Manu a écrit :
Juste une petite question...
Lorsque j'etais en stage (en entreprise) en France, tous les collegues parlaient des derniers matchs de foot ou de rugby. Je ne suis pas dutout les resultats des matchs, je ne connais meme pas quelles equipes sont bonnes et lesquelles sont mauvaises.
Un peu comme vous le disiez concernant les emission de real TV. Pourtant meme si ca ne m'interesse pas dutout j'ai du m'informer pour pouvoir m'integrer dans le groupe car les commentaires de match etaient les principales discussions.
Bref la question est: Pensez vous qu'il faille s'informer (a defaut de s'interesser) sur des sujets qui sont communs aux autres dans le but de s'integrer?
Ou plutot de rester soi meme?
C'est un tres bon question Manu.
Reponse: je crois qu'il faut juste un peu pour s'informer des choses pour avoir un peu des choses communs aux autres...mais pas tres beaucoup.
To try and explain better in English, I mean to say, I think it's fine to take a bit of interest in reality tv and current topics outside your interest, but for me, I can only go so far, otherwise I feel a bit like I could be selling my soul.
Pour expliquer:
Petite histoire: Il y a 15 ans, mon mari a travaille avec beaucoup des jeune hommes dans un compagnie ou ils ont travaille pour la plupart le 'night shift'. Apres le fini de chaque 'night shift', tout les hommes du 'shift' a visite le pub juste en face du ‘bureau’ pour boire un peu ensemble (plutot 'beaucoup et beaucoup de biere!')
A ce temps la, mon mari a deteste le biere. It was a tradition that every worker would take their turn to 'shout' a jug of beer for everyone. He wanted to fit in and be 'one of the boys' but without all the beer, he thought he would never belong, so he had a problem. So even though he hated it, he drank it anyway, and even though he likes beer now, he still has the bad memories of how bad and foul tasting this beer was, drinking it presque chaque jour.
My idea is that if you have to change yourself so much to fit in, are these friends real friends anyway?
I had a similar situation for many years when I worked in a large newspaper office in a team of 10 women much older than myself. (so I had a ‘generation gap’ with them too).
At Xmas and other parties with the social group, it really felt like you HAD to drink champagne to fit in (only one certain brand), et je DETESTE le champagne.
If I had drunk it anyway I could have had the illusion of belonging (but it would not have been reality). So I just got stubborn instead, and the more they tried to convince me to drink it, the more I kept drinking just my crème de menthe and Vodka, thinking if I was happy doing that, who were they to try and change me?
This kind of ‘peer group pressure’ is exactly what I left school to escape.
This is just one little example of many.
But luckily it hasn't always stayed like that: it took a long time but finalement I found 'my own kind' - j'ai trouve le groupe de L'Alliance Francaise. Here, French wine and other kinds are very important discussion points each week (and I don't drink wine) but no matter what else I drink, I'm never left out. I can still listen to the French words (or admire the bottle labels hehe
) and learn something and it's still fun. You can 'do your own thing', and it's still cool.
So, I have quite a bit of experience at living on the fringe/edge of my own society, and can only imagine how much stronger it must feel when you are on the edge of a society which is not of your own nationality....but at least you still get to be yourself....
For sport, since it is very close to Aussie Rules Grand Final time, a few weeks ago I 'wasted' some time doing some quick research on which teams could be in the Grand final (total surprise!) as I hadn't paid attention since last Grand Final.....so at least I won’t be completely ignorant when the match is played, and people won't realize I spent the entire year not caring about this game at all...
It reminds me of another story, while working for the newspaper. 99% of us were all Aussies, except for one Brit...and pauvre Philippe, qui etait francais.
He tried to learn about Aussie Rules football (maybe to fit in better - but it didn't work) and there were plenty of football mad Aussies with opinions to help 'sort him out' and tell him which team to support.
Philippe's idea of team sports was 'que le meilleur gagne' and not being sport mad, I could understand this sentiment just fine, but not the guys.
'No, no, that's now how it works!' They would tell him. "You have to pick ONE TEAM and you will support that team no matter what."
Then, it seemed to become more a case of 'following the team' rather than following the sport, since if their team wasn't playing many guys didn't even watch the games.
I don't know if this is how European football works too......???
Kate