I hurry down the tight staircase in my French house, slippers tapping on the wooden steps and am almost halfway down when I realize I did not shut my bedroom door. Sighing, and resisting the urge to ignore it, I remount the steep spiral stairs and close it. Just like so many details in France, this is something that takes some getting used to.
I come from a house where doors are always left open, allowing free entrance and exit. But here, the boundary between private and public space is always clearly defined and the borders are strictly kept. And after six weeks of slowly being allowed into the private lives of the French, I can understand that it is not to keep each other out. It is just another symbol of how the French value their culture, their traditions, and attempt to preserve a stoic and unapproachable image to hide the most beautiful, poignant moments of their lives from prying eyes.
The French stereotype is one of an arrogant, well dressed indivdual acting as though they did not understand your question about what time it is, impatient becuase they have somewhere more important to be. Tourists frequently complain about how they refuse to answer you if you try to speak French and will ignore a question in English. The French do nothing to disprove this image. They don't smile when walking down the street alone and will not make eye contact with you. You don't say hello when you pass someone, don't nod in acknowledgement. You keep yourself cut off. Many see this as rude and chaff at what they consider to be a lack of friendliness. But then, when I enter my home here, my host Mom calls hello and stops what she's doing to sit with me and drink a cup of tea, or talk about our day. Before one of us leaves, we say goodbye and the first and last thing that we do everyday is to say good morning and goodnight. The French are not rude, they do not hate communicating with other people. They save their hellos and their good mornings, not wasting them. They greet the baker, who they have bought bread from for five years. They greet a good friend, who they have allowed to step into the private area of their lives. They save their greetings for the people who matter, the individuals in the private parts of their world.
The closed off attitude so commmonly mistaken for rudeness stems from a much deeper source than a superficial disliking for those who don't speak their language correctly. The French have been invaded throughout hisotry, over and over again, from the Romans, to twice by the Germans. When they act so closed off, it is to protect the thing most precious to them, their culture and their identity as a French person. Their language is world known, but threatened by that very world, by an influx of English and other foreign words and phrases. Their country has for very long been regarded as the pinnacle of culture, through which everything else was measured. But more than anything, they are fiercely proud of being French. As my host mother and I discussed at dinner one night, when someone in the United States describes their heritage, they say they're American, but their father was this or their grandmother was that. Here, a person says they're French. There is no other explanation or added nationality. Here you are French, not a mix of something or "French with a grandparent who was...". And their standoffishness results from wanting to protect that heritage, wanting to protect their fierce pride in their country. They keep their doors closed, so that the world cannot see the vulnerable French, so that only the tough, untouchable exterior is present.
But when you express an interest in their culture, their language, when you make an effort to form the syllables and vowels they so effortlessly pronouce, it is like a key turning in their doors. You are welcomed, smiled at, gently corrected and assisted. You are ushered into their most private moments, when they stumble half asleep down the stairs in the morning, or when they gather around the table Sunday afternoon for a family dinner. You see them at their human moments. And you realize that the French are not untouchable. They are not cold, rude, arrogant, or impatient. They are French.
I come from a house where doors are always left open, allowing free entrance and exit. But here, the boundary between private and public space is always clearly defined and the borders are strictly kept. And after six weeks of slowly being allowed into the private lives of the French, I can understand that it is not to keep each other out. It is just another symbol of how the French value their culture, their traditions, and attempt to preserve a stoic and unapproachable image to hide the most beautiful, poignant moments of their lives from prying eyes.
The French stereotype is one of an arrogant, well dressed indivdual acting as though they did not understand your question about what time it is, impatient becuase they have somewhere more important to be. Tourists frequently complain about how they refuse to answer you if you try to speak French and will ignore a question in English. The French do nothing to disprove this image. They don't smile when walking down the street alone and will not make eye contact with you. You don't say hello when you pass someone, don't nod in acknowledgement. You keep yourself cut off. Many see this as rude and chaff at what they consider to be a lack of friendliness. But then, when I enter my home here, my host Mom calls hello and stops what she's doing to sit with me and drink a cup of tea, or talk about our day. Before one of us leaves, we say goodbye and the first and last thing that we do everyday is to say good morning and goodnight. The French are not rude, they do not hate communicating with other people. They save their hellos and their good mornings, not wasting them. They greet the baker, who they have bought bread from for five years. They greet a good friend, who they have allowed to step into the private area of their lives. They save their greetings for the people who matter, the individuals in the private parts of their world.
The closed off attitude so commmonly mistaken for rudeness stems from a much deeper source than a superficial disliking for those who don't speak their language correctly. The French have been invaded throughout hisotry, over and over again, from the Romans, to twice by the Germans. When they act so closed off, it is to protect the thing most precious to them, their culture and their identity as a French person. Their language is world known, but threatened by that very world, by an influx of English and other foreign words and phrases. Their country has for very long been regarded as the pinnacle of culture, through which everything else was measured. But more than anything, they are fiercely proud of being French. As my host mother and I discussed at dinner one night, when someone in the United States describes their heritage, they say they're American, but their father was this or their grandmother was that. Here, a person says they're French. There is no other explanation or added nationality. Here you are French, not a mix of something or "French with a grandparent who was...". And their standoffishness results from wanting to protect that heritage, wanting to protect their fierce pride in their country. They keep their doors closed, so that the world cannot see the vulnerable French, so that only the tough, untouchable exterior is present.
But when you express an interest in their culture, their language, when you make an effort to form the syllables and vowels they so effortlessly pronouce, it is like a key turning in their doors. You are welcomed, smiled at, gently corrected and assisted. You are ushered into their most private moments, when they stumble half asleep down the stairs in the morning, or when they gather around the table Sunday afternoon for a family dinner. You see them at their human moments. And you realize that the French are not untouchable. They are not cold, rude, arrogant, or impatient. They are French.