I've been going out unusually often; in fact, I've only had one "night in" this entire week, classwork and all. It's strange and exciting, and, most of all, expensive. Take Tuesday night, for example, when three friends and I decided to go to a Coldplay concert. Coldplay. Here in Paris. So we arrived, had a shady business deal with a ticket-scalper (scalping? is that the term? hawking?), and had an... interesting time. All this made me think of cultural differences between the French and the Americans, especially when it comes to concert ettiquette.
Concert ettiquette in the States: 1. singing along is appropriate, and often appreciated by the band. 2. moshing, though often frowned upon, is tolerated. 3. if there is space, you take it; you lose it, it's your loss. 4. once the opening bands stop and the main act begins, people rush to the stage, and it's no-holds-barred from there.
Concert ettiquette in France: 1. singing along = no-no. 2. moshing? what's that? 3. you touch me, I curse at you in French and tell you to shove off. Rule #1: leave me the fuck alone. 4. you invade my personal space, you die.
Needless to say, it was a confusing night. Unfortunate, since the set itself was AMAZING. At the end they released tons of paper butterflies into the air, and it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Just beautiful. "Viva la Vida" is a great album in general, but I near died when they played Politik from "A Rush of Blood to the Head." The only problem was the audience; Parisians are the most boring concert-goers I had ever seen. And very pissy. Strange, because the drunk scenesters at the Justice concert were quite friendly. Maybe it was the alcohol? Normally i'd assume the trendsetters to be the most pretentious. Hmmm...
Other cultural differences:
1. Alcohol, though consumed more often, is never "overdone"-- i.e. no binge drinking
2. Nobody talks on the metro. Ever.
3. You say "bonjour" before 5/6 and "bonsoir" after
4. You have to greet the salespeople when you enter any establishment, and say goodbye when you leave
5. When you pass people on the street or metro you say "pardon" because otherwise they will not budge
6. Women never smile to strangers, because to the French, smiling = "wanna fuck?"
7. Women also never accept drinks from strangers, because a drink means, "my place or yours?"
8. Women are often passive and more docile than in the states, somehow more timid
9. People don't own much clothing and rewear it often, although somehow they all manage to look unbearably chic
10. It is impossible to differentiate a straight male from a gay male because everyone is metrosexual
More to come soon. And, more pictures, because some people have been complaining about my not having enough...
2 comments:
everyone is metrosexual? i just got a major loss of love to france.
I dunno, people singing along at concerts here, to me, is unbelievably annoying, unless the music is loud enough that it drowns everyone around you out, although that's rarely the case. There's usually that one guy right by you singing at the top of his lungs, off key. The only way I really see it as acceptable is (aside from if the band is loud enough to drown everyone out) if the band does that thing where they aim the mic at the crowd for a bit, or it's a song they always ask for participation on.
Also, a few of those cultural things are the same in Italy, too. As much as it drove me crazy having to remember to say hello and goodbye to shopkeepers in my atrocious American accent, I think it's a nice thing.
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