What is a key difference that you didn’t expect or anticipate between France and the United States?
If there is one thing I think studying abroad taught me almost immediately, it is just how American I really am. Culture is a fascinating phenomenon. It is not only dances, folkloric music, clothing styles, and culinary traditions. Culture literally governs how people understand the world around them. It frames their reality.
Photo provided by Michael Ivory
In the United States, time is our guide and governor. Its boundaries are strict and its passage is examined closely and carefully. We have an endless number of sayings that warn us of the ills of not heeding time’s relentless course: Time is money. Time waits for no man. The early bird gets the worm. All of these axioms behold time as an unyielding master, merciless in its reproach to those who do not act accordingly. Cities in the States run on an endless web of timetables as buses and trains shuttle hasty citizens to an office or store that closes at a certain hour sharp. “Too late” is a curse in the American religion of productivity. Time is severe, and so must we be.
“I came to France with an open mind. I knew that I was a guest in another people’s world. It would behoove me to try my best not to crash-land into their reality with my foreign sensibilities. ”
I came to France with an open mind. I knew that I was a guest in another people’s world. It would behoove me to try my best not to crash-land into their reality with my foreign sensibilities. By the time my plane had landed, my heart had rehearsed yet another axiom: When in Rome…Yet I was inevitably unprepared. I found myself sitting in a café one day, anxiously drumming my fingers across a wooden table as I watched the world spin around me, dreading that I had not yet reclaimed my spot on the carousel. I had finished my meal ten minutes ago, where was my check? I was ready to go. It turns out, that my American internal clock ticked way too loudly for French sensibilities.
Time is not the master of the French people…at least not in the same way. In France, rushing is frowned upon. My professor explained that in France if one were running late for work one morning and ran into a long-lost friend on their way, it would be considered rude to shut the conversation down because they were running late. You are expected to allow some time—that you don't have by American standards—to catch up. In many ways, time is simply a tool for measurement, but it is merely a suggestion in many instances. This helps to explain why my server at the café was not too pressed to bring me the check once I had finished my meal. The relatively relaxed approach to timeliness made the notion of me rushing to leave after eating rather odd. In France, you are in the moment. The time you spend eating is not the time to spend worrying about what happens after you are done eating. The French people’s relationship to time can better be encapsulated by the rule: For everything, there is a time and a place. In the States, time rules the day, but in France, time rules the moment. In the States, time is always speaking, foretelling and prophesying to push to think ahead. In France, time speaks a bit more softly. It tells of the now. What should be done right then. However, as soon as we enter another "now", time is silent, and we are left to be in the moment until another "now" is on the horizon. And as my professor's hypothetical friend on the street reminds us, even then, we must not be too quick to leave the moment behind.