Hee Hee Hee, Hon Hon Hon: Notes on Amusing the French

One of my early visits to France included a week-long home stay with a French family. During this first experience with total immersion I learned a number of things, chief among them: my humor did not translate.

Being an incredibly awkward human being, I was constantly knocking things over, spilling things, and being a general dunderhead. After each accident, my adopted family would assure me, "Ce n'est pas grave," (It's not a big deal) to which I replied with a very serious expression, "Si. C'est grave" (Yes. It is in fact a huge deal). Not understanding that I was trying to make a joke, they would repeat, "Mais non, ce n'est pas grave," (Seriously--don't worry about it) and then I would repeat, "Si c'est grave." (I'm totally worried about it). Their confusion and my deadpanning would continue until I backed slowly into my room, closed the door, and wept into my travel journal about how mizundastood I was.

So you don't have to go through the same shame cycle, I've listed some of my most and least successful jokes for you to consider before you encounter your next Frenchy.

Des Bonnes Blagues:

-When someone is cutting onions and nagging you about your love life, retort, "Occupes-toi de tes oignons!" (Literally: Occupy yourself with your onions! Colloquially: Mind your own business!) It's like hitting two birds with one stone; they chortle so much they forget to keep reminding you that he's just not that into you, and, bonus, they keep chopping the onions that will inevitably create a delicious dish.

-When you're in someone else's home for Sunday lunch, and they ask you if it's alright if they light up a cigar, reply, "Faites comme chez vous..." (Roughly: Do as you would if you were in your very own home) as magnanimously as possible, accompanied by a sweeping hand motion.

-For some reason, the phrases, "Pas mal" (not bad) and "Mais SI!" (that's not TRUE!) get laughs-a-minute when said with a deep voice and a slight sneer. Try to interject them whenever possible. When presented with a glass of water, hold it up to the light, swirl it a bit, take a deep whiff, sip and then pronounce, "Pas mal..." with the corners of your mouth turned down. When someone pronounces that Sarkozy isn't that great of a president, slap your knee, widen your eyes and yell menacingly, "Mais SI!" and then refuse to defend your answer. They'll love it.

-It takes a LOT of time and explanation, and you may not want to make the investment, but the pay-offs of teaching a French person about "that's what she said" can be huge. (That's what she said.)

Des Mauvaises Blagues...

-"Ta mère" (your mother) jokes are taken far, far, FAR more seriously on this side of the pond. When you say "ta mère," the person to whom you are speaking has a tendency to believe you are actually talking about their actual mother. So if someone says, "Beurk, cette clementine est dégeulasse," (Yuck, this clementine is disgusting) do NOT reply, "Oui, dégeulasse comme ta mère" (Yes, disgusting like your mother).  Trust me on that one. 


-For your own good, just avoid the subjects of cats (les chats) in all situations. It's far too easy to mistakenly make the masculine article feminine, and to pronounce the "t" at the end of the word. Before you know it, you're not talking about cats at all, but rather a vulgar name for female anatomy. For example: if your host is joking that the rabbit you're enjoying for lunch was actually the neighbor's pet, but she had made him so mad that he shot and cooked it, do NOT reply, "What are you going to eat next week, her cat?" Choose bird. Or fish. Or some other innocuous creature. Leave cats out of it.

Decapitated Shaver Man

In an apartment full of peeling wallpaper, student-dorm-issue wool blankets and a host of creepy critters, this little guy is a welcome dose of personality. He lives in my salle de bains and I'm pretty sure his name is Guy Flaubert de Montluçon (yes, he's a noble). I like him because he's doughy like my countrymen, he really likes to shave, and he has a healthy amount of hair for his age. I'll miss him when I go.

Stylish? Moi?

This morning I was mining my blog stats (because if anything gets me going in the morning, it's statistical analysis... um, I'm serious) and saw that some traffic had been sent my way by Melissa at Fashion Me French. Turns out this Lyonnaise crowned me with a Stylish Blog Award two weeks ago, and I failed to notice because I was really busy stuffing my face with gelato and breasola-grana-rucola pizza for a fortnight. Merci Melissa!

Melissa has obviously never witnessed my sartorial choices in person, or she probably would have thought twice about giving me this particular award. Fart of the Week was much more appropriate.

Nevertheless, my duties as a "Stylish Blogger" are to tell you seven things about myself and then to pass the honor on to another worthy blogger. Without further ado, here are seven tidbits you always knew you never needed to know about Neenuh:

1. I have developed an appreciation for cured pork products. Before coming to France I was a very good Jew and abstained from pigs aside from the extremely sporadic piece of bacon. But les cochons are a bit more difficult to avoid here in Franceland. Lardons, little flavorful cubes of delicious bacon, are freaking everywhere, in boeuf bourguignon, tartiflette, and oeufs en meurette, to name but a few of my favorite local dishes. Lardons were my gateway drug. Now I'm eating... (you're going to want to cover your eyes, Tribesters)...  saucisse sèche with delightful noisettes sprinkled throughout. It's like kosher salami but better. The thought of eating a pork chop or any big chunks of nitrate-free pork still makes me gag, so that means I won't be smite-d with a lightening bolt, right?

2. I watched a lot of crime shows growing up, and as a result I spent much of my childhood free time practicing going up and down our creaky stairs without making a noise. This skill has come in handy exactly twice. I also make a point to leave a good set of fingerprints whenever I'm in a car just in case the driver decides to abduct me.

3. Sometimes I dance like this:

4. My parents sent me a box of sundry items this fall that contained glasses I stopped wearing my sophomore year of college, Twilight fan magazines and posters, and a tube of Gold Bond medicated foot cream. Thanks Ma and Pa!

5. I miss things about Portland, OR every day of my life, including but not limited to: the man who would play his bagpipes while unicycling outside of the Saturday farmers market; the bike racks around which someone knitted a bike rack sock; the thick plastic glasses, ironic haircuts and all the plaid; our pink velour pullout couch that wasn't all that comfortable but I really liked having a pink velour couch; getting shamed for not frequenting my local independent video store and not using organic laundry detergent and not composting and actually bathing every day; Dingo the Clown Wizard and his open mic nights. But what I miss most of all is the fat cat that hung out around our apartment and always tried to sneak in through an open window while I was sleeping.

6. I'm constantly worried about the Dude getting lost. On our last day in Paris he told me he was going to meet me at the front doors to the Centre Pompidou at 3:00. I got there at 2:50. At 3:15 I figured he had been transfixed by the vulgar paintings on the second floor. At 3:30 I thought he must have found someone really interesting to talk to who was actually a witch in disguise, and he was powerless to leave of his own accord. At 3:45 I was convinced that the plexiglass tubes on the outside of the building had transformed into suctionators and he was being Augustus Glooped to lord-knows-where. At 4:00, I vowed that if I ever saw him again I was going to kill him, but then reneged when he finally arrived at 4:05 and I got lost in his pretty blue eyes.

7. Yesterday I asked my students to tell me what they did during their vacations. One told me, "I stolen seengs." I thought perhaps I had misheard, and asked, "T'as volé quelque chose? T'es un voleur?" I pantomimed snatching something. He affirmed. "What did you steal?" I asked him. "Zuh shooing-gum." "But why? Don't you have money?" "Si, j'ai des sous," he said, "boot ay no want pay foh zuh shooing-gum." This is the same student, by the by, who when I asked for New Years resolutions told me he wanted to, "fook more my wayf." I guess that's not really something about me, aside from the fact that nothing gives me more joy than transliterating the accents of my students.

I now pass the Stylish baton to my girl Emily of Emily in the Glass, who writes so beautifully it hurts. Plus I know for a fact that she is indeed a very stylish lady, and is the owner of a wool coat with the fanciest silk lining I've ever seen.

Freak Show

The sun managed to burn through the morning's gloom for a few hours, and I was enjoying a reappearance of those rare golden rays. Then, out of nowhere, things got all Brigadoon-like. One block it was cheerful sunshine, and the next: boom. Thick, sinister fog.

It was the perfect time to check out the cemetery that's a block away from my abode. From the number of people I see frequenting it, going to the cemetery has to rank among the Top Five Digoin Pastimes. I've been wanting to visit for many moons, but I felt too conspicuous with my awkward gait and my pink camera sock and my Americaness. But fog provided the perfect cover for some stealth creepy photography.

One time I walked into my 11th grade English class and my teacher greeted me with, "Hey Freak Show." As I snaked my way through the crypts of Digoin's dearly departed I thought, "Yup. That's about right."

Neenuh, According to the French

"Hi! Nice to meet you! You're so pale!"

This was said to me by a French 20-something who I met in Nevers last Saturday night. The French seem to be extremely fond of telling me how pale, sick, and tired I look, none of which I appreciate that much. That, combined with the fact that I was un peu pété, led me to retort, "I'm always pale! I was born this way! Plus I'm from MINNESOTA!" Yeah, that shut her up pretty good.

"Hello America!"

One of the guys who works in my school's office loves practicing his English with me. I'm OK with embodying my home country, as in this greeting, but it's a bit annoying when I need to get something done and he insists on responding to me in his broken English. Last week, for example, I ran out of my allotment of photocopies and I went to talk to some of the secretaries about getting a new quota. As I was attempting to hold this conversation with her in French, my buddy kept piping up from the corner, "You done all your paper! No more for you! You need more but there is none! You wanting more!" in a strange, sing-song-y voice.

"Toi, tu est normale." (You, you are normal.)

I had a student stop by for some extra conversation practice... most of which ended up being in French. Oops.  The conversation turned to obesity in America.  He told me that he doesn't understand why Americans think it's so disgusting that the French smoke, because if the Americans are so worried about health, then why are they so fat?   He told me that he was "normal"-- not skinny, not fat, but normal. He lifted up his shirt and gave his belly a jiggle to show that he was starting a paunch. Then, staring at my chest, he told me I was normal too. Just to verify, he reached over and poked me in my tummy.  "Ne touche pas!" I yelped. "I'm from MINNESOTA!"

My first Pierre

Thanks to my French buddies Louis and Thomas, I've been learning a lot of useful French. For example:

Baver= to drool
Roter=to burp
Péter=to fart

Thomas invited my main meuf  Missy and me to his family's home in Nevers for the weekend. I'm always happy as a clam to be invited into the French inner sanctum, but I got really pumped when Thomas revealed that his dad's name is Pierre. He's the first Frenchy I've met with the most stereotypical of French names, so I was really eager to impress him.

We stopped off at Pierre's wine shop when we got into town and he offered to let us taste a bottle of delicious Chinon. About a glass and a half in, I remembered that it had been awhile since I'd eaten, which explained the uncontrollable giggles spilling out of me. The harder I tried to stop the more I laughed, to the point where I was beet red and wiping tears from my eyes. I was so embarrassed to be in this state of drunkeness in front of my first Pierre.

Pierre looked at me with amusement and asked, "T'es pétée?" I turned an even deeper shade of burgundy and said, "Non! J'ai pas pété!" Thomas laughed and told me in English, "It's OK. You don't have to hold it in." I was shocked. "J'en jure! J'ai pas pété!"

When Pierre went to change the music, I leaned over to Missy and whispered, "Why do they think I farted?" She busted a gut and relayed to Thomas what I had just asked.

Apparently "être pété" means "to be drunk." Oh. Sorry Pierre.

Pillsbury Croissants and Their Impact on My Life

There were two staples at our dinner table when I was growing up: Dole Caesar salad in a bag and Pillsbury croissants in a tube. There are six people in my family and eight croissants in each tube. The only way I was going to get a second delicious, flaky croissant was to wolf down my dinner like a ravenous child-beast and pray that my three siblings were slightly less savage/grabby than I.

As a result, I grew habituated to stuffing food down my gullet at lightening speed.

Then I moved to France, and I was forced to eat in a way completely unnatural to me-- i.e. with my fork in my left hand, a knife in my right, and both hands on the table at all times. Every time I get too comfortable and revert to my preferred table manners (fork in my right hand, left hand in my lap), I need remind myself that everyone thinks I'm creepy when one hand is mysteriously below-decks.

It's really hard for me to push chunks of food onto the back of my fork and then get said fork to my mouth without spilling things everywhere. Like couscous. Can I please get a pass on couscous so I can eat it the creepy American way, where my right hand shovels it into my mouth? Please?

Anyway, now I eat a lot more slowly.

The end.

This is the way I am sounding when I am speaking the French, of that I am sure

Of more and more time I speak to myself in my head in the voice that is that of English translated very bad. For it takes much years before one to stop the direct translation from one language in another one and starting to speak the one new extra fluent, and I am so much surrounded by people who speak like this I no more remember the way correct.

I have fear that when the man to which I am marry arriving here the next month, I have the impression he not know what is my meaning. "Why are you so perhaps?" he to demand of me.

Someone propose me to march along the river, and in my head I says, "I am in accordance." Someone propose me to eat of the croissant and in my head I am saying, "That walks." Someone propose of me to march along the river after the eating of the croissant and I am thinking, "I have very much tired for to do that." Then I bed myself.

How to make a French person laugh

When asked why you decided to come to France, tell them, "J'ai voulu beaucoup des aventures avant de me marier."  Literal translation: "I wanted to have many adventures before getting married." What it really means: "I wanted to be very promiscuous before getting married."

Ask for une trompette (trumpet) when what you want is une trombone (paperclip).

During a conversation about Thanksgiving, tell your French friend how hard it is to be far from your amants (lovers) instead of your bien-aimés (loved ones).

Give your height in kilometers.

When politely motioning someone to go in front of you, tell them "Va t'en!" (get the frick out) instead of "Allez-y!" (go ahead).