Cultural Identity and Intercultural Communication: Paris, LT

For this blog post I did not really go out and interview people with these questions, instead I reflected more on prior conversations that I have had with my French friends where we talked about the differences between our cultures.

Since I arrived here, I have been able to reconnect with a few of my old friends, that I made back when I lived overseas. While talking to everyone I feel like communication was clear, however when talking about the other person’s culture we would have to occasionally ask each other how to say specific expressions and vocabulary. For example while talking about the teen drinking cultures, my friend tried to describe the action of binge drinking to me because I didn’t recognize the word in french and in the end we just started using the word ‘binge’ in a sort of Franglish because we found that there was no better way to describe it in French.

When I first arrived here, before moving into the University dorms, I stayed with family friends who I had not seen for 6 years. They have have three children, a girl my age and two sons one 3 years younger and the other 8 years younger. While talking to the The youngest, the father, and the daughter we started to compare the differences between our cultures. We broached many topics from how everything is physically larger in America, from the portions of food, to the houses and cars. They believed this is the case because of the physical expanse of space that is the United States. We also talked about the different teen drinking and smoking cultures. Here in France many people smoke, and many of them started very young. It is not uncommon to see a 12 year old here smoking outside of school, although it is illegal for them to do so. Although smoking is not uncommon in American it certainly is viewed in a very different light and isn’t a seen as ingrained into the culture. Here it is not uncommon to see people smoking while outside walking, while in a cafe, while eating breakfast, lunch or dinner, just everywhere. The streets are strewn with cigarette butts.

The father and daughter were also very interested by American politics and the elections that are coming up. They were especially interested in learning about what Americans truly think about Donald Trump. The reason they asked was because in their news they have been hearing a lot about the uproar Trump is causing. I explained my views but I found it very interesting that even here in France they hear and talk about the political goings on the States.

The second friend that I got to reconnect with I had not seen or heard from in 9 years. The part of our conversation that really stuck with me was the idea of American Fraternity parties. My friend asked me if Fraternity parties are really like the parties that are depicted in the movies, with students drinking all day and all night, doing drugs and partying all day. It was interesting to hear that many of the young people here watch American movies and believe that it is a correct representation of American life.

One final thing I wanted to add is this movie poster that is currently being advertised everywhere. When I first saw it I was very amused at all the very blatant stereotypes of American culture and America seen in this poster. With the background a depiction of the Midwest, the cowboy hats, Indian costume and American flag draped over the woman's knees, we can see that there stereotypes represent a real Cowboy and Indian image of America.