I forgot to mention that I’m 1/16th German.
Does that mean that I get to call myself a Nazi or a Kraut now?
Does it mean that I can walk into clairobscur’s house, and she wil be required to immediately vacate the comfy chair, fetch me a beer, and give me the remote?
But wait. I’m also Dutch. That means that because of my nations history, I’m supposed to load Sparc onto a ship headed for the new world.
This is all rather confusing, to say the least.
As a fluent speaker of MST3K, I always say “Gimme a sandwich de steak hache, avec French-fried potatoes garnish.”
Alrighty then, one sandwich de steak hache coming up. Fetchez la vache!
Heh. Listened to a rap CD lately?
Israel is immoral, because they kicked 5 anti-war activists out of a war zone, says France, who stood by and let the Nazis send IIRC hundreds of thousands of French Jews to the gas ovens.
Merde! Yu garcons zink we have nazing tu du in ze kitshen at zis time of day? Vas fetcher la vache toi meme! [sub]stupid Americang student of exshange.[/sub]
Mon esti, gang de p’tits fuckers, ciboire.
::Enter december with predictable Israel hijack::
GREAT!
This is obviously becoming the annual bigots’ coference at the SDMB.
Actually between 80 000 and 120 000, depending on the authors (roughly 20-25% of the french Jewish population in 1939), not “hundreds of thousands” . When December is involved, I can’t resist the urge to correct his statements…
Correcting my own statement : 20-25% of the Jews living in France in 1939, not of french Jews (half of the Jewish population in France in 1940 were actually refugees, and the wide majority of the deported weren’t french citizens. Around 15 00 french Jews died in the concentration camps)
Correcting my correction : around 15 000 (not 1500) french Jews died in concentration camps. Hope I got it right this time.
Nope…I still didn’t get it right. It’s roughly 30% of the overall Jewish population in France in 1939 (330 000), not 20-25% . And roughly 10% of the French Jews (15 000 on a total of 165 000).
Ok guys, I really see absolutely no reason why WWII keeps coming up. Yes, that means you december…you’re saying that because 60 DAMN YEARS AGO some of the French did something that was horrible (in the face of overwhelming force), then they have no right now to have changed their view of the world. According to you, they should be more consistent right? They should be saying “ahh fuck the rest of the world, send the israelis/palestinians/sebians or whoever else might need help, to the gas chamber”
Ok so I’m exaggerating. But I really don’t see why WWII had relevance for today. The Germans have tv shows where former nazis are still the bad guys, but some former nazi soldiers are reformed and regret what they did. Are the Germans bad because there are still former nazis living? Yes, SOME of the French collaborated in the war. Those people are most likely dead and buried by this point. In this country (America), our morals and worldviews have changed over the past 60 years…you don’t think France’s can?
Ok, that said. I’ve lived in France several times. I speak French. Maybe this makes them better disposed towards me, in fact I know it does. You know why? Because I understand their culture. I don’t go into restaurants expecting to eat in 45 minutes and the waiter to wait on me hand and foot (in France a meal is an event, not a speed contest). I know that they will dislike me if I talk really loudly and impinge on their personal space.
I’m not saying that French people are never rude. I had lots of trouble with one lady who worked at my bank there. But I think that was just her temperament, not the fact that she was French. Maybe I’m just an optimistic person or something, but when I ran into rude people in England, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany or wherever, I didn’t think it was because of their nationality that they were rude. There are just some people who are rude. Period. They have a chip on their shoulder, they’re having a bad day. Whatever it is, it seems like the height of egocentrism to think that they’re necessarily rude because of who they’re serving, or that they’re that way all the time.
To weigh in on the whole subtitling thing, no they don’t subtitle for t-shirts or such in tv shows. They dub everything. I personally don’t like dubbing, but they have a problem that we don’t have in the states…we don’t have any subtitled tv shows that I know of (unless you have the subtitling for the deaf) because we create all our tv shows ourselves. I actually found it amazing that practically all the tv shows on tv in france are American shows! But for those people who can’t read (little kids, illiterate people) they dub it rather than subtitling it. Now I don’t think you should go for the lowest common denominator, but that’s their prerogative.
That said, I think the person mentioned in the OP was very rude (especially since I myself work in a bookstore and know what kind of service you’re supposed to give). The guy should’ve been more helpful. But you can’t generalize to say that all French are like him just because of his rudeness or lack of interest.
If that were the case, America’s fucked - Tim McVeigh (all Americans are violent), George Bush (all Americans are stupid - and yes, in france I do believe Americans have a stereotype of stupidity), Marlon Brando (all Americans are fat - yes people think this too), Clinton scandal (all Americans are uptight Puritan prudes who can’t handle the idea of sex), etc.
Chizu wa doko desu ka? Yo hambre!
Where’s the map?
Gasp! december produces an anti-Israel angle to the already complex analysis of Contemporary French Society.
I mean, december offering a completely irrelevant Israel related quote, who’d have thunk it? Well, it did have the word “France” in it. I’ll give him that. Bravo, december!
Y’know, happyheathen is just one of them ignorant, puritan, imperialist,Indiginous-people-raping, Vietnam-war-losing Americans…
Hey, Sivalensis, about that Marlón Brandeau . . . we don’t want him. France can have him. 
Les jeux sont fait. Nous sommes fucked.
What does Jerry Lewis sound like dubbed in French? Is there some biannual contest, like the one to choose the new model for Marianne, to pick the actor eminent enough for the honor?