I’m probably going to piss off a lot of my readers today, because this applies to a lot of them. But I just don’t care. I really don’t. Your complaining is making my eyes bleed every single day, and I just don’t feel up to it anymore.
France. Wow! Is it possible to pick apart a country any more than you have? Unemployment, customer service, the weather, the people, the lack of, dare I say it, English speakers, the food, the taxes, all of it. There is not one single part of France that I haven’t seen torn apart in the Blogosphere. Not one.
You bitch about child care—how unavailable it is, how inconvenient the waiting lists are, how one must run two blocks in the rain to the door because there’s no parking. Oh dear! Funny, most of you aren’t actually working, so of course you’re not on the priority list. Have you even explored the other various methods of child care? The nounous? The au pair possibility? A crèche familiale? Better yet, have you, in this great plan you have of bashing France to make the quasi-unattainable dream of returning back the The States seem so great, priced out American child care?
Parking is a pet peeve for a lot of you, too—most of you who live in cities or larger towns with public transport. USE IT! Christ, whenever I go into one of those big places, I take advantage of the park and ride. Beating your head against the wall over parking in France is just stupid! So what if the bus stop is two blocks from your appointment! Do you honestly think you are going to park any closer?
Unemployment? Gah! This leads me right to my next bitch point. OK, it is hard to find a job in France. I’ll give you that. It’s also very easy to not find a job in France. And half of you aren’t even honestly looking too damn hard. I managed to find a job within months of being allowed to work. Me! In Haute Marne! Where there are cows, fields, and more cows! Why? Because I speak the language—French that is. If I had a penny for every time I heard (or read) someone complaining about their own French skills, or rather their lack thereof, I could afford to send you all back wherever it was that you came from. Look, I spoke maybe two words of French when I got here. I wasn’t brought up bilingual. I took classes, I learned, and oddly, I managed to integrate myself into France. I didn’t spend all my free time sitting around with my anglo, English-speaking friends pissing and moaning about how hard it all is. I bit the bullet, I adapted, I struggled, sure, but I got through it. And now? Wow! I speak French, not perfectly, no, far from that, but well enough to play a major role in the local tourism board, and the village’s comité de fêtes. I can get through an interview for the newspaper, write letters and even a dissertation for school, do everything by phone, and have a real conversation with my French friends—yes, one can have real French friends—but it’s rather hard to see that when you’re constantly stuck with your regular expat group speaking your native tongue all the time.
I don’t even have any more problems with customer service, including the powers that be at the prefecture. Why? I’ve learned how to speak to them. In addition to learning the spoken language here, you’ve got to know the unspoken one. You can’t expect them to be just like Americans doing the same job because—NEWS FLASH—You Ain’t In Kansas Anymore, Dororthy! Yes, they are pains in the ass. Yes it’s horrible that you have to run around doing everything for them. Deal! That’s how it is here. They’re not picking on you and your English-speaking-ness. They do it to everyone. That’s just how it is. Acknowledge and move the fuck on.
And as far as American food goes, the raw ingredients are out there! Go forth and learn how to actually cook something without just opening a box. Chicken wings? Doable! Cheese cake? Totally doable! Chocolate chip cookies? Cut up a friggin’ bar of chocolate instead of whining about how tiny the chips are here.
I just get so frustrated with all of you out there who come here, for whatever reasons, and then get so sad that it’s not at all like back home. And then you get stuck there, mired down in how French France really is. Of course it is! So shut up, and either adapt, integrate and move on with your life, or pack your shit and go the hell home—and complain how much you miss France. Which begs the question: Is it France, or is it YOU?
Oh, one other tiny little thing that really makes my skin crawl—those fields of tiny yellow flowers you see in May? It’s RAPE, not canola. Canola, as a word, didn’t even exist before 1978, when it was coined from Canada Oil Low Acid—indicating the low levels of uric acid. It was originally trademarked but is now considered a generic word for the OIL obtained from a very specific, now mostly genetically modified type of rape. .
Oh, I'm a bit afraid now.
I completely agree with you about everything. Of course.
Especially the rape.