Observation - Germanhy's Different!

Thought I’d share a few observations/reflections from a recent trip to southern Germany. First stop was Augsburg, very near Munich, then on to Marburg, a university town several hours north.

French was useless on this trip (no surprise - but at least it didn't seem to be the liability that I'm sure it once was) and, even though many Germans speak some English, since we were off the beaten tourist path it was far from ubiquitous – at the tourist office in Marburg they finally dug up one brochure in French and one in English. But everyone was open and helpful and pantomime and a bit of English usually worked! But my lack of German, especially the lack of a food vocabulary, was really frustrating!

The food wasn’t elegant but it was good – and copious! Some restaurants offered some plates in different sizes – kleine (which means small) was usually the size of a substantial American entre, grosse (large) was supersized and then one restaurant offered what they called verdammt grosse (as our college aged friend translated it – f*****g big!

Some surprises in the grocery store – curry ketchup (see photo)! And Kraft products – like cream cheese and Miracle Whip, both of which I have yet to find in France. And it seemed to me that the selection of foreign food was better too.
When I finally looked at the map to situate Augsburg I was taken aback to see how close it was to Dachau – really just a few kilometers.

In bookstores, it’s always interesting to see what English-language books got translated. But what surprised me in Germany, compared to France, is that translated English books kept their English title (ditto for films although with films sometimes the English title is followed by a German translation). When I mentioned this to the college student daughter of the German couple we were with, the said ‘well, of course, it’s the title and since many German’s speak English it was the obvious thing to do. Contrast that with France where almost all titles are translated, certainly films (and the original language title is never given in that case) – in the case of films, sometimes the French title makes sense in terms of the film but it’s usually a French in-joke so for someone like me it’s often hard to figure out just what film it is (if I start with one of the actors and look at what they’ve done, I can usually get there!). For instance, Revolutionary Road is called Noces rebelles (Rebel Wedding) in French. Go figure…

One last post on the American presidential election:

No lack of coverage of inauguration here this week! As you can see from the photos, most magazines and newspapers featured articles on this event. And yesterday, many (the majority?) of French television stations, public and private, covered the events starting well in advance of the swearing in. And even more revealing was the French news team covering the inauguration. In Washington, along with French journalists you had Segolène Royal (who was Sarkozy’s opponent in the last French presidential election) along with the current Miss France (who holds both French and American citizenship (part of her youth was spent in Mississippi). Also covering the event (though I’m not certain whether from Washington or Paris) was Christine Lagarde, French minister of Finance (who spent 20+ years as a corporate lawyer in the US) and Rama Yade, French secretary of state for human rights (who was born in Senegal).

The commentary was equally revealing. Echoing yesterday’s headline in Le Monde, one comment was Obama brings ‘patriotism without nationalism’. Another striking comment (which I haven’t heard in the American press so this may be a perspective from this side of the pond) is that maybe Obama will be the last black American president, meaning that going forward maybe race won’t be a notable characteristic. We can only hope that his presidency takes us that far! And the inauguration was front page news in the daily papers today (and I don’t mean just a little article – it was THE front page).


It’s hard to describe the depth of the excitement, anticipation and outpouring of good will one feels here. When I arrived at exercise class yesterday, everyone congratulated me and I received moving e-mails from a couple of French friends. Though the US is far, far from perfect and though everyone knows that the problems we (all) face are enormous, the sense is that yesterday we regained much of the good will of other nations that was progressively lost during the past 8 years.

Centralized what?

Vacations!

Two Saturdays mornings ago, as I was headed to my local market, the bus to Orly airport passed by, completely packed at noon – no point in it making the next stop, there was no way that even one more traveler could be squeezed in! And, for an instant, I wondered why it was so packed.

And then I realized what was going on! France is a republic with a very centralized administration - many things are decided in Paris for the entire county, far from our federal system where every state is free to control many things – schools, school calendars, voting systems, open hours of polling places, etc. – including school vacations (up through high school though some universities follow this as well). There’s a 10 day vacation at the end of October for Toussaint and that Saturday morning was the beginning of that vacation – so students, teachers, families were heading out of town in large numbers. The Toussaint and Christmas vacations are the same for all of France but for the winter and spring vacations France is divided into 3 zones and the start of these 2-week vacations is staggered by a week – for the winter vacation it means a longer season for the ski resorts and less crowding than if the entire country tried to go on vacation at once!


So, depending on the purpose and season of your next trip to France, you should possibly consult the school vacation calendar before booking

http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid3002/calendrier-scolaire-2007-2010.html

Isn’t life simple when there aren’t 50 variations?

Post-Election

Yesterday’s headline in Le Monde (the French equivalent of the NY Times) – 84% of the French Approve of Obama!

The day after the election, virtually every newspaper and magazine published that day featured a full-page color picture of Obama on the cover (I've included a photo of just one)! And Wednesday morning I received an e-mail or text message of congratulations from virtually every French friend I have. Not to mention that yesterday it was what I was greeted with at my exercise class and at my French class. Many of my French friends said it gave them goose bumps when they heard the news, one shared with me that for her it was like the emotion she felt when Mitterand was elected. They were happy for me (because they knew I had been sweating it) but also for the message it sent, the hope and possibility the results created as well as for the world. And at the gym I go to in my neighborhood several of the French spent lots of time dissecting the election and what comes next.

I’ve continued to wear my Obama button and, where before the election it generated lots of random (positive) comments and conversations with strangers, now it’s eliciting smiles.

Now back to real life and the hard work ahead!

Obama-mania - 2nd installment

One more post on this subject before the upcoming election:
The French have a convention for counting down to an event – they use the lettre J (for ‘jour’ meaning day) minus the number of days left. So since Friday I’ve been getting e-mails from the Comité français de soutien à Barack Obama with titles like J-4, J-3….
But aside from that the media coverage here has been plentiful and not just on the campaign itself but on American issues (of course that’s issues seen by the French or issues as seen by the French). A month ago there was a 5-part series on TV about the US, each segment on a different region. Last week Telerama, a weekly TV Guide on steroids (it’s way more than a TV guide, it includes topical articles as well as reviews of movies, books, theatre, art and music) dedicated this issue to analysis of the US (the cover read ‘Numéro special USA) and included articles on Howard Zinn interviewed re: his historical perspective, an article about the series ‘West Wing’ and ‘24’ (non-white presidents) and whether art was imitating life (or was it the other way around) and another about segregated campuses in Georgia (Tuskegee vs Auburn). Since Friday there’s hardly a news report that doesn’t feature the race plus several longer, more in depth TV news magazine reports. All this interest gives you some sense of how other parts of the world believe they will be affected by our choice, and it’s not only that this particular election is momentous because of the color of Obama’s skin…

And of course, there will be plenty of election coverage here, certainly not rivaling that in the US but, on the other hand, it’s not like I’ll have to work hard to stay informed either!

Obama-mania in France

I’m back! Back in France that is (after July and August in Minnesota) and back (finally) to my blog with a post that has to be done NOW, before the upcoming election!

France is wild about Obama (that may be true in many other parts of the world but I think it’s particularly intense in France. This was evident even last spring, long before the convention – books and magazine articles on Obama started to appear (in French by French) and in early June I went to a lecture/panel discussion at Sciences Po (the Harvard equivalent for political/social sciences in France, one of the Grandes Ecoles) on ‘The Obama Effect in France’. While the panelists were mostly white, male and of a ‘certain age’ (e.g. not young) the audience was much younger and more mixed. And in listening to the discussion, two things seemed prominent – a certain amazement that a black man could become a presidential candidate let alone president but also a feeling of hope – if it’s possible in America, maybe, maybe, eventually the same thing could happen in France…

The discussions, lectures, etc. have only multiplied and intensified, not just about Obama but about the US. A sampling for this month at a major bookstore: America and us; The president is…The U.S.: ruptures and continuity, The Sources of American Culture. A sampling of books published in France recently: ‘Obama, the American Dream Returns’ , ‘Obama’s America’, ‘The Little Book of American Elections’. And there’s a French Committee for Support of Obama in France (again, this is a French and not American group) and a blog www.FranceforObamaBlog.com and another site www.Pour-Obama.fr if you’re curious.

I bought the buttons in the photo at an art gallery with an exhibit devoted to Obama-themed works by a variety of artists, French and American. The art work on the buttons was pulled from two of the works. If you’re interested in seeing more they have a web site www.dorothysgallery.com . Interestingly enough, it was a French friend from my exercise class who found the gallery and told me about it! And since I’ve started wearing my button I’ve been getting lots of positive nods and comments!
So, while I know that the campaign is much more intense and present in the states, it’s not at all invisible here!

A Different Sort of Butcher Shop

As you may have guessed from the photo, this is my local horse butcher... Less and less common in France but they still exist. In the fall I did see a news article stating that several celebrities (whose names I no longer remember) had started a publicity campaign to convince the French that since horses were our friends/pets they should no longer eat them but I haven't seen anything since then.

Just one of those differences...