Ma Vie in France

This summer, I attended my first French wedding. In many ways it closely resembled what I would consider a typical American service: big white dress for the bride, ceremony at the church, pictures that seemed to take way too long… There was one major difference, however. Unlike the U.S., a wedding held in France outside of the town hall (our equivalent of a court- house) is not considered valid. Every couple must first proceed to the town hall to be married by a state-appointed officiant, and then can have a religious ceremony if they choose. For this particular wedding, the bride was from a small town where the officiant had known her and her family since she was little. Still, there was a slight ‘assembly line’ feel to the wedding, since we had to wait for the 3:00 wedding to leave the town hall, and after, had to make room for the 5:00 wedding. All huddled into the small ‘wedding room’ (standing room only for most wedding guests), we listened to what appeared to me as ...

Can we ever really compare cultures? Is it fruitful to say the US does X, and France does Y? In a conversation with a friend the other day, he brought up that this comparison between France and the US is like comparing apples and oranges. And yet, it's something I hear French people constantly do, and something I'm obviously doing in this blog. So is this a useful exercise, or are we just looking to draw parallels that don't exist? It's true that every culture is unique and I think can only be fully grasped in its context. When taken out of this, it becomes meaningless, or much harder to decode. I think of my students watching American films and series and not catching many of the social codes because it's not understood in context, with enough background on American culture. We can say that this is where stereotypes come from. After all, as Raymonde Carroll puts it well in her book Evidences Invisibles , stereotypes are really just examples of misu...