French Toast

by Harriet Welty Rochefort

  HARRIET: I’ve often noticed that Parisians make fun not only of foreign accents but even of French accents that are not Parisian. How do you Parisians situate yourselves in relationship to other Frenchmen?

  PHILIPPE: What other Frenchmen?

  Politesse

  It may be hard to figure out why the French, and especially the Parisians, act as they do, but if you’re a tourist, you probably don’t really care. However, if you live in France, there are a few things you have to try to understand, such as French rules of politesse, which are so complicated that they take years to grasp. Only then do you realize all the gaffes and mistakes you’ve been making!

  As the years passed, I made an amazing discovery that enabled me to understand why the French have such a worldwide reputation for rudeness. In France, you are not expected to like everybody or even act as if you do.

  The good side of this is that your smile muscles don’t get worn out, because you rarely use them; the bad side is that since the French in general reserve their true sentiments and warmth for the people they know, many foreigners come away thinking that the French are universally impolite. They can rest assured. The French treat one another even worse than they treat foreigners.

  It’s true that there’s no premium placed on being nice to people you don’t know. Inconsiderate acts such as double-parking the car, taking dogs to restaurants, or smoking in elevators are all perpetrated on people you don’t know and hence don’t care about. Relieving oneself by the side of a road or major thoroughfare falls into the same category, but with a little macho tinge.

  On the other hand, the French have a set of codes for polite behavior that is extremely complicated. I know now, for example, that I have made many gaffes by being too candid. In France, for instance, there is no intrinsic merit in being frank and to the point.

  Au contraire. The blunt way we Americans say things is considered by polite French people to be “violent” (the word they use for it in French is the same—violent). Even if a statement is true, the French won’t appreciate it coming at them in a strong-arm fashion. The oblique is better than the direct. Wrap up your comment in a pretty package and deliver it to your listener on a platter. You’re on your way.

  Try this exercise in politesse: Your neighbor’s radio is driving you nuts and you want to do something about it. As an American, I would go to the person and say, “Could you please turn your radio down?” A French person with manners would phrase it differently. “Have you moved your radio? I never used to hear it before.” The person, if he or she is French, will get the hint.

  I decided to test my level of subtlety the day my new neighbor asked me if I would like her to put up a divider so that I wouldn’t see all her washing hanging out on the back porch we share. I hypocritically said, “No, it doesn’t bother me,” a bold-faced lie. I delightedly reported the incident to my husband, noting that for once in my life, I had been indirect. “No,” my husband told me, “you got it all wrong.” A French person would have put the ball in her court: “It’s up to you. I don’t know whether you mind other people seeing your personal belongings.” Translation: “Of course I don’t want to look out my kitchen window at your underwear, you sap!”

  In the heart of the country, at the home of some people we didn’t know, we were offered an aperitif. Unfortunately, a fly landed in my drink. Without my ever seeing it, my husband quickly exchanged glasses, all the while talking to the host. I never knew what he did with the fly—I think he plucked it out and flicked it into the fireplace. In any event, no one ever knew what happened, including me, and that was only because he told me afterward. Calling attention to the fly, as I surely would have done, would have been totally unthinkable.

  In line with this, the phone is another battlefield for cultural differences. When my American friends call, I say, “May I call you back? I’m eating.” My husband says that is the height of rudeness. He himself would pick up the phone and let his food go cold rather than cut someone off. For him, telling the caller that you are otherwise engaged means that you have better things to do than talk to him, and it puts the person in the awkward position of having to apologize.

  When I counter that my friends would be embarrassed to have me on the phone an hour if they knew I was eating, he doesn’t understand. (I have on many occasions called my sister-in-law, and the only indication that she had company was that she would say, “Oh, no problem, we’re just going to the table.” Translation: “I’m busy!”) Raymonde Carroll explains in Cultural Misunderstandings that phoning for the French is a ritual and that “picking up the telephone to tell a friend ready for ritual that one is not free to participate constitutes an incongruity for a French person.”

  In another sterling paradox, while the French can be monumentally impolite when they want to be, at the same time they are almost Japanese in their way of circumventing delicate situations so that the other person can be spared discomfiture or can save face. A telling scene: A friend was accosted by a driver who almost mowed her down to get a parking place he thought she had stolen from him. It turned out that the same night she was invited to a party and introduced to an exquisite young man with lovely manners. When she looked him full in the face, she discovered, to her consternation, that he was the mad driver. She didn’t know whether he recognized her or not. In a typical bourgeois ballet, each pretended never to have seen the other.

  By the same token, the French often speak in double negatives to avoid unpleasant situations. It is a great way to hedge. Saying, “I wouldn’t say no,” or “I’m not unhappy,” or “It’s not bad” instead of “Yes” or “Great!” is a way of not exposing yourself to ridicule and/or of reserving your judgment. My husband talks this way all the time. One day, however, we got into an elevator and in a friendly way he said to the person we were riding with, “That exhibition was great, wasn’t it?” and the stranger answered, “No!” Guess who looked stupid, and the French hate looking stupid.

  As if this verbal juggling is not enough, the French have codes and secret signs that only they can figure out. These codes, which they recognize but no one else does, can cause incredible misunderstandings. For years, my American family and many non-French friends thought my husband was a real check-grabber. What they didn’t realize was that he would lunge for the bill forcefully, quite confident that there would be an instantaneous remonstrance and he wouldn’t end up with it. The problem was that with non-French people, he only succeeded in scaring them into thinking that he really did want to pay, and they let him!

  “Why do you keep doing that?” I would ask him. He explained to me that French people would understand right away that his gesture was one of politeness, an offer that was not necessarily to be taken up. I explained to him that Americans take people literally, so no wonder he got stuck in such predicaments. Once he figured out this was yet another enormous cultural gap, he changed his behavior—fortunately, before we went bankrupt.

  Codes are hard to decipher. As Edward and Mildred Hall point out in Understanding Cultural Differences, Americans “are often uncomfortable with indirectness and sometimes miss nonverbal cues: subtle shifts in voice, slight, almost imperceptible changes in body posture or breathing.” I know I certainly miss a lot, including with one Frenchman, who happens to be my husband. He’s always sending me very subtle brain waves I absolutely don’t get.

  To leave a dinner party, instead of turning to our hosts and saying, “Well, it’s really been fun, but it’s late and time to go,” he starts staring at me very hard. When I don’t get that, he resorts to his pained look, mouth curved down at the corners. All the while, I am laughing it up. When we finally leave, he says, “It’s so late. Didn’t you see me telling you it was time to go?”

  I stare at him, astonished. “Why didn’t you just say ‘It’s time to go’?” I ask him.

  “Because you’re supposed to see my signal,” he replies.

  We will never get together on this particular cultural divide.

&n
bsp; The need for delicacy and privacy is seen in the fact that the French don’t really appreciate personal questions such as “What do you do?” or, worse, “Where do you work?” Even such a seemingly innocent question as “What does your father do?” is best avoided. Why? Because the person might come from a lower-class family and have a high-level job—or come from an aristocratic family and have a low-level job. This is changing now, but it is safe to say that you can have a ten-hour conversation with a French person and never know his name, job, or personal status. Try to do that in the States.

  Americans, generally speaking, are just looking for information and couldn’t care less if a person’s family is composed of nobles or cobblers. Hence, we have a hard time coping with the twists and turns of roundabout conversations. But the French are constantly aware of social hierarchy, the place they occupy in society, whether it be their job or their social class. A French friend explained the difference to me this way: “Politeness is avoiding asking a question that will put the person in a position that could show either that he is wrong or criticizable. You have to think of the difficulty he may have in giving an answer.” So much for direct questions.

  The complications involved in avoiding direct references to your profession or employer can result in curious situations. A new acquaintance told us, without ever naming the firm, that he worked for a huge public company employing thousands of people doing very special kinds of projects in the field of housing and transportation. About five minutes into this byzantine description, my husband named a company and said, “You wouldn’t happen to work there, would you?” And they both laughed, as the company turned out to be the one my husband works for, as well.

  Anglo-Saxons feel they have to proffer their names if they’re going to sustain a conversation lasting any longer than five minutes. They also feel the need to introduce people who don’t know one another, even if they can’t remember the people’s names. The French are just the opposite. I have been going to a gym class near my home for the past four years. The women are perfectly friendly for the most part, but I don’t know the name of any of the women I stand and sweat next to. We exchange smiles and even conversations, but not names. Another example: At a luncheon, I sat next to a charming mother and daughter with whom I conversed for approximately five hours. Never once did we exchange names!

  A young American told me of his astonishment at not being remarked upon or included when he found himself in a group of people he didn’t know: “When you go to a party in the States and you’re the newcomer, everyone would want to know your name, what you do, where you are from—but in France, I can’t tell you the number of parties I have been to where I am the only American in a group of close-knit friends and no one says anything to me. The guy who invites you doesn’t even say, ‘This is Dave’ to the others. If the guy next to you is outgoing, you’ll get questions, but if you are shy, you’re out of luck. As soon as I ask questions, it breaks the ice.” You will note that he said “as soon as I ask questions”—the burden is on the newcomer.

  While taking a walk in the park one Sunday, we saw someone my husband works with every day. He was with his wife and children, both of whom we knew. Accompanying them was an older woman, whom I presumed was the mother of one of them, but I’ll never know, because no one ever introduced us. We just stood there and chatted and then left. My husband’s comment: “Thank God we didn’t get into introductions. I have no desire to know his relatives, and I’m sure he feels the same about mine!”

  One good thing about this formality is that you don’t have to invite the boss to dinner: The French Revolution was supposed to usher in an age of equality, but don’t ever go so far as to think that the French forget their sense of hierarchy. You may be invited to dinner by your husband’s boss, or your husband may invite his secretary to dinner, but the subordinate is not expected to repay the invitation: In fact, it just wouldn’t do. The higher-up can in this way exercise his power of noblesse oblige. The underling is supposed to stay in his proper place. An invitation from the subordinate would put his hierarchical superior in a disadvantageous situation, forcing him to “come down.” In addition, the underling might feel apologetic for not having a big-enough house or nice-enough furniture. Fortunately for both parties, the rules are clear, so no one has to worry about it.

  There is one occasion, however, when naming names becomes vital. When invited to someone’s home, you’re not to show up with a friend; you’re to ask permission and then give the name. I knew the part about asking permission to invite a friend, of course, but I had to be told that the name part is very important. In this land of complicated professional and private relationships, it is essential to provide the names when asking permission to take an extra guest to a party. Who knows, you may have inadvertently invited someone’s mistress!

  It would seem that there are a series of written and unwritten rules for just about everything. Take a breeze, for example. The French call it a courant d’air (draft) and, in my French family at least, flee it like the pest, believing perhaps that it will bring the plague. The first time I opened doors to let in a breeze, my in-laws rushed around feverishly shutting them, fearing perhaps that I was letting in an evil spirit, or worse. I now save my breezes for when I am alone. Perhaps for this reason, when you are on a bus or train and there is a discussion about whether the window should be opened or closed, the person who wants it closed will always win.

  Then there’s the dinner party. In my early days here, I didn’t know the following:

  When French people invite you at a certain hour, you should add fifteen or twenty minutes to that time. If you arrive right on time, not only will you be the first but chances are things may not be ready. The announced time is the first possible time at which you could arrive, but not the time the host really expects you or hopes to see you.

  You are not to show up—ever—with a bouquet of chrysanthemums, flowers the French reserve for cemeteries, or carnations, which are considered bad luck! In fact, if you’re a supersophisticate, you either send flowers before, giving the hostess time to arrange them, or send them after the dinner with a thank-you note. The French being proud of their logic, the Cartesian point here is that it is awkward for the hostess to have to run around finding the right-size vase. Also, if you have brought an especially grand bouquet, it might embarrass other guests, whose offerings pale in comparison. C’est logique.

  You won’t be shown around the house. Once again, the French like to keep what’s private . . . private.

  In a dinner party situation, it’s vital to keep in mind everything I’ve said earlier about noise levels. Don’t talk or laugh too loudly. Avoid frank outbursts. In terms of wine, they drink enough to enjoy it, but not enough to get plastered and make fools of themselves. “Use, do not abuse: neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy,” wrote Voltaire.

  It all boils down to the observance of a state the French admire greatly: moderation. In line with this, it is considered extremely impolite to call attention to oneself. As French journalist Ghislaine Andreani observes in her Guide du Nouveau Savoir-Vivre (Guide to New Etiquette), “There are ways to express your joy in life.” However, she warns, “Don’t guffaw, don’t burst out laughing, don’t laugh loudly in society, in a restaurant, in the street.” Perhaps that explains the withering looks we non-French (and ill-mannered French) often get as we heartily crack up in movies, restaurants, and all sorts of other public places.

  It’s when you hit the dinner table that the number of mistakes you can make increases considerably. The first thing I learned was that once you get to the table, you shouldn’t plan to leave it except in dire stress, and even then, you are to fade away gently. Do not—quelle horreur—announce where it is that you might be going.

  Then there’s the delicate matter of where to put your hands. Elbows on the table? Hands under the table? The rule on this is essentially Latin in spirit. Etiquette decrees that hands should always be on or above the table, les
t it seem that any hanky-panky be going on under it.

  Eating with one’s fingers is another dinner table no-no. The French have perfected the art of eating with a knife and fork. Picking up a chicken leg or a barbecued sparerib with one’s fingers is definitely out. That also includes pizza, which is eaten with a knife and fork, not the hands.

  I thought that this rule could easily be violated in the company of French-American couples, and so on one occasion where I was being served fried chicken, I asked my American hostess if I could pick it up and eat it with my hands, which in my book is the only way to eat fried chicken. (This, while everyone else was cutting away ever so delicately.) Of course, she assented, not daring to do so herself, because her French husband would have killed her on the spot.

  At formal parties, asparagus is always fun to eat. I hear that it is to be decapitated ever so neatly with a knife and fork, and the sauce should be recovered with the fork, as well. On informal occasions, you can actually pick the asparagus up with your fingers and maneuver it around to get the sauce. In both cases, however, you’re supposed to eat only the tips.

  The French extend the use of knife and fork to fruit. One American friend of mine reports having once seen a woman in a restaurant eating a banana with a knife and fork. You have to see it to believe it. And no fair taking the fruit in your hands to cut: Proper etiquette requires that it remain on the plate during this surgical operation.

  On the other hand, cutting salad greenery is unforgivable. The knife should be used gently to help fold really big lettuce leaves so that they can be speared with the fork, with the ever-present risk, of course, that a leaf will pop up and unfold just before reaching one’s mouth. The tradition of not cutting salad apparently stems from the fact that the acidity of the vinegar used to rust the blade of the knife. This is no longer true, but the custom holds.

  While we’re on the subject of food, it would appear that soup should always be sipped from the end of the soup spoon, not the side, in direct opposition to Anglo-Saxon etiquette.