolat”, like a chocolate croissant for my brother, a “croissant aux amandes”, a marzipan “croissant” for my dad, and something a bit a different for me, like a “canelé de Bordeaux”, a “Parisien”, or a “Tradition”.

As you can see, the choice is vast, but one item is a must for every day here in France, the “baguette”. I always ask for ours to be hot out of the oven, as it tastes so good when it’s warm and fresh. The French say that a “baguette” can only be considered a success when over half of it is eaten on the way home. This is, of course, difficult for us, living so nearby, but it’s hard to resist the temptation to rip a sizable piece off and munch on it while walking. The baguette smells like it’s still in the oven, and warms my hands when it’s a bit cold outside.


But sometimes, we just eat cereal. See you soon!

Pierre

"Grève" Already?

Monday, 6 September, and the first full day of school—and the first strike of the school year. Over half of my sister’s middle school teachers were doing the “grève” today and will probably be tomorrow too. That means she’ll have a five hour gap tomorrow, between her first and last class, with her teachers staying off work along with many of the nation’s workers, and it seems over seventy percent of French people support the strike. But it means my sister won’t meet some of her teachers until as late as next week! For my sister this is pretty upsetting, because she has to wait to meet them, and she sat around for hours today with her friends and nothing to do, not even homework.

In my five years in the French school system, I’d say there have been teachers on strike every couple of months. It’s annoying because no one knows which teachers will be absent. Once I made the mistake of skipping a class of a teacher I thought was on strike (but who wasn’t) because she had a name similar to that of another teacher who was on strike. I got in big trouble and had to have a note from my parents. All the kids who made that mistake had to send in a signed note explaining why they had not come to the class.

Sometimes I liked to have a bit of a holiday from class but after a while the strikes can get annoying because of their unpredictability. Not all the teachers tell you if they’ll be joining the strike. There are varying opinions about it in the school and some are against it and some always go on strike, and some only sometimes. Sometimes children don’t show up on the strike day, thinking most of the teachers will be absent, and then the teachers that are there don’t do any work, and just show films and play games because of the lack of students to teach.

Sometimes the strike days are a chance to go to town to a restaurant, with a note from our parents to allow us to leave. So it’s a really funny scene to see a lot of twelve and thirteen-year-olds with their short legs and huge schoolbags crowding into the restaurants to order crepes, and pizzas. In my high school now, the teachers tend to stay at work, so no more long restaurant lunches for me.

I promise not to go on strike for my blog.  Bye for now!

Pierre

A Running Start

Today I had my first day of high school. You could say I had a “running start”. I didn’t know what room number my Italian class was in; it wasn’t marked anywhere, and no one told us anything about it. I should say, my high school is the biggest in France, and it is quite a big place with about a thousand high schoolers and even more middle schoolers from all over the world all in one place.  First, my British classmate and I were told to go to the administration office, where there was no one, then we spent a frantic half-hour sprinting all over the school, up and down five flights of stairs looking for any adult and asking them where the class was. One said, just ask your teacher where the class is, but we didn’t know the teacher and she was in the class, wherever that was.

At last, my American Section principal appeared from around a corner and I dashed up to him and breathlessly told him the situation. He rushed to a French office and found out what classroom it was, saving the day. We ran to the class, still the wrong one, but the teacher in it directed us to the right place, which was next door. We missed the first 40 out of 50 minutes of class, but now at least we know where it is. Such are the trials and tribulations of this multinational life. Not to mention that I have Italian after Spanish twice a week and will probably get the languages mixed up—adios-arrivederci, or was it arrivederci-adios?


Pierre

Salut, hi! Here we go!

So, “French Bred”. What does that mean? I’m starting this blog to write about my experience as a French-American living near Paris. I’m just back home in France from vacation in the US where my mom is from, but where I have never lived. And yet, I speak perfect English with an American accent, and can switch effortlessly to native French. I live a hybrid life in which I eat bagels and baguettes, and pancakes as well as crepes. I’m in a French school with an American section, the Lycée International, so even at school, my life is divided. I like it that way.


Now, the “rentrée scolaire”, the start of school is in full swing. The frantic race to prepare all the paper, pens, pencils, and scientific calculators needed for school has begun, and the store is full of people spending fortunes on school supplies. This year, I am going into 2nde, that is, 10th grade, the first year of high school in France. Because I'm in a special international school, with both French and American coursework, I have 38 hours of school per week, not counting homework, activities, or even the hour a day I have for lunch. I keep trying to tell myself how lucky I am.

Why am I starting a blog when already I have no time to myself?

The first day of school is tomorrow, so I’m anxious to meet my teachers and to find out my time table. I’ll start at 8 a.m. every day of the week, and can finish as late as 6 p.m.! That’s the price I pay for leading my double life.

I have a younger brother and sister who started school today.  French style, my brother gets a two-hour lunch break, and when he gets home, I'll hear all about his first day of school.  It'll be my last chance to relax, not worry about homework, and play with our "bichon Maltais" or Maltese puppy, Muffin, (pronounced by the French "Muffeen").

See you later!
   Pierre