Myths about France

[Viv]

Just seeing a comment on another thread about French fondness for instant mash got me thinking about some of the preconcieved ideas I had about life in France.

For example, I read and believed that the average French housewife would not be seen dead shopping in a supermaket but instead carefully selected her produce at various markets / little artisanal shops etc. So what a shock it was for me when I first ventured into L'Cleric!

I could also mention French Chic, since when did that include wearing slippers to do the shopping?

Any body else have any preceptions that turned out to be totally wrong?

 

[Opalienne]

I agree about the French chic.   Where we live slippers and those horrible blue housedress things are pretty much obligatory for doing the shopping during the week, though everyone gets their best clothes out for the weekend, and particularly Sunday.

Another thing that surprised me was the drinking.   I had always been led to believe that French people drank in moderation - a couple of aperitifs maximum, and a couple of glasses of wine with meals.   Round us it's customary to have several at the cafe on Sunday morning, then back home for more aperos, and then large quantities of wine with lunch - and a digestif if you're lucky. It means that the rest of the day is virtually wiped out.......

[Miki]

Many, many myths but one that really makes me grin, is that all French

restaurants are so good................The 9€ midi menu is so

wonderful, nerver had a bad meal and so on.

Well after a 100 years, we are now shocked when we go to a new place

and it is not only palatable but OK as well !! As for most of the prix

fixe €8 -11 at lunchtime, very rare we even bother with those these

days, such is the rubbish served up (and yes, why not, it is only a

fiver plus or so) and as for the wine they give you with that

meal..................don't mention desserts in restos, one needs to

pay for a pretty decent meal to get something even half nice !

[Tresco]

I definitely had the mistaken notion that when people built their own house, they would finish them, rather than leaving bare breeze blocks for 3 years and more.

I'd never bought clothes here before moving. I assumed clothes that didn't cost the earth would be more simply stylish, but find a lot of things are too 'over designed' for me. 

You can get some really nice things in English supermarkets, and dirt cheap, but not here.

I thought I would be able to buy certain products all year round, rather than waiting till the correct 'season'. For instance, I can only dig here when the clay is at a certain stage between baked rock hard, and slopping wet. I have dug and edged hundreds of metres of borders, in the last few weeks (still no rain) but no one has got any lawn edging in yet, though the stores have been turned upside down for the last two weeks while they prepare to bring in the 'spring' stock.

 

[Georgina]

I believed that all French people had really good taste in interior design and clothes. Now I find quite the opposite, most don't have any.

Not that the Brits are any better. It's just that we are led to believe this by I don't know what.

Georgina

[JohnM]

As a teenager trying to avoid learning french (If only I had guessed then that one day I would want to know it) I remember being told that "you children are lazy, all French children can speak good English". I guess that they've all forgotten it in the intervening 35 years! [:)]

 

[Val_2]

Personal hygiene and cleanliness - what a myth that turned out to be even with shelves and shelves of deodorants,soap etc. Stand behind some of the women here especially in summer whenthey wear vest tops and see the underarm hair and smell the ripe BO, fair knocks you out and yet they give an air of chic, I really can't get my head around that one.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Not quite the right way round, but something that surprised me at

least: more times than I can remember I have come up against a belief

amongst the French of my acquaintance that the English are all, without

exception, expert gardeners.

I have no idea where this extraordinary faith has come from, but I have

even been approached by complete strangers in the supermarket and been

asked for advice on pruning roses. The fact that (at the time) I was

competant enough only to be more or less certain that roses require

some kind of after care once stuck in the ground did not in any way

deter me from giving it. In spades.

I had expected the French to drink rather more than they seem to. I

have now developed the unfamiliar skill of making 25cl of "beer" last

anything upto half-an-hour. Actually not that difficult given the

chilled horse pee dispensed in many bars. What else...I knew about the

dubious decor, questionable dress sense and unspeakable television long

ago, but the vast improvements in popular music (a matter of taste, I

realise) were a surprise.

I love it here.[:D]

[chris pp]

LIBERTIE EGALITIE FRATERNITIE  ?

 

Chris

 

 

[Renaud]

Family myth - When aged 4, on a holiday in Brittany with an extended family, I bitterly resented being sent to bed at 6.00 whilst I could hear the French children playing outside in the square.

My mother told me that the French children, staying 'up late' would all grow-up to be small (like monkeys).

Anybody seen the French scrum recently?

[maude]

Chic!-alors,donc.mais oui!We have been wondering if there is still some punishment for colaboration still being carried out locally to us(85)The number of mainly middle to elderly aged ladies that have the head almost shaved,and sometimes dyed bright ginger/red makes us think we are living in a swan vestas factory!!Only someone with divine features could even contemplate this look,especially coupled with multiple overalls or smocks.one has to laff,but it doesnt do one,s morale much good!!Still like it here though-but for how long is another one.Maude

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="chris pp"]

LIBERTIE EGALITIE FRATERNITIE  ?

[/quote]

LOL, yes, I wonder if anyone actually believes in it?  [:)]

I'm disappointed (or maybe thankful?) that French men aren't as sexy and seductive as they're made out.   They're just the same as men anywhere else on the planet - some nice, some nasty, some misogynist, some creepy, some pot-bellied, some skeletal........ Gallic shruggette, I'll just stick with what I've got!  [:D]

[Opalienne]

Aren't you shocked by the rampant sexism of French males, though?   Maybe it's because we live in the country, but I am still amazed by the way they talk about women as though they are farm animals.  I used to protest all the time, but have now decided it's not worth the bother....... And their wives just giggle!

[Tag]

Yes, and when the vet calls to check out the animals on the farm, the farmer often asks him to check on the wife too. My French students in the vet school believe this one

[Russethouse]

[quote user="chris pp"]

LIBERTIE EGALITIE FRATERNITIE  ?

 

Chris

[/quote]

Absolutely !

Very disappointing that the men aren't all like Yves Montand.......[:'(]

[Loiseau]

[quote user="chris pp"]

LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ  ?

 

[/quote]

Sooooo true.

Nobody feels they are allowed to just start up a window-cleaning business or whatever, to keep off the breadline;  or to help a neighbour with DIY (i.e. if you are a carpenter by trade, you can't help with woodwork for fear somebody will report you); or to be part of a mutual help network without being registered as a SEL, I believe.

Egalité? I have never heard such rampant snobs as some of my otherwise delightful middle-class French friends.  They will sneer audibly at people they think are "tres congés payés" on the beach, and guffaw at the sound of any French-speaking person with a funny accent (especially the Quebecois).

And as for the last one, well not only is everyone looking over their shoulder wondering whether somebody has snitched on them for having an undeclared swimming pool, or a goat without a tag in its ear, but they even have to have a law that says you must stop and help somebody in need on the roadside or whatever...

Angela

[Georgina]

[quote user="maude"]Chic!-alors,donc.mais oui!We have been wondering if there is still some punishment for colaboration still being carried out locally to us(85)The number of mainly middle to elderly aged ladies that have the head almost shaved,and sometimes dyed bright ginger/red makes us think we are living in a swan vestas factory!!Only someone with divine features could even contemplate this look,especially coupled with multiple overalls or smocks.one has to laff,but it doesnt do one,s morale much good!!Still like it here though-but for how long is another one.Maude[/quote]

 

Quite, I saw one recently with purple hair, I think they are experimenting for the first time with home hair colours as I often see bright red hair.   Maybe the shave comes after the mistake.

Georgina

[zeb]

Yes, and our French friends tell us that they can spot a Brit out shopping a kilometre away by the state of their clothes!

[Catalpa]

[quote user="zeb"]Yes, and our French friends tell us that they can spot a Brit out shopping a kilometre away by the state of their clothes![/quote]

 

ie, The Brit out shopping is wearing mildly rumpled cotton and wool - perhaps with a stylish seasoning of mud from the obligatory renovation project - rather than crumple-free (but oh so not sweat-free) polyester-rich er... polyester.[:)]

[SaligoBay]

Just goes to show, Zeb, one sees what one wants to see.  [;)]

I really do search for these smart, chic French women when I'm out and about.  I reckon that overall there's about 1 in a 1000 stands out.  The rest dress in a very ordinary way indeed. 

I used to do this in Montpellier Airport (nothing else to do there!), but gave up when I realised that I was almost always wrong!   Her over there in the black polyester A-line skirt and sky-blue polyester cabled jumper (beurk!) she's just GOT to be British, right?   Wrong!

Open your eyes the next time you're out and about, Zeb!  [:)]

[Viv]

The only thing I notice about Brits at French airports are just how loud the resident Brits are when they are welcoming / sending off their visiting friends or relatives!

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="viva"]The only thing I notice about Brits at French airports are just how loud the resident Brits are when they are welcoming / sending off their visiting friends or relatives![/quote]

And how come the loud ones all have the same Home Counties type accent?!   Yuck!!

I actually saw a British person in my village the other day! [:O]   Got out of a big shiny 4x4, bien sûr, and was complete with The Accent.   Beurk. 

[Miki]

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

[quote user="viva"]The only thing I notice

about Brits at French airports are just how loud the resident

Brits are when they are welcoming / sending off their visiting

friends or relatives![/quote]

And how come the loud ones all have the same Home Counties type accent?!   Yuck!!

I actually saw a British person in my village the other day!

[:O]   Got out of a big shiny 4x4, bien sûr, and was

complete with The Accent.   Beurk. 

[/quote]

Would that be Surrey accent, Estuary or morr like wot mine is, wather posh but not too much moosh.

Most pathetic I witnessed was one day at Riberac market, seeing a chap

sitting outside a café reading the FT and telling his friends in a

really loud voice (they were standing at the bar, some metres away

inside) that he needed to phone his friends in the city by way of

"going to call, using my company mobile phone to

get them to buy so and so and sell so and so".....really impressed the

locals I must say. They were still using two old tin cans and a length of

string at the time[:D]

 Reminded me of a Delboy sketch when he and Rodney were first in

to those huge mobile phones and Rodney said he would call Derek and tell him

what to buy and Del quick as a flash replied, that he could then say,

"sell, sell, sell" back to Rodney and be a yuppie..

Perhaps John Sullivan witnessed it all that day in Riberac as well and

thought just how he could make Derek Trotter look a plonker !

Very quick one (what again Mrs, ooh 'er), a good friend of mine bought

a place many years ago just outside Mussidan, he arrived in a rather

grand Range Rover, waved at the locals, who he thought were really

impressed. This went on for a while and he liked to keep it nice and

sparkling, so as to add to his ego of thinking how impressed the locals

were. Some years later, I went with him to collect some items he had

left behind, after selling the property. He told me on the way just how

stupid abds naive he had been, trying to impress the locals in his early years,

most of whom were simple peasants (in the nicest way of course) and

just how kind they had all been to him. After a while of being there,

the Range Rover got dirtier and dirtier, lugging all the locals about,

towing heavy gear for the commune, bringing back building stuff in his

big trailer, well literally using it for what it was built for really.

Now whenever I see newbies pulling in to town in their big

quatre-quatre's, I wonder just how long they think they will be

impressing the locals for, before they also feel a little foolish

inside !

[Viv]

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

And how come the loud ones all have the same Home Counties type accent?!   Yuck!!

[/quote]

And they are all without exception called Darling !

[le bouffon]

Sorry to ask this miki but who are your clients,and do they drive 4x4`s....Only joking.""""""""""""""""""