« Say cheese! »: smiling in France and in the United States

Just to reinforce stereotypes: the French never smile, Americans always smile. I’m exaggerating, but it’s partially true. The American smile represents an American attitude that I miss. But is this smile sincere? I’m not so sure.

Start by taking Barack Obama’s smile. It’s impressive how positive it is. Now compare his smile to my smile. It’s the same. Does this smile mean that we’re that optimistic and happy? Not exactly. For me, smiling has become a habit, maybe even a bad habit.

Ever since I’ve had teeth, adults have been telling me to « Say cheese! » when they take a picture of me. Although very positive, this suggestion seems like an order. Smiling is imperative…otherwise you risk recording bad memories in photographs. Even if the day wasn’t very pleasant and the people in the photo weren’t that happy, the photo has to show a « good time », fictitious or not, that we spent together. Smiling is thus the mask behind which Americans hide their true being.

When I was younger, I went through a rebellious phase: I refused to let people take pictures of me with this big, fake smile or I made fun of it by making a silly, unattractive face. But besides that brief period of adolescent disobedience, I have always conformed to the rule. Now I’m the one who orders my subjects to smile.

The situation becomes frustrating when I ask French people to show their teeth to the camera. In a multicultural group, the differences between each person’s smiles become evident. Of course, a lot of French people smile, but the numbers are relatively slim.

I myself have perfected my smile. I execute it with no sign of hesitation. I execute it each time that I catch someone’s eye, that I feel awkward, that I interact with somebody. Executing a smile – because it’s truly a mechanical reaction – has become second nature for me. I use it to express my happiness and my amusement, but also to hide inconvenient feelings, like shame or embarrassment. Smiling is a defense mechanism.

So what about the French? They also want to protect themselves, but their method is different. You can’t force them to smile while taking a photo of them. When you catch their eye on the street, they don’t smile back at you to relieve an embarrassing moment that exists when two people meet. They’re always serious. Maybe they think that smiling reveals them to the world, taking away their protection, their mask.

In the theater of life, the French protect themselves with an impenetrable face and Americans with a smiling face. Same reason, different manifestations.

–Anna Ciriani Dean

« Challenge the Best » Conference

From March 25^th to 28^th, 42 students with 19 different nationalities, who go to 20 different European universities, participated in the « Challenge the Best » conference at St Gallen University in Switzerland. I had the opportunity to be one of those 42 students. It’s an annual program organized by St Gallen University’s student union since 2010. This program offers the opportunity to meet the most respected people of our time and to discuss important world issues. The purpose of this conference is to take on the problems of our time, keeping in mind that our generation will be held responsible to solve them. A dialogue forum was established between those who have shaped the world and those who will continue to do so.

Last year, the conference’s theme was global climate change and social order. This year, the topic was focused on human diversity in Europe. Because of the importance of immigration and internal migration in the last few decades, human diversity has reached a significant level. The members of European societies constitute a picturesque mosaic of different origins, languages and cultures. Therefore, it is good to know how we can find potential hidden people in our societies because they can generate considerable advantages for European societies today and in the future. The guests of honor this year were:

Dr Lale Akgun, an expert in political integration in Germany;

Lewis M. Feldstein, the former president of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation that Barack Obama contributed to ;

Dr Eberhard von Koerber, the copresident of the Rome Club;

Prof. Sir James Mirrlees, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics;

Prof. Dr Heinrich Rohrer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics;

Prof. Dr Daniel Thurer, the president of the German International Law Society.

The conference was organized by the students of St Gallen University. They paid for all of the participants’ transport, housing and meals. The participants had to attend sessions directed by professors. These sessions all had economical, political and social perspectives. Later, the participants were split into six different workshops: conflict, identity, innovation, involvement, organization ability and responsibility and leadership. In these workshops, we had a critical discussion on the statements by the guest speakers and the theses that the students had developed during the seminar. The last day of the conference, there was a debate by public experts that was open to all students at ST Gallen University. Prof. Sir James Mirrlees gave a speech called « Who is my neighbor? Evaluating human diversity ».

St Gallen University will continue this program next year, so if you are interested, you can apply online on the St Gallen University website at the beginning of the year. It’s an unforgettable experience that gave me the opportunity to think not only about my identity, but also about the idea of a collective identity. Meeting other intelligent students and exchanging ideas with well-known experts is very precious because you can discover diverse and deep perspectives.

–Qichan Qian

Victoire, my host sister : A study of youth in France

Victoire is my host sister. She is nineteen years old and in her first year at the Institut Catholique, where she studies law. Living with her has given me an excellent opportunity to understand and observe relationships betweens French children and their parents, especially how they change as the children become young adults like Victoire. At this point in her life, Victoire is trying to separate her identity from her family’s so as to feel like and independent adult. Furthermore, Victoire wants to feel independent because she has already lived independently thanks to her 6-month stay in Australia last year. I think that this battle for independence happens frequently for French young adults because in France, you remain your parent’s child until marriage. In Victoire’s case, however, I think that this battle is particularly difficult because she lives at her parents’ house. I also think that that it’s hard for her to feel independent because some of her friends at the ICT don’t live with their parents anymore, but have their own apartments in Toulouse. I think that Victoire is in a phase where she is trying to fly with her own wings so as not to be considered her parents’, Olivier and Isabelle’s, daughter. After having spent lots of time with her, I can see this desire in her interactions with her parents.

In general, Victoire is very nice and considerate with her parents, especially with her father – when she speaks with him, her tone is sweet and affectionate, like a mother who speaks to her child. I think that she has very intimate ties with him. However, Olivier is a very demanding father – even though he has not explicitly expressed his aspirations for her, he expects a lot from Victoire because he establishes strict rules in the family. Isabelle, Victoire’s mother, also has very precise aspirations for her. For instance, Isabelle wants Victoire to learn Spanish so that she can study abroad with Erasmus next year. She also wants Victoire to maintain her level of English. So she bothers Victoire almost every day so that she finds a job as an au pair this summer in Spain to improve her Spanish. She also advises Victoire to speak English with me by repeating: « It would be good for you to speak English with Elizabeth for just one hour a week because I know you don’t want to lose what you learned in Australia ». All of this pressure makes Victoire frustrated with her parents – one moment she is very nice and interested in interacting with the family, but all of the sudden she becomes hostile and aggressive. Victoire is very expressive when she gets angry – her voice gets louder, her eyebrows rise and fall frenetically and her hands make big gestures. In the beginning, it seems like Victoire loses her temper quickly and gets angry easily, but I think she’s fantastic because she wants to assert her individuality. To prove to her others, but also to herself, that she has her own voice and that she can make her own choices. Victoire fights with her parents when she thinks their advice limit her freedom. Moreover, I find that Victoire gets angry easily because she is constantly confronted with criticism – criticism of her grades, friends and choices. This observation coincides perfectly with the idea that from childhood, young French kids are confronted with their parents’, professors’ and French society’s criticism over and over. Every now and then, I think that Victoire appreciates her parents’ help because their advice means that love her and that they want what’s best for her. However, other times she perceives advice as criticism that suggests that she can’t take care of herself. Therefore, to protect her self-respect from hers parents’ and other people’s criticism, Victoire builds a social armor by always acting on the defense.

–Elizabeth Morrow

How Americans save time and the French save resources

What I’ve found during my time in France is that while Americans try to save time, the French make an effort to save resources. In fact, this American tendency explains why Americans are well-known for fast food. In the United States, life takes place at a fast pace to maximize productivity. In support of the notion of « dollarization » that Baudry describes in his book, it seems like Americans assign monetary value to time to « immediately make sense of it » (50). This idea becomes particularly evident in the American expression, time is money, which assimilates time and money because we associate value to our time (in particular a salary). By believing that time is money, Americans think that they can save money by reducing the time necessary to accomplish daily tasks. In the United States, this mentality caused the food industry and the invention of products such as boxed cake (which Jenna’s host mother calls « an American cake ») intended for active women that cannot dedicate a many hours to cooking, but who still want to supply the comfort of a home-made meal. Similarly, Americans often pack a lunch so that they can work at the same time. As a result, portability becomes an attractive sales strategy, which leads to the invention of Gogurt and granola bars.

However, for the French, saving on food is not enough. Consubstantiation (or what is described in anthropology as the act of eating together) seems like a fundamental part of French culture.

A week ago, one of my classes at the Mirail was canceled, so I spent the morning at home for the first time. When I woke up, nobody was home and I thought it was going to be a calm morning. However, while I was working in my room, I started to hear something around 11.30. « Jo! », cried Madame du Pradel from the kitchen. Mixing up my days of the week, I remembered that my host sister, Joséphine, didn’t have class Wednesday morning and therefore, it didn’t seem exceptional that she was home. A few moments later, she added: « Foucauld! ». Because he had been sick a few days earlier, I imagined he had decided to stay home to rest. Finally, she called: « Timothé! Mayeul! » and at that moment, I stopped searching for explanations. I don’t know why it took me three weeks to realize that everybody comes home to have lunch. Later that day, I told Joséphine about my observation, who told me that she comes home every day at 11.30 and goes back to school at 1.20. I had always wondered why school days are so long, but now everything has become clearer. When I talked to a French friend about this, he told me that he also always goes home, except for Wednesday when his parents aren’t there. Yet I couldn’t imagine how an entire city shut down for two hours every afternoon to have lunch at home with their family. I had gotten used to relatively slow French dinners and, in fact, I prefer them to American meals where everyone typically seems to be distracted and in a hurry. At Dickinson, I find it impossible to put my worries on hold during a meal and therefore, I am often too worried to be completely at ease. In France, I have no sense of time during dinner and therefore, I can appreciate the calm atmosphere.

Evidently, lunch and dinner are rather long family affairs for the French, who do not feel like skimping on food or family time. According to my friend Dorian: « the Toulouse identity also includes the idea of taking advantage of life. By that I mean that people are a little less in a hurry, that they love to take their time ». Thus, it seems that Toulousians would be even less inclined to sacrifice pleasure to reduce the length of daily tasks. Finally, I admire this attitude more than I can express. I waste too much time dwelling on the past and waiting for the future and therefore, I cannot stand the American tendency to save time.

While Americans prefer saving time and the French prefer to take advantage of life and not hurry, the opposite is true when it comes to resources. In general, I think that Americans waste more water, energy and food than the French. At Dickinson, an institution that claims to support sustainability, I know a lot of students who regularly take showers that last between 15 and (in some extreme cases) fifty minutes because they love to rest and relax under hot water. Similarly, I’ve also seen people taste several main dishes before finding one they want to eat. Finally, they throw away all of their leftovers to show their self restraint. What is more, it is relatively normal for Americans not to turn off all of the lights before leaving their house to give the impression that somebody is home so as to scare away any robbers. On the other hand, the French seem extremely conscious of their consumption. To give a few examples, they take very efficient showers (and to my knowledge, they resist the desire to sing), they always turn off the lights when they leave a room, they finish all of the food on their plate during a meal, they air their clothes dry, their toilets require little water and they often go into town on foot or by bike. Furthermore, my host family uses (and reuses) sturdy paper plates instead of throwing out disposable ones. This way, the French differ from Americans when it comes to the environment.

Although this American carelessness seems a bit mysterious (and in fact, after a while, I find it a source of shame), I learned that this conscientious attitude has historical origins. Evidently, the French became thriftier after the Second World War, when their resources were seriously limited. Because there still are a lot of people in France that grew up during the war, this worried attitude continues today.

–Hillary Molloy

Intellectualism

The semester I spent in Brazil was great, but I missed a certain intellectualism. I read a lot of books and I kept up with the news, but the Brazilians I lived with didn’t want to get involved in my intellectual conversations. One day, at the beginning of my stay in Brazil, I tried to talk about the elections with my host mother. Faux pas. She reeled off a lot of false things about corruption within the Worker’s Party, she criticized the social politics that help the poor and then she pointed out that we shouldn’t talk about things like religion or politics. That was the last time I tried to talk politics to my host family or to Brazilians that I wasn’t very close with.

Intellectually, I arrived in Toulouse with a craving to satisfy my appetite in a culture known for its intellectualism. In Français & Américains, l’autre rive, Baudry asserts that « the French have been conditioned to value only intellectual knowledge, to believe that they already know and to devalue practical abilities. » (Baudry, 101).  As an intellectual with not many practical abilities, I was excited at the idea of living with people similar to me. I was not let down; intellectualism manifests itself in many aspects of daily life.

First of all, in France, table discussions are lively. My host father, Bernard, wants to talk about current events every day. We talk and we argue. When Bernard claims that the United States will declare war against China in the next 20 years, I don’t hesitate to contradict him. Fortunately, nobody gets offended. I also observe this phenomenon at the Institut d’Études Politiques, where I feel more comfortable talking about politics with students other than Dickinsonians.

I am used to trying to speak with everyone, but most Americans do not want to talk about politics with foreigners. In the United States, the ideological difference between Republicans and Democrats is bigger than the one between the UMP and the PS. The value gap is so big in the United States that a lot of young American families take the political convictions of a city’s inhabitants into account before moving. Therefore, you can imagine why foreigners at Dickinson don’t want to talk about politics with me; they are afraid I will judge them if we do not agree.

At the IEP, the students’ attitude is quite different. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I have lunch with students in their first and second year. At the cafeteria, I ask them their opinion about French politics. Maybe my curiosity is badly seen in France, but it doesn’t bother the young people I meet at the IEP. When we have lunch, everyone stops and tries to explain their opinion on French politics. When I told Madame Lebreton about this experience, she exclaimed: « Of course ! People with no opinion are boring. » I love this attitude.

Watching French public television, I see an even more interesting dynamic. France 2 has a show called « Semaine Critique » (Criticism Weekly), during which three authors come on set. However, it’s not an interview with Oprah. The authors face four commentators and intellectuals who either attack or praise their books,  interrupt each other and hit their fists on the table. Nevertheless, what interests me isn’t just the style of the conversation, but also the content. « Semaine Critique » reveals aspects of the French mentality in comparison to the American mentality. The content of the conversation exemplifies a phenomenon that Pascal Baudry explains in Français & Américains, l’autre rive:

The American culture is binary. A proposal is either true or false. Americans are very uneasy with nuances of grey – whereas the French swims easily and even delights in an ocean of ambiguity that he contributes to upkeep. (Baudry 36)

The first time I watched « Semaine Critique », the famous author Alexandre Jardin was talking about his book, Des gens très bien (Very good people). The book tells the story of his grandfather, Jean Jardin, who was the director of Pierre Laval’s cabinet during the Vichy government during the Second World War. If it had been an American show, the question would have simply been « Thumbs up or thumbs down? ». In this French show, they examined the complexity of the man and of his job. In fact, the author criticized his grandfather more than the commentators, who retorted that Jardin was crazy to condemn his grandfather without considering the historical background of his life. However, the debate between the commentators didn’t focus on the question of good or bad.

All cultures are full of traits that result from their history. Yet it is difficult to pinpoint their origins and to follow the evolution of the differences between populations. For what concerns intellectualism in France, the Enlightenment is situated in the center of French history. Ever since this time period, during which Voltaire, Montesquieu and their contemporaries sought after the development of reason introduced by Descartes, the French have celebrated intelligence and « esprit » (the mind) more than any other people. I first learned that intellectualism and « esprit » were a way to impress others in French high society while watching Ridicule for a French class at Dickinson. This French historical fiction film, released in 1996 and directed by Patrice Leconte, presents Louis XIV’s court in Versailles, a court where the king listened to men who demonstrated a certain « esprit ». Ridicule showed me that intelligence has been celebrated in France since the monarchy. But why do the French seem more comfortable with moral incertitude? Why do Americans ask so many questions in black and white? How can a French author be criticized for his own criticism of his grandfather, a Vichy politician? Of course, deep intellectualism contributes to the acceptance of complexity and a moral grey zone. And yet, there are other causes. In my next section, I will discuss the French conception of history and I will see how it is related to pessimism and to the acceptance of unsteady morality.

–Josh Handelsman

Pessimism and honesty

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the seminar on the chronicle La sinistrose, une maladie française (Gloom, a French ailment) which appeared in « Le Figaro » on January 5th, 2011. Nevertheless, I have reflected a lot on French pessimism since I arrived in Toulouse. There are many possible explanations. Baudry describes one theory :

The systematically negative and critical point of view results from a belief in rarity, often present in old countries that have lived through raids, food shortage and famine and where a defensive, rural standpoint has been forged over the centuries. As the nursery rhyme says « The neighbor has bread, but it’s not for us. » (Baudry, 104)

I agree that times of suffering in the history of France have fueled this pessimism. However, I would like to examine the concept of  history and how it influences pessimism and the acceptance of moral ambiguity more in depth.

Last week, while studying at the Arsenal library, I stumbled upon a book published in 2004 and written by Therry Wolton called

« A short psychoanalysis of France ».  Never trusting this type of social analysis, I took it and read the introduction and the first few chapters. According to the author, France suffers from a pessimism or national depression because the French try to live in the shadow of many historical factors. First of all, he asserts that the decline of the French culture and of the French State’s influence has affected the population. In addition, the occupation and the Vichy government during the Second World War still torments them in spite of Charles de Gaulle and other people’s efforts to make them think that France had resisted. I am skeptical about the attempt to psychoanalyze populations, but I found that the book revealed an important phenomenon concerning how the French and Americans view history.

A young American is bombarded by history when he starts school. He learns the history of his city, of his state and then of the great United States. During the first few years, everything the young American learns seems positive; Christopher Columbus, pilgrims and revolutionaries are present as indisputable heroes. It’s only in high school that he discovers some of the complexity and moral ambiguity of these characters. However, American political culture continues to reinforce the positivism of our elementary school classes. Politicians speak of « American Exceptionalism » and don’t dare argue against the idea – or even the fact – that the United States are the best country in world history. They ignore the sins and most Americans have an impressive ability to review history as they please. Although there are reasons to be depressed in the United States, the nation’s decline and a pessimism about our position haven’t reached them yet.

This review of national history seems impossible in France. Although schools present a heroic image of the country, France’s sins and failures are too recent to ignore. As the author explains, the occupation of France still affects the French. Even though they did not collaborate with Vichy or with the Nazis, they are still regretful for not having fought. It is difficult to support a heroic view of your country if you or your parents lived during such a shameful time.

I do not want to give the impression that I have something against France for having been occupied by the Germans. The difference between the United States and France during this time period was geography, not courage. Still, our conception of history has an impact on our conception of today’s world. The French conception is full of contradictions, heroism and shame. Although this contributes to the people’s pessimism, at least one element of enviable honesty exists that does not exist in the United States. Furthermore, French history influences the way that the population perceives moral issues. Whereas the United States have always been isolated from wars and occupations thanks to their geographic distance, France has proved an ability in what concerns good and bad for every man in the first half of the XXth century. Maybe this intimacy with ambiguity explains the aforementioned grey morality that the French accept more easily than Americans. Thus, we can imagine why the commentators on « La Semaine Critique » were able to discuss such a polemical topic as Jean Jardin’s, a man who collaborated with the Germans, without forgetting this man’s complexity

– Josh Handelsman