I Live in the Kind of Place Where if I Hear Someone Say "Hello" I Know it's for Me and I Brace Myself for the Space Invader

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I Live in the Kind of Place Where if I Hear Someone Say "Hello" I Know it's for Me and then I Get Ready for the Personal Space I

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by Maureen Quinlan

AUVERGNE, FR-

English is not really very popular with the people here.
It's not that they didn’t study it.
They did.

It's not that they couldn't read the Los Angeles Times if they wanted to.
They could.

It's not that they're not interested in English-language movies, TV shows and music.
They are.

It's just that they would rather not speak the language.

Fear of making a mistake.
Fear of a strong French accent.
Fear of a limited vocabulary.
Whatever kind of fear it is is irrelevant.
They just don't speak.

And so, it was tough for me to come here last year.
And even tougher to be here once I figured out that everyone around me could speak to me, if they wanted to.
But didn't.

And, because my French was still in progress we sat in silence.
I wonder if the same would be true in the U.S.
If I knew someone only spoke Spanish, for example, and I spoke Spanish too – would I speak to them in Spanish?
Even if I might make a mistake.
Even if my accent sounded like Will Ferrel speaking Spanish?
I might.
In fact, I think I probably would.

But, and my mom warned me before I got here, the French are language perfectionists.

Not content to be a poor English speaker they simply choose not to speak.
Perhaps this is different in other cities.
Bigger cities.
Cities with an actual ex-pat population to contend with.
But not here.
There are so few English speakers here that when I hear someone say "hello" on the street, I know it's for me.
Usually, it's one of my students saying the one word they can fling out the instant they see me.
"Hello."
"Hello, Maureen."
They're in primary school and, so, a few seconds later, in French, I hear them tell their parents "that's my English teacher."
Usually the greeting is accompanied by a truly odd cultural behavior for teachers and their students.
The bises.

(Pronounced 'bees' and made up of a series of kisses depending on where you are from … two here in Puy de Dome … three in Cantal … and I have heard rumors that there are places that peck four times, but I have never encountered it.)

I am bised by my students almost daily.

On the way out of class.
On the street.
In the hall.
Boys.
Girls.
Angels.
Devils.
All of them.

I don’t quite know what to make of it.
I also don’t know what to do about it.

Being kissed on the cheek by students seems somehow wrong. So I made a little personal decision. I do not initiate the bise with my students, but I do not humiliate them by not returning theirs. Smack, smack on the cheeks and it's over.

It's the culture, I tell myself.It works for me. It's the same for adults – friends, family and the rest.

Colds…
Cigarettes…
Strangers…
There are no obstacles.

So get ready. Here it comes.  SMOOOOCH/SMOOOCH.

A few weeks ago, while teaching a class of French English teachers, they had one big comment about the bises…It's not nearly half as bad as a HUG. "Oh the hug," they said. "Can you imagine touching your entire body with someone you just met?" I found this very interesting.

I never thought about it like that before. I guess it is true.A hug is a bit more intimate. Wait a minute; a hug is more intimate than a kiss?

These French women reacted to the idea of giving or receiving a hug quite similarly to the way I react when I use a public restroom in a forest preserve. (Disgust combined with a slight incomprehension of the situation, a visible 'how could this be?') So, I started the bise conversation with this group of 15 English teachers and was a little relieved by my findings.

The vote was unanimous. After a certain age, you just stop 'Bissing' your students.
It's no longer appropriate. But never ever hug a student. I guess it's in our culture to hug. And that's why they don't get it. They don't need to have to get it. It's not their culture. Like Elizabeth Hurley possibly going to jail for not removing her shoes at her wedding.It's not her culture, so she didn't do it.

But - wait - what is it that they say you should do when you're in Rome...

If I were at home I would only hug the people I know really well. Here, I have to bise everyone. But, I never hug. Ever.  Last summer, at a funeral, I couldn't believe that nobody hugged the widow. For me, at a funeral the hug is a non-negotiable. After I say whatever it is I can come up with to comfort someone with words I always follow it up with a hug. It's a bit of extra comfort. For me and, I hope, for them.
A visible 'I'm here for you.' The punctuation at the end of a very sad conversation.

But here, at a funeral in France, nobody was hugging, so I took it upon myself to start the trend. For the record: it didn’t catch on.

It made me feel better, but it didn't do much for the hug-ee. I think they added it to the list of the obviously foreign behavior I was displaying. Since I came back to France from Christmas in Chicago, I have only been hugged once. And it was by my mother when she came to visit. But I cannot even begin to count the number of kisses I have received and passed out.

Another oddity is the people with whom I exchange pecks on the cheek. I wouldn't hug my boss or the grocer, but a friend or family I wouldn't even hesitate. Yet, I bise the bar-man here. It's just odd.

When my boyfriend and I were planning our trip home for Christmas, Fred was already dreading (and pre-counting) how many hugs he would receive. I believe the count at the end of the week was 43.

My family and friends are huggers, I guess.

Maybe my students bise me more often than their other teachers because I'm foreign. I'm novel. Maybe it's because I'm not considered a 'real' teacher. After all, my class is an activity, like gym or sewing. Maybe, because they are still quite young, their other teachers haven't cut them off yet so they continue to do it. It's unclear.

But, while the people I meet here aren't always comfortable speaking to me in 'the language of my youth' (as it is often called), and I am not always able to speak the best possible French, I do bise like a champ.

And maybe Bissing is enough. For now. After all, adapting to a culture is about more than learning the language and eating their food. It's about not finding your new country so very different any more. Maybe that will be true for me and the bise one day.

But, then what would I have to write about?

www.thenervousbreakdown.com/Maureen_Quinlan