Tomorrow we go back to America after three months. It will be a shock. It always is. On some very basic levels the two cultures do not mix. The French are constantly upgrading their infrastructure, which the Americans don't seem to believe in very much--new sidewalks here in Nice, new sub-surface ducts and pipes going in under the boulevard, new lawns and flowers in the public gardens, of which their are many. A second tram line is being built not so much to enhance transportation as to get as many cars as possible out of the center of the city. It's as if city officials were upgrading so as to make life better for everybody. In France the cafes are all around you as everybody knows, and when you sit down to order a coffee a waiter brings it to your table. No waiting in line at a counter and then most likely drinking it standing up. Not important? Quality of life, pal, quality of life. My granddaughter Galen just graduated from Stanford, tuition $55,000 a year. In France tuition would have been zero, and of course free medical care as well--and better care than in America according to stories and statistics I have seen in the NYTimes. Prescription drugs, relatively speaking, are ridiculously cheap here. And taxes, when city, state, sales etc. are lumped together, are not all that much higher than America. I don't mean to suggest France is perfect. It's not, but it does have much in its favor that Americans might look at, and for us going back it will take, as always, a bit of getting used to. Well, September will come and we'll come back here. Carrying on life in two countries is expensive, onerous and sometimes a pain in the ass, but I can't help being American and wanting to live in my own country for a while. And I can't help enjoying France either.
4 Comments
Jock Ellis
6/21/2014 04:09:18 am
Whilst you were having fun in France in 1964, I was halfheartedly trying to learn 10th grade French, knowing it was futile because the guy sitting behind me had gone to France the preceding summer and advised me that the way to learn a foreign language was to go there hungry and be forced to adapt. Recently, I told a college student who was studying French that in the '60s, the purpose of learning the language seemed to be getting a hotel room with a bath on the same floor. He quickly replied, "it still is."
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9/18/2014 05:18:25 pm
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9/18/2015 02:34:55 am
Sometimes the cultures of the areas and places are so distinct and different that they do not mix with each other. Often the case is that the cultures are mixing with each other and can provide a new mixed culture which is new in its own right and kind.
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3/9/2016 02:38:35 am
This comes from the subconscious perspective that your cultural norm is the superior one, and that if they were more informed, they would believe and view things the same way that you do.
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