My
daughter is studying French at the university she attends. She’s taking it for
fun since she needs some extra units. Since she studied in high school for
three years, she’s also hoping that it will also be an easy A.
One
of the things she likes about the class is her instructor’s focus on cultural
differences. (Since we’ve lived in several different places, we’ve experienced
many taboos the hard way—breaking them by accident.)
Her
professor has talked about living in Paris, about her homesickness, which
resulted in overeating, and about a Parisian friend’s response. When she saw
this friend after her bout of homesickness, the friend said, “Tu es grosse. Ca
va?” Which in English is “You’re fat. How are you?” Of course, Ariel’s American
prof nearly burst into tears. Later, she realized her friend wasn’t trying to
hurt her feelings. It was just frank. (France was peopled by the Franks.) It
was honest. As the prof admitted, it wasn’t like she could hide her larger
size. And it did motivate her to do something about it.
One
of the cultural virtues of the South, in which they take great pride, is
politeness. The other day I was very impressed by it. A little old lady had
stopped her car in the middle of the road. None of the ten cars lined up behind
her (through an intersection) could get around her. But through the multiple
lights, no one honked. Finally, a woman got out of her car and walked to the
old lady’s car to see what was up. (I was traveling in the other direction and
could see that nothing was up—the woman was staring around herself—either an
Alzheimer’s situation or something worse. I felt very pleased that no one was
making the situation worse by selfish honking. Score one for politeness
virtues.
However,
sometimes virtues become vices. The same day I was driving home and a light
turned red. Cars stopped and waited. The light turned green. The car in the
front didn’t move. And it didn’t move. At first, I thought, “Oh, some poor
person killed their car or has car problems.” Until I realized that the person
was texting—this was pretty apparent because it could be seen through the
window. And still no one honked their horn. Twelve cars waited and waited. I
finally honked, and the person looked up, put their phone down, and the light turned
red. ACK!
