Goodness me. No relaxation with French people about, whooping and hollering and shrieking and - god forbid - kissing each other. Chilly disdain, cold and forbidding restaurants, till-people on their mobiles, arrogance, bad or no service, and to cap it all we prefer to speak our language not some pidgin version. How dreadful we are, to think I never realised... It is pretty weird though that you stay here, seeing we're all so stressful and nasty.
Maybe I'll get up a subscription for signs at the customs posts with 'lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate' on them just so nobody is in any doubt about what to expect.
I obviously live in cloud-cuckoo land where local people are by and large kind and polite, frequently go out of their way to be helpful, restaurants are welcoming and friendly and nobody ever treats me with chilly disdain*.
*Except some English tourists (and indeed residents) who whoop holler and shriek loudly & often drunkenly about all sorts of things they probably wouldn't mention in public 'at home'. Plenty of disdain, but heated rather than chilly. Luckily they don't try to kiss us though we have to put up with their personal remarks (because obviously they aren't rude, are they, it isn't as if any of us speak English).
I disagree - I think Jane is being very honest about how she feels and that should be respected.
And whilst I think of it - both of you - but esp. Margo as you are a long established member, PLEASE upload a photo as not doing so goes against the SFN ethos and spoils it for everyone else - thank you! x
Indeed. But I don't want to try to integrate, because I think it is a pointless exercise. I try to comply with cultural norms as soon as I become aware of them ("bonjour" to everyone (including in lifts aaagh!)) horrible stressful cheek-kissing, not pouring yourself a glass of wine. I tolerate others' cultural practices, including ludicrous whooping and shrieking in the workplace, because I must. Not least learning the language. Which all immigrants must do, and I have. I do my very best to conform to what is expected, and of course I am treated differently from a native person,because I was not born here. What I do not do is try to integrate, because that is doomed to failure.
if I wanted to go on holiday in France I would rent a gite based on where it was and what it looked like and how comfortable it might seem, and how much it might cost. I don’t think the nationality of the owners would come into consideration.
Hi Marielle, mmmm - perhaps, but as I have been earning much less than a pittance I would have taken the job. I still think there is an obligation if you work in such a place to provide some kind of service you were employed to do, but that's another story.
I see where you're coming from and it is now an accepted fact that French people have no clue when it comes to Customer Relations and Support. A lady tapped me the wrist simply because I wanted to return the raisins which I thought were very expensive. I told her that being a cashier gives her no right to touch a customer. I could have slapped her on the wrist in retaliation but I did not. I lived in the UK for 25 years and raised my kids etc no one ever dared do that to me in the UK. This happened within six months of my moving to France, so I wrote to their HQ and complained and said since there are so many people out of work, would it not be better to give the job to staff who are more customer friendly. Surprisingly the HQ replied with full apologies etc and since then the customer relations has improved and staff now smile to you whilst taking your money etc. I lived and studied in France in the 70/80s and France ruled the student world then (remember the 1968 student revolution) hence we all retired and came back to live here but down South people are so rude it's unbelievable. But you soon get used to it and their Government has now acknowledged that something needs to be done to entice tourists etc to return to this place which is really a most pleasant land!
Sorry Jane, but I have been re-reading my post and can't find the words 'resentful, bitter, or unhappy' anywhere. However as you raise them, yes I DO think they apply. Plus you painfully have a problem with us poor males?
Favorite color - Black or grey?
Favorite dessert - Bitter almonds?
Nickname? Oh dear with a name like Jane, and your evident dislike of men - now I wonder what would go with Jane.........?
@Pamela: I had a chance to work in a tourist office, but I refused: the pay is very small (SMIC minus travel costs, which in my case came down to not even 900 euros per month for a full time job), you have to work during the weekend, on holidays and until late at night and it is only for 2 months a year (which of course are the months that you're very busy with your B&B!), maybe this is why the people working there are not very enthusiastic?
Another view - it's quite difficult to find employment here as a 'foreigner', even if you are fluent, and so people resort to small businesses to make a living. Gites, B&B, and other small and family run businesses means you can make a go of living in a new country without being a burden to the tax payers. In New Zealand there are immigrants who buy up small corner shops, bakeries, takeaways and so on, to make a start.
We run a B&B and we have a variety of nationalities staying with us. The French (except one particular person) have always been polite and very tidy, the Dutch are our best guests. And we've had people from Slovenia who love France and its nature and history but cannot speak French so were delighted to find us.
For the people we trade with regularly, they are pleased to have us as customers - for other people who are rude, I just think - you don't know me and you probably don't like your job.
I believe that your first encounter with a person from another country is the most powerful and lots of assumptions are made if it's a bad experience. When we travelled in France 8 years ago we stayed with both English speaking and French speaking hosts - both helped us with extra information on their region, were wonderful hosts and both lots gave us a gift on departure!
My one gripe is that some tourist offices in this area are quite slow to put out new information, they don't communicate with each other, and they don't like to put up advertising (B&B, gites, etc) for foreigners, even though it's bringing trade into the area. I've also heard that some of the people working in tourist offices are relatives of the manager who can trust them to turn up for work, but they don't necessarily like the work or have training in that field. I'd love to have a shot at working in one of those offices and get more people finding out more about our wonderful area.
no, i would never call them german, but germanic without a problem (my french oh and her family and my mates do consider them to be half german btw). a mate stayed in gite in alsace and was treated as a foreigner and told very bluntly "you're not in france here, you're in alsace!" after a couple of days of crap, he told them that his grandfather was born in lorraine - the attitude changed tout de suite ! alsaciens are germanic in the same way as the north italian lombards are, that's just the way it is ;-)
i agree totally on service though and vote with my feet too, as do my customers who appreciate the good service they get and keep coming back :-D
OK Brian, what fun this is, what larks. "I think you are bitter". Why? "Your anger belongs somewhere else". What am I angry about and where "else" does that anger belong? And it was you who admitted that you read the Guardian, how else would I know? There have been several police complaints against that organ, specifically its Comment is Free section, for inciting racial hatred. But hey, freedom of speech and all that. I have "little good to say about the French". True. Because I don't have anything to say about "the French". I haven't and would not presume to. "The perception" of Alsace, hmmm, what does that mean? Seems a little dangerous as a line to take. "The perception" of, say, the Swiss, is... No. I think you can see where I'm going here. I didn't say "the people in the UK are so much better", you must be confusing me with someone else. "it is they one lives among" - you what? I live with an Englishman, my husband, in France. Most of my friends and associates here are not English. Do explain. This is truly fabulous stuff. "the easy going people of the SW", ah yes, the people of the south, they are so vital and ebullient, like children really... No. There are other places to the south of France, where the culture may be somewhat different from how it is, say, in Alsace? Really? I never knew. Where would we ignorant girls be without chaps like you to tell us how things are? Bitter, that's what. Undoubtedly. Maybe what we need is... No.
Gites. I've only once stayed in one in France. I've stayed in the equivalent in other countries, including the UK. This thread caught my interest because it wouldn't have occurred to me to choose a place on the basis of the nationality or origin of its owners. But then I thought about it, and I imagined that British owners might provide a kettle, towels and bedding, which would be more comfortable. It hadn't occurred to me to compare, and anyway I'm not in a position to. The one I stayed in had a French owner. There were no towels, so we had to buy some, and no kettle, which was not a surprise. The owner kept us waiting four hours for the key on arrival, and two hours for handover on departure. Did we get a smile and a friendly welcome? Did we f***. But I haven't and don't see fit to generalise on the basis of this one experience.
Norman please look up what "begs the question" actually means. I'm not "grateful" to have the job I have, but I am very pleased to have it in these, as you say, difficult times. I plan to continue to work here as long as they'll have me. OK, if you say so, most people on here live in cities and commute to work in offices, it doesn't look that way to me, but I'm sure you know better. Your fourth paragraph is barely comprehensible. When I say that I "speak as I find" I am giving an opinion. Describing my impression of something. I don't say that this is "true", just that it is how something seems to me. "Jaundiced", hmmm. Bitter or resentful, says the OED. What would I be bitter about? What would I resent? Do tell. It's amazing that you chaps are so clever at telling us girls how we feel. I wish I could do that. Oh and I am unhappy, you seem to say? Well, I didn't know. There was I, enjoying most of my life most of the time, and this kindly chap called Norman comes along to tell me I'm bitter, resentful and unhappy. Thanks Norm. Next up, what's my favourite colour? Favourite dessert? Nickname at school?
I think you are bitter and your anger belongs somewhere else. You have changed what was always going to be a contentious issue into what appears to be personal head banging. Embellish it with insults about what I (or anybody else probably) read in any of the papers I read then your anger becomes personal. Whatever the matter, you have little good to say about the French, thus are condemning French run gites and as for the likes of Andrew, Norman and myself whose contact with the Anglophone world is through this site, simply dismissing us. If you think the people in the UK are so much better, after all it is they one lives among, then I am not sure why you bother to stay.
Your comment about Alsace to Andrew was offhand as well. The perception of Alsace is that the people are very Germanic in much of the rest of France. Having lived many years in Germany I do not find them anything but quite distinct. Neither fish nor fowl, as one might say. However, tarring them with the same brush as the easy going people of the SW, for instance, does not wash. Beyond the French to the south there is an entire so-called 'Latin' Europe (I am married to one of those although nationality Swiss) where timekeeping, lunch breaks, mobile phones and so many of the things that disturb people are very easily comparable with here. Try the Algarve, I imagine you would explode...
Anyway, gites. Somehow it all got lost. Whose gites do you actually prefer?
Brian, I think Nicole's point was that the Scandinavians and Dutch are not losing their languages - or is your point that they are? Because if it is then I disagree with you. I haven't seen anyone "condemning the entire French race" on here, perhaps you could point me at who has been doing that. I must have missed it. "That is an arrogant and narrow-minded view that I do not encounter". Well if someone has been expressing it here then you do encounter it, don't you? "The standards you clearly wish to impose on the entire world", yep, bang to rights there, Brian. I do. Democracy, human rights,the rule of law, that sort of thing. The whole world. But I thought this thread was about gites in France. Silly old me. And, er, you don't really read the comments on stuff in the Guardian, do you? Get help, I beg you, before it's too late.
precisely my point, Andrew. If I express a point of view, namely that if I go and stay somewhere I would quite like the use of a kettle and to stay in a room that had been cleaned in recent months, then it seems that this is my problem. I do not expect such things to be available as of right, but if they are not available then I go elsewhere. It's called market forces. I prefer to have the services I pay for supplied in efficient, courteous manner, where I live they are not, and this is my problem, as you say. You may be more familiar with the culture of Alsace than my six years has allowed me to become, but I would politely suggest that you do not call the inhabitants of these parts German, or Germanic, they do not like it, and I can understand why not. I live in France, in a part of the country which chose to be French, unlike most of the rest of it. I speak English at home and French part of the time at work. I watch French TV and am a big fan of Plus Belle La Vie. I like French rap, especially Sexion d'Assaut and La Fouine. You? Others on here? I'm not French, I'll never be embedded in French culture. So what? The (allegedly) 400,000 French people who live in London spend a lot of time complaining about the health service in the UK. It can be empirically demonstrated that the health care available to ordinary people in France is way better than that on offer in the UK. But I guess those French people have a problem, don't they? They must be pissing off the English doctors, and that's why they don't get French-standard treatment on the NHS - hein?
I think you have a problem, Jane. I work in the French work place and have done for years, this is my only anglophone contact here in France - the rest of my family, OH and kids only speak French - and I seem to live in another country to you - mind you you don't live in France, you live in Alsace ;-)
Nicole, agree as a linguist that l'académie française is now a little out-dated and that the needs in 1635 were rather different to those of modern France. But their control over everyday language is very limited in reality. If you want an example of a language that has no control, just watch the italian news and the huge amount of english words used trying to be trendy when an often better and more exact italian word already exists...! "arogance and hate to serve" - you obviously pi$$ people off a lot or is that just the germanic alsaciens...!
Jane (and by association Nicole?) Rather begs the question of why you stay doesn't it?
Here 'not from choice, but where I found work' I would have thought would have been something to be grateful for in these times?
'How many of you have actually worked in the French workplace'? I think if you follow the threads that MOST people here one way or another work in the French Workplace.
OK you 'speak as you find', which I am sure you believe is true, and probably is,(for you) but in my experience people with a jaundiced attitude will always have a jaundiced point of view and be unhappy.
Maybe you could find something more amenable to your tastes across the bridge?