"Quel putain de bordel de merde," Regine's whispered in my ear. The comment was directed at the supervisor who had just informed us we would have to work late. I found it hard to understand why this French middle school teacher had decided to come to work at this archaeological dig in Southwestern France in the first place. Upon returning to our communal room, she laughed impishly, then started inflating her mattress with an uncannily loud foot pump, waking, I'm sure, everyone trying to sleep. We had spent all of our Saturday morning working, from 6 am to noon. Exhausted after a grueling week of eight hour days in the sun, we were glad to be off work, but not tremendously excited about unwinding for the weekend in the town of Salses-le-Chateau.
Nobody ever visits Salses-le-Chateau. I missed my train stop the first time I went by because, I'm sure, I could not believe that conglomeration of rancid salt factories was going to be home. We diggers were the highlight of the summer for the locals. All of the old people eyed us as we walked by their sidewalk folding chair stations, but they could barely muster a polite "bonjour." Salses was not big on politeness, or, for that matter, on sanity. More than one inhabitant wasn't playing with a full deck, or perhaps I should say, wasn't playing with all the boules. Some mornings we were greeted by bloody bones in the street, courtesy of the butcher/serial murderer. One local insisted I take a photograph of his doll and a baguette posed on a bench in the town square. At first I thought they were putting on a show for les etrangers, but I came eventually to see the sincerity of French lunacy.
Back in the States now, I cringe at the pretentious sound of "I spent the summer working at an archaeological dig in France." It's the same pretentiousness by association in which the French revel. The French people I met quite simply recoiled at the thought of the United States. Prejudice. Injustice. Immensity. Big cities. Bad food. Huge tobacco industry. No healthcare. Fascism. Puritanism. The litany never ends. French disdain for the U.S. is, well, a cliche. Everybody's heard about snobby Parisians, and I expected to be greeted with that little upturn of le nez that the French had turned into an art. But I didn't expect to hear declarations like, "Oh, you're American? I don't like Americans. What I mean to say is, my family doesn't go to McDonald's and all." While I confess that even I was a little disgusted by the proliferation of the Golden Arches in L'Hexagone -- I hear they're still fighting back in Alsace-Lorraine (you know, they always seem to be fighting in Alsace-Lorraine) -- the hypocrisy of the French knows no bounds when it comes to Americans and America. After nearly retching at the mere thought of a Royale with Cheese, the French art history students at the dig would head right for Quick, their home-grown greasy hamburger chain, to chow down on official "French" American food. And how they bastardize and butcher our proud, if lowbrow cuisine! The European mental assocation of french fries with mayonnaise is simply unfathomable. Quentin Tarantino is right, they do "smother 'em in that shit." What about the venerable baguette? The croque-monsieur? Crepes? Mais non! Instead, they scarf up frozen pizza and hamburgers at the local "hypermarche." Hah! You silly Americans -- you only have supermarkets. Ours are so big, we have to call them hypermarkets! Never mind your average Frenchman in a hypermarche would have no qualms about decrying huge American commercialization.
In matters of French culture, it all comes down to bread. I knew this from my first stay in France, when I had worked in a bakery, making croissants from scratch. This particular bakery posted a prominent sign on the door which proclaimed, "Bread. It's even better when you eat it." Obviously the brainchild of some advertising genius. A slogan like that was sure to lure people back from the grocery store to the local bakery. But I couldn't really understand the need for a national back-to-the-boulangerie campaign, especially in light of the vitriol the French have for American-style mass-produced food. Besides, who doesn't prefer fresh bread from a bakery to those shrink-wrapped slabs of sand in the grocery store? Simone, one of my former teachers in France, told me -- in that wistful, melodramatic tone of reverie the French adore -- the aroma of baking bread means something special to a French person. The smell, she noted, is deeply rooted in his childhood sensory memory. My friend Cecile, French through and through, was decidedly au contraire, forever debunking Simone's baguette mysticism for me. Cecile's favorite type of bread -- preferable to any other variety -- is Wonder bread, a bread made, judging by its taste, entirely in a petri dish. I mean, imitation American white bread? Surely the real thing is bad enough. But perhaps the Wonder bread craze has historical roots. No one carries a grudge longer than the French. Marie Antoinette's infamous "let them eat brioche," which somehow became "cake" in translation, referred to refined white bread, which, of course, none of the peasants could afford. Well, the gap between the aristocrats and the peasants has closed, leaving pretty much all of France in a terminally boring middle class, but perhaps the hoi polloi are just getting back at ol' headless Marie. They'll show her, they'll eat white bread -- with a vengeance.
But, you protest, it's not their fault; it must be American Cultural Imperialism. Well, that's a bunch of merde, if you ask me. The French flocked to one-stop shopping stores all on their own; they seem to be quite happy in their hypermarkets and their 7-Elevens. Now, it wouldn't bother me a bit if these things didn't exist in either country; pretty soon, the entire world will be shopping at identical Wal-marts, Barnes and Nobles, and Starbuckses. That would indeed be a shame. But the French, having abandoned their reason to be snobby and patronizing, cling to an imagined cultural superiority that borders on the absurd. Camus would laugh his ass off. Admittedly, they have maintained in recent history some truly prideworthy institutions;: universal health care and free higher education come to mind. One hopes that, in the interests of diversity, they will continue to resist some of the more negative American cultural values with greater significance than fast food. (One hopes that the American global cultural offering does not consist primarily of processed meats, self-help bookstores, and blue light specials.)
Hypocritical culinary pretentiousness is only a symptom of French ambivalence to American influence. Somehow, I can still accept that France is the culinary center of the universe, sullied as it may be by Quick drive-thrus. A single meal prepared by a masterful French chef has the power to protect that conception. But I've been slapped by the hand that once fed me. What do I say to my French friend standing by her white bread and her authentic American French fries produced by the authentic American company that doesn't exist in America? And what do I say when she tells me that she never liked Americans, but now that she has met me, she knows they're not that different from her? Sounds familiar, non? "I met an American once, and she was nice. Really, she's just the same as us." Those French always have been progressive thinkers.

"I vould like three balls. Dis vun, dis vun, und dis vun. Ja?"
For any employee of Haagen-Dazs of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this order realizes your worst nightmare. Having spent my summer as a 'Dazs assistant manager, I'm all too familiar with the phenomenon which accompanies the horrible sound: the dreaded arrival of the German tourists.
Of all the foreign tourists I had to tolerate in my tenure at Haagen-Dazs, Germans are by far the worst. These globe trotting youths wander in, sporting their 'I Luv NY' T-shirts and bleached hair, as if they were attracted by some mysterious compulsion. Perhaps it has something to do with the Germanic ring to the name "Haagen-Dazs." Perhaps the Germans feel that this charming little ice cream boutique is some sort of cultural haven for them. Of course, they must know better than anyone else that "Haagen-Dazs" means absolutely nothing in German. Or Danish for that matter -- the map on their pint containers centers on Copenhagen. To top it all off, the ice cream is manufactured in New Jersey. The alleged Teutonic origin of Haagen-Dazs is a sham, pure and simple. But that doesn't faze the Germans.
The German method of ice cream ordering differs radically from the standard American form, a distinction which complicates communications efforts. The central difference involves the units of ice cream measurement. Rather than scoops, Germans order what are known as "balls" -- essentially the same as scoops, only considerably smaller. Naturally, given the already substantial language barrier, the balls concept exacerbates the cultural misunderstanding. Your German tourist points at a flavor. "Would you like that in a cup or in a cone?" Since the puzzlement on his face warns you that you don't want to go through the painful process of figuring it iout, you decide to put it in a cup. Big mistake. Not only did Heinz not want a cup, but he also wanted the ice cream in a tiny ball. And he wasn't finished; he also wanted three other flavors. German tourists never want just one flavor. If you present the German with a single-scoop cup, a look of sheer horro contorts his face, as if you were feeding him wienerschnitzel without the kraut. He stammers, "Nein, nein, nein!" and proceeds to run around the store like some kind of Swiss wind-up doll, yodeling and pointing at all the flavors he wanted. Of course, you still don't know what kind of cone or which size he wants.
Now, I'm not Germanophobe. I'm more than half German myself. But you try dealing with a gang of snobby German youths who all look like Dieter and all want a sampler platter of flavors while there's a line of ice cream-craving tourists out the door. You'd be ready to tell every one of them just what he could do with his balls, too.
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