Dateline France, 25 June 1990 Report 23 First, some reader mail: From the I'm curious department: Last night we had our end of the year local school committee dinner at the home of one of the members and they had just returned from a whirlwind 3-week tour of Europe. The hostesses husband is a psychiatrist and he was saying that the French people he spoke with couldn't understand the purpose of his profession. We discussed it at length at dinner and came up with our own conclusions - what do you think? Why is it that Germans and Americans seem to need shrinks and the French don't? Dear curious: I can think of a number of reasons that the French don't have/need shrinks. 1. A wider range of behavior is tolerated without it being labeled neurotic or psychotic. It falls under the heading of "individualism". 2. They like to attribute all problems to organic sources. If you are in a bad state of mind, it is because your liver is giving you problems. Depression is due to lack of magnesium (this from our neighbor). If there is a mental problem, it must have a physical source, and should be treated by a physician. 3. They get enough sex. 4. Admitting to a mental problem that required professional help would be highly damaging to ones self-esteem. 5. Advice on personal problems is still dispensed for free by local confidants. The bar owner, the fishmonger, the person who fixes your shoes. You don't have to seek out a specialist to get it. The specialists who do exist (astrologers and spiritual advisors) cost less than someone with professional training. 6. There is a general idea that if you are sick enough to be incapacitated, you should be in an institution. Childbirth means a week in the hospital; Caesarean, two. If you have serious mental problems, you will be committed somewhere. Maybe what the French had a hard time understanding was someone who treated mental disorders on an outpatient basis. Here are Kaye's thoughts on psychiatrists (or lack thereof) in France. Some of this came from talking about it in her French class: 1. French men get rid of their aggression by driving fast and pissing on trees. 2. It is common, when someone's stress levels are high, for them to "take a cure". This usually involves heading off someplace for three weeks (covered by medical insurance), to take mineral baths, eat the right kinds of food, get massaged and do a lot of exercising. 3. Families are stronger, so people get more support there. 4. The French relax by eating. 5. There is less substance abuse here. 6. Being in pyschoanalysis is not a status symbol here, as it sometimes seems to be in the US. A family would feel somewhat ashamed or disgraced is if a member required psychiatric care. There is a stigma attached to it that is not present in the US. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to life in France. This winter and spring Kaye and I watched some episodes of a series called "L'amour en France," which turned out to be more of "Le Sexe en France," there not being much discussion of love in it. The ten episodes covered different aspects of sexuality among French people: sex education, fidelity in couples, how teenage boys see sex. It was mainly documentary, compiled almost entirely from taped interviews. It caused such a ruckus that there was even a TV program about the series the evening after the last episode aired. The first episode, on sex education in a preschool class, was the most controversial. They showed the kids making anatomically correct (though exaggerated) drawings and clay models of people, playing Mom & Dad during nap time, watching rabbits mate (Ms. Carrot died shortly thereafter), and the teacher pulling down one boys pants to show the class what testicles are. Stuff that would have you in court and on the national news if you did it in the US. We were quite impressed with all of this, especially not knowing if this class was being presented as typical of French preschools or not. We talked to some neighbors about it, who were not particularly taken aback by it. In the words of one of Kaye's friends who is very Catholic, "They have to find out about it somewhere." But to read about it in papers and magazines, there were not a few French who did take exception to the series. The thing that caused the next most excitement after the so-called "Zizi Episode" above was that the couples' episode featured 5 couples, but half the time was spent on the homosexual couple. American TV is going to seem tame when we get back. In our quest to see all the Parisian museums, we dutifully trudged off to see the Museum of French Monuments, expecting to be bored silly by working models of statues of Louis XIV or something. Actually, it turned out to be great. In the last century, someone had the idea of making fullsize copies of architectural details of French churches, chateaus and public buildings. The "details" range in size from the capital of a single small pillar to the entire doors and tympanum of a cathedral. The reproductions are excellent, and are arranged by style (Mediaeval, Early Gothic, Late Gothic, etc.). If one were to go on an architectural tour of France, this would be an excellent place to start, because it is a 3-D, full-size guidebook (plus the museum is cheap and never crowded). They had worksheets for the kids, with details to look for in each room. Some interesting maps, too: all the past and present cathedrals, routes of pilgrimages and the abbeys and hostelries on the way, buildings in Europe influenced by French buildings, French buildings erected in the Holy Lands during the Crusades. My favorite showed the return of the royal family from the 8th Crusade, during which St. Louis (IX?) and Isabelle D'Aragon died, among others. The map showed where various pieces of these guys ended up--heart, flesh, entrails got left at different places between Italy and France. The museum has a great view of the Eiffel Tower out the windows. On the upper floors there are reproductions of frescos, but those didn't seem as good of reproductions as the architectural elements. Afterwards, we walked down to the Trocadero gardens, where kids with a death wish were practicing the high jump with roller skates and a 2-foot-high ramp. My folks, knowing a good deal when they see one, came back to stay a few more days after visiting Holland. I took them out and the kids out for a drive one day, while Kaye hightailed it off to Paris. There's a town called Trappes just south of Versailles, which has all the charm of Canyon Road in Beaverton--miles of car dealers and warehouse furniture stores. However, a couple hundred yards off the main road a nature reserve starts, which turns out to be one of the most beautiful forested areas near Paris. We followed an itinerary given in the Michelin Green Guide for Ile de France (never leave home without them). It took us past a Templar commandry (now a cultural center) and several Romanesque churches. We stopped by a nature trail and had lunch on a big rock in the sun, near the Yvette river. We walked the trail after lunch, finding traces of stone quarries that used to be there. We stopped to visit the chateau and flower gardens at Dampierre. The garden featured 200 kinds of tulips. (There were also commercial tulip fields nearby where you could pick your own.) The most unusual was a red tulip that bore a main flower surrounded by five smaller ones on the same stalk. The chateau was build in 1659, with later renovations. It is known for its carved wood, particularly the chapel, which is done entirely in natural oak. It was designed by one of the Mansarts and the gardens were done by Le Notre (of Vaux-le-Vicompte and Versailles fame). [I found out that day that there were two Mansarts, the second being a pupil who adopted the name out of reverence for his mentor. And who's to say it didn't help business a bit to have a good name.] The party room is exceptional, with multicolor designs painted all over the walls and ceiling, and a grand statue modeled after one at the Parthenon in Athens. That room also has a fresco by Ingres, who, it turns out, didn't know (technically) how to paint frescos. Hence the painting has not held up well over time. The chateau was built for the Duke of Chevreuse, who was the son-in-law of Colbert, the building advisor to Louis XIV (hence the involvement of Mansart and Le Notre). It now belongs to the Luynes family. Our last stop was in Chevreuse, where we walked outside of the Chateau de Madelaine, atop a hill overlooking town. It is being restored, so we couldn't go in. Racine was sent here to look after things by his uncle at one point, and was bored to tears with country life, though he did find a good pub in town. 1 May was Labor Day here, and in 105 other countries worldwide. It was on Tuesday, and most French "made the bridge" and were given or took Monday as a holiday as well. I heard a short report on the radio that mentioned that the US labor day was always on a Monday, guaranteeing a 3-day weekend always. Days off are very important to French workers. 8 May was also a holiday, with 7 May as a bridge day. As many French children don't have school on Wednesdays, the creative worker can stretch both days off into 5-day weekends, or a 12-day break if he or she uses up a few vacation days and takes the kids out of school. 24 May (Thursday) was a holiday as well, making for three long weekends in the month. My officemate expressed regret that the weekend of the 19th was a short weekend--only 2 days long. Anyway, I was quite diligent during the May Day holiday. I spent most of Monday and Tuesday at work taking part in a "Manifestation" of authors of the OODB Manifesto (DeWitt, Bancilhon, Atkinson, Dittrich; we drank a toast to Stan Zdonik who couldn't get away from class to come to Paris). We worked on a research agenda for OODBs and discussed alternative "Manifesti" that have been put forth. The afternoon of May Day, I, family and folks went for a picnic on the Island of the Impressionists in the Seine, not far from Le Vesinet. It wasn't crowded early on, but by midafternoon it seemed most of the town had turned out, so we departed. That Wednesday I had a program committee meeting for OOPSLA tutorials at La Defense. Kaye had a cooking class in Paris, so we arranged for her to bring the kids into La Defense and I would take them back home. I had hoped to take them to a diorama of the history of Paris in the sublevels of the Grand Arch, but that exhibition had just closed recently. We did find an exhibit on the construction of the Grand Arch, and also models of various proposals made over the years to be built in the same space, but were never funded. Short bits: Walking one evening in Le Vesinet, I saw a waitress run out of the restaurant "A la Grace de Dieu" to the kitchen window of the Cafe Bel Ami across the street to borrow a box of strawberries. I've noticed that many discos are out in the country, far from anything. You need a car to get there, but the noise doesn't bother the neighbors. I got to meet the music director of the Paris Opera, when I picked up Luke from a birthday party for his son. The TGV (fast train) set a new record, of about 315 mph. Kaye and I have divined the three steps of French problem solving: 1. There isn't a problem 2. It's your problem 3. Why don't you try to solve it by making a problem for someone else. Examples: at the travel agent, after they booked the wrong kind of hotel room for you 1. "This is the kind of room you wanted" 2. "You must have told me the wrong thing, why are you changing your mind" 3. "You can have the hotel change it when you get there" (at 11:30 at night) or, talking to Sarah's teacher about the little girl who kept hitting Sarah on the playground: 1. "No one is hitting Sarah" 2. (after asking the little girl about it and her admitting it) "You should talk to her mother maybe" 3. (to Sarah) "If she hits you again, you hit her back"