Cultural Differences Part 1 and Bacteria

First, two differences between French and American eating habits and then a terrible experience concerning germs.

Last night I had dinner with a great family from the church. I had been nervous about the expected communication barrier, but thankfully the mom and dad both speak English. During our meal, the dad brought bread out and offered each person some. I politely took a piece and put in on my plate and everyone took one as well. Then he said jovially, "I can tell that you're American." "You can? (!) How?" I asked. "Look at where you put your bread." While mine was on my plate, everyone else had put their's right on to the table cloth next to their plate. We laughed as I shifted my bread on to the table and then I second-guessed myself when the father explained, "We're dirty. We're French!"

He said that there was another way to tell that I was not French. I looked around the table and didn't see a difference between me and the four French family members. He said, "Your hands aren't on the table." While I was taught to keep one hand in my lap and never to put my elbows on the table before I'm finished and have folded the napkin, French children are taught to actually keep their hands on the table. How funny it was for me to try to keep both hands occupied above the table. Try it!

Now the terrible experience thus far of the day. Before lunch, this germaphobe washed her hands in the bathroom on the first floor of the girl's dorm, thankful that this restroom has soap. The soap is a little strange, literally soap-on-a-pole hanging above the sink, but soap regardless. I settled down with a bowl of spaghetti and opened up a borrowed book, Talk to the Snail: Ten Commandments for Understanding the French by Stephen Clarke. The following was found on pages 11-12:

"Some other examples of this universally unwanted French inventiveness are ...The primitive soap dispensers that used to be fitted in French cafe toilets. An oval cake of soap was loaded on to a curved metal bar screwed to the wall above the sink. In theory this was a good idea, as it saved the soap from falling on the floor or melting away in the sink. In practice it was disgusting, because the (usually bright-yellow) cake of soap mostly served as an exhibition space for the yuk that the previous occupant of the toilet had smeared on it. The world was very lucky that the liquid-soap dispenser was invented and killed off the French prototype."

Yes, the soap here is the same bright-yellow and I am extremely grateful that at least I wasn't eating lunch with my hands. I need to find more hand sanitizer...