Hello chaps,
I thought I would write a bit more about culture today, as the whole point of the year abroad is to experience a foreign culture. The Gallic shrug is arguably the most stereotyped French gesture known to us English, but yet a quick recon of English friends suggests a lack of knowledge on our part. It is arguably the best way for an English person to respond to any kind of French bureaucratic nightmare - as goodness knows, the French are experts at doing it themselves. See earlier comment on the Englishman ordering coffee in Gare du Nord.
What is the Gallic shrug?
I read somewhere that it is the outward expression of all the pains in the world, that run much more deeply than any superficial Englishman could possibly understand. I, with a wry smile on my face, agree with this. French people are reknowned for their grumpy culture. In fact, this Guardian article (posted by a facebook friend who is also out here) paints a rather grim picture of the entire thing. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/24/french-taught-to-be-gloomy
This post is meant to be light hearted, so we will step away a little from cultural grumpiness and instead deal with "coping methods".
The Gallic shrug then. I'll present to you a little stereotypical scenario and you can imagine it for yourself. Forgive me, I am no Jeanette Winterson.
Consider your standard stereotypical Frenchman. He is at Gare de l'Est in Paris. Those damn SNCF drivers are on strike again, when do they ever do a hard day's work eh?
Quand meme, c'est ca.
There is nothing for the Frenchman to do, alors. He cannot make the striking workers go off strike all by himself. He is not a one-man trade union, and besides, it's Thursday, this always happens.
He looks at the timetable for his train.
All trains cancelled. Rail replacement services. They never work anyway.
He shrugs. It is not just a shrug. It is an entire bodily convulsion, that encapsulates not only his physical being but his entire soul as well. The hands go up. The head tilts. The facial muscles slacken.
He leaves. Probably then has lunch or something, I don't know.
This ties in nicely with the comment made in the Guardian article - that the French are culturally miserable. It's not their fault, but as an English person who lives in their country, I cannot understand this. Just cannot. Having lived in Russia where the standard of living is comparatively lower, they are more cheerful. Something about the general Don't Give a Damn attitude lightens the mood of everything - the Russian sense of humour is unbelievably dry and ironic. They take life far less seriously than the French. (just pop "meanwhile in Russia" into youtube if you want examples of this). I feel compelled to share with you an absolutely priceless moment from my first year of university that completely exemplifies this.
My first year teacher was fantastic. A short lady from Siberia called Evgenia, who had a baby son and was incredibly well dressed. She had the typical Russian breathy female laugh, (which I love about Russians), which emerged only rarely, when she found something particularly funny. She had a severe demeanour on all occasions other than our Russian oral exam, when she softened and offered us water. We all questioned whether she had been replaced by an uncanny lookalike.
For reference, the Russian A is pronounced "ah" and all Rs are rolled, sounding something like "airrr"
Student (asking for spelling of a word): Where does the R go?
Teacher: There is no "A", what are you talking about?
Student: But there is clearly an R in there, I can hear it
Teacher: There is no "A", there is an "airrr". We do not have R in Russian, it is only "airrr"
This was said with such dry irony and happened towards the end of the year - which had been filled with her playing dumb on purpose in order to make us think properly about Russian. Our illusions were shattered in one simple teacher/student discussion. All those times she had said "uh?" and pretended that she had no idea what we were talking about... No. She knew perfectly what we were talking about. Every single word. The Russian sense of humour is amazing.
The French, though. I think maybe this cultural gloominess comes from their strong Catholic tradition. Religion in France, when it was more widely practised, was societally enforced suffering, in the theory that one must be miserable in this life in order to achieve true happiness in Heaven. Thankfully, this was pretty much demolished by the Lumieres and the Enlightenment period, where people were allowed by philosophers to pursue more physical happiness in this life over posthumous spiritual happiness.
Catholicism was only up until recently, despite the secularisation of the state, an incredibly important cultural influence. It lives still in the elderly members of society, who are, by the way, much more friendly than the young people in France. The old women are gossipy, they'll chat to you on the bus as if you were their grandchildren. They go out to lunch together. They walk down the boulevards in their red wire framed glasses, arm and arm with their husbands. Perhaps it is the presence of religion in their lives that, ironically, makes them more relaxed, or the fact they are retired and have that peace of mind that comes with being more experienced at living on this planet. I don't know. Again I confess my views to be formed by film portrayals - in this case I reference Chocolat and Le Fils de L'Epicier (my favorite French film, I think). Either way, my favourite demographic of French society are the elderly. Life is far less of a burden for them it seems - they certainly are far less moody than the younger generations.
I thought I would write a bit more about culture today, as the whole point of the year abroad is to experience a foreign culture. The Gallic shrug is arguably the most stereotyped French gesture known to us English, but yet a quick recon of English friends suggests a lack of knowledge on our part. It is arguably the best way for an English person to respond to any kind of French bureaucratic nightmare - as goodness knows, the French are experts at doing it themselves. See earlier comment on the Englishman ordering coffee in Gare du Nord.
What is the Gallic shrug?
I read somewhere that it is the outward expression of all the pains in the world, that run much more deeply than any superficial Englishman could possibly understand. I, with a wry smile on my face, agree with this. French people are reknowned for their grumpy culture. In fact, this Guardian article (posted by a facebook friend who is also out here) paints a rather grim picture of the entire thing. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/24/french-taught-to-be-gloomy
This post is meant to be light hearted, so we will step away a little from cultural grumpiness and instead deal with "coping methods".
The Gallic shrug then. I'll present to you a little stereotypical scenario and you can imagine it for yourself. Forgive me, I am no Jeanette Winterson.
Consider your standard stereotypical Frenchman. He is at Gare de l'Est in Paris. Those damn SNCF drivers are on strike again, when do they ever do a hard day's work eh?
Quand meme, c'est ca.
There is nothing for the Frenchman to do, alors. He cannot make the striking workers go off strike all by himself. He is not a one-man trade union, and besides, it's Thursday, this always happens.
He looks at the timetable for his train.
All trains cancelled. Rail replacement services. They never work anyway.
He shrugs. It is not just a shrug. It is an entire bodily convulsion, that encapsulates not only his physical being but his entire soul as well. The hands go up. The head tilts. The facial muscles slacken.
He leaves. Probably then has lunch or something, I don't know.
This ties in nicely with the comment made in the Guardian article - that the French are culturally miserable. It's not their fault, but as an English person who lives in their country, I cannot understand this. Just cannot. Having lived in Russia where the standard of living is comparatively lower, they are more cheerful. Something about the general Don't Give a Damn attitude lightens the mood of everything - the Russian sense of humour is unbelievably dry and ironic. They take life far less seriously than the French. (just pop "meanwhile in Russia" into youtube if you want examples of this). I feel compelled to share with you an absolutely priceless moment from my first year of university that completely exemplifies this.
My first year teacher was fantastic. A short lady from Siberia called Evgenia, who had a baby son and was incredibly well dressed. She had the typical Russian breathy female laugh, (which I love about Russians), which emerged only rarely, when she found something particularly funny. She had a severe demeanour on all occasions other than our Russian oral exam, when she softened and offered us water. We all questioned whether she had been replaced by an uncanny lookalike.
For reference, the Russian A is pronounced "ah" and all Rs are rolled, sounding something like "airrr"
Student (asking for spelling of a word): Where does the R go?
Teacher: There is no "A", what are you talking about?
Student: But there is clearly an R in there, I can hear it
Teacher: There is no "A", there is an "airrr". We do not have R in Russian, it is only "airrr"
This was said with such dry irony and happened towards the end of the year - which had been filled with her playing dumb on purpose in order to make us think properly about Russian. Our illusions were shattered in one simple teacher/student discussion. All those times she had said "uh?" and pretended that she had no idea what we were talking about... No. She knew perfectly what we were talking about. Every single word. The Russian sense of humour is amazing.
The French, though. I think maybe this cultural gloominess comes from their strong Catholic tradition. Religion in France, when it was more widely practised, was societally enforced suffering, in the theory that one must be miserable in this life in order to achieve true happiness in Heaven. Thankfully, this was pretty much demolished by the Lumieres and the Enlightenment period, where people were allowed by philosophers to pursue more physical happiness in this life over posthumous spiritual happiness.
Catholicism was only up until recently, despite the secularisation of the state, an incredibly important cultural influence. It lives still in the elderly members of society, who are, by the way, much more friendly than the young people in France. The old women are gossipy, they'll chat to you on the bus as if you were their grandchildren. They go out to lunch together. They walk down the boulevards in their red wire framed glasses, arm and arm with their husbands. Perhaps it is the presence of religion in their lives that, ironically, makes them more relaxed, or the fact they are retired and have that peace of mind that comes with being more experienced at living on this planet. I don't know. Again I confess my views to be formed by film portrayals - in this case I reference Chocolat and Le Fils de L'Epicier (my favorite French film, I think). Either way, my favourite demographic of French society are the elderly. Life is far less of a burden for them it seems - they certainly are far less moody than the younger generations.
No comments:
Post a Comment