the l'eau-down on French eating and drinking...

One summer I worked in a French-speaking office in Brussels, with mostly French co-workers. The office kitchen (we might call it a break-room, though, no one ever seemed to take a break in there or anywhere else in the office) was stocked with lots of individual-sized water bottles for the employees and of course any clients that dropped by. The cupboards were filled with glasses (and mugs and wine glasses). In the mid morning I would happily meander into the kitchen, snag a water bottle and bring it to my desk, open it, and drink. This would elicit subtle double takes or slightly widened eyes from my polite and mostly reserved office mates. I would have to run down the list of "what I might be doing wrong." Did I have some foreign object on my head or stuck in my teeth? no. Was I using an American verbal idiom that defied translation or somehow offended? not this time. Was I engaging in some taken-for-granted behavior that defied French logic but seemed perfectly normal to me? Bingo.
It actually took a couple weeks, but eventually I realized that everyone else grabbed a glass along with their bottle of water and poured one into the other before taking a sip. They replaced the cap after every refill as well.
It all seemed a bit bothersome to me, but I got the hang of it. I think I actually ended up drinking less water as a result of it, but aside from some mild dehydration, I learned a valuable cultural tidbit and my colleagues saw me as a bit more civilized ever since.


Here is a neat (and specific) article on French dining etiquette. http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/11487

How do we encounter culture?

Dr. Mary Catherine Bateson, daughter of anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, wrote that every cultural encounter or interaction is like an improvisational dance with a stranger. This imagery, to me, is both charming and true. It is my desire to help the dancers in this exchange succeed. How can we attempt such a feat? Communication, more specifically, intercultural communication is the study of messages (all kinds - more on this is future posts) within, across, between, and in light of various cultures.
Ok, so let us begin...

I enjoy life as a teacher, a writer, a student, a traveler.