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  Deux amours - What it means to be French and in Melbourne
Message Publié : 12 Juil 2007 12:17 
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http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/ ... 94699.html

Your heart's in one place, your body in another. Or perhaps you love both. Bastille Day in mind, Patricia Maunder went in search of what it means to be French in Melbourne.

"I HAVE observed that Frenchmen abroad seldom wholly give up the idea of going back to France some time or other. I am not surprised at it now", wrote Mark Twain in 1859 on a trip to the Mediterranean. Is it true of the French who have made Melbourne their home 150 years later?

Thomas Schober has certainly never given up the idea of going back. He spoke to Metro on the eve of his return to Paris to work for a year or two, after living in Collingwood for nearly a decade.

"At the start, because I was very homesick, I made sure I would go back for holidays once a year," he says. Over time Schober grew more comfortable with life in Melbourne with his Australian wife, whom he met while an exchange student at RMIT in 1995, and later his work as an animation producer allowed him to return to France two or three times a year. "I think I can say that in the future, between two jobs, a job that will make me travel back to France will come first."

Muriel Brock, who moved to Melbourne in 1993 after meeting her Australian husband in London, is also a frequent visitor to her place of birth, returning every year. "When I'm back in Paris it really makes me feel like I'm back home," she says. "The beauty of it all I really miss, the architecture, the atmosphere in the streets, it's just so different from Melbourne." Nevertheless, she's also happy to return to Melbourne: "the parks, the green, the space".

However, other French people living in Melbourne rarely, if ever, feel the tug of their country of birth, perhaps because they were drawn here not by love for an Australian but a spirit of independence and adventure. Jacques Reymond left behind his Michelin-star restaurant to emigrate with his wife and children 25 years ago, and has only returned three times.

He was drawn to Melbourne by a desire to develop an Asian-influenced cuisine, which wasn't really possible in gastronomically conservative France and by the freedom of the New World. He's partly prevented from returning by commitments at his eponymous Prahran restaurant but while Reymond misses friends, family and France's cultural history, he concludes that "I don't think I would like to live there, I'm very happy to be in Australia".

Vanessa Rocher and her husband have never been back to the country of their birth. They came to Australia for their honeymoon in 1998 and knew immediately it was the place they wanted to live. "We just felt at home," says Rocher, who was drawn to the relaxed people, beautiful scenery and interesting, enjoyable cities - "especially Melbourne. It was a nice mix of a big city and quiet suburbs and a lot of trees and parks, cultural and sporting activities."

After five years here they have no desire to return to the land half the planet seems to be yearning for. "There aren't many things I miss from France," says Rocher, a French teacher at Alliance Francaise. "That's why I came here, because I like here!" The Gallic genius for cake is one of the few things she craves but she knows there are worse places than Melbourne to have such desires.

It seems Melbourne can supply many of the longings for France that money can buy, in particular food and film: there are always French films on at arthouse cinemas, the fortnight-long French Film Festival each March, not to mention DVDs and SBS. What can't be bought is the shared cultural experience of French people, especially a very different way of interacting.

"There is a way of talking between French people that we don't get with others," Rocher says. "We enjoy a heated discussion, we enjoy a debate ... Australians are very lovely and very nice to hang out with but most of the time I find they're a bit too polite to our taste, in the sense that they wouldn't want to offend you so they might not express what they really think." Brock, a project manager in financial services, agrees and admits that "I've been told at work that I was too direct but for me it's not that offensive!"

While a tendency to be direct can offend Australian friends and colleagues, French people are also labelled rude or arrogant because of the seemingly contradictory cultural habit of being impersonal with strangers. Brock is no longer taken aback by shop assistants asking her personal questions - what non-French would regard as polite small talk.

Do these subtle but important cultural differences, and a yearning for France, bring Melbourne's French community together? Not according to Schober, who argues that community isn't even a concept that registers with the French. He also believes that because French people here tend to be reasonably affluent they are less likely to form a support network.

It's almost inevitable there is some contact, however, even though the number of French people living in Melbourne is quite small. In 2006, there were 2608 French citizens living in Victoria registered with the French Consulate General, though it estimates there are four times that living in the state, mostly in Melbourne. During Reymond's early Melbourne life, he would meet once a week with other French chefs and waiters but those days are long gone, an experience that fits with the other French people we spoke to.

At the start of this year, Brock began taking her five-year-old son Laurent across town each day to L'ecole francaise de Melbourne, a North Caulfield bilingual primary school that offers an elective curriculum based on the French national educational program. She "discovered this whole new world! ... It's been fantastic catching up with French people, because I didn't know how much I missed it." Frankly, Brock, who also lives in Fitzroy, can't understand French people living here who cut themselves off from their past and completely assimilate.

On the other hand, one of the people who spoke to Metro says that there's a certain type of French person best avoided: "Expats here only temporarily, they don't take the time to understand the country they live in, the people. They're all about 'we're French and we're better'."

Despite this reputation for rudeness - real or imagined - Melburnians often think of the French as the epitome of charm, sophistication and romance. "Australians seem to be very Francophile," says Rocher, "so it's great being a French person here because you're liked already even if nobody knows you!" Brock enjoys a similar reception, and believes her nationality even led to her first job in Melbourne, at David Jones.

There is the occasional negative response. Brock arrived in Australia around the time the French bombed the Rainbow Warrior, which led to some uncomfortable moments. Schober admits to experiencing what he calls "French bashing", usually from politically conservative people, and especially early in the second Iraq war when France refused to join the Coalition of the Willing.

But mostly the response is enthusiastic. Reymond believes Australians who visit his place of birth actually "find what they've been dreaming of" in France, including quaint towns and markets.

"I'm going to sound a little bit arrogant - but that works with the cliche," says Schober, who goes on to theorise that the fascination with France is linked to its influential history, food, cinema, art and literature, as well as a diverse and beautiful landscape.

He says he thinks it's for all these reasons that there are so many Francophiles here. "That's the arty, intellectual side of Australia but even on the commercial side ... it's the fashion, it's the perfume, it's the love and romance in Paris ... the whole bullshit about Paris and Provence ... it's that horrible movie with Russell Crowe (A Good Year), the most cliched, shockingly bad film about France!"

Rocher is proud to be French but warns Melburnians not to "believe all the cliches ... The French carry on the ideal because it makes them look good ... (we're) lucky that so many Australians are willing to disregard our flaws and concentrate on our strong points. But I think maybe they also do it for themselves, because if you're going to spend a lot of money, time and energy on your dream - travelling to France, learning French - it better come true."

Sometimes Melburnians' desire to live "la vie en rose" raises a laugh from the French here, who hear erroneous cliches about life in France being one long feast of great food and wine, and everyone having affairs. There are names of products and businesses with a "le" placed in front for no other reason than it gives it a supposed sophistication.

"I still don't understand why a restaurateur should write his menu in French while he's in Australia," says Reymond, though he does accept this in restaurants that are providing a truly French dining experience. "Imagine if you did that in France! If you write your menu in English and then translate in French underneath people will laugh at you!"

And what of Bastille Day? Oui or non? For starters, the French don't call it that but Le Quatorze Juillet (14th of July), and our sample of French men and women in Melbourne were lukewarm about it. "I never really celebrated this specific date," Reymond says. "There is more fuss about it here than there is in France."

In France it's mainly celebrated in Paris, where there is a military parade, so it has always been avoided by Schober because of its nationalistic, militaristic associations. Brock has vague memories of informal parties in Paris but in Melbourne she's rarely done anything to mark the occasion. What about this year? "I've got friends coming over for curry on that date - so no".


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Message Publié : 12 Juil 2007 22:25 
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Fair Dinkum Mate
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Hehe Melfrog .. Bon article ..

Citer :
On the other hand, one of the people who spoke to Metro says that there's a certain type of French person best avoided: "Expats here only temporarily, they don't take the time to understand the country they live in, the people. They're all about 'we're French and we're better'."


I kind of Agree :)


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Message Publié : 13 Juil 2007 03:36 
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Article sympathique.

Merci Melfrog.


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