For the most part, the cultural differences between the United States and France are inconsequential. I’ve been here for a week and I’m already accustomed to the small stuff. This morning I saw a man holding two baguettes by his sides while riding a Razor scooter and I thought to myself, “They should make a scooter with a basket for bread.” Then I realized that development would only encourage more French adults to ride scooters, and I don’t really want that to happen. Did you know Razor scooters are popular with fully-grown professionals here? That’s right. Many French adults own both a Razor scooter and a house.
But that’s fine. It’s easy to get used to seeing scooters and bread and scarves because it doesn’t challenge anything firmly “American” in my everyday life. If every U.S. citizen got up tomorrow morning and wore a scarf, everything would be fine. I’m sure we would all look great. Our lives would be more or less the same except there would be more fabric around our necks and we would be a little bit warmer.
That said, there are aspects of French culture that do “challenge” an American mentality. Not in a bad way, but in a fun, cultural exchange way. You know, like “Eat Pray Love” or “Under the Tuscan Sun” or “The Terminal.”
In particular, I think the service/food industry here represents a fundamental difference between the two countries. Today I went to a busy restaurant for lunch and there was only one waiter working. I had no idea how he was keeping his act together because people were shouting orders at him. At least, I think that’s what they were shouting. When people speak French loudly it doesn’t sound like a real language. It’s just a collection of angry vowels.
When he got to my table, though, I realized he wasn’t stressed because the French do not train their service workers like Americans. I asked the waiter for a latte and he said (translation), “No, I don’t have time to do that.” Waiters and clerks in France don’t have to act like robots designed to make everybody else comfortable and satisfied.
Nancy-Wren Bradshaw is a Humor writer.
Editor’s note: As Nancy is busy gallivanting across Europe and as I asked her to write this kind of late in the game, she ended her essay there right there. But she told me her conclusion would have said something along the lines of “in the United States we're used to that sort of accommodation but it's actually bad because it is immature and dissociates us from workers as people so you know just because this thing in France challenges this American ideal, it's good? But I would make it funny.” Good point, Nancy, Sometimes it’s fun to see the sincere kernel of a joke. “Meta Humor,” if you will. Let’s bring this to a more U.Va. oriented viewpoint and ruminate on how we all need to chill. Chill. There’s no way we require this much coffee to read and SOMETIMES write an essay. Not even a very good essay; you said “social paradigm,” used three bad metaphors and let an adult who devoted his life to the subject give you a B. We all know it’s a bit of a show right? Is working hard in an insular community inherently a virtue? Why worry so much? You’ll graduate, you’ll get a job at a non-profit, it will be fine, death will come. If you order a java shake and the employee doesn’t want to clean the blender, just take it. Take some discomfort. If you want to talk to me about how your liberal arts major requires a lot of work and that I don’t get it because I’m in Media Studies: a. I strongly encourage you to drive your car into the ocean and b. I know Media Studies is dumb.
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