CULTURAL SHOCK #3 – LANGUAGE BARRIER

Lost in Translation

One day, you decide to plan to study abroad and within six months you are sitting in a plane on your own wondering if you made the right decision. However, the most striking moment is when you land on the soil of another country and an officer asks you multiple questions about who you are and what are your intentions in another language. Once you passed that interrogatory and left the customs in your back, you are officially called an “alien.” But what does that mean exactly?

According to the United States Department of Homeland Security, an alien is “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, being alien means “belonging to a foreign country or nation.” According to me, being an alien is being misunderstood on a daily basis in an environment that does not look like, sounds like or feels like your original comfort zone.

Within the first 24 hours spent in Los Angeles, I had already been confronted to a few confused faces when trying to express myself in English. Let’s recall that the French academic system includes mandatory classes in British English. That means not so much about the kids but about the children, more about living in a flat and not in an apartment, and something like “bloody traffic” and not “f****** traffic.” In fact, once I eventually made a good circle of friends in L.A., a few of them had told me that they don’t understand a thing when British people talk to them.

Language barrier is one of the most illustrative examples of the many cultural differences we discuss in this blog. Nevertheless, you don’t realize it until you are put in a position in which the spoken language surrounding you is not your first language. Although I have always been very good in English at school and was often told that I speak like an American, attempting to converse with born-and-raised Americans became my own reality check.

I quickly learned the intricacies of translations and how it is made impossible at times to translate certain sayings or slang talk word-for- word from one language to the other. Within the first 48 hours, the language barrier had already made me feel like a distinct outsider. My first day of college was on December 15, 2008 at Santa Monica College. People had told me how Los Angeles is always under the sun. By listening to these great depictions of “Sunnyland,” I ended up walking to campus in the rain wearing flip-flops and a very light dress with a temperature of 50°F (I have only became comfortable with Fahrenheit degrees over my fourth year by the way).

Once I finally got to our Orientation Day, four different ladies went over a million facts explaining what we’re allowed to do or not as “aliens” living on an F1 student visa in America. Later on, each one of us had to meet one-on-one with a counselor in order to determine which classes to take for the semester.

Little did I know that they were already going to ask me to leave! “So, where do you want to transfer?” she asked. As a freshman entering the American educational system for the very first time, I didn’t understand why she wanted me to leave. At the time, I was convinced that I was going to earn my bachelor’s degree in a community college. And here she is, asking me where I want to “transfer.” It took me about a year to make my choice and to actually understand the differences between state colleges, community colleges and prestigious universities.

This episode was only one of many cultural shocks I have experienced in terms of language barrier. A few days later, as I wanted to purchase my books for the semester, I kept looking for the bookstore on the map and landed in front of the library. In reality, I thought library meant the same thing as “librairie” (aka bookstore) in French, when really it meant this place where you go to study.

Eventually, I caught up with this lack of vocabulary by going to school in L.A. and reading a lot. However, some of the issues I faced with this language barrier were not only a matter of definitions and translations. It also impacted my social life. Since I have always been good with languages and music, I earned the quality of replicating the sounds of languages very well too. At some point, people would not believe that I was actually French.

Have you ever heard an American trying to replicate the French accent? Watch

This is what every single American I’ve met was expecting me to sound like. I was told almost every time I spoke that I had an accent, but it sounded like a Spanish accent, or a Canadian accent, or an accent from the Mid-West, the Valley and even from Michigan. My grandmother even told me that I had to force myself to get my French accent back otherwise I wouldn’t be as charming as I could be. It became so out of hands that I even met a few people who asked me for my passport in order to prove my nationality!

Later on, I became ashamed of reading in class because I knew that people would pick up on my accent as soon as I would miss an intonation or else. Most of the time people tell you that it is “so charming!” than to have an accent, but when you are constantly reminded of your differences, it can become quite oppressing. A few years ago, I kept trying to tell my boss about anime in front of this other intern, but she understood enemies because of my accent. Once they finally got it, the intern started laughing very loud and telling me how weird she thought I was for a second.

Why weird? Is it really that disturbing to hear something different than what you have always been used to? Another lesson that I’ve learned by living abroad is to consider foreigners’ struggles when they try to fit in a culture much different than the one they were raised in.

Do you agree?

CULTURAL SHOCK #2 – FOOD

The Dinner Party

After I moved to California, it took me about three months before building a decent social life for myself. Once I finally made a few friends, I decided to plan a dinner party in order to get to know each other even better and introduce some of the French cuisine to my dear American friends. As you may know, traditional French dinners are considered as one of the most popular social activities, for which the entire meal consists of six different courses.

TYPICAL DINNER MENU

• Aperitif – this consists of a few drinks accompanied by a few hors-d’oeuvre in order to spark some conversations, which usually helps defining the seats arrangement of the dinner table.
• Entrée – typically a soup, a small salad or a tiny appetizer to tease your guests’ appetites.
• Plat (aka main course) – meat (can be fish) with vegetables, pasta or rice, but rarely all at once!
• Cheese – at this point you can count 10 cigarettes, three bottles of wines and a series of loud debates over politics, culture and the latest gossip of the nearest neighborhood. You will usually choose from a variety of three or four different types of cheeses and eat it with a fresh piece of bread.
• Dessert – depending on the consistence of the main course you will either enjoy a homemade cake, some French pastries from the bakery that one of your guests cordially brought as a thank you gesture, some fruits or ice cream scoops. All of this can be served with tea or coffee.
• Digestif – in order to digest properly, you would usually have one last drink such as a fruit liquor or a brandy.

You can only imagine what a shock it was for my American peeps to discover what a feast my dinner was on such a random occasion. I heard “Is my calendar off or did I miss Thanksgiving?” One of them even asked me if I was faking it and had bought everything from a caterer. Among all of these questionable comments, the one that disturbed me the most at first was “Well, I thought this would be an hour long at most and Nick wanted us to meet him at the club, so can we try to hurry it up?” This time around, I was the one who turned around and looked at him like this:

On top of showing off your talent as a chef, the traditional dinner party is about demonstrating your social skills and your ability to talk about a wide range of topics. In fact, back in the 18^th century, being invited to dinner parties proved your level of wit. Today, if dinner parties are very popular as a social activity in France, sitting down every day at dinner with your family is another cherished ritual. This is often another occasion for each family member to talk about the highs and lows of one another to make everyone feel good about their selves.

In comparison, the typical American family dinner tends to be very succinct. After researching about the cultural significance of both dinner and food in America, Clotaire Rapaille found that American families rarely sit down to eat together because of their busy schedules. “When they did sit down together, there was often a TV playing. The meal consisted of a takeout pizza or a pre-prepared entrée. Conversation consisted of a fast debriefing on the day and then silence. The meal was over in fifteen minutes or less,” says Rapaille.

Back at my first dinner party in America, I didn’t understand the fact that my guests wanted to rush from one course to the other in order to wrap up the dinner. However, it is important to remember the fact that as kids, these guys were not used to sit every night at lingering family dinners as a favorite ritual like us Frenchies.

Later on, I was talking about it with one of my American peeps and he said something that stuck with me, “While Americans eat to live, French live to eat.” This really resonated with me because part of the French culture is this adoration for food. When I was a little girl, one of my dad’s favorite activities with both my sister and I was to go to the farmers’ market every Sunday and make us discover all these vegetables, fruits and cheeses that we didn’t know about. In reality, it was another way for him to educate our pallets a bit more in order to acquire these cultural French traits.

What about you? Are dinner parties an important part of your culture’s social activities? Have you experienced a dinner where you’re confused about the food or the way it’s handled?

CULTURAL SHOCK #1 – RELATIONSHIPS

The Dating Process

Have you ever gone out to a bar, met someone, kissed someone and instinctually started calling her or him your boyfriend or girlfriend? I did! When I moved to America, I learned a lot about cultural differences in terms of intimate relationships.

Within the first three months of my American journey, I met Tatiana and Cecilia, two European girls who had grown up in the United States most of their lives. The first night we finally all went out together, I met a man and after we had engaged in conversation for a couple of hours, we ended up kissing. While on my way home with my friends, we started talking about the night and describing our different encounters. I told them about this person I met and finished by saying: “I guess I have a boyfriend now!” They both turned around and looked at me like this:

Both of them were shocked because my dating theory did not resonate with the culture they had been raised in. While French people consider a kiss or two as the beginning of an exclusive relationship that one would immediately commit to, Americans go through a particular process called “dating” before getting involved in a serious love relationship.

In a blog post published on BBCAmerica.com, Ruth Margolis compares the American dating process to a business strategy meant to find the perfect mate. “It’s like a job or a house hunt, which means investigating more than one prospect at a time,” Margolis says. Since I would hate for my European fellows to embarrass themselves when socializing in America, here are the step-by-step guidelines of the dating process in comparison to the one we are familiar with:

FRANCE

Step 1 – 1-3 kisses / Step 2 – Meet my new  boyfriend / Step 3 – (If it works out) Let’s move in / Step 4 – Let’s get married / Step 5 – Let’s have kids

AMERICA 

Step 1 – Let’s go on a date (i.e. movies, bowling, concert, etc.) / Step 2 – Let’s go on another date (If it works out) and let’s kiss / Step 3 – After a few other dates let’s go to the bedroom / Step 4 – Meet my friends / Step 5 – Meet my family / Step 6 – THE TALK (very important step) Are we exclusive? / Step 7 – (If we reach this step) Meet my new boyfriend / Step 8 – Let’s move in / Step 9 – Let’s get engaged / Step 10 – (If it still works out) Let’s get married / Step 11 – Let’s have kids

This means that there is a gap of five steps between the French courtship and the American one in order to call one’s love a boyfriend or a girlfriend and expect loyalty to one another. Whether it is a man or a woman, two men or two women, we are still all talking about a relationship gravitating around a thing called love. However, by stepping on a different continent, the rules drastically change. This is one of many CULTURAL DIFFERENCES.

Cultural differences affect many day-to-day aspects of people’s lives in the world such as language, politics, food, work, but also LOVE. In his book, The Culture Code, Clotaire Rapaille explains that our cultural imprints are defined by our cultural adolescence, hence the reaction of my two European friends when I mentioned the word “boyfriend” so early. Although they are both respectively French and Italian, they grew up in California throughout their adolescence.

One of Rapaille’s studies about cultural differences focuses on love. After conducting numerous focus groups and participant-observations among both the American culture and the French culture, he discovered that these two populations have very distinct approaches to love. In fact, it illustrates very well these different concepts of dating when comparing France to America.

In France, love and pleasure are very much intertwined, while the notions of true love and Mr. Right is irrelevant. In comparison, Americans tend to make love rhyme with a quest for perfection. “A woman searches for Mr. Right because she believes the stories she reads in books or watches at the movies; she finds someone she believes she can change into her ideal man. (…) A man searches for Ms. Perfect for many of the same reasons; he finds a woman who excites him, he believes it will stay this way forever,” Rapaille says.

Nevertheless, all cultures constantly change and evolve throughout time. We are discussing dating process and love relationships in our current society, but will it be the same 10 to 50 years from now? Probably not. For example, online dating is considered as a major cultural shift primarily adopted in America due to significant technological advances, which first emerged on this same continent. This changed the game quite a bit too.

If there are a tremendous amount of online dating sites in America, there are maybe one or two popular ones in France. In reality, the online dating trend did not take off because it demystifies the original purpose of traditional courtship, which French people are very fond of. Ultimately, intimate relationships should not be based off the number of boxes checked in order to match one’s criteria representing the ideal mate.

Now that you understand better the American culture of dating, here is a valuable tip for you.

TIP: By being the educated outsider, YOU have the choice to either:

1. Commit to the American “dating process” – “I want to live the experience”
2. Affirm your own way of courting somebody or being courted yourself – “If you want to date me, your step 6 is my step 2 so we’re already exclusive. Is that clear?”
3. OR you can benefit from the cultural knowledge you acquired by living abroad (or reading my blog), and find the perfect balance between both approaches in order to accommodate to both cultures. “There is no right or wrong. If we like each other, let’s try it out and find a common ground.”

Have you already made your choice? Tell me your story!