My favourite Belgian went to the bank the other day to make a deposit of cash, a rare event that necessitated his using a machine. In his French bank, deposits of any kind will not be accepted by the human tellers who work there, for reasons I don't know and would probably roll my eyes at if I did. So, after inserting his card and typing in his PIN, he was all ready to stuff his bills into the slot when a peremptory message appeared on the screen.
'State the reason for making this deposit!.'
(He couldn't sleep for the lump under the mattress.)
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Every other Wednesday afternoon, a motley group of nationalities gathers under the plane trees on the village pitch to play boules. The object of the game of petanques, as it is more commonly called in this part of France, is to lob a solid metal ball about the size of a grapefruit as close as possible to the target, a much smaller rubber ball.
A staple of French sporting life and third only to the baguette and the beret as the most recognizable icon of French culture, the game is not, despite what people think, solely the domain of old, stooped French men. Our group numbers about twenty four and the fairer sex is well-represented, as are the Dutch, Brits and Belgians, along with a smattering of Swiss, Luxembourgers, Germans, Austrians and one Canadian.
However, my point in telling you all this is not to boast that our mini European Union is a shining example of cultural understanding, but to complain of the gauntlet of la bise that must be run before the game can start.
The French kiss – the one that goes on each cheek – is that other cultural imperative of French life, and should, if one is sensitive to social niceties, always be offered when encountering anyone with whom one has an ongoing and friendly relationship, even if only situational and relatively shallow. (Did you see Hilary Clinton smack Nicolas Sarkozy the other day at Davos?) Twenty four players equal forty eight kisses, and then the whole deal has to be done all over again before everyone goes home.
It's not that I'm prissy - although I'm not a fan of residual aftershave on my cheeks - but that it gets tiresome. I'm not alone in this – just ask any French teenager how tedious their morning meet-and-greet at school is. In defence of Anglo-Saxon standoffishness, I think a nod of the head is just fine, maybe even a wave that includes the whole group, and in some circumstances, a handshake is not out of place. But gimme a break on the 96 kisses, please.
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Understanding the nuances of when one should and should use the familiar 'Tu' is an ongoing riddle to me, although a few of the basic rules are clear. I know, for instance, that you don't presume familiarity with people until some enigmatic stage in the relationship has been reached, at which point one or the other party usually asks if they can get chummier. 'Vous' is for strangers, police officers, pluralistic situations, old people and the President. 'Tu' is for children – even if strange – although at some point near the end of adolescence one should switch to 'vous', animals, anyone you know well enough to sleep with or confide in, and, I eventually discovered, total strangers in circumstances where you don't care about being polite.
This is why, when I got out of my car to rage at the idiot who had been tailgating me with his nose up my ass and his foot to the floor, he only smirked. I said vous to him , and the very approximate English equivalent of my tirade would have gone something along the lines of, 'Excuse me sir, but if you don't mind, could you please put your *** up your ***. Thanks so much. '
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If you're lucky, there'll be an oxymoronic 'Toutes (all) Directions' sign to follow, but sometimes there's also an 'Autres (other) Directions' sign, in which case you should have brought a map.
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French spoken with an English accent bothers me. I don't mean a British accent specifically, but just the way most native English speakers pronounce French words, blithely disrespectful of their egalitarian, unstressed syllables and unable to cope with their deliciously throaty Rs. It is the equivalent of nails on a blackboard to me. Lest you think I am being unfairly critical of those brave souls who venture into other tongues, I would point out that I am a frequent offender myself.
It was once my goal to speak French so well that I could pass for a native and when I was younger and more absorbent there was even half a chance I could have done this - some of the time. Living in France, kids at French school, French friends, Dallas every Thursday night at 8:30 dubbed into French – I listened studiously and learned a lot. As a plus, my ear is acute enough to know that the u in a French testicule sounds nothing like the u in an English uniform. If only my mouth could be counted on to follow suit. Like almost everyone who learns another language after the age of 12, I can't completely avoid the corrupting effect of my native tongue.
Still, I tried and practiced and talked out loud to my reflection in the bathroom mirror and scrutinized the lips of the evening news anchor to see where they went with words like 'le procureur de la république' and 'ses homologues Européens', shapes no English uniglot mouth has ever had to make.
But then a kind man took me aside after a job interview in Paris to give me the best piece of linguistic advice I ever got. 'Let me tell you a little secret', he said. 'Stop trying so hard. If you manage to lose your accent but make a grammatical mistake, people will consider you uneducated. But if you have an accent, you can make a thousand errors and they will only find you charming.'
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