Mean Mr. Mustard has this comment up on something he got from Den Beste. The original piece Mr. Mustard is working from is here.
Clearly I can't hope to compete with these gentlemen, but I can't resist reaching for an oar. This is the bit that really annoyed me,
"At Citadine's Hotel, a familiar place on the American tourist path in Paris, manager Francois Montbellet has embraced the "Bonjour Campaign" and signed a contract promising to be more welcoming to tourists. A clerk at the reception desk welcomes a pair of arriving American backpackers with a clearly forced smile, but a smile nevertheless."
Just keep it Frenchy, it's far too late for that. Nobody wants to travel to a place where you feel you are just being tolerated. Where they treat you like an unwanted relative. I agree with Mr. Mustard, fuck em.
"Margot-Duclot had some advice for Americans. "There's a very simple thing you need to know. First, ask a French person if he speaks English before speaking to him in English. That's something a French person really doesn't like."
I'll try and remember that, like the next time I have a foreign national walk up to me and start asking something in their native tongue. I've been addressed in German, Russian, Chinese and Spanish. Not one walked up and said do you speak _______. They're nice people, friendly and we usually get to what they need. We get a few tourists and immigrants in central Ohio, enough to tell me that what he's asking is pure horseshit, and purely French. Piss on their feelings, they've made a national fetish of being arrogrant pricks, they can deal with it. The way he intends to get tourists back is to tell us how to appease their pride?.................Arrrrrrggggghhhhh....
Leave to the French to be shitheads even when they try and be a tiny bit humbler. Just foget it, try courting the Saudi's, pricks should hang with each other.
Excellent, more good wine, lovely food and beautiful countryside for us!
Posted by: harmonia on June 18, 2003 05:10 AMPiss on it all. The only reason that I'd ever want to visit France in the first place would be to go to Normandy or Belleau Wood.
Good wine, lovely food and beautiful countryside?
Screw it. We're Americans. We drink beer, eat hot dogs, and have more beautiful countryside than we know what to do with (ever been to Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier, the Redwoods, the Everglades, the Badlands, or Carlsbad Caverns?) The French and I agree on one thing and one thing only: they don't want me over there, and I don't want me over there.
Posted by: Mike the Marine on June 18, 2003 11:48 AMFrench cuisine ranks right done there with canned C-rations, it'll keep you alive, but wondering how soon you can get something else.
Being from Scottland I'm not surprised you like their food, since your native stuff blows. The number one reason cited by tourists for traveling to the US is good food. We are the world harm, there isn't a cuisine anywhere on earth you can't find here, and done at a higher quality.
A shame though that the French realize something you don't. American money helps them feed themselves. Otherwise why would they care if we come or not?
Posted by: puggs on June 18, 2003 12:38 PMFrench food? You mean the ground up liver of a sick goose? I'll pass, thanks. Snails? Nope, no thanks. We're talking about a country that creates a new cuisine every time the toilet backs up. Meanwhile, we have everything from Maine lobster to Cajun food (oh, gotta luv that Jambalia!) to Black Angus steaks, to Dungeness Crab. Hell, just drive for a day and you'll find a completely different menu.
Countryside? Europe doesn't know what countryside is. Try driving across the midwest. Puggs loves Ohio, I'm fond of Montana and Idaho. States that could swallow the UK whole, and they wouldn't be found for years.
Wine? California, Oregon, and Washington are putting out wines that beat the French. But we get to drink it without dealing with arrogant snots.
You can keep France. We don't need it!
Posted by: Dave on June 18, 2003 02:42 PM