One word that I've heard a lot of since my arrival here is "draguer", which refers to an aggressively french manner in which men here hit on women. The women in the program were instructed to deal with it mostly by ignoring it and avoiding things that would signal an invitation in the eyes of a frenchman. Apparently making eye contact and smiling is not polite here; it is an invitation for pursuit, which is just one of many dating culture differences between here and the United States, and also helps us silly americans, being the dirty foreigners that we are, much better understand the other cultural aspects of this area.
Upon our arrival, many of us noticed what seemed to be a rather cold air about french women as we walked down the streets. It was easy for us to interpret that as meaning that the French are simply rude and judgmental people, but that's simply not the case. The French tend to take relationships, dating and otherwise, rather seriously in comparison to Americans. Because their relationships tend to be less fleeting of events than they are for us, they will often be much more wary and guarded about who they let into their private lives.
When it comes to men asking women out here, the process has been very disheartening for the men in our group thus far, especially before we were informed of the local dating culture. Thus far, every attempt at approaching a french woman has resulted in rejection, which it turns out is a typical start to french relationships. Rather than encouraging the attention of a potential beau by accepting a date, the french woman takes the game of "hard to get" very seriously and rejects a man numerous times before finally acquiescing. This game of chat et souris results in the man proving that he is serious about his pursuit and really thinks the woman is truly worth it.
Although this idea may sound somewhat romantic in the ears of a starry-eyed american living the dream in France, it has a few significant drawbacks for the american woman. While no means no in the US, here it rather tends to take the meaning of "try harder," so the men here are a lot harder for us to effectively reject. Instead of issuing an endearing smile accompanied with a gentle "sorry" simply won't work here; we need to adopt a much more french frigidity and drop a cold hard "Dégage-toi" on whichever man it is that won't lay off, and after enough repetition they eventually disengage.
The concept of draguer has inspired a much more extensive knowledge of french expletives among the women in the program, partially from looking it up on our own and partially from the people that were here last semester telling us that we're going to need to use those words. I'm guessing that the commonplace necessity of swearing might have something to do with part of the origins of the phrase "pardon my French." That being said, pardon my French that appeared in the previous paragraph.
The French get such a reputation in the States for being foul in language and smell, and staying here at least for this little time thus far has helped me to much better understand where their reputation comes from, and also why it's wrong in certain ways. The language itself gets mixed reviews among Americans. Some say that it's beautiful or sexy, while others find it to be gross and foul. I can definitely see the beauty of the language in the fluidity of the vowel and consonant sounds created by liaison and enchainement, which I guess is a very nerdy and analytical approach to describing beauty, but beyond that, I love the poetry that can be made with the language, and I have no satisfactory way of describing and explaining that one. Certain people just have an amazing way of putting french words together, like Victor Hugo does in "Demain dès l'aube" and "C'est le moment crépusculaire," but unfortunately the talent of some doesn't exactly make the language itself beautiful.
The french language can also sound pretty gross to some, particularly with the standard R pronunciation that some describe as sounding like you're gagging on an eel, which you hear a lot in phrases like "grands gros grains gris." Being in this country, though, I've noticed some of the nuances of how different french people pronounce that same sound, and while some people have what sounds to me like a harsh pronunciation, other people deliver it much more fluidly, making it sound more beautiful to me. Once again, the beauty of the language seems half dependent upon the person using it and half dependent upon the listener.
For me, one of the most amusing stereotypes of the French based upon american perception is that they are smelly and unwashed. Having walked into a few fromageries these past few weeks, I have definitely noticed how stinky their cheeses can be here, especially when all stuffed into one small shop. Despite the slightly off-putting smell of these cheeses, they can be absolutely delicious on a baguette, although it still takes a little while to get used to the strength of the chèvres here.
Cheese is a rather large part of culture in this culture, having numerous shops per city devoted to the craft and the 350 some odd varieties of cheese to be found here, and I can see quite a lot of beauty in that. However, it was pointed out by a professor in class today that there are numerous types of cheeses that are not allowed into the US from France, while firearms are transported freely, showing an interesting and somewhat questionable balance of values between the two countries. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it makes me wonder how the US can find french cheeses to be stinky and unclean, while tools of war are the "beauty" that we accept into our country.
Americans tend to picture the French as hating "ugly Americans," believing that we will be wholly rejected by this country that must find no beauty in what we do, but I've found, at least thus far, for that inter-cultural animosity to be a myth. Sure, french people may often frown upon american politics a lot of the time, but the ones that I have encountered have a clear separation in their minds between our country's politics and its people. Most people are actually excited just to have an opportunity to practice speaking English to me if they find out that I'm american. I spoke with one banker here who, upon viewing my passport, asked if I was from Chicago, and then he seemed greatly proud of himself to be able to say "Let's go Bears!" in English.
In general, french people that speak English to people in the group tend to speak louder in English than the normally would in French, as if to show off to any other french people within earshot that they can speak our strange America talk. I'm pretty sure that I do the same thing when speaking French and Italian with native speakers in the US, so there's a nice little nugget of self-discovery coming from this multicultural experience. The world is all exciting and enlightening and stuff. Yay France.
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