Balances, tongues and when to stop...
Balances, tongues and when to stop...
...also? Snails.
Les Courses
My first month in France, just after receiving my student stipend check, I wanted to splurge (probably during a health kick) and buy myself some fresh fruits and veggies. French produce reminded me of the stuff my Grands used to grow in their garden in Arkansas when I was a kid, bright and colorful and juicy. I took my time choosing the perfect pieces of produce and put them into little plastic bags.
I filled my basket with bags of produce and took them to the cash register. Of course, a million people got in line behind me. When it was my turn at the register (and after I had unloaded all my bags of produce onto the conveyor belt) the cashier looked at me for a long confused moment. I replied with my white, American early-twenties grin.
Her mouth twisted and she launched into a tantrum that started out an annoyed mumble but crescendoed into full-on screaming. I had no idea what she was angry about, only understood half the words she was yelling. I also had (HAVE) a pretty sensitive ego about public faux pas. Trying not to cry, I said, “Je suis désolée. Je ne comprends pas.” I’m sorry and I don’t understand were daily fixtures at that point.
A grandmotherly type in line behind me used rudimentary English mixed with French nouns to explain. “Bichette, you must to use the balances. For the prix. To receive une etiquette.” I had already learned (awkwardly) the “false friend” etiquette does not mean using the right fork or not drinking the finger bowl but is the French word for “label” or “price tag.” She then helped me put everything back in my basket and pointed to the produce section. “The balances,” she repeated. I nodded, blushing and smiling, and follow the invisible path drawn by her index finger. I hid out near the deep cardboard boxes of plastic-netted potatoes for a few seconds to let my tears of humiliation dry. I needed to figure out what a balance was. That’s when I noticed the line.
Duh.
Les balances are scales.
Up to that point, I hadn’t been grocery shopping in a long time. I probably hadn’t bought produce for myself since I was a teenager. I had spent years either homeless, living in my car or in student housing where I ate at the campus restaurants. And then, as you Americans know, I was used to the cashier doing the weighing for me.
As I stood there watching people use the scale, I realized just how efficient it was to have people weigh their own produce! When the line died down, I rolled my basket nearer and watched stragglers use the scales. There was a paper list of items with numbers beside them. Customers put their items on the scale, typed in the number and were given a little sticker with price information and a bar code. When it was my turn, I weighed the things for which I knew the French word—tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, onions, because they are similar. But, how do you say garlic, again? What about lettuce? Leeks? A small line formed behind me. A man sighed impatiently before grabbing a bag from my basket, putting it on the scale and saying, as he found the French name, “Ail.” Garlic. “Salade Batavia.” Crinkly lettuce. “Salade Romaine.” Romaine lettuce. His condescending but experienced French finger typed in all the numbers and slapped bar codes on the rest of my produce.
It was months before I bought produce again and even then, it was to keep another American from my own fate—she had put a bag of unweighed tomatoes into her basket and was headed toward the registers!
I got over it. I have kids so I weight a lot of produce. The system really is ingenious. I don’t understand why we haven’t done it in the U.S. already. Luckily now, because of the European Union and so many foreigners living and vacationing long-term in France, most scales have touchscreens, and the items are pictured, making it even quicker and more convenient.
All this said, there are a lot of things already pre-packaged—some in-store, some before they get to the store by the producer or distributor. So, if you’re in a hurry, or just don’t want to wait in line for a scale, you can get in, grab a quad of lemons and get the heck out. But if you are like me and want to pick out every piece of fruit, make sure your avocados still have their belly button plugs, and get the perfect size bananas, you’re going to have to use the scale.
Here is a video demonstration:
Parlez-vous?
My first year here I lived mostly in a suburb of Lille (called Mons en Baroeul ). When we had our first Foreign Sudents meeting, the director gave us a local guide/coupon book called “Le Guide du Ch’ti” (now just called LE CH’TI). The director explained that Ch’ti is another word for the Picard language spoken up north. I also traveled to Brittany on the western coast of France to visit a friend and mentor and was surprised to see so many signs written in the Breton language.
But it wasn’t until I met The Hairy One (THO) that I had intimate contact with vocabulary that wasn’t “French.” He would say things like, Ça roille, instead of ça pleut for “it’s raining” (and even ça pleut isn’t “correct” French, as my Norman friend tried to correct—after spending a year with THO, my French had hybridized!!!). I would ask him how to say certain things and he would tell me but he would warn me, “But that’s not French” because it was usually in the Savoyard language.
Did you know that French is not the only NATIVE language to the Hexagon? HERE and HERE (BOTH IN ENGLISH) are good places to start if you’d like more information about them. I had heard about it before coming to France but I had no idea how MANY native French languages there are (I’ll spare you definition of the difference between a dialect, patois pidgin but will include links to sites below). Here is a video with examples of 45 local languages around France:
So, you want an idea of some of the words THO was using on little unsuspecting, American me? HERE (IN FRENCH) is a video with an example of a barkeep in a Savoyard ski chalet (the Savoyard language starts around minute 2:20). And HERE is a group of Haut Savoyard singers/musicians performing on the street. And here is a group of long horn players from Haute Savoie (it’s like a Ricola commercial).
In 2015, when we went as a family tent-camping all over France, we were out chasing down the stone circles and mehnirs in Brittany when we stumbled upon a Breton festival called a Fest-noz. They were selling local foods and homemade cidres and beers and playing traditional Breton music and doing Breton dances. We were bewitched! The kids joined hands with some of the people and started dancing along to the music. The Breton words and the way they were sung yanked on something ancient in me. Breton is a celtic language that has NO obvious relationship to standard French (but is more similar to Welsh and other celtique speech). HERE is a video of Breton folks doing a dance at a Fest-noz. And HERE you can hear Bretons speaking Breton about the event of the Fest-noz. This was filmed in 2017. Notice how many YOUNG PEOPLE speak both languages, French and Breton!
Back in 2016, I went to this awesome little writer/artist retreat in the southwest, in the Montaigne Noire just outside Carcassonne and was amazed at how many people up in those hills still spoke the older languages of Occitan and Catalan. I’ve been back several times since then and in 2019 it was there that I heard my first full concert without a word of standard French. The whole thing was in Occitan and it was stunning! They played these bagpipes made of animal skins (called a bodega in Occitan) and sang these mesmerizing chants that brought me to tears! Here is a video of someone playing a bodega:
And HERE is a group singing in Catalan (subtitled in standard French) and here is a trio singing in Occitan:
What really sticks out is how passionate and proud people are about their local languages. I get it, though. Ever since living in Lille, I’ve always considered myself FROM there, a little bit. It was my first French home and where my French identity was born and hard won. THO even used to laugh at me because my accent was kind of northern when we met. It’s fun for me to poke around the internet and find evidence of my French beginnings. So, I figured I would share them with you.
Here is an example of northern Ch’ti/Picardie dancing (you gotta click on “Watch on YouTube” to get it to start *shrug *):
Here is video of the last person to ever speak a pure version of the Picard language (in this video, he celebrates his 100th birthday but that was in 2012). Other people still speak bits of it, but no one else grew up speaking primarily this language.
This (IN FRENCH) is a video where they talk about WHY Ch’ti started to disappear (the invention of the radio after WW1 and teaching standard French in school, etc. ) and an effort to revive it. They’re teaching it in schools and translating books, plays, etc. into Ch’ti! There’s even a comedian/rapper hanging out with elderly Ch’ti speakers in order to be able to do shows and songs in the language to help keep it alive!
Here is the Georges Brassens song Je Me Suis Fait Tout Petit translated entirely into Ch’ti (HERE is the original).
And finally, here’s a song where the singer code switches between French and Ch’ti:
Ch’ti is gently ridiculed all over France because it was the language of the country folk who lived up in the flat, muddy, coal dust-stained Nord. It’s famous to the point that a northern local, Dany Boon made a hilarious movie Bienvenu Chez les Ch’tis (and its sequel La Ch’tite Famille).
The jojdom (where we live now) is in a region where Provençal is the local language, so depending on the town the signs are written in BOTH LANGUAGES!
Just for fun, here’s a song using the incorrect expression “Ça pleut:”
As promised, here are links to the definitions of the different types/categories of languages in case you’re a linguistics nerd like me:
Tiny Annoying Differences
In 2018, my in-laws came to visit us while we were living just outside Baltimore. I happened to be driving them somewhere and trying to tell some story or other at the same time. As we approached an intersection, the light turned yellow, but I had more than ample time to get through, so I punched it. My sister-in-law, sitting in the back seat between my father-in-law and her husband, gasp-whimpered (that’s the only way I can describe the sound she made) and followed it with a muttered and obviously disapproving, “I guess we don’t stop at orange lights.”
I literally laughed out loud. It reminded me of how just a year prior, while driving back from lunch with a friend in Bourgoin-Jallieu, France, I had an American brain fart, mistaking the “orange” light for a yellow one.
In the States, traffic lights are three colors: red, yellow and green, right? The green and red are obvious, but what you do with the yellow light—speed up or slow down—depends on how you were taught, if there is an obvious police presence, if there is someone behind you, how fast you are going, how dangerously you like to live, etc. But, in France, that middle light is NOT YELLOW. It is ORANGE and it means STOP just as much as the red one does.
Unfortunately, when I punched it through that orange light in Bourgoin, a French police officer who just happened to be standing nearby, saw my infraction and waved me to pull over. I’m all for experiencing new things in my adopted culture, but a traffic fine is not on my bucket list. I played my Dumb American card, even beefing up my American accent and eventually got him to take pity and let me go without a fine.
I learned my lesson. I stop when the light is orange in France and I slow way the frick down when it’s yellow in the States as a reflex.
HERE (IN FRENCH) is an instructional video for people learning to drive in France. It includes a reminder that the only time you’re allowed to pass through an “orange” light is when it is TOO LATE TO STOP SAFELY and if that is NOT the case and you get caught, you’ll get a 35 euro ticket (that was back in 2018 and the fines might have gone up)
The YELLOW v. ORANGE is not the only Tiny Annoying Difference when it comes to driving in France. This page (IN ENGLISH ) from Autoeurope explains other signs, laws and rules that are helpful to know if you plan to be driving in France (see, especially the CRAZY “right priority” rules!!!). You can pull your Dumb American card if you forget any of these—driving over here is pretty disorienting at first—but you might max out your karma points if you overuse that excuse.
This Wall Street Journal article entitled “With Yellow Lights, Timing Is Everything” by Jo Craven McGinty in 2015, is pretty interesting: “But traffic engineers in the U.S. have never agreed on how to time yellow lights so the interval between green and red is just right. Federal guidelines specify only that yellow-light intervals must fall between 3 and 6 seconds.” This site (IN FRENCH) says that French orange lights last 3 seconds in urban areas and 5 seconds in rural areas. So, U.S. and French yellow/orange lights are probably comparable. That said, you know how a second can count for or against you when it comes to a light.
Here is the traffic light nearest us. You might notice that the orange light lasts 3 seconds.
Weird French Sh!t
Know what these are?
A few months before I came to France for the first time, I was inducted into Pi Delta Phi, the National French Honor Society and was treated to the only French restaurant into which I had ever set foot, the only French restaurant I had ever seen, in Springfield, Missouri. I don’t think it even exists anymore! Of course, never actually having been to France and having zero idea what the French actually eat, I ordered the most stereotypically French thing (after frog legs) I could: Escargots. It is only thanks to that night that I had seen the above utensils before coming to France.
If you’ve eaten snails Stateside, you may have seen the snail tongs and fork, maybe even the little snail pan before but for me, it was entirely foreign. Now, I own my own set. It’s a good thing, too, because last spring, snails attacked the lettuces in my covid garden. To keep them from eating everything, I did my research and learned how to safely and humanely process snails to eat (I ate a bunch at New Year’s Eve as has become my tradition since living in Lyon the second time (2008-2010) but I still have a huge bag in my freezer).
Here (IN ENGLISH) is a video on how to use those utensils:
MERCI…
As usual, thank you so much for reading me. Please spread the word about THE JOJ SHOW! Stay tuned for Thursday when I answer a question about Asian foods in France, talk about this brilliant book I’m reading, bitch about the weird lockdown quirks and brag about the food we’re eating as the growing season starts its crescendo! À bientôt!