Thanks to globalization, no matter where you go these days, you will probably experience a lesser culture shock than the great explorers did a few centuries ago. Familiar brands and franchises took over the planet and local customs and lifestyles were exported well beyond their original boundaries. You can find Chinese food in Peru and enjoy an American burger in China, wear a Japanese kimono in Paris and watch the latest Bollywood hit in London.
But it’s not always the same. Or rather, it’s the same… just different.
Here are a few examples of tiny weird differences in France and North America.
I’m French, so bread is a staple for me. It took me a while to appreciate North American bread though. Okay, scratch that—I’ve never liked what people here call “bread”. To me, bread has crust and crumb. It can be made of rye or wheat and sometimes even has fancy additions such as walnuts or poppy seeds. Bread is bought fresh daily and devoured fast.
What North Americans typically call “bread” is what the French call “pain de mie” (pan bread) or “pain américain”. These thin slices of white or brown bread are soft and crumble easily. For some reason, kids here apparently like to have the crust cut off, while French kids love to nibble on baguettes’ hard crust. Go figure.
Pickled gherkins are another story. In Canada, monstrous slices of this vegetable are often offered with deli sandwiches. I had no idea what it was until I made the connection with the French cornichon, and realized it was the same vegetable, just a different species. In France, cornichons are small, crunchy and very sour while in North America, gherkins are big, spongy and sometimes sweet or pickled with dill.
On another topic… I skipped many physics classes back in High School so all these voltage and frequencies stories kind of went above my head. I did notice plug sockets were different—in Canada, they look like little smiley faces, in France, there are two big round eyes (and that’s exactly the kind of basic observation that did not give me a full mark on physic tests in High School!).
I didn’t care much about voltage when I moved to Canada. I mean, as long as we have power, why bother? And we do have a lot of hydro, we even sell it to our southern neighbours. All I had to do was to find a plug adapter and the French laptop I brought in 2004 worked just fine.
But as I discovered a few years later, voltage has its subtleties. In 2008, while on a trip in France, I bought an electric epilator in France—you know, one of these wonderful instruments of torture that pull the hair out. I brought it back to Canada, plugged it into the adapter… and for the first time realized what it meant to use a different voltage, e.g. 220 V in France and 120 V in Canada. Oh, my epilator still worked… it was just torturing me more. Instead of spinning fast, the rounded barrel on which were mounted tiny pairs of tweezers opening and closing at different intervals was running very slowly so you could feel each hair being pulled out. Ouch. It kind of defeated the purpose.
Still on the topic of electronics, note that France and Canada use different keyboard layouts, respectively AZERTY and QWERTY. When I first start looking for a job in Ottawa, I was given a typing test and failed miserably when I realized the keyboard I was typing on wasn’t my regular AZERTY. Note that a lot of bilingual people use the Canadian Multilingual keyboard layout for typing in both English and French (with proper accents) easily.
Finally, let’s talk about clothes shopping. Both sides of the Atlantic have a lot of stores and brands in common but you will have to get used to a new size system. Typical dress sizes in France go from 34 to 44 and in Canada, it is 0 to 14 or 24 to 34. In theory, a French 40 is a US 10 but in fact, no conversion chart will give you a correct equivalence. I find sizes in France invariably smaller, not to mention that I’m pretty sure clothes are cut differently. For instance, I find that when you go up and down a size in pants in Canada, only the waist is bigger or smaller. The thigh and leg width doesn’t seem to change. Maybe it’s because women have different body types across the ocean?
How about you? Did you notice these little changes when travelling or living abroad?
Hi Zhu Zhu,
Indeed, travelling today is less surprising than it was a few years ago – mainly in big cities. However, there are still some exceptions: many African countries still have that novelty feature, which makes it extremely interesting and surprising. But eventually, as it develops (as everything indicates it will), even Africa will become less surprising.
When I lived in Zambia, I noticed the absence of McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza hut and alikes (which was refreshing) but I found a much higher variety of Cadbury’s chocolates (they have delicious options). Coca-Cola tastes better in Africa too – it has less gas and more flavour.
Super article!
Cheers
I can’t think of a country I’ve been to where there weren’t any American fast-food franchises. Even China has KFC and McDonalds not far from Tiananmen Square!
I’ve heard there were different Coke flavour depending on the type of sugar used to sweeten it.
I can’t understand what they call bread in either. I mean, for a few delicatessen shops that sell crusty baguettes… I only find soft sliced bread that its made for the size my toaster.
That’s true, toasting “American bread” is easier because it actually fits into the toaster!
I notice the difference in clothing sizes from store to store right here in Canada! Drives me crazy…
I know! And the cuts make a huge difference too. I find most jeans are really low-cut…
Another? Cookies? Why don’t swiss or french eat cookies so to speak. Most don’t… I missed my cookies when I went to Europe..
Shoe sizes are the same as clothes.. 36-42, vs 6-10. Except I wear a 43 or size 11 and cannot find women’s shoes in Europe! Yup a big problem…
I’m a size 9 (and 10 sometimes depending on the model) and I always had a hard time finding my size in France.
I’m not a huge fan of French cookies, I like the American version better I think.
Oh I have so many problems with these little things! When I was still living with my parents, that was a big pain, because our appliances would originate from so many different places. My parents’ house in the Philippines have two different electrical systems: there are sockets that are 110 volts (for appliances that we bought in the USA and Japan) and 220 volts (for appliances from the Philippines and Europe). We have several universal adapters, and I really have no idea what shoe size fits me, because I have bought shoes from so many different countries that each measurement is just different.
And speaking of weird sockets, do you remember the Chilean plug? That is just bizarre!
Oh yeah, I remember now! 😆 Weird, isn’t it? I forgot how I noticed it because I don’t usually travel with electrical appliance (we didn’t have the smal laptop last time).
I don’t care about my shoes size as much as my clothing size, because with shoes it’s easy to just slip them on and see if they fits. It’s harder to judge with pants (or bras…).
So, I’d prefer traveling to more remote destinations to encounter those “shocks”! 😀 Nowadays, it’s really difficult to have a completely different travel experience in big cities. I find that most of the things in big cities are not that surprising anymore.
I don’t know… I’m easily amazed so I often get (and enjoy) small culture shocks 😉
I don’t really agree with ristinw, I don’t think we necesseraly need to travel very far from home or in remote areas to encounter a huge cultural shock. So far, I’ve only been to “western” countries (europe and north america) and boy, even when I’m going to London, I feel culture differences very strongly. And when I settled in Montréal for a while, the gap between my culture and the canadien one was so deep that sometimes I lost it. (although I’m very familiar to the north american culture, to have studied it, read it, watched it, knew it for quite a while). But it’s just isn’t the same. The little details like pickels or bread or more generally food are very important, but the most difficult for me was the different relations between people, the different ways to interact, it wasn’t the same at all. And when I arrive in an american city, I don’t see the same thing : I see tall buildings, huge cars, never ending streets and roads, different people… I don’t think I’m making myself very clear but I’m very passionate about the cultural gaps and I feel the globalization didn’t make a look alike world but at the contrary, it enhances the cultural identities.
I tend to agree with you. Some differences are very obvious when you travel (the difference between the Western world and Asia for instance) but there are tons of other subtle differences.
I also love noticing cultural differences and talking about them and I completely understand what you mean.
I hate the AZERTY keyboard even though I am able to type fairly well with it. I find it quite impractical, the “.” being hidden behind “;+shift” particularly eludes me: No one uses semi-colons anymore!
I’m a huge fan of QWERTY now, especially the Canadian multilingual. I love to be able to access the “.” easily!
I never know French use Azerty keyboard!
But now I think smartphones popularize ABCDEF keyboard, LOL…
The French like to be different 😉
Hi Zhu,
I am of course married to a French born husband so, not buying bread daily is like… serious biz. I had better have a good excuse if I don’t buy bread! 🙂
I honestly think that everything is just a question of trial and error when one lives abroad. May it be buying food,clothes, and whatnot. Going with brands helps a lot, once you have sampled things.
Whenever I type in French, I have to use the accent codes. I have a print out of them in my office.
The white and brown bread you buy in plastic mass produced bags isn’t so great, but most grocery stores have other kinds that are probably closer to France’s offerings. The best thing is to visit some of the independently owned bakeries though in town, yum!
For the pickles, I think that North Americans learned of them from Poles and other Eastern Europeans first of all, so that’s why there are Polish-style pickles here instead of French ones. That’s my guess, anyway.
It makes sense! Now I wonder when and where the French pickles became so small… Polish being our neighbours, you’d think we would have adopted Polish pickles too!
Pour le grand mystère du cornichon, je crois qu’en plus de la préparation, ce sont les variétés qui ne sont pas les mêmes. Ce qui expliquerait le pourquoi du comment, en France, on a plusieurs variétés de cornichons extra-fins, et que l’on ne cultive pas vraiment les gros !
Oui, c’est ce que ma mère m’a dit aussi (on a de grandes conversations très intellos dans la famille!). Elle me disait qu’en France, au contraire, il fallait que les cornichons soit petits, signe de leur “finesse”.
One electrical equipment I started using more was the fridge. I am into this nasty habit of cooking for 3 or 4 days in a row and putting it in the fridge. On Saturday, the shelves have fresh grocery. On Sunday it just has boxes n boxes of food. How awful is that. 🙂
The other thing I am quirky about is using the dryer. We don’t have those machines and I don’t like to use them. I have a clothes rack and a backyard although the sun is so weak. 🙂
I never used a dryer until I came to Canada. In France, there is just no room for an extra appliance! We usually hang the laundry above the bathtub (and yes, it sometimes drips on you during your shower) 😆
Hi Zhu
I really enjoy you website. I read about all the Irish coming to Canada because of the labour shortage. Why does not Canada do the same thing with France. I live in Saskatchewan and would like to see more French out here
J’aime la Francais!
Hi Alan,
Well, if you are in the “right” age bracket, as a Canadian, you can certainly get a working holiday visa for France! These visas are reciprocal, and that’s how I came to Canada as a French 😉