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Busting stereotypes in Paris

The French are rude. They hate Americans. They don’t wear jeans. Their dogs shit all over the place. These are some of the “warnings” I read before going to France. In short, they’re bunk. Yes. There are rude people in France. Just like New York City. And I’m sure they get a little tired of […]

The French are rude. They hate Americans. They don’t wear jeans. Their dogs shit all over the place.

These are some of the “warnings” I read before going to France. In short, they’re bunk.

Yes. There are rude people in France. Just like New York City. And I’m sure they get a little tired of hearing Americans drone on about Freedom Fries and Gulf Wars. But in many ways, Paris was the glittering jewel of all the places we visited.

In a cigar shop in Tallinn, Estonia, we were talking to a British guy who asked where we were going next.

“Paris,” we told him.

“You’re going to love it there.”

He was one of several people who told us that, each with a knowing glint in his eye. I was a little apprehensive. I have no French skills and little patience for arrogant people. Paris had the potential to be a disaster.

But it couldn’t have been further from the truth. In fact, when things got a little dicey, a Parisian cab driver came to the rescue, putting the “rude Parisian” riff to rest once and for all.

Lara developed a minor medical problem while we where there, and we knew we needed a pharmacy, probably a doctor. I waited for a cab with a driver who could speak English, hoping he could tell us a few phrases to use to get help.

He did a lot more than that. He drove us to a pharmacy, parked his cab at the curb and went in with us to translate. When the pharmacist said Lara would have to see a doctor to get the drugs she needed, the pharmacist then called a nearby doctor and set it up so we could go straight over there.

Our friendly cab driver then drove us to the doctor’s office and dropped us off. The doctor saw Lara almost immediately. In the end, she had her prescription within 1 1/2 hours and the total cost was only a little more than the copay would have been in the States. And three very friendly, helpful Parisians made it happen.

And the other “myths”?

I saw a lot of people wearing jeans, despite reading in several guidebooks that jeans are a certain way to set yourself off as a dumb tourist.

And dog shit? Yes. Saw plenty of that. But no more than I’ve seen in other cities, even the thriving metropolis of Knoxville. And I don’t know that I’ve been anywhere that loves dogs the way Paris does. Lara was astounded to see a woman walk into a jazz bar at midnight with a dog on a leash. I saw dogs in stores on several occasions. They were everywhere.

Any city that loves dogs the way Paris does can’t be all bad …

2 replies on “Busting stereotypes in Paris”

Thx a lot for this log.

Indeed we never hated americans and we can tell the difference between americans and Bush foreign policy.
In fact, most of us don’t think it is possible to feel hatred toward some people you share 300 years of common history. History, that’s the point : we have a long colonial past in islamic coutries. Wasn’t it just a matter of semantics : information, advice, warning?
No, there no hate here for americans, just a feeling of sadness for your dead soldiers families as for Iraqi children that live now in an insecured country.

Anthony,
Parisian, Berliner, Londoner since 1971.

I just started reading “Sixty Million Frechmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French” by Canadian writers Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow. I’m only a few chapters into it, but it’s a fascinating attempt to explain the French and help Americans understand the differences between French culture and our own.

To quote: “For some reason, we judge the French according to our own models, whether we’re observing French business practices or social customs. In fact, the French have political and social reflexes that are absolutely alien to North Americans; their structures are built to suit these reflexes.”

In short, they’re arguing that we seem able to write off differences between Americans and Chinese as “cultural” and don’t have problems with them. But with the French, we want them to fit neatly into our Anglo Saxon view of the world. It just isn’t that simple.

Fascinating stuff …

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