Thank You? No Thank You

We attend birthday parties and give birthday presents here in Paris and not one of the children -- and I mean not a single one -- has ever written us a thank you note. But it's not just the kids: Hosting a New Year's party for a dozen families, inviting friends over for dinners -- not one thank you card, not one thank you note, not even one thank you e-mail.

After many events, we have finally figured out that it is not, in fact, rudeness and that there is a perfectly logical explanation. This is one of those cultural differences where, truly, I don't see one side being "better" than the other, but they sure are different.

For example, after hosting friends for Thanksgiving, there is radio silence for nearly a week and, despite the name of the holiday, no thanks. Six days later, I happen to run into my friend Béatrice, and she is effusive and warm, and gushing about how much she enjoyed it.

So why no formal "thank you"? It's not for lack of enthusiasm, as the e-mails and conversations leading up to the Thanksgiving dinner prove. Many exclamation points are used and appropriately excited questions are asked: what to bring (a bottle of wine), what to wear (whatever they've got on them at the time, though yes, it is perfectly OK for the little girls to dress up as Indians in honor of the holiday), when to arrive (7:30 and I pointedly tell them we will start eating at 8 promptly, because I know that otherwise they are socially obligated not to even show up till 8 or 8:30).

It's not "bad breeding", as Béatrice is descended from French nobility, and I am descended from Russian Jewish peasants escaping persecution in the shtetl.

It's not for lack of manners, as she thanks me repeatedly before the event. It's also worth noting that this is the woman who teaches her children to eat peaches with a fork and knife. Her five lovely kids say their pleases, thank-yous, clear their plates, and look adults in the eye during conversations.

It's not for lack of generosity, as they show up with a hostess gift for Anthony and me, headbands for each of the girls, and six bottles of wine. Six! Granted, they come with a total of seven people, but as five of them are 14 years old or younger, it's not like we need the extra alcohol.

So the simple reason that people here don't send thank you cards is that the French show their appreciation on the front end of the transaction, where we show our gratitude at the end. Even the children: They open their gifts at the party in front of their friends, and thank them on the spot. I think the party favor bag is the thank you. Our thank you cards must actually seem like quite a delayed reaction to them.

Béatrice hosted us for almost a week last summer -- and has already invited for next summer -- at their vacation home in Bretagne. Last summer, I was very American about it: I showed up with one very nice bottle of wine, helped with shopping/prepping/cooking/childcare, bought treats, and followed up with a very sincere thank you card accompanied by a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. But note (and cringe with me, folks): I showed up at their door for five days with one lone bottle of wine.

So this year I'll know to do better with my hostess gifts on the front side. But I'm still not sure I can forego the official card at the end. It's not the dissaproval of my countrymen, or even my parents, that I fear. The disapproving voice I hear in my head belongs to my brother's wife, who once mailed my parents a formal thank you card for some toilet paper they had brought in their luggage to her and my brother in India. My sister-in-law is, of course, far too polite to actually scold me for any lapse in my manners, so the disapproving voice I hear is purely imaginary.

We plan to invite Béatrice, H-O, and their lovely family over for future dinners and evenings together (for instance, they've expressed a real curiosity about true New York style cheesecake...). And certainly they need to come over to share one of the many bottles of wine we now have in our collection. But this begs the question, how do we prevent them from bringing six more?

 

Gaze Wistfully into the Distance

That French stereotype we all love to hate: over-philosophizing and gazing wistfully into the distance. Often with a black beret. And a cigarette.

The first of two perfect examples of this is a very ill-advised 1968 song and video by two legendary figures --Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. I can't decide whether my favorite part is the "woo-oo-oo-oo" vocalized record-scratching sounds in the background or the fact that this was meant in all seriousness, without a trace of irony. If the humor lies entirely in its humorlessness, is it really the actors we are laughing at? Or are we laughing at a shadow of our own humanity reflected, as Sartre describes, through the existential...Oh what the hell. Just watch the video.

The second video is, in fact, created to be humorous. Though I am not at all a cat person, I think this captures a certain "je ne sais quoi" about the French perfectly. Yes, I know Henri has an atrocious French accent and sometimes translates idioms word for word, but I think this is a winner whether you read the English subtitles or listen to the "original" French soundtrack. Hey, can seven million youtube viewers be wrong (why yes, yes they can; just look at "Gangham Style")?

 

When Life Gives You Lemonade

A word of warning. If you order a citron pressé (meaning "pressed lemon") in a French café in the hopes of having lemonade, think again. Just as an orange pressé is a fresh-squeezed orange juice, a citron pressé is fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Just the juice, and nothing but the juice. They will serve it to you in a large glass (too small for delicious fresh-squeezed OJ, but much too large for pure lemon) without anything else, and you are expected to drink it. As is. They won't make you pay any extra for a second glass of plain water and some sugar, but they will make you work for it; you'll have to get your harried waiter's attention and ask for it specifically, then messily mix like a mad scientist.

photo from: http://www.thetastefullife.com/blog/2010/06/14/fresh-squeezed-lemonade/

Alas, the sugar won't really dissolve anyway, so it will only be sour at the top, and powdery and cloying at the bottom. The good news is, ordering citron pressé is a mistake you only make once.

You won't fare much better if you order a limonade, by the way, unless you like Sprite or 7-Up. And in case you're wondering, I don't.

What you want is a citronade, but since that basically doesn't exist at any French café or restaurant that I've ever seen, what you actually want to is to be magically transported back to the fresh-squeezed lemonade booth at the Minnesota State Fair.

Puckering up in Paris: It's not just for kissing, anymore.

 

Raw, Naked Courage

I frequently pass by a small artist studio on the Rue de Bievre in the 5th arrondissement. Lately a sign has been hanging in the window asking for nude models. As an experience junkie, I think this is certainly something I should try. First of all, I am in Paris, one of the world's great art centers; secondly, I am not particularly modest (I've done way too much theater with backstage quick-changes); thirdly, I seriously enjoy shocking my husband and mother, which gets more and more difficult to do since this is a known personality quirk of mine. Still, despite limited modesty or shame, I admit it does sound a bit embarrassing to stand there in my starkers while somebody eyes me critically for a drawing. So it takes me a few days to work up my courage to call the artist, both because I'm volunteering to be painted/drawn nude and also because I will have to have a conversation in French, over the phone, about a subject matter I've never tackled before.

I need not have worried, as the only question he asks me is "How old are you?" and when I tell him 44, he simply replies, "My models are younger," and that's that. So my short-lived career as an artist's nude model ends as it starts, fully clothed in my apartment.

I'm wondering if I should argue the point with the artist, since I think I am in better shape now than I ever was 20 years ago. (For all I know, he's aiming for something Rubenesque, and I'm too fit.) In the end, I just tell him I understand and hang up. "Standing Female Nude, 1910" by Pablo Picasso and "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2" by Marcel Duchamp show me why it might be important sometimes to have a young, nubile model.

 

 

The Problem As I See It

There are actually two problems, as I see it, with Midnight Mass. The first is that it's at midnight. And the second is that it's a mass. Other than that, it sounds highly appealing to me, so I meet up with my gymnastics-mom friend Mei and her friend, and her friend's friend, to try to go to midnight mass at Notre Dame.

We are not, as you can imagine, the only ones with this idea. So the other problem with the mass is that even before the mass, it's just a mass (of people). We get there around 10:45, and the line is already very, very long with many armed police and temporary barricades. We hear the singing while waiting outside, as they project the service outside on a screen that is, of course, mass-ive. I am told by my Catholic friends that first comes the singing, then the mass will be about an hour, starting at midnight.

 

I am clearly in it only for the cultural aspect of the music, so once I realize that if I wait to get inside for the actual mass, I won't even get home till 1 or 1:30am, I cheerfully wave goodbye near the end of the singing, jump out of line, and go home to finish prepping for Christmas itself -- and there's a lot to prep since my sister's family is arriving on Christmas day (our very best present this year!). So I do not actually get inside Notre Dame with the masses. But, on the positive side, at least this year my hair doesn't get incinerated.  

 

 

The Scarlet Letter: A is for American

It used to be that the French could identify who was American by the sneakers (generally white) and blue jeans (generally scruffy). Now, of course, this uniform is de rigeur for hipsters worldwide, including here in France. Not just hipsters, but basically anybody under a certain age -- and even a large chunk of the population over a certain age -- can be seen toodling around Paris in jeans. And while there are fewer sneakers here than in the US, you still see plenty of them around. Admittedly, they are not usually stark white ones; as in the US, Converse sneakers rule.

 

 

So what marks us as American now? I don't mean American society as a whole -- the obesity, the multi-racial melting pot, the high percentage of shirts that scream "GAP"?

I mean as individuals. How do the Europeans identify us walking through their streets? Well, there are some small telltale signs: Baseball caps certainly say something, and a jacket tied around the waist says it just a little bit louder.

But the two things that I have heard from many French people that really mark us as Americans -- the scarlet letter A if you will -- is walking around holding a to-go cup of coffee, and having North American movie star teeth.

Here he is, the typical American (and my brother-in-law) with his coffee to-go.

I met somebody who had worked on a movie production shooting in a small village in Italy; he was told to go down to the café and get a cup of coffee for the star who, I am 99% sure I'm remembering correctly, was Tom Hanks. The owner said no, the coffee needed to be consumed in the café. When the assistant said Mr. Hanks was too busy, the owner looked baffled, "Who doesn't have time for a cup of coffee? How much time does it take?!" It's true that you almost never see people walking the streets of Paris with the telltale white to-go cup and, on the super-rare occasion that you do, you can bet they're American. And you can bet it's Starbucks -- about the only take-out coffee you can buy.

I see these women on the subway platform and think, "A-ha! I've been proved wrong! The French are drinking their coffee to go!" But then I hear them speak. The two with the white Starbucks cups in their hands are, indeed, American. Their non-coffee-toting friend on the bench is the French one.

Another give-away, I am told, is our movie star teeth. Our North American movie star teeth (yes, Canadians share our teeth, but not literally, because that would be both logistically difficult and quite gross). On a recent visit to the Musée Quai Branley, an older woman comments to Pippa, "You must be 7!" When Pippa asks how she knows, the woman points to all those missing teeth. She basically looks like a Jack-o-Lantern.

Then she turns to Gigi and says, "You must be older! Just look at all your teeth!" And Gigi and Pippa respond, in perfect French. So when she turns to me, and I jokingly smile big to show her my teeth, she really can't know we're American, yet still she comments, "And look at how perfectly aligned your Mommy's teeth are! Where are you from?"

She makes sure to point out that in the last 20 years, plenty of French people also have worn braces, but since I wore my first braces over 30 years ago (and the second round about 10 years ago), that still puts me at an age where my teeth are so American, they might as well be colored in stars and stripes.


 

Thumpety Thump Thump

Thumpety thump thump, Thumpety thump thump, Pippa's on her way. Between our 18th century, Haussmanian parquet floors, and Pippa's natural, shall we say, exuberance, we are woken up nearly every morning by her stampeding down the hallway like an elephant. During the day, every available floor space is used -- and used frequently -- for gymnastics practice, dance parties, rock-concert-decibel-level singing, and any other manner of activity best not conducted inside an apartment.

Given the unfathomable tragedy in Connecticut this week, I am not at all bothered by our precious seven-year old's constant thumping. But our neighbors downstairs might be. If it makes our downstairs neighbor feel any better, our upstairs neighbor occasionally likes to vacuum at 2am.