La Bise

Before coming to France, I read a previous CIEE blogger's post on la bise and why it is complicated. It certainly made me nervous, but once I got here I thought, hey, this isn't so hard after all! What was she complaining about?

Well, la bise is pretty simple. You kiss someone on each cheek to greet them, starting to the left and ending on the right. I feared having nose-bumping issues or something equally awkward, but it's not difficult.

What is difficult is that the rules aren't always the same. Sometimes you don't go from left to right: if you arrive from the right and start working your way down a line of friends, you'll probably kiss from right to left, no big deal.

I just so happen to live in the Vendée, a département where they kiss four times instead of two. But among teenagers, close friends, and family, it's only twice. There must be even more subtle rules than that, because the other day I went to a dinner party and greeted the hostess with four cheek kisses (watching her carefully to determine if she was going for four or two) and then moved confidently on the the host, where I went for four kisses and he went for two. (AWKWARD.) Is it a guy/girl difference? Or first greeting vs. second greeting? I don't yet know.

I've been told I need more pictures to separate my massive walls of text, so here's an unrelated picture of our cat, Nuts!

The worst part is not knowing whether to do la bise or not. When I see my friends at school, usually we do la bise first thing in the morning, but not if we see each other again at lunch, for example. But what counts as a friend? Do I do la bise with someone who's hanging out with my friend, even if they aren't my friend? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I haven't figured out the rules yet, so usually I just follow their lead. But sometimes I worry I'm being rude. (Oh well, I'm American, they're going to have to accept my faults.) When my host siblings take me to parties, do I have to go around the table and kiss everyone, even if I don't know any of them? (Answer: usually yes. I think.) Sometimes people do handshakes instead, but I'm not sure where the line is between slightly businesslike handshake situations and friend or family bise situations. Eek.

At the same time, I find it rather charming. In the US, people either greet each other with hugs (friends and family), with handshakes (business or first introductions among adults), or with no touch at all (anything that doesn't fall into the first two categories). So if I show up at school and join a group of friends and acquaintances hanging out together, the most likely thing to happen is just to join the circle, say “hello,” and give everyone a sort of greeting nod. Feels kind of abrupt, sometimes. But in France, the guys will all shake hands with each other every time they meet, and girl/girl or guy/girl interaction involves cheek kisses. You never say hello to anyone without a physical acknowledgement of their presence, and while it makes me uncomfortable, I appreciate the idea.

More unrelated pictures! Here's me standing next to a really old windmill, doing my awkward “I never know what to do with my hands so I guess I'll throw them up in the air” pose.

In other unrelated news, my English teacher is terrible. As his native language is not English and I know how difficult learning languages is, I respect his accomplishments. He has a French accent, but it's not terrible. He can say the English “th” sound (think how the stereotypical Frenchman says “zee baguette” instead of “the baguette”) and usually manages English “r”s, though not always. His ear for English sentence structure is pretty good, but sometimes he comes up with phrases that are just odd – I can't even put my finger on if it's wrong or not, but it's definitely odd. So he's not perfect. In my experience, native speakers of languages make much better teachers than people of the same culture as their students who learned the language in school. But there are far better reasons he shouldn't be a teacher: 1) he's really really boring 2) he commands absolutely no respect from his students, because he's just clueless and awkward and says silly things, and 3) his grades have no relation to reality.

He gave me a 8/20 on my English homework. What. The. Freak. I already talked about how expectations in school are lower here, where 12-16 out of 20 is a good range for your grades. At home, you pretty much want As which are above 90% and would therefore be 18/20 or higher. Anyway, even though the standards are lower, 8/20 is bad. And, um, just saying, but I actually speak English. I think. I mean, pretty much by definition if I disagree with my English teacher, I'm right, because he's French. What sounds natural to my ear is how properly spoken English should sound. Spelling and grammar are more concrete than that, but I happen to be remarkably good at both, so my previous statement still stands. I have no idea why he gave me such a low grade except that everyone says his grades have nothing to do with reality. I know someone who cheated on a quiz so she knew she had all the right answers, and he gave her 2/20. Whaaat. Anyway, I'll be doing my best to sort out that situation, because it would embarrassing and not good for my diploma if I failed English. Not just English for anglophones (which I've always gotten As in) but English for French people. Le monde est fou.

Your complimentary French song for the day is called Les Passants, by Zaz, and is pretty popular here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEu3oxxclW4