The big (and) easy

I discovered this enormous coffee mug in a U.S. hotel room this week.

My post's title has nothing to do with New Orleans (for which The Big Easy is a frequent nickname). Instead, big (and) easy is the most apt characterization I can come up with right now, for my family's impressions of U.S. life after 2 1/2 French years.  Life is BIG and life is EASY here.  U.S streets, freeway lanes, grocery store aisles, ovens, refrigerators, even the toilet paper rolls seem very big.  Driving and riding is easy; I don't stop at toll booths (the new ones in WA state automatically take a picture and deduct my toll) nor is the car slowing and speeding up with the constant shifting at the countless traffic roundabouts on French roads.  I now drive along wide American allées in an extremely comfortable and automatic shift German sedan (in a model redesigned for the U.S. market, yes, to be bigger and wider).  I can steer with one hand, and if I want to make a phone call, I simply say CALL HOME to the steering wheel which connect to the phone in my purse.  My children's first impressions have been less about the big and easy, but more about how easy-friendly everyone seems.  School administrative staff and sports coaches welcomed them with practically open arms, kids they don't even think they know are waving to them from the streets, and grocery clerks chitchat with us and already know we've returned from France. On the other hand, I'm having a hard time getting used to no bises (cheek kisses), particularly from my kids' friends.  In France, I was ALWAYS greeted with two cheek kisses by the boys' friends (not to mention all of their sports' teammates and the teammates' parents), but now I'm not sure I'd get much eye contact with some if I wasn't so insistent on hugging the kids I haven't seen in two years.

Right now, my family has the opportunity to view our society from an almost outsider's perspective. I try to introduce a similar perspective to my students, particularly those who have not had the experience of visiting or living in another society.  It's one way to begin recognizing the ways in which social context affects people's behaviors, beliefs and attitudes.  Like in France, where we discovered the cultural penchant for languid meal times and parties, we learned a lot about French attitudes towards the use of time.  In the U.S. we are seeing lots of bigness and ease and that colors how the people in this society think and behave. Seeing the ways in which context influences society also shows us that no society is perfect and no way of living is the best way.  For example, those leisurely French meals, in restaurants especially, were often very expensive ones with painfully slow and inattentive service.  In the U.S. where we've been in the car a lot in the short time we've been here (it's the first time in my teenagers' lives that they are being driven to school daily), we are noticing that we are using our bodies much less than we had to in France.  I have hardly walked anywhere and definitely not laden with bags.  Baggers/clerks or I wheel my grocery bags out and lift them into my car's trunk and then I drive them home and carry them just a few meters from the driveway to the house.  There has been none of the complicated and physically-demanding routine of dropping grocery bags off on an old, old street, to the ground floor of an old, old apartment building and then circling around to get on the one-way ring road to my tiny parking space into which I had to do some precision car handling before schlepping bags up three flights of stairs and then fitting everything into a narrow refrigerator.  Now, I have to actually create opportunities to get daily exercise instead of getting them as part of my daily routine. One son also recognized that he was slipping into the American all day snacking habit, with all those chips and crackers and other manufactured 'foods' that come in much bigger and more convenient packages than in France.  Luckily for us because of our experience abroad, we can choose from several different behavioral patterns and customs that might better suit us or that we like, even if they don't quite fit the social context in which we now live.  We did this in France after many months of baguettes and croissants, by adding protein to our breakfasts, U.S. style, while here we can try countering the big and easy U.S. tendency to eat all the time with the French pattern of just a single small goûter (a light snack around 16:00 or 17:00, after school) and an entrée (a small appetizer) followed by a late dinner.  And there is that nightly glass of wine....but come to think of it, I enjoyed that even before I went to France.

Les chemins

One thing that can make me anxious in less than five minutes in the South of France is to get an address to someone's home that begins "Chemin de la...."   I usually think of a chemin as a country road, as a route leading to a farm or something.  For example, I took a chemin today with a friend to pick up her produce box (look how beautiful these are right now with the new grapes and peppers and tomatoes), and for once, I got just what I expected. Yet, I can't even count anymore how many times I've gone off confidently to visit a new acquaintance or take my kids to a birthday party in our car only to find myself essentially still within city limits, turning off the route departementale or nationale and suddenly bouncing along on a pot-holed, gravelly, ever-narrow, what-I-would-call logging road (I grew up in a logging town in the Pacific NW so I know what these are), wondering if I made a wrong turn and if I will have room to let an oncoming car by me.  Often, my navigator app on my phone urges me to continue on this seemingly remote road, and sometimes I do, despite having to reverse or somehow squeeze by an occasional car coming towards me.  Other times, I stop and phone my host to double-check, like last week when my son said, 'Mom, no way, this CAN'T be right!'.  Yet EVERY time, I am surprised to find myself eventually at a tall, often forbidding gate that when opened remotely, takes me down a rough driveway that ends up at......a gorgeous French home.  And all the other gates along the crazy road I've just driven down lead to similar homes.  I've never seen anything like this anywhere!  A French friend tells me that this may be a bit particular to the south.  I don't know yet what to call the phenomenon, but I still find it so surprising.

What is it about the forbidding routes to residential homes?  I've decided these are the result of shrewd calculations about impression management, coupled with perhaps a greater French tolerance for discomfort.  Or, maybe there is some stinginess too?  First impressions and packaging are very important to the French, when it comes to public encounters and outward appearances.  People dress well here, especially in town like the woman I saw in Aix today walking her dog in the highest, spikiest heels I could imagine for the job.  Gifts and pastries all arrive pretty in boxes, with even single pastries laboriously packaged, such as l'opéra that I enjoyed myself one night recently.  But, family homes are much more private here than in many other places; they hide behind high walls and gated driveways.  Earlier, I suggested that this is in part  for reasons of privacy and concerns about security (see Maisons and chateaux, November 2012).  Popping over to borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor might not be that common here, because popping over would mean exiting one's gate, ringing the buzzer on the neighbor's, and that puts pressure on the neighbors to keep up appearances and manage impressions.  Perhaps because family and home lives seem to be more private here, people may be less compelled to make the effort to create a beautiful, comfortable entry road to one's home.  It also seems to be true that the French tolerate personal discomforts to a degree that many others might not (eg. bathroom facilities, indoor heating...), even tolerating unhappiness more than most (see Contentement, May 2013).   Bouncing along on a ungroomed, unpaved, uneven, tiny road to get to and from work or school each day may just not be a big deal to many people here.  Or, maybe some are simply not willing to fork out the money to improve the roads to their homes?  Is this another one of those instances where if the public interest isn't there, no one will take care of a bumpy situation?

Les bons samaritains

On two occasions in the past two years my spouse and I have benefited from the assistance of les bons samaritains (good samaritans) along U.S. and French highways.  The first time was on the eve of our family's move to France when the car we were driving inexplicably stalled in the middle of a busy Washington state highway span, just outside of downtown Seattle.  Cars behind us were traveling at highway speeds and we had no shoulder to which to escape.  We could do nothing except call 911 for help and hope that no one would hit us from behind.  A very brave and kind man stopped his car just behind ours to offer assistance and to alert other cars to the stopped traffic.  Luckily, a tow truck driver reached us before any damage could be done to cars or humans alike, and our good samaritan departed safely and anonymously.

On a very wet Saturday in Provence this past weekend, we had another similar experience, as we were trying to head south for a sports tournament and camping weekend.  As I was easing our car onto the autoroute, the car fishtailed suddenly, and then began hydroplaning, causing me to lose complete control.  We somehow slipped between the highway entrance barriers without touching them and spun around at least 1 1/2 times across three lanes of the highway without getting hit, and then came to rest with a little crunch, against the center median.  We all caught our breaths for a moment, and then suddenly realized that our car was wedged into the barrier and was directly facing oncoming traffic in the fast lane!  As my family escaped the car, scrambling onto the small gap in the center median, a driver in a minivan just entering the highway and perhaps witnessing our spinning, pulled over.  The driver ran up along the autoroute, opposite my spouse, and in the rain, both waved their arms up and down to slow the oncoming traffic as best as they could.  It appears that another good samaritan stayed in the car to call for assistance on our behalf.  Meanwhile, another car also stopped, with a third good samaritan making a call on his cell phone while yelling to us across the slick wet lanes to ask if anyone was hurt, and reminding me to put on the gilet (safety vest, an obligatory piece of car equipment in France).  Thankfully, highway traffic and public safety crews arrived shortly after, blocking our lane of traffic and helping us get out of the mess.  While these men were not what we would call good samaritans, as they were doing their jobs, their professionalism was dosed with empathy, and I appreciated that they didn't smirk or act frustrated with our French, which was even shakier than usual.  The man with the lane closure equipment and the tow truck driver were both especially kind, and somehow, all of these strangers were able to help us enough to send us back on our way.  (We didn't even merit a visit from the local gendarmes, or police, and the resulting damage to our car doesn't quite tell the harrowing story, although we tried to describe it the best we could to the waiting football families at our campground near Montpellier.)

The big surprises to us from the past weekend (besides the fact that our son's team actually won the tournament that we struggled to get to!) were the assistance and expressions of kindness from strangers that we experienced.  These are certainly not what one is taught to expect in France, if the countless books about the French are to be believed, and at least in terms of French drivers, in my experience, they aren't often even very generous about moving over for ambulances or police cars whose sirens and lights are on.  In the U.S., on the other hand, it seems that often, if a stranger is hurt, people will try to help in some way.  In fact, there are some interesting national differences in the sociolegal expectations associated with being a good samaritan.  In the U.S., being a good samaritan is seen as personally risky, especially if help is rendered without consent and if something goes wrong.  So, good samaritan laws, which vary by state, tend to protect the good samaritan's actions against liability, but don't require anyone to offer assistance.  The French law, on the other hand, actually requires passers-by to be good samaritans.  The protection lies with the one who is in danger, and thus, assistance must be rendered if it can be done so without peril.  Not helping someone can result in the charge of la non-assistance à personne en danger (non-assistance to someone in need), and a hefty fine and/or jail time. (Click here for a short piece in The Global Times, Oct. 31, 2011, comparing 3 different kinds of good samaritan legal scenarios, in China, U.S., and France.)  In a sense, these differences accentuate the U.S. protections of private rights and the French expectations of public responsibilities.  (The different assessments of risks are clear too; see La sécurité, Oct. 2011 for more on this topic.)  Yet, I think for those requiring assistance, whether due to car accidents in France, or tornadoes in the U.S. midwest, or even wars as in Syria and elsewhere, in the moment of dire need, it matters little what the civil incentives and protections are.  I have to speak from experience on this one: what matters the most then is that someone has stopped to help.

Contentement

In a talk that I gave at the local Institute for American Universities earlier this afternoon about how the French spend their time, I also summarized French economist Claudia Senik's argument about why the French seem to be less happy or satisfied with their lives compared to others.  She blames in part the authoritarian and rigid French school system for creating citizens who lack the self-confidence and the contentement (contentment or satisfaction) that one might expect in a country with so many wonderful attributes.  (See Claudia Senik's homepage here, or click here for a direct link to her paper The French Unhappiness Puzzle, Working Paper, 2012.)  My family's limited experience with the school system, at its middle school level, suggests that the system is firmly focused on staying within the lines and structure of the nationally established curriculum (this feels especially true in the maths and sciences), and that the teaching and learning within the system is generally not very creative or active or nurturing.  At first glance, it's hard to say if such schooling could lead to broadly-experienced passivity and pessimism among adults.  

I can say that I see more and more how a centrally-organized society uses its national school system to impart broader social values and practices to its emerging young adults.  This process begins early, at the crèches and maternelles (nursery and preschools) where very young French children, from ages 2 and 3, spend hours away from home in the care of others, learning how to sit patiently and how to eat meals like little grown-ups.  It is the recounting of this by some expatriate foreign mothers that has caught the attention especially of the American and English reading public. (See my discussion of one such book in Encadrement February 2012.) 

This week I had another revelation of how the school system may pass on social values and skills.  Faithful readers may recall that just over a year ago I embarked on the painful and expensive process of acquiring a French driver's license (See A is for Autoecole, April 2012).  For weeks, I grumbled about the ridiculously tricky theory questions that had more than one answer and the authoritarian teaching styles of the driving instructors.  Now I have learned that as 2nd year middle schoolers (French 5th graders), my twin sons will be taking the ASSR1 test this month, while students two years ahead of them will take the ASSR2.  The ASSR's are exams offered by the Education Sécurité Routière (Road Safety Education) arm of the National Ministry of Education to middle school-aged French kids to test them about their knowledge of the appropriate behaviors in shared traffic situations.  The parent representative of our boys' class suggested that these exams will be beneficial for the kids when they begin riding motor scooters and eventually prepare for their automobile driver's licenses.  Learning the rules of the road at age 13 is not a bad idea, particularly given the new interest among my boys and their classmates in skating around the busy streets in town on skateboards and longboards.  However, I was amazed to discover after one son took some practice exams on the traffic safety education website, that these were really quite similar to the practice driving theory exams I had taken last spring, right down to the tricky questioning.  So, I think I now understand better why I felt out of my element in driving school; it wasn't just the language.  By the time most French turn 18 or start driving school in earnest, they have the French-style examination drill down, from years of practice: they know what to expect in terms of testing methodologies and teaching styles, they know that it won't be easy to pass the exams the first time, and they know if they don't pass, everyone else is going to know about it.  These students were simply better prepared for the process and its potential outcomes.  And, it might not be such a big leap to consider the possibility that these same students may feel less satisfied or less sure of themselves later in life, when social scientists come along asking them to assess their personal happiness.  Social institutions, such as political and school systems, do have that kind of influence; some may empower their members, with the right to vote, for example, while other institutions may limit their members, say by stifling their intellectual creativity.  Senik's thinking about the French school system may be on the right track after all.

Various wheeled modes of transportation parked on the landing below our apartment