Stories Collected While Living in France

French la Vie

Viva la Difference!

When I arrived in France it was the subtle differences that hit me over the head…those silly little things that separated me from my known world. My expectation was that the language would be my biggest hurdle, and that the following hurdles I would be able to take in stride.

But no…the difference between apples and oranges is what turned my world upside down!

The way the forks were set by the plate,

How one was to keep both hands on the table at all times, just at the wrist.

After 30 years of being told to keep my hand on my lap, now I had to keep my hands on the table, and only to the wrist point, or be accused of "playing hanky panky under the table!"

Hanky panky?! It just dawned on me…hanky panky wasn’t such a bad accusation, some rules just ache to be broken! 

Comments

42 responses to “Viva la Difference!”

  1. Paris Parfait

    Vive la difference, indeed! You’re so right about all the “rules,” not that I always adhere to them. Adding an American twist to things really does make “la difference,” I’ve found. Maybe some French traditionalists disapprove, but perhaps they have no sense of humour. And if so, who cares? I love your unique take on so many aspects of life in this country.

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  2. weirdbunny

    Last year in the summer hoildays we did some travelling through the meditteranean. Out of all the places we went I just loved France the best. WE went to canne and corsica. As a teenager with a boyfriend I went to Paris, and as a child to brettany. If I was too ever change location watch out france I’d be there. Your so lucky!!

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  3. cruststation

    Haha…always the cheeky streak wanting to get out! Some rules are just waiting to be broken.

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  4. gracia

    Another little revelation… I am loving your tales, your way of seeing things. Next time I sit down to eat, I’ll try to keep my hands, wrists on the table… I can’t imagine what that feels like. And, of course, if it proves too tricky, I’ll imagine that I’m breaking the rules, something I love to do.
    Wonderful – as always!
    take care, gracia

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  5. Kristy

    Oh how I would love to break those rules!

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  6. Mrs. Staggs

    ….and you are just the girl to do it! So silly sometimes, these rules. We should appreciate the differences that make us all unique and interesting …how boring if we were all the same!

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  7. Jeanne

    Your words are so precious and endearing…………
    My baby does the Hanky Panky!
    Smiling as I always am after reading your journal and seeing your lovely photographs!
    You are a gem!
    Love you darling friend
    Jeanne
    X0X0

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  8. Chantal

    Hi Corey,
    I so enjoyed this post! (I discovered your blog via the Book of Dreams project.)
    It is very interesting for me to read another person’s experience of “la différence” which colors life in an adoptive country. The hands on the table brought back many memories of being told, when growing up in France, to get my elbows off the table 🙂 Although I moved to Ireland some 15 years ago, I’m still getting used to the cultural gap I experience daily, la Différence… I still feel like I’m sitting “le cul entre deux chaises” so to speak. Excuse my French! 🙂

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  9. Lee

    I thought the French were all for a little hanky-panky. Or hanké-panké.

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  10. mary ann

    lovely photo of the silver fork and hanky…
    i actually do remember my high school french teacher (who was a nun by the way) telling us about the keeping the elbows off the table and the hands at wrist level…
    vive la difference!
    🙂 mary ann

    Reply
  11. diana

    oooh la la the silver the linen
    lacy napkin, the double plate…. what a beautiful beautiful table!! love it !

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  12. Tash

    France as a whole has such different cultural practices – but hanky panky? That should be part of table etiquette 😀

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  13. Carol

    LOL
    I don’t remember such rules from when I lived in Toulon. Maybe it’s because the family I’ve lived in was not really French, she was from Belgium and he was a white, french “Pied Noir” from Algerie.
    But I like the way you’ve set the fork, it looks less dangerous if you know what I mean and I love the way you’ve set your table with silver and linnen etc.
    I’m sure you’ve already broke the rules 😉
    Btw if you have good manners in Germany you’ve also put the hands on the table until the wrist point, I never knew that you’ve to keep them under the table/on your lap in the US.

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  14. susan

    rules schmoolez, viva la difference! we have this dilemma at the table every night… half euro half american, the table fairies getting squashed with elbows and two handed eaters.
    sigh!

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  15. Shannon Lewis

    Thank you for sharing this! I love learning about different cultures…even how they set a fork tine side down on the table.
    I thought the French were so sexually open? What’s wrong with a little hanky panky under the table, LOL.

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  16. ally bean

    well, at least, “mabel, mabel– if you’re able, remove your elbows from the table” still applies!! that one must be international.

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  17. andrea

    Stunning photo. I love your table top settings. So funny and facinating the differences between cultures. Loved this post!
    a.

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  18. Jennifer

    What a perfectly lovely table setting. Hanky panky – too funny!

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  19. Ulla

    Rules were made to be broken, and ‘hanky panky’ is a girls right! I hope you are showing them your true colors Corey! How about an American meal, where others have to play by your rules, that would set the table up-side-down!

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  20. susanna

    Now WHO told your those rules? I imagine that French Husband wouldn’t want those hands and wrists ON the table! By the way, I’ve been thinking that you should write a book. Really! You take such beautiful photographs and your writing is fabulous. It’ll be a NY Times bestseller, Corey!

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  21. mad

    I love this. Beautiful place setting. Mind if I post on blog? It isn’t obviously modern, but subtly so with the upside down fork…xo-mad

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  22. vicci

    Love the photo Corey…and YES…some RULES are meant to be broken…I think a little “hanky-panky” under the table with a loved one sounds great!

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  23. snowsparkle

    i admire both your sensitivity to appreciate the differences in cultures as well as your boldness to know when “enough is enough” and break a few rules. beautiful table setting by the way… the napkin especially.

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  24. Josephine

    Ache is the right word! And, maybe, yearn as well…
    How fascinating. I find this everyday with my Turk. How we are so alike, yet so different in many small ways.
    Like the way his native tongue has many forces on words. More brutal than English, in the way the stresses are applied. Sometimes, it shakes me up and causes a spat. And he didn’t even mean anything.
    Just a slight of the tongue… so alike, yet so very different, to be sure!

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  25. MCaplan

    It is insane what traditions are carried over through generations, and the normal social decorums that are thrown away. A rule such as this has no place in contemprary society, and you should break it! There are bigger fish to fry in the world of social graces! Unless you are planning on strapping on a corset and going the way of the gals of the Moulin Rouge. In that case, wrists on table please! Naughty naughty!

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  26. dweezila

    the image of wrists on the table is wonderful…and i imagine wrist cuffs…like little handcuffs that are tied to tables and which children and the newly arrived (people like you way back when) have to cuff into before the meal starts. Though, of course, the image of hanky panky is more fun. Love your photos so much.

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  27. Franca Bollo

    Cou cou Corey,
    I thought keeping both hands visible while eating came from medieval times when it was thought you might be hiding a knife (and they weren’t using butter knives back then) in the hand underneath the table. But then again, maybe that’s just my Sicilian heritage coming out. As to hanky-panky vs knifings, make love not war — I prefer the former explanation.

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  28. AnnieElf

    Amazing how something so simple and innocent can come so laden with cultural baggage. Bravo for keeping your hands in your lap. Break the rules!

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  29. sofia

    heheheh you made me laugh 🙂 and this is what I call a BEAUTIFUL fork 🙂

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  30. pixie

    this is so funny. thank you for reminding me to see the real obstacles and then to not see them as obstacles at all!!!! hanky panky is so necessary.

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  31. la vie en rose

    HA! yes, a little hankey-pankey would be nice.
    i’ve never thought about it this way but reading your post it makes perfect sense. it’s the little things that we usually don’t think much about and so they can creap up and get us. the big things we’re always on the lookout for and conscious of.

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  32. Carolyn Davis

    Hi Corey,
    A very belated Birthday, I hope it was a beautiful one, just like you. As for the table setting, it is just beautiful….the fork turned over is quite different from our custom, however, that has happened at my house thru pure accident, little did I know I was being French. love you

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  33. robin fox pampered in paris

    corey,wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the world would keep up with the french etiquette,however a little hanky panky is what it is all about!!

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  34. Mary Jane

    I doubt that I could sit at a French table for very long…how do you do it????

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  35. krista

    Funny, the things you wouldn’t think of.
    I want to thank you for having a link to this site: http://french-word-a-day.typepad.com/
    My son is starting french school in the fall and my husband and I both dont speak french. I’m going to start reading that site to help me out!

    Reply
  36. mikaelah

    I love hearing these little unique-nesses (is that a word?) … you set a stunning table.
    It seems to me that when a person thoroughly learns the rules, then breaking them becomes necessary. It is as if the rule is made to be broken by someone that fully understands the rule and earns the priveledge of going beyond it. It seems almost respectful in a paradoxical kind of way. Expected even.

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  37. Cookie

    Oh Corey, I wouldnt let the handy panky rule beat me…..there is always “footsies” under the table…..easier to hide huh? (Big smiles) Hugs to you always.

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  38. Carolg@PB

    So funny. After reading this, I had a meeting with a young French woman in a NYC tea salon. I kept trying to keep my “wrists” on the table. Her hands were relaxed in her lap…Finally I just gave up and followed her example.
    Changing habits…I adjusted to her changed habits 🙂

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  39. marybeth

    Hello again,
    What kind of camera do you use? Your photos are amazing.

    Reply
  40. maggie

    Hi Corey:
    I find the comments to be funny, because I don’t know any other way but they ways you’ve describe.
    I am passing on the rules of etiquette to my dd as well.
    I grew up in a French household where no matter how poor you are etiquette will take you a long way.
    I do find myself at a cross with my dh sometimes on the way they carry themselves at the dinner table there’s nothing worse than people talking and chewing at the same time.
    I do believe those subtle differences really make a difference.
    You have a great day
    Maggie

    Reply
  41. Kim Carney

    I am in love with the fork ;0

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  42. Marie-Noëlle

    How funny!
    I experienced “table ways” too from the other side!
    When living in England, I first found all English people quite rude having one of their hands on their lap while eating…
    I understood much later!
    MN

    Reply

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