At your service
CNN International used to run a commercial showing why its European Edition was so different from its American version. The ad's premise was that because the audiences were different, CNN's broadcasts to them were different, too.
To make the point that Europeans have other standards, the ad contrasted being served by an untrained waiter in an American restaurant with being served by a professional waiter in France. The first scene showed a relaxed and overbearingly chatty American waiter schmoozing his diners. The second showed a white-aproned waiter in France, doing what he's supposed to do--giving discreet but attentive and competent service.
The ad rang with some truth. I was reminded of it when I took my Franco-American hybrid kids to northern California to see the giant Redwoods. Before trekking off to the Sequoia forests, we had lunch in a salad bar on the now fashionable Fourth Street in Berkeley.
"Look, Maman, she's not using a tray," whispered my thirteen-year-old, agape. She nodded in the direction of a waitress crossing the room with a chilled bottle of white wine nestled snug in her bare armpit and goblets dangling from her fingers.
No sooner had I given her a motherly hush in French, "Chut," than a second waitress appeared, this one balancing a huge round tray of glasses filled with Coca-Cola and ice. Having nothing better to do while waiting for our club sandwiches--a favorite short-order food for the French traveling in the States--we watched as she headed for a table where eight women decked out in their casual Berkeley best were eating. When the waitress removed the first Coke to serve it, the tray's equilibrium changed and all of the glasses spilled, sopping the table and the women. Oh la-la. A clumsy tragicomedy in two acts and a good reason for some to forego a tray, even if up to the armpits with work.
Why not take a hike?
I've never heard so many different foreign languages being spoken in one natural setting as I did when we hiked five kilometers up a mountain to admire giant Sequoias. Even more astounding was that I hardly heard any English at all; it seemed we were the only Americans on the trail.
Text & photo ©2010 P.B.LECRON
CNN International used to run a commercial showing why its European Edition was so different from its American version. The ad's premise was that because the audiences were different, CNN's broadcasts to them were different, too.
To make the point that Europeans have other standards, the ad contrasted being served by an untrained waiter in an American restaurant with being served by a professional waiter in France. The first scene showed a relaxed and overbearingly chatty American waiter schmoozing his diners. The second showed a white-aproned waiter in France, doing what he's supposed to do--giving discreet but attentive and competent service.
The ad rang with some truth. I was reminded of it when I took my Franco-American hybrid kids to northern California to see the giant Redwoods. Before trekking off to the Sequoia forests, we had lunch in a salad bar on the now fashionable Fourth Street in Berkeley. "Look, Maman, she's not using a tray," whispered my thirteen-year-old, agape. She nodded in the direction of a waitress crossing the room with a chilled bottle of white wine nestled snug in her bare armpit and goblets dangling from her fingers.
No sooner had I given her a motherly hush in French, "Chut," than a second waitress appeared, this one balancing a huge round tray of glasses filled with Coca-Cola and ice. Having nothing better to do while waiting for our club sandwiches--a favorite short-order food for the French traveling in the States--we watched as she headed for a table where eight women decked out in their casual Berkeley best were eating. When the waitress removed the first Coke to serve it, the tray's equilibrium changed and all of the glasses spilled, sopping the table and the women. Oh la-la. A clumsy tragicomedy in two acts and a good reason for some to forego a tray, even if up to the armpits with work.
Why not take a hike?
I've never heard so many different foreign languages being spoken in one natural setting as I did when we hiked five kilometers up a mountain to admire giant Sequoias. Even more astounding was that I hardly heard any English at all; it seemed we were the only Americans on the trail.
Text & photo ©2010 P.B.LECRON
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