Of Bathrooms and Cultural Differences

As a French, I have being taught that bath­room humour is a low form of humour. But I can­not hold it any longer (pun intended) – I’m Cana­dian now, and if I want to write an arti­cle about bath­rooms, well so be it.
So, are Cana­dian and French bath­rooms dif­fer­ent? You bet they are. And it is def­i­nitely part of the funny cul­tural dif­fer­ences you dis­cover when you travel or live in a for­eign country.

The Corner Store

In North Amer­ica, not spend­ing money is almost a sin – what, don’t you want to help the econ­omy? That’s prob­a­bly why every­thing is con­ve­niently set up so that peo­ple can shop any­where, any­time.
In France, con­sumers have to abide by retail­ers’ will. Not so long ago, stores were closed between noon and 2 pm so that shop­keep­ers could go have a lengthy French lunch.

Lipstick For The Girls

I fought hard with my par­ents for the right to put make-up on when I was in my very early teens and I intended to use that right fully. Pretty much all of my friends wore make-up (includ­ing some guys, but that’s another mat­ter). I felt naked with­out it, I felt grown-up and mature with it.

A Very French Taboo

If you really want to offend a French man, don’t ask him if you can see his wife naked – there is always the risk you will end up in one of Paris’ seedy swing­ing clubs. Instead, just ask him how much money he makes. That would cer­tainly stop the con­ser­va­tion dead.

Stuffs Canadians Don't Like (Part II)

Over­all, we are in a pretty good mood right now. Canada took gold medal against the U.S.A in men’s hockey at the Van­cou­ver 2010 Olympics, Sid­ney Crosby is now God, the snow is slowly melt­ing and Spring is com­ing soon. In short, the coun­try is doing fine. But eh, we still have our pet peeves, espe­cially with both the tax sea­son and the con­struc­tion sea­son com­ing soon…

I Can Vote!

On March 4^th, I went to accom­plish my duty as a new Cana­dian cit­i­zen: I voted for the first time in Canada at the provin­cial bylec­tion in Ottawa West-Nepean.I drove to the polling sta­tion slightly hon­ored I could now vote. I know, I’m weird.
By com­par­i­son, vot­ing in France is more cer­e­mo­ni­ous. I received my carte d’électeur when I turned 18 and I couldn’t wait to use it.

The Customer Is King

In France, the say­ing goes that “le client est roi”. But in fact, the cus­tomer is any­thing but a king: at best he is an idiot, a minor annoy­ance in your day. As this funny arti­cle on “How to play the French ser­vice game … and win” explains: “The cus­tomer is king. But we all know what they did to their royal fam­ily. The guil­lotined head of Louis XVI bounced across the Place de la Con­corde as a few thou­sand Parisians laughed at it”.

Stuffs Canadians Don't Like (Part 1)

Every­body knows that Cana­di­ans are peace­ful and polite peo­ple. Yet, I noticed my fel­low cit­i­zens can be quite annoyed by a few things… that are Cana­dian in essence.

Dis­claimer: this post is to be read with your morning/ after­noon cof­fee. It is not meant to be taken lit­er­ally. I know some Cana­di­ans are going to dis­agree (but I’m sure they will apol­o­gize about disagreeing).