Remember that chain email that asked all sorts of silly questions about your preferences like “Chocolate or Vanilla,” “Coke or Pepsi,” “Kisses or Hugs?”

I’m not sure about the answers for the first two but undoubtedly if you are French, the third one was “Kisses” hands down. (arms down too, yar)

In America we shake hands for hello or we give hugs to our friends to say hello or good bye (we even sometimes hug people we’ve just met–if we like them ) and when I was in Japan I gave up the handshaking and hugging in favor of bowing and some weird slow motion high-five kind of touch.  And here in France I have yet another greeting to get used to: kiss-greetings or le bise. A bise is not really a kiss.  It’s sort of an air-kiss-while-brushing-cheeks gesture.  The cheeks might touch but the lips never do so make sure you turn just a little–like you’re aiming for an ear.

Admittedly, I’ve been here a while so I’m pretty much used to it but I still have a few unanswered questions.  There is more to it than you would think (or maybe I just need some medication to control my HAD [Hyper Analysis Disorder]).

At first I was confused.  When do you bise?  Who do you bise?  Do you bise when you first meet someone?  What about after you’ve met and spent an enjoyable evening together? (like a friend of a friend or something).  And, when you are with other foreigners, do you scrap your old customary hugs because you are in France and go in for a bise?

Over the months, I’ve come up with a few answers:  you can bise friends and colleagues (but not if you don’t like them, have never talked to them, etc.).  You generally only bise colleagues after a long absence (say, after winter vacation…so not on a daily basis.  No one would ever get any work done, they’d be busy rubbing faces for half the morning.)  If you are with other foreigners who don’t bise but hug (Brits, Americans…) for goodness sakes, don’t bise!!! Take your hugs where you can get them!  You can bise someone you’ve just met at the end of the night if you like them and they are not creepy. hehe.

Something I have not yet mastered: the bise feeling. My radar is not finely attuned enough to tell when/if someone wants a bise good bye or not or if they are just waiting for me to make the first move.  This is complicated somewhat I think because I’m an American and a lot of French people know that Americans are huggers and probably have their own ideas of what your bise hang-ups might be.   To further complicate matters, there are different kinds of bise greetings depending on where you live.  For instance, in Montpellier, the standard is three kisses: left, right, left (or right, left, right….I can never remember which way it goes or if it even matters); but in Beziers, its just two kisses–one on each cheek.  So you have to be cognizant of where you are when you bise also!

This brings me to my last question: If you live in Montpellier and see someone in Beziers who also lives in Montpellier, do you bise three times (because you are both Montpellierians?) or do you bise only twice (because you are in Beziers?)

A final note: even though ‘when in Rome, blah blah blah’ I am still trying to hold tight to my hugs.
If you are ever in France and someone with a bad cold/cough/acne/stench moves in close for a bise, you’ll quickly begin to appreciate that extra little bit of personal space a hug affords.

ooooooo

It just occured to me that during all of my travels– through all the strange and happy moments, stressful times, depressing lows and enthusiastic highs…in my mind I have never been quite clear about one thing:

Am I dreaming in reality, or am I living very lucidly in unreality?

Good News!  I finished my first real book in french.  Granted, it was originally a Spanish book and translated into french but still….I read it in french and not spanish!  ‘Le Monde du bout du Monde’–The World at the end of the World.   It was a good story about Japanese ships whaling illegally off the coast of Chile.  And despite that description, yes…it WAS a good story.  haha.

Next up, ‘L’Amant’–The Lover, a true french book in it’s original french.

While my reading skills are coming around the home stretch, my speaking lags far behind.  It’s gotten a lot better and I have a lot more confidence and I’m less worried about making mistakes and have more faith that people can actually understand the things coming out of my mouth but I still have a looooooooong way to go.  :p  I know its improving even though the old dude taking tickets on the train the other day made fun of my accent–like TRULY made fun of me.   (Like, acted like I had a major speech impediment.)  Oh those stinky franchies!  (Sorry unstinky franchies for making you take the rap for one belittling dude–oh smell!)

Today it poured buckets and they closed school early.  (Even though it was sunny when they closed school–the rain MIGHT come back!) So…while the students waited restlessly to be released (they were released in waves so I still had to keep a few in my class) I told them ‘on peut parler en francais’ –we can speak in french.  So while I started the class in English, we ended up chatting away in french and it was kind of fun.  I usually pretend I don’t speak french (which is not too big of a stretch) but I finally broke down and just chatted because its hard to have a good conversation with students when all they can say is ‘I live in Beziers’ and things like that.  Some of the students have pretty decent skills but I wanted to include everyone (and be included as they were speaking french to each other anyway.)

So….I had no class today, went home early and hopefully (I feel awfully lazy saying this) it will continue to rain and I won’t have to go to school tomorrow either.  Instead I can stay home and crack my french book.  :p