Le Thanksgiving, pas un Jour Férie

I hope you all enjoyed a relaxing Thanksgiving yesterday, and made the most of America’s holiday dedicated specifically to eating and watching TV. In France, it was just another Thursday; no turkeys, pilgrims, or “harvest” celebrations were to be found anywhere in Lyon. In fact, I even had classes yesterday, and both of my professors actually showed up, a true rarity. But while everyone is getting ready for Christmas here in Lyon (a little early if you ask me), Thanksgiving passed by the French without so much as a friendly gobble.

The root of the problem is that the French do not understand the holiday, plain and simple. They do not bother with translating its title into French, and simply say “Happy Thanksgiving” (featuring that distinct French challenge of pronouncing an “H” at the beginning of a word) with a smirk whenever it is brought up. In a variety of forums, from my high school students I tutor to my host family to dinner guests, I tried to explain the reasoning behind it, and all I received in return were blank stares. There is no point of reference for them, this day when Americans simply celebrate what is around them. To the French, they are pretty sure we all silently eat TV dinners every night by ourselves, and they believe that their concept of a family dinner fully makes up for one random day. Thus, at the heart of it they find it simply pointless.

History lessons about the origins of Thanksgiving are another topic of conversation that quickly digresses into confusion and cultural misunderstandings. “Native Americans” is a tough one, considering that the French are very proud of the fact that they are the real French who have been in France for thousands of years, and never had to boot anyone from the land in order to make room. Also, apparently Squanto is not as much of a celebrity here, as his name continually falls on deaf ears whenever I drop it as part of the history. But again, turkeys, pilgrims, harvest, all are either new concepts or new vocab for the conversation, and usually I get bogged down in the Mayflower part of the story, and have to quickly summarize the rest (“point is they had a big meal, that’s basically it”). My 17th century American history lessons are not quite up to par with my 21st century rants, but we’re getting there.

But the main problem is the French think they understand the holiday, and this only leads to further mockery of the United States. To be fair, my description of a typical Thanksgiving with my family involves sleeping in late, watching football (or the Dog Show, if my sister has the remote), and then eating my biggest meal of the entire year. Clearly, the Frenchies all hear that and kind of smile and say “well, it is America after all.” If there is two things that the French love to bash on about America, it is that we are fat and love American football, a sport they will never begin to attempt to understand (they already have the “real” football, what else could they possibly need?). At that point of the conversation, each of my audiences gets that look on their face that just screams, “ah, we are so above that.” Language, still a struggle, but I can read facial expressions thank you very much.

Despite the overwhelming obstacles facing us, the Americans in the group did manage to make the most of the holiday. An apparent Penn-in-Lyon tradition, all the students and the host families (plus a couple real families here for the holiday) went to a fancy Lyonnais restaurant, all dressed up of course, for a highly-anticipated dinner. They tried to make the food as American as possible, and after the ratatouille appetizer we did receive some turkey, potatoes and cranberry sauce (my number one Thanksgiving dish) for our main course, with pumpkin pie arriving for the egg-ivores at the end. Not quite the same stuffed turkey, biscuits, and canned cranberry sauce that I have come to love and miss, but for the French, not bad.

In terms of atmosphere, we took it to a new level, even if it had nothing to do with Thanksgiving. The dilemma facing our program director was that there really is no traditional celebration to go along with all the eating. So, we started with the next best thing: Christmas songs. Featuring hits such as the 12 days of Christmas (in the round, of course), Jingle Bells, and even a couple random (apparently “classic”) French ones, some of us were bold/dumb enough to attempt to lead everyone in rousing song. Lyrics were provided for all, but seemed to help no one. Not sure if the host families were more intimidated by our gumption or embarrassed for our clear lack of talent, but at least we had a good time making fools of ourselves.

So there you have it, my first holiday abroad, one of the harder parts about being out of the States. There’s obviously no replacement for that family meal, with the stories that invariably come out every year and the family members that you can never seem to spend enough time with. But there are only a few weeks until this abroad experience is over, and the focus now is on making the most of our short time left. Even if that means forgetting about the things back home that you miss the most, now is the time to realize what you have here.

In a sense, it’s all about giving thanks.

Allez (clap-clap) l'OL!

As you all know, I am a big fan of sports, and even if I have failed to mention it so far, I definitely brought my love of sports across the Atlantic with me. Needless to say, it has definitely taken some adjusting, and finally it has boiled over into this rant. I apologize in advance, but on both a personal front and from a professional standpoint, sports in France are not exactly what I expected. While some of these developments have been amazing, let’s just say that this is one of the aspects I miss most about the States. Allow me to explain.

I’ll start with the personal aspect, which is more negative, so we can build to the positive professional side. Unless you play soccer or rugby here, you are going to be out of luck in terms of finding organized sports. For example, I thought that France would have a thriving basketball culture; home to many NBA players, it is only logical that the sport would catch on here. The NBA did a European tour that included Paris, and each NBA game involving a minor French player no American has ever heard of gets a mention on the sports channel here (including the embarrassingly weak statistics for said French player). But, there are no pickup basketball games here in Lyon. Apparently there are plenty of courts according to an online search, but I kept going to these courts only to find them to be children’s playgrounds, or painted lines with a soccer goal on each end. And let’s not even talk about baseball; as I mentioned earlier, a tutor of mine has mentioned that there are baseball clubs in Lyon, and that he partakes in America’s favorite pastime, but to date I have not been able to prove the existence of these clubs nor have I thrown a baseball with him. Perhaps it’s too embarrassing to be seen with a baseball glove in France?

Also, I miss Pottruck. They say that Penn is really just a $50,000 a year gym membership, and right now I need to renew it. There are gyms here, do not get me wrong, but these are all a couple notches below the Radian gym (and definitely not open 24 hours). For comparison, I think the gym here (which is a supplementary cost, of course) could easily fit in one corner of one floor of Pottruck. Running on the streets is something I tried to take refuge in, yet that is definitely looked down upon by the Frenchies. The Rhone has a nice riverside path that looks perfect for running (think of the Schuylkill, only clean), yet on sunny days you will only find people sneering at runners as they smoke cigarettes. Or share a bottle of wine. We are still in France after all.

But enough about me, let’s talk about real sports in Lyon. In the States, we have a nice variety of sports, between football, baseball, basketball, and to a lesser extent hockey (no, I do not consider NASCAR a sport). Here, soccer is the only game in town, period. There is an ESPN equivalent here (L’Equipe), but of the 24 hours of the day, it seems like 20 are devoted just to this “beautiful game.” To be fair, I have tried to get into the spirit, which is pretty easy in Lyon as we do have one of the best teams in France. Coming from DC and Philadelphia, it was a pleasant surprise to learn that our team, Olympique Lyonnais, at one point had won 7 league championships in a row (a streak that was, of course, broken last Spring). Thus, in the spirit of support, a group of us went to an OL game earlier this month. We walked into a true cultural experience.

The game was against Liverpool, one of the best teams in England, and was part of the group stage of the European Champions League; in short, a big deal. The stadium was packed (about 40,000 people) with fans singing songs, waving flags, and jumping up and down; and that was before kickoff. We missed out on any sort of training for the songs, and still lack flags (although some of us do have some stylish OL scarves), so we contented ourselves with simply screaming and jumping every time Lyon did something appearing remotely good. Naturally, we fit right in. Despite a late Liverpool goal, Lyon somehow snuck one in at the last minute, and the stadium went nuts; we instantly became best friends with our fellow fans, hugging and cheering right through the final whistle. Of course, that was only a tie, but still everyone seemed enthusiastic about the result. 90 minutes of “action”, no winner. That’s soccer for you.

That game reinforced my feeling that Americans cannot understand the Europeans love for soccer, and only soccer. The few people that do rock French sports gear (as opposed to those Chicago White Sox hats running around Lyon, still bothers me) around town limit themselves to various forms of soccer paraphernalia. Shops put up signs showing their support of the team, flags proudly fly from houses, and cars even have special OL license plates. This is truly Lyon’s team.

Soccer in Europe transcends traditional boundaries. While you may have missed it back in the States, France just qualified for next year’s World Cup on Wednesday night by defeating Ireland. However, the goal that put them through was the result of a blatant handball. Not wanting to appear weak, and with the full support of the people, the Irish Prime Minister (Brian Cowen) is planning on directly talking to President Sarkozy at a high level European meeting this week about this travesty. Let’s see, economic crisis, new EU system, oh let’s talk about the possibility of replaying a soccer match. It’s not as if the French are not taking the bait, as the Prime Minister here claims that the Irish should stay out of refereeing decisions, and every opposition politician has been polled on the subject. And the front page headline of today’s paper reads “The Handball as a State-level affair.”

So while the French do their soccer well, some of us are missing out on the balanced diet of sports we appreciate back in the states. Sadly, I’m horribly uncoordinated with my feet, so soccer is really not an option. What’s left, rugby? I think I’ll just wait until I’m back in the States.