Are French people really rude?

When I arrived in Paris three months ago, I figured I would brush up on my French etiquette. To my surprise, I found multiple sites offering the same stereotype-busting advice: “French people aren’t rude,” they said. “In fact, French people are incredibly polite. But when you aren’t polite enough, they’ll tell you.”

On those same sites, I read about the little daily politenesses that French people expect. When you enter a store, for example, you say hello to the owner or the cashier; when you exit, you say thank you and goodbye. When you stop someone on the street for directions, you precede your request with “Excuse me, sir/madam.”

And I’ve seen this attitude – speaking up when you feel someone is wrong – extend beyond just etiquette. When I studied abroad in Paris, I went for daily morning runs at 8 am. One day, as I went to open the door to the stairwell, a cross-looking French woman in slippers and a bathrobe stopped me. She criticized me for banging the stairwell door every morning and (this is perhaps a bit too far) made me literally demonstrate that I could shut it softly. (All in French, mind you – I was rendered quite speechless.)

At the time, I thought she was a crazy French woman with overly sensitive ears; now, I see her as an honest French woman (with overly sensitive ears).

I witnessed a similar situation in the metro, when another French woman sternly pointed out to a commuter that his large bag was invading her space. In both cases, I could have imagined their American counterparts saying nothing, suffering in silence and building up repressed resentment. Maybe resentment is too strong a word, but the annoyance could easily ruin their morning. I can just hear the gossip later in the day: “How inconsiderate! He did what? People these days!” But by speaking up, the French women made both offenders aware of their unintended offense, and the situations were resolved and done with.

We may wish for a little more patience from the French – after all, we Americans make faux pas out of ignorance and not malice – but we should appreciate the principle behind their harsh words, which is one of honesty. I certainly do – not that I needed another reason to fall in love with the land of castles and cafes.

5 foods with deceptive names

On Sunday night, I found myself contemplating the menu at Restaurant Chartier, a beautiful, touristy, cheap restaurant in Paris’s 9th arrondissement. No salmon, but they did have something called saumonette – which I assumed was some kind of “little salmon.” Bon.

But when the food arrived, I was met with a whiteish fish that decidedly did not taste like salmon (nor was it small). With the help of French Wikipedia, I discovered that saumonette is actually a kind of petit requin – small shark. Oh là là. 

As it turns out, these petits requins have been deliberately rebranded as saumonette. As Wikipedia explains (rough translation):

“The term ‘shark’ was judged to be not very appealing to consumers, since this fish has a reputation of eating humans.”

Indeed, I probably wouldn’t have ordered it had I known. So I wondered: what other food names have been changed in order to sell better? I’ve heard of many name changes – rapeseed oil to canola, or prune to dried plum – but what changes are actually deceptive, like saumonette?

Kiwi (Chinese gooseberry): The kiwi is native to China, where it was originally called the Chinese gooseberry. The seeds of this green berry made their way to New Zealand in the early 20th century. After World War II, to downplay the connection to China, the fruit became patriotically know as the kiwi (also New Zealand’s national bird).

Belgian waffle (Brussels waffle): In the mid-20th century, Maurice Vermersch brought the Belgian waffle over to America. The problem is, Belgium has no such waffle. This deep-pocketed, light-battered American waffle is based on a simplified recipe for the Brussels waffle, which is harder and crispier. According to Wikipedia, “Vermersch decided to change the name upon observing the poor geographical skills of Americans.”

Chilean sea bass (Patagonian toothfish): As the US Department of Commerce explains, “it is really not a bass and it is not always caught in Chilean waters.” The name was invented by a fish seller in 1977, to be more attractive to Americans and to avoid conjuring up (accurate) images of the fish’s sharp teeth.

Crayfish (mudbugs): Now known widely as crayfish or crawfish, these freshwater crustaceans were once known as “mudbugs” – possibly because they feed on living and dead animals and plants in riverbeds. They also need to be “purged” of mud and grass before being eaten – not an image that food sellers care to remind us of.

New food names can change the fate of species and industries, turning a languishing product into a bestselling delicacy or even an endangered animal. As for me, I’ve learned to read the menu more carefully and brush up on my French. Bon appetit. 

Photos by chez Mamydoux (shark) and Flickr users justusbluemer (kiwi), ralph and jenny (waffle), and jcantroot (crayfish).

It’s National Honesty Day: Whom do you want an honest answer from?

Today, April 30, is National Honesty Day. It’s 24 hours of honesty and truthfulness, sandwiching the month of April along with its more devious cousin, April Fool’s Day.

National Honesty Day was established in the early 1990s by Hirsh Goldberg, a former Maryland press secretary and author of books like The Book of Lies: Fibs, Tales, Schemes, Scams, Fakes, and Frauds That Have Changed the Course of History and Affect Our Daily Lives.

He created the holiday to celebrate trustworthiness and combat some of the rampant dishonesty in society.

“Some of our most cherished athletic, religious, business, and communication institutions are being seriously affected by the unscrupulous – from our national pastime which had some of its players cited for illegal steroid use to religious figures found guilty of child molestation, from corporate CEOs convicted of lying about company accounting practices to scammers and spammers robbing people of their money and their peaceful use of the Internet,” Goldberg said.

Goldberg gives out annual Honest Abe Awards to people, groups, or companies; the nursing profession won in 2007, for example.

But more to the point, National Honesty Day is an excuse to ask people questions you wouldn’t otherwise ask them. “On this day, anyone participating may ask any question they choose and the opposing person should give a truthful and straightforward answer,” Wikipedia explains.

So let’s do it. Think about what burning questions you have, head on over to Twitter, and send them out into the world. For example:

“@yourgirlfriend Why do you wear so much makeup when you’re beautiful without it? #honestyday”

“@TheDemocrats @Senate_GOPs Why do you focus on blaming your opponents about sequestration rather than coming up with a fair deal? #honestyday”

“@MileyCyrus Why can’t you ever afford a full shirt? #honestyday”

“@davemcclure What’s your biggest startup turnoff? #honestyday”

We’ll retweet all the tweets that you send. Who knows, maybe you’ll actually get an honest response.

Photo by Flickr user Ciccio Pizzettaro

Apps for telling secrets are wildly popular

Right at this moment, hundreds of secrets are traveling through the mail or through the ether to feed secret-sharing communities PostSecret and Whisper.

PostSecret, the older of the two, helps people find release through postcards. They decorate a card with a secret and mail it in, and PostSecret chooses around 20 secrets to share every Sunday – secrets that the sender has never told anyone before.

Since PostSecret started in 2004, founder Frank Warren has collected over half a million secrets. Its forums have millions of posts where people commiserate, discuss, and connect around their revelations. PostSecret has spawned art exhibitions and four books: PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives; My Secret: A PostSecret Book; The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book; and A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book.

“Secrets can take many forms – they can be shocking, or silly, or soulful. They can connect us to our deepest humanity, or with people we’ll never meet,” says Warren in a TED talk. “Secrets can remind us of the countless human dramas – of frailty and heroism playing out silently in the lives of people all around us.”

Warren now travels around the world giving presentations on secrets, then inviting the audience to share their secrets in person.

If PostSecret takes things slow and deliberate – each card is crafted by its sender, then the best ones make it to the site – then Whisper is secret-telling for the digital generation. You can snap a photo, add a secret, then post it instantly. The iPhone app already has over 1 million users, and just raised $3 million in funding last week.

“Whisper is about expressing your true self within a community of honesty & acceptance.”

Whisper builds in even more social features, letting you comment on photos and chat with other members (anonymously). PostSecret’s app was shut down a few months after it launched in 2011 due to spam and inappropriate postings; we’ll see how Whisper fares.

These two products are alike in their wild popularity. One theory is that they combat the rosy pictures we paint on non-anonymous social networks like Facebook. We get a peek into the true lives of others – which, perhaps like our own, are a little messed up.

For the people who post, it’s also an outlet. Even when we’re not honest, secrets clamor to be let out – somewhere. Warren says that the process of sharing secrets can be healing. Could sharing secrets with friends and family, rather than strangers, be even more healing?

A History of April Fool’s Day

As a new generation of April Fool’s jokes go viral on Facebook, some of us might pause and wonder about the origins of this day of lies and jokes and schemes.

Unfortunately, the history of April Fool’s Day is a bit uncertain. But according to the Museum of Hoaxes, which has a detailed catalogue of the many possible theories, we can be sure that this unholy day was already practiced by the 16th century. (In a Flemish text, a servant on the first of April says, “I am afraid . . . that you are trying to make me run a fool’s errand.”)

A popular explanation for April Fool’s Day is the replacement of the old Julian calendar with the Gregorian calendar in 16th century France, which moved New Year’s Day from around April 1 to January 1. When some people continued to celebrate the old holiday – possibly because they lived in the countryside and hadn’t heard the news – others called them “April fools.”

But this theory isn’t fool-proof. The calendar changed in different times in different countries, and historical references suggest that the holiday was already established by that time.

Other April Fool’s Day theorists place it in a long line of “renewal festivals,” which take place near the beginning of spring. Again from the Museum of Hoaxes:

“Almost every culture in the world has some kind of festival in the first months of the year to celebrate the end of winter and the return of spring. Anthropologists call these “renewal festivals.” Often they involve ritualized forms of mayhem and misrule. The wearing of disguises is common. People play pranks on friends and strangers. The social order is temporarily inverted. Servants might get to order around masters, or children challenge the authority of parents and teachers. However, the disorder is always bounded within a strict timeframe, and tensions are defused with laughter and comedy. The social order is symbolically challenged, but then restored, reaffirming the stability of the society, just as the cold months of winter temporarily challenge biological life, and yet the cycle of life continues, returning with the spring.”

For example, the Roman festival of Hilaria was celebrated on March 25 and included games, masquerades, and rejoicing. In late February or March, Hindus celebrate Holi – the “festival of colors.” Social norms are relaxed as revelers throw scented powders and perfumes at each other, resulting in a rainbow of joyful color.

Why

So why do we rejoice in lying on April Fool’s Day?

I think it doesn’t have to do with lying at all. After all, a lie is meant to be permanent – we do everything we can to make sure the listener doesn’t discover the truth. But April Fool’s Day tricks are meant to be discovered, because therein lies the fun – crying “April Fool’s!” (or “Poisson d’Avril!” if you live in France and have stuck a fish on someone’s back).

As the renewal festivals suggest, I think April Fool’s is a break from our serious lives. Even the stodgiest among us have the license to tell a little fib, or play a little joke, and laugh at the result. And it actually calls upon our creativity to come up with better and better jokes. After all, we all know it’s April Fool’s, so our prank has to be masterful to be believed.

Here are some creative April Fool’s jokes from the past.

1998: Burger King introduces the left-handed Whopper, with condiments rotated 180 degrees so they’re less likely to spill out the left side.

1998: The Alabama state legislature votes to change the value of pi to its “Biblical value” of 3.0.

2012: Peugeot introduces a mood car that changes colors according to your mood.

2012: Google straps cameras on big red kangaroos to capture the Outback: not Google Street View, but Google Street Roo.

 

Happy April Fool’s Day!

Why I hate encores

I finally figured out why I’ve always hated encores.

Back in freshman year of high school, I was playing in a regional orchestra. Our final piece was the Russian Easter Overture by Rimsky-Korsakov, truly a stunning composition. We rehearsed an encore – not another piece, but the last, fast, climactic section. I knew we would be playing this no matter what. (After all, it was mostly our parents in the audience. Surely they’d be able to summon up enough applause for an encore?)

I didn’t like encores as a player, and I don’t like them as a listener. “Here’s our last song!” the musicians cry. But secretly, they know it isn’t the last. We know it isn’t the last. We’re going to clap our palms off until they drag themselves back onstage. So why the facade?

I imagine there was a time when encores were really spontaneous, unplanned, delightful things. But now they’re just a weird form of dishonesty.

Manhattan Transfer, New York Voices, and Jon Hendricks. Groovy.

Visit Rome’s “Mouth of Truth,” the Bocca della Verita

In my recent reading, I came across a reference to the Bocca della Verità, a carved marble face in Rome’s Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin that supposedly bites off the hands of liars.

According to this “official website,” the Mouth of Truth is over 2,000 years old and likely portrays the river god Oceanus. Romans have long debated its origins, alternately claiming that it was a manhole cover, part of a fountain, a well cover, and a water collector.

Meanwhile, the Bocca della Verità has become a tourist attraction that entices courageous visitors to stick their hands in its marble mouth. It even made an appearance in Roman Holiday, as Gregory Peck tested the Bocca’s appetite in front of a frightened Audrey Hepburn. In Un Amico Italiano: Eat, Pray, Love in Rome, Roman local Luca Spaghetti writes, “I have to confess . . . I am truly and deeply scared of the Bocca della Verità. I’m no liar, but I’m still not putting my hand in there.”

According to a tourism website:

“This legend probably originates from Roman times. It is said that the rich wife of a Roman noble was accused of adultery. The woman denied the accusations, but her husband wanted to put her to the test by making her hand inside the stone mouth. Knowing perfectly well that she was lying, the woman used a very clever strategy. In front of a group of curious bystanders who had gathered around the Mouth of Truth, the man who was actually her lover embraced her and kissed her. She pretended that she didn’t know him and accused him of being a madman and the crowd chased him away.”

When she put her hand into the mouth, the woman declared that she had never kissed any other man apart from her husband and the poor madman who had just kissed her. In this way she was certain that she hadn’t lied and her hand was saved.

What can we learn from all this? We long for a foolproof lie detector, we like the thrill of lying and getting away with it, and we come up with clever ways to hide our lies. Mamma mia!

Photo courtesy of Flickr user trp0

Lance Armstrong’s confession

Why? Why did he dope? Why did he lie? And why is he confessing now?

Even if you’ve never watched the Tour de France, or followed the doping debate, it’s hard to watch a clip from Lance Armstrong’s interview with Oprah without wondering. You see this stony-faced human being – his greatest emotion just a moistening of the eyes, and a slowing of the speech – and wonder how a person could keep up such deception for over a decade, and why he would come clean now.

It’s a testament to the way our brains work that we want to understand the world, and the people around us. We can’t just explain away the lying by saying he’s a narcissist or an egomaniac – though people are certainly saying those things. We feel there has to be some semi-comprehensible reason, something that our brains can process, that would make us say, “I see, okay, so that’s why” – even though we might never do it ourselves.

Why do we lie? And why do we lie in ways that are so fundamental, so destructive, so soul-shattering? That’s one of the questions I hope to answer, soon.

In the meantime, just a clue from Lance:

“This story was so perfect for so long … you overcome the disease, you win the Tour de France seven times, you have a happy marriage, you have children – it’s just this mythic, perfect story, and it wasn’t true.”