obama-sarko

Book: Larousse's French-English Dictionary
Song: I Want to Hold Your Hand
Movie: Good Morning England (tres drole mais comci-comca)

I've been so pre-occupied with stalking old french ladies and eating baguettes that I've only recently forced myself to buckle down on my duties as Rotary Ambassador...

So for the past hour I've been trying to catch up on my French-US public relations knowledge...I'm having trouble finding up to date stuff since most of the major articles are from immediately after Sarkozy's election. I'm beginning to form an idea for my presentation next week about my thoughts on future American-French relations...we will see how that goes. If anyone has ideas, let me know.

My shoulders are a bit sore right now - you wouldn't believe what a girl needs to do to find some wifi around here (which, btw, is pronounced weefee in France). I had to walk all around the city like some poor, lost beggar child stopping at every pseudo-cafe looking joint.

Speaking of American-French relations...I feel like I can confidently pick up a few of the major cultural differences between here and America.

1) The asian culture is super fetishized...like MUCH moreso than it is in America. Any dish, paper, pot, towel, dress that has the resemblance of an orchid or a chopstick or a slightly squinty eye is like 50 times more expensive than it should be.

Also, I think the phrase "politically correct" does not exist.
Whenever I'm walking down the street, I get at least one "wong chai tong ting [insert here other impressions of metal clanging sounds]. Like sometimes by grown men. At first, I had to look around and be like - why are they making those noises... until I soon realized...oh..me? oh...
Also, during class the other day we were learning about different descriptive words to describe peoples' physical appearance. We were reading this one passage written by this guy describing his exchange student. Her eyes, he described as "les yeux (eyes) bridés." We were all like - what kind of eyes? What is bridés?"

Frédéric points at me and goes, "Comme ca!" ("Like that!"), takes his fingers and places them on either side of his eyes, and pulls.
There was this awkward silence during which everyone avoided eye contact with me, being the only Asian in the class. The students from the South were especially uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Frédéric continued to keep his fingers like that, repeating over again "les yeux bridés! les yeux bridés!" Poor man, not having any idea...

2) Fashion - Dreadlocks, MC Hammer pants, Converses (at the cheapest, 90 bucks a pop), and Goth are most definitely in. So are these weird bottoms, I don't know what they are actually called, but they look like skirt-capris-pants...or scaprants, if you will. Finally, aviator sunglasses - much moreso than America. Everyone has them. You should get one too.

3)Food. I think I've gained about ten pounds since I've arrived here. I have no idea why...oh wait, maybe it's because people here only eat bread and cheese and goose liver all the live long day. And the bread isn't the delicious whole grain kind you can pick up at Clark Park's farmer's market after grabbing a $2.95 iced-coffee with soy milk from Green Line. It's the let-me-stuff-this-huge-baguette-with-tons-of-butter-and-sugar-and-sell-it-for-70-cents-so-it-is-the-only-thing-you-can-afford kind. So I don't know how French women are so damn skinny. It completely befuddles me. I think I've seen 3 over-average French women bracket 0-40 years since I've been here. 10 per cent of French adults are obese, compared with UK's 22 per cent, and America's colossal 33 per cent.
So I read part of How French Women Stay So (damn) Skinny..or something like that...I don't remember the exact title. Apprently it's because they walk a lot. This reason I found absolutely unconvincing. Unless they're getting up at 3 AM every day and sprinting the Oregon Trail in its entirety, there's no way that walking around Tours (which isn't that big) does it for them.

Also, the time that people usually eat dinner here is absurd. My host mother usually serves dinner around 9 or 10 PM. I tried to go to a major restaurant in Place Jean Jaures with some of my friends the other day. It was around 7 PM. We asked for a waiter after waiting around for 20 minutes. No one came. They thought we were crazy - who eats dinner that early? Most restaurants fill around 9:30.

4) Staring - Now I'm not talking about the creepy stalker kind you do through the telescope nestled against your bedroom window. I'm talking about the sit outside a cafe kind with your huge dark, reflective sunglasses so that you can watch all the flanerie passing by. I am convinced this is directly related the the aviotor sunglass craze.

And finally...
5) Going Green you thought it was big in America? Try going to a major grocery store here. Seriously, if you even THINK about asking for a plastic bag at the register for your 20 million apples you just bought on sale for 2 euro/pound, you'll get several pairs of dirty looks. That and they'll charge you for it - like 15 cents a bag.


There you go, that's my two cents. I've been having some rip-roaring fun with some new friends around the city - waiting for them to send the pics to me - but for now, here's a pic for your entertainment, compliments of my 13-year-old host brother, Simon who hopes to one day become a world-famous chef. Pre-dinner, he shared his amazing creative talents with me...