Ma Vie in France

Every good guidebook should give as much information as possible about the habits, customs, and culture of a given country. After a recent trip to Italy, for example, we were informed by our guidebook that most restaurants have a charge for bread and table service, between 1.50 and 3 euros per person. If I were to write a guidebook about France, I would put in bold letters that THE ENTIRE COUNTRY GOES ON VACATION IN AUGUST, and everyone returns in September. You may think I’m exaggerating, but if you ever come to France during August, you’ll see the rows of closed shops with signs giving the dates of closure. We inform our dear clients that the store will be closed August 1-31. In more detail, my guidebook entry would read something like this: Tourists, this is what you need to know about France. If you come in August, many things will be closed. Most small stores will, and you’ll find a sign on the door telling you so. Big stores will ...

Did you know that today is Pentecost? Do you think anyone you know who is not Christian knows it? I can guarantee you almost every French person, Christian or not, knows that this weekend is Pentecost. Why? Because the day after, called Pentecost Monday, is a bank holiday in France.   France has, in addition to Pentecost Monday, five other Catholic bank holidays in the calendar year: Christmas, Easter Monday, Ascension Thursday, the Assumption of Mary in August, and Toussaint in November. Any tourist visiting France can also plainly see its ties to Catholicism in its magnificent cathedrals. And yet, in spite of this visible Catholic tradition in France, one of the most paradoxical things about living here is the effort the state makes to erase any signs or references to religion. Officially, the French state is laïque , a term which can be roughly translated to the (enforced) separation of church and state. Laïcité is technically a term used in the French constit...

After several days of a sore throat and increasingly creaky voice, I decided today it was time to go to the doctor. This wasn’t the first time I’ve been sick in France, or the first time I’ve gone to the doctor. But in coming home from the pharmacy, I got to thinking about how illness, something which seems straightforward, is actually viewed differently from country to country. First thing’s first-I’ve found that many of the actual illnesses I’ve had since I’ve been in France are different from what I’ve had in the US recently. In other words, the germs here are different. I’ve had infections and illnesses in the past several years that I’ve either never had before, or haven’t experienced since I was a child. This also leads to the next difficulty: vocabulary. I quickly learned that it’s not as simple as only translating whatever symptom or illness I had in English into French. This was evident right away when I tried to understand the difference between a ‘rhume’ and ‘enrhum...