The holidays in France have been pretty great so far, and quite different from the holiday season back home in America. For starters, being away from home has kind of made me realize that Americans tend to celebrate December itself as the holiday season. In other words, the anticipation and the days and weeks leading up to Christmas are sometimes more exciting than Christmas itself. Then, afterwards, you kind of get that December 26th feeling, when it's strange to think that everything is suddenly over.
In France, it's just the opposite. The weeks leading up to Christmas are nothing special, except that they normally involve making plans for the holidays. Christmas itself begins on Christmas Eve, with a midnight mass and a buche de Noel, a special French Christmas dessert. Then, the next few days involve travelling to see family, or inviting relatives over, and feasting on Christmas food. The French don't really have any holiday equivalent to the American Thanksgiving, or any holiday celebrated mainly for food, so Christmas kind of takes that place. The festivities then last until New Year's Eve/Day, which is much more celebrated in France than it is in America. It's actually considered sort of a second Christmas, the major difference being that Christmas is a holiday spent with family and New Year's is a holiday spent with friends.
The holidays are naturally a time that can be kind of difficult for exchange students, since it involves missing family traditions and being forced to accept new ways of celebrating a special time of year, and I've heard a lot of exchange students from North and South America complaining that the French holidays are under-celebrated. Though things are certainly different here, I have to disagree. The French holidays, like I've already said, are celebrated in a bit of a different time frame, and they are, admittedly, significantly under-commercialized. There are fewer gifts, fewer holiday sales, fewer holiday commercials, etc., and I've appreciated that. Though it's not quite the Christmas I'm used to seeing in America, it's nice to see Christmas recognized as a holiday about family. I feel like that's something that sometimes (not always, but sometimes) gets lost in the stress and extravagance of the American holiday.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Saturday, December 21, 2013
La Fete des Lumieres
Hello again, everyone! It's been kind of a hectic past few weeks, and the time is really starting to get away from me, so I apologize for being a little negligent about my blogging. Fortunately, I'm on Christmas vacation for the next two weeks, so I've got a bit of time to catch up.
For this post, I'd like to talk about one of the biggest pre-Christmas celebrations in France- and one that I was lucky enough to see in person: Lyon's Fete des Lumieres (Festival of Lights).
On December 8th of every year, the entire city of Lyon lights up with artistic displays and animated spectacles. The festival attracts over four million tourists annually, and it's easy to see why! Light shows are planned months in advance to be absolutely breathtaking on the day of the festival.
Though the vast majority of the spectacles on display in Lyon are accomplished through modern technology, the Fete des Lumieres itself actually dates back to the Middle Ages, when France was struck by the bubonic plague. The city officials and priests prayed to the Virgin Mary to spare Lyon from the disease, which she did. In the following years, inhabitants of Lyon established a tradition of placing candles in their windows in early December, as a sign of gratitude. Then, around the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the tradition began to grow into a true spectacle. Store owners put up displays using moving electric lights, and the festival has been growing every year since. Today, the Fete des Lumieres exists not only in Lyon, but in many other major French cities as well. Lyon, however, remains the cultural home of the festival of lights.
For this post, I'd like to talk about one of the biggest pre-Christmas celebrations in France- and one that I was lucky enough to see in person: Lyon's Fete des Lumieres (Festival of Lights).
On December 8th of every year, the entire city of Lyon lights up with artistic displays and animated spectacles. The festival attracts over four million tourists annually, and it's easy to see why! Light shows are planned months in advance to be absolutely breathtaking on the day of the festival.
Though the vast majority of the spectacles on display in Lyon are accomplished through modern technology, the Fete des Lumieres itself actually dates back to the Middle Ages, when France was struck by the bubonic plague. The city officials and priests prayed to the Virgin Mary to spare Lyon from the disease, which she did. In the following years, inhabitants of Lyon established a tradition of placing candles in their windows in early December, as a sign of gratitude. Then, around the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the tradition began to grow into a true spectacle. Store owners put up displays using moving electric lights, and the festival has been growing every year since. Today, the Fete des Lumieres exists not only in Lyon, but in many other major French cities as well. Lyon, however, remains the cultural home of the festival of lights.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Teaching History in France
Hi everyone!
So, after being in French high school for several months now, I thought it might be a good time to put up a post on some of the differences between French and American schools. As I was writing this, though, one class kept coming to mind as a big difference between the two countries: history class.
As much as we like to pretend students learn facts, people, places, and dates in history class, there's a point at which we have to admit that history is much, much more subjective than we sometimes make it out to be, and the way in which it's taught can differ drastically in two different locations- even in two democratic, industrialized, first-world countries like the US and France.
First of all, in France, students don't identify countries in terms of "Western countries," "Eastern countries" or first, second, or third-world countries. They talk about "the northern world" and "the southern world" divided by an imaginary (and in my opinion, rather arbitrary) line that runs along the Mexican-American border, across the ocean, between Europe and Africa, and continues along Russia's southern border all across Asia. With this line, French students distinguish the wealthy, developed "northern world" from the generally poor, underdeveloped "southern world." At first glance, I disliked this categorization of the world; it seemed overgeneralized to me, and I was annoyed that these students were being taught such a black and white view of the world.
After being in the class for a while, though, I'm starting to see the genius of it. The northern/southern categorization isn't used to show a clear split between the rich and the poor, developed and undeveloped; actually, it does just the opposite. Senior year history in France focuses on recent world history. Generally from the mid/late cold war to modern day, with emphasis on globalization and its impact on the world. That's where the northern/southern line comes in. Historically, it has been possible to classify the world in such black and white terms. Even before the cold war, less than a hundred years ago, one could pretty easily sort every country in the world into a "developed" or "undeveloped" category, and the barrier between the developed and undeveloped ran roughly along this north/south line students are taught in school today. In the twenty-first century, with globalization on the rise and the world becoming ever more interconnected and interdependent, this is no longer the case.
Some of the tests we take in history class are "map tests," and are nothing like a history test I ever took back at home. On these tests, we're asked to color code a map based on GDP, life expectancy, even the number of iPhones per capita- and using these telling demographics, we examine which countries are inconsistent with the traditional north/south split and why our color-coded maps look the way they do. It's actually quite fascinating.
Also, now that my French has gotten a lot better since I first showed up here, I'm participating a lot more in class too- and I think both my teacher and classmates are genuinely interested in what I have to say. I've already given myself a mental pat on the back for at least having some idea of what's going on in my country (many exchange students, and many high school students in general, really don't...), which has allowed me to (diplomatically) explain to my class America's position on intervention in Syria, and after which, my history teacher said she was impressed by my knowledge and that she wanted to take a few minutes in class some other time to have me talk to my classmates about September 11th and its consequences on America.
Long story short, it's fun and eye-opening to see the way another country perceives history and geography, and people everywhere generally do appreciate hearing another perspective on world events and conflicts. In a class full of interested, open-minded peers, it's good to be an exchange student. :)
So, after being in French high school for several months now, I thought it might be a good time to put up a post on some of the differences between French and American schools. As I was writing this, though, one class kept coming to mind as a big difference between the two countries: history class.
As much as we like to pretend students learn facts, people, places, and dates in history class, there's a point at which we have to admit that history is much, much more subjective than we sometimes make it out to be, and the way in which it's taught can differ drastically in two different locations- even in two democratic, industrialized, first-world countries like the US and France.
First of all, in France, students don't identify countries in terms of "Western countries," "Eastern countries" or first, second, or third-world countries. They talk about "the northern world" and "the southern world" divided by an imaginary (and in my opinion, rather arbitrary) line that runs along the Mexican-American border, across the ocean, between Europe and Africa, and continues along Russia's southern border all across Asia. With this line, French students distinguish the wealthy, developed "northern world" from the generally poor, underdeveloped "southern world." At first glance, I disliked this categorization of the world; it seemed overgeneralized to me, and I was annoyed that these students were being taught such a black and white view of the world.
After being in the class for a while, though, I'm starting to see the genius of it. The northern/southern categorization isn't used to show a clear split between the rich and the poor, developed and undeveloped; actually, it does just the opposite. Senior year history in France focuses on recent world history. Generally from the mid/late cold war to modern day, with emphasis on globalization and its impact on the world. That's where the northern/southern line comes in. Historically, it has been possible to classify the world in such black and white terms. Even before the cold war, less than a hundred years ago, one could pretty easily sort every country in the world into a "developed" or "undeveloped" category, and the barrier between the developed and undeveloped ran roughly along this north/south line students are taught in school today. In the twenty-first century, with globalization on the rise and the world becoming ever more interconnected and interdependent, this is no longer the case.
Some of the tests we take in history class are "map tests," and are nothing like a history test I ever took back at home. On these tests, we're asked to color code a map based on GDP, life expectancy, even the number of iPhones per capita- and using these telling demographics, we examine which countries are inconsistent with the traditional north/south split and why our color-coded maps look the way they do. It's actually quite fascinating.
Also, now that my French has gotten a lot better since I first showed up here, I'm participating a lot more in class too- and I think both my teacher and classmates are genuinely interested in what I have to say. I've already given myself a mental pat on the back for at least having some idea of what's going on in my country (many exchange students, and many high school students in general, really don't...), which has allowed me to (diplomatically) explain to my class America's position on intervention in Syria, and after which, my history teacher said she was impressed by my knowledge and that she wanted to take a few minutes in class some other time to have me talk to my classmates about September 11th and its consequences on America.
Long story short, it's fun and eye-opening to see the way another country perceives history and geography, and people everywhere generally do appreciate hearing another perspective on world events and conflicts. In a class full of interested, open-minded peers, it's good to be an exchange student. :)
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