You had me at "bonjour"

Okay - so I vowed when starting this blog it wouldn't be overloaded with posts about how things are so much better here in France.  Nor would it be a bunch of complaining about how much I miss things about the  US. I'd like to think it'll be a fairly balanced view of both cultures noting differences between the two.  However, this week France scored a win in my book.  It's all a matter of manners.

I was walking to the post office yesterday which is about a 10 minute walk.  A couple minutes into the walk, I pass a young girl who looked to be about 12 or so coming home for lunch from school.  As we pass, she makes eye contact with me and says "bonjour". I return the greeting and smile back.  As I continue on the short walk, I pass another girl, just about the same age.  She does exactly the same - looks me right me right in the eye as I pass here and gives me a sincere "bonjour".  I am pretty blown away.  Although I know that greetings are much more formal in France, the fact that two young adolescents showed such respect is pretty cool.  And it's not like their parents were standing right next to them.  If they had walked right past me without saying anything, no one one have known.  But there is something with the way they have been raised and cultural expectations that has made this an automatic reaction for them.

If anything, I'm used that uncomfortable feeling of not knowing if you should make eye contact or not as you pass someone.  You sort of wait until the very last minute trying to see what the other person will do. Even if eye contact is made, rarely is anything said. It's a much different feeling.  Of course, part of this is that we are living in a smallish town where the pace is a bit slower than in a larger city.  Nevertheless, I am grateful that this is a custom that my kids will see on a daily basis here.
     
It made me think about how I'd want Audrey and Thomas to interact with others as they get older.  In fact, this has been quite notable over the past couple months.  In France, a kiss on each cheek is customary for women as a greeting.  This goes for children as well.  So Audrey has been expected to give kisses to adults (family and good friends) which I could see really had her off guard at first. It's definitely nothing she would have done in the states. As a 2 year old, she can sometimes refuse to do things that she is asked and I have found myself  insisting that she begins to adhere to these cultural norms out of respect.  It's a fine balance - respecting her comfort with this new custom and the cultural expectation.  Over the past 7 weeks, I have noted that she's starting to pick up on the kiss - sometimes now doing it without the nudge we had to give before.  What keep me insisting is knowing that in 10 years, I want her to be that young girl greeting a woman on her way to the post office.

Okay France - you won me over on this one.  But make no mistake, I have a couple of complaints already.  Like finding a decent box of cereal.  Okay, I know this is the dietitian in me but the amount of refined carbohydrates is a typical breakfast meal is hard to swallow (literally!). But that's a whole other post altogether.

One final note - today WAS Audrey's first day at "school".  After 4 days of an adaptation regimen, she officially became the newest child at the garderie in La Wantzenau. Thanks to her dad who made a bunch of in-person visits to various agencies to move the very slow process along.  Luckily she's loving every minute of it.