Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LEARNING TO UNDERSTAND
(AND LOVE) THE FRENCH
Culture shock can be reduced considerably if you know
something about how the French see themselves, both
in public life and in private life. Among the many helpful
sources for this topic, the insights of Raymonde Carroll in
Cultural Misunderstandings
('
Evidence Invisible
' in French)
have been my biggest inspiration. A French woman trained
as an anthropologist and married to an American, Dr Carroll
has developed an excellent approach to avoiding false
assumptions when studying cultural attitudes.
Cultural analysis is an act of humility, says Dr Carroll, in
which you attempt to forget, for a moment, your own way
of seeing and briel y replace it with another way, knowing
you can never adopt that other way, only assert its validity.
One can live a long time in another culture (or one's
own) and never understand it. It is too easy to treat opaque
situations as if they were transparent. But there is a wonderful
'aha!' quality about understanding
why
people act the
way they do. Once you 'get it' your attitude immediately
changes. And the more you 'get
it', the more you can enjoy the
cultural differences.
As Raymonde Carroll explains,
“… one of the great advantages
of cultural analysis, aside from
Ce qu'il y a de plus étranger en
France, pour les Français, c'est
la France.
(What is most foreign
in France, for the French, is
France.)
—Modeste Mignon Balzac
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