I’ve lived in paris for 5/6 years, I was fluent when I arrived (years of international school) and my mom had already been living here for several years. Still, it was a big culture shock and adjustment and absolutely levelled up my French to the point where now French people usually assume I am from here.
The problem is even with all that, I just don’t feel at home. Some cultural differences feel insurmountable, the blasé and critical attitude is difficult for me, I’ve always been very high energy and jokey and have a hard time finding people in everyday life who match that energy. Whenever I go back to the states I feel so fulfilled and like myself and it really makes me question why I’m here. I have a very cool job in the non-profit sector, so not super well-paid, and a very stable loving relationship, my apartment, my mom… there’s still something where I feel like I’ll never fully be accepted here. I feel like my American-ness immediately puts me down in peoples’ eyes, I feel like I will never write perfectly or totally grasp codes and it will always take me a slight extra effort to understand things that are easy for people here. I don’t get cultural references and I don’t know the clichés of every tiny town and region.
I’m from New York so I liked living here because I felt that Paris was such a better cost of living/quality of life ratio, and I love the work-life balance and accessibility of culture. However, what use are my 5 weeks of vacation if I spend half of them going back home? And probably, I always will, because my missing home will never go away, my friends and family there will keep getting married or getting sick or just being there ?
And France’s descent into xenophobic fascism is not helping. I know all the issues in the US, but it’s different, I am from there and always will be, whereas I am actively choosing to live in France and contribute to its economy.
Just feeling like the jig is up and I did what I had to do, and now I can leave. This is just venting, don’t know if anyone here can relate, if this is a bump in the road or a red alert.
Well it you don’t think you fit, it’s understandable that you’d look for a place where you’d feel better.
btw I don’t know anyone who puts down people for their “American-ness”, so maybe you’re not surrounded by very welcoming people.
I am latin american and felt the same as OP. So did my other latin american friends and spanish friends. The french do love putting other cultures down, specially americans.
+1 compa
“The French”. Glad you met all the people in the country, julieg0593. I haven’t been successful doing so :)
Not everyone is like that. I am married to a french man and love his family. But when you are at la sorbonne doing a master’s and a professor out of nowhere saying Americans are stupid during class, leaves a good impression of the “french”. This would get someone fired in USA.
Mind, we, french do not have the monopoly of this kind of useless stereotype and stupid comments. I stopped counting the one I got in UK and Australia. The third universal things after death and tax is meeting idiots.
she says she lives in a district with muslim and african immigrants and not the french, so that could explain why she is not feeling welcome as those immigrants tend to hate westerners.
You know there are many French people in the muslim / African roots community + in those suburbs? With the expensive rates, many “Westerners” as you call them move there because it’s hard to find / afford something in Paris or the “première couronne” in 92 for exemple.
Cerenity1000 can fuck all the way off, that person doesn’t know anything about me, and i am speaking about the institutional xenophobia, a concept that i think they are not capable of understanding from their corner of hate
I’ve heard other parts of France are more welcoming, do you think that’s true?
Really depends honestly. I come from Annecy, a place I love, but I wouldn’t call the people from Haute-Savoie department welcoming. Many people from outside Paris likes to bash the capital (same in England), but the Parisian area have one of the most mixed population in the country. Whereras there are places where one be publicly rejected for being an “outsider”.
I’m from the south West and not necessarily. Like in many places, if you’re not from there, people will treat you like a stranger. My father has lived there for 50 years and he is still treated like a foreigner.
I’m from Europe and also got some French people putting me down for things in my culture that they made up whenever they felt like feeling superior.
It’s something that happens more than you think in France, and so yes not all French people but many foreigners will have experienced this attitude of superiority.
Your education system is over-corrective and hyper-critical and that produces people who over-correct and are hyper-critical of others. Bienvenue en France.
The worst part is that these people go around being like “no is not possible” instead of trying to help their society be better about these things. Then they get offended when we criticize them for being this way. It is a never ending circle
Because you aren’t American. Hell, I’m American and French, grew up in France, don’t have a French sounding name, and people in France made fun of my “non-French name” and my “American-ness”. My french is better than my english, grew up in Paris, but to a lot of people here, I’m “l’amerloque”.