Here is the scenario for men.
If you finish work at 18H, get home at 18H30 if you are luck, you shower, shave, put on some clothes, choose a tie, you think you are almost done..... when you are choosing which pair of shoes to wear, you see yourself in the mirror at the entree, ca va pas de tout...your tie has a stain (most likely from the spaghetti sauce) or that it just simply doesn't go with the shirt or, if you are very good, I mean, super good, you will even notice that your tie does not match the color of your eyes, so you go back to change a tie, end up changing the shirt as well.
Scenario for woman.
(same routine besides the tie part, shaving part depending on the individual I won't go into details) when you are choosing a pair of shoes, you see yourself in the mirror at the entree and realise that your scarf is not tied properly, so you first try a different knot, and then thought why don't I use a brooch, you go back to your room, try to find a brooch to go with the scarf, you can't find it, you start getting impatient, so you decide not to wear that scarf, but then you have to change your top, while taking off your top, your make up gets smudged, so you touch up your make-up, then your chingon is perturbed, so you re-do your bun......(I can go on and on forever and I see that some of you are smiling because it is quite a universal thing for all female, it's just that it gets more intense in France like most other stuff).
If the man and the woman happen to be in the same house getting ready to go to the same party, we can add the following ....
"Where are my socks?"
"Under the drawers"
"They should be in the drawers, not under"
"Do you want socks or do you want a fight?" "Why are you always grouchy?" or
"I'm not your maid" "We can't afford one because you want to buy a country house' or
"I'm not your mother" "True, she's a lot more organised" (ohlala, they will have to call their friends and say that their kid has fever or babysitter didn't show up......) or
"It's the kids" "If you can work less, maybe they will be more disciplined" or
"I work as well you know" "Then why don't we hire a full time maid"
"........ " "..........." (here you can fill in your own version in your own language)
That also slows down the process of getting ready for a diner party.
That's a Chignon. Once done, cannot be tampered with, perturbed, affected, or infringed upon. Chignon has a life of its own. And please don't call it a "French Bun" (Yes, I tried to show my Katong hair dresser this photo, she said , "yeah, yeah, i know you want a french bun.....", despite the lack of vocabulary, she did one just like in the photo for $8).
Anyways, after all that, when you are ready to go, it's 19H50! How can you possibly get to your diner party on time?
If we have a split screen, we can see that at the same time, the host arrives home at 18H30, the hostess is probably getting very agitated because he didn't come home with the right cheese.
"These just won't do, I can't serve this kind of cheese from supermarket wrapped in plastic"
"I had no time, everything's close when I finished"
"You could've done it during your lunch hour. there is a superb fromager (cheese seller) next to your office"
"then do you want me to have rochefort sitting on my desk all afternoon and stink up the whole office?"
"......" (common, be creative here, what will be your comeback?)
Whether the cheese issue is resolved or not, the host also needs to look good as well which means he will go through most probably the same process as described above without the socks part hopefully. As for the hostess, it's her show and she is the star so she will be THE most beautiful. She will leave her husband to set the table in the salon, open the wine bottle, chill the white, decanter the red, take out a bottle of whisky/Ricard/or whatever spirits deemed appropriate for the evening. Though he didn't get the cheese during his lunch time, he did get some good wine....
Since not everyone can get away that easily with a bottle of Margaux 1983...(Guava feeling quite smug) there are rules to be complied with if you are the host/hostess.
1. Rule of "+1"
French soirees invitation are always "+1" which means you must invite the spouse/partner/better half/financee/lover of your guest. The old fashion invitation will always be " for Mr. & Mrs X", but these days, "Mr. & Mr X" or "Ms & Ms X" or "So-and-so with partner" are all acceptable. It is given that the invitation is always for two. An American friend asked me once "am I allowed to come to your party alone?" I thought that was quite cute. (Of course, or you can bring your mother, like Mr. Sarkozy who brought his mother to China on official visit.).
BTW, have you noticed that the "label" for modern day relationship changes constantly in all cultures and languages. After all, there isn't one word that can fully encompass the scope of the relationship between two individuals. (For myself, I would like to see on every invitation addressed to my husband and I .... "to Mr. XX and his one and only true love to whom he should devote his full attention every minute of the day every day of his life whose words he shall listen to whose blogs he should read....." or something alone those lines).
In Chinese, there are "Boyfriend/Girlfriend" and "Husband/wife", that is all. It is no one else' business if you want to call each other in private "my favorite bowl of noodle soup", "sweet and sour bun", or "Tender Longon" (Please note that I'm just making these up, so there is no need to look up the dictionary for translation). (During and right after Cultural Revolution, say, the 60s, 70s, everyone used the term "lover" instead of "husband/wife". "Lover" is quite vulgar a term in the Chinese language. Anywhere outside China, the word "lover" is used strictly for "part-time lover").
In English, there are, besides "husband" and "wife", "better half", "significant other", "boyfriend/girlfriend", "fiance/fiancee", "companion", and "partner" (I have heard "suitor" in Australia.....) (Do let me know if there are more alternatives, as I've been out of the dating scene for quite sometime).
In the French context, some old fashion individuals still use "mistress" to address their long time, one and only girlfriend if the couple are both over 50 years old, not married, but going steady. Naturally there are those who are genuinely "mistress" in the sense that they are flings outside marriage but that is not our subject today. We had a debate over diner once about whether it is still appropriate to call your girlfriend "mistress" these days no matter how old you are. A lawyer friend came with his girlfriend who is also a lawyer and they were both 45 plus. She was not impressed being addressed as "mistress". To appraise my guests with the up-to-date definition, I googled "mistress" and ohlala all kinds of porn sites came up. I had to spent the rest of evening deleting the spam). "Copain" and "copine" are most commonly used for up to certain age, say 40. It refers to non-finacee, less committed relationship, for example, (Guava being legal -minded), you will not buy a house with your "copain or copine".
A 55-yr-old friend recently married his "girlfriend" of 53. They are both divorced with grown up kids.
"It was getting too awkward to be in public as a couple and not knowing how to present properly the most important person of my life. So "wife" it is". Mr. Husband said. Mrs. Wife was very happy with that.
After I gave birth, I switched from La Sorbonne to Alliance Francaise where the teachers' rhythm were more relaxed. My professor, Thierry (you can't miss him on blvd Raspail, he is Cyrano de Bergerac all over. Huge beard, bike boots and mustache) told us once how two of his students were caught in the dilemma of of linguistic, cultural , tradition and love.
"They were both divorced professors who came here to retire. They mingled a lot with the French but the man couldn't find a proper term to introduce his girlfriend and his girlfriend eventually didn't want to mingle with the French anymore".
(Thierry was speaking French and the term he used was "companion". I prefer to use boyfriend and girlfriend because it gives the feeling of "young, fun and going out lots". Yes, going out lots. What else would you do in Paris after 60 with no kids around?).
"Why don't they just get married?" A Polish student asked as matter of fact.
"Haha that was what he tried not to do. In Canada, everyone used "significant other" for this kind of relationship. Here, he got very offended when French of his age referred to his Significant other as "mistress". I couldn't help him there so I helped him write a letter to Academy Francaise".
Thierry then circulated a copy of the original response from L'Académie française . Imagine the thrill for foreign students to see, almost first hand, an official letter from "the pre-eminent French learned body on all matters pertaining to the French language" (Wikipedia) The Academy is in charge of inventing a French translation for each foreign word, (like the Chinese would do), so as to keep their own language and culture pure, (like the Chinese would do).
The letter got passed around among the students. The response was clear - "moitie-orange" ("half orange", almost as cheesy as "tender longon", "prickly durian", "spicy chilli" (am sure Sansan would findt he last one most appealing)).
We had the best laughs in class that day. The couple ended up getting married in Paris - the Polish student nodded with approval. They loved the place too much that they thought, what the heck, they got to take France as a whole package. And the French are what they are we love them for what they are.
(BTW, Thierry's father was a high school French teacher. He once taught Maupassant in Year 12 and gave the latter a 14/20 which was believed to be the highest grade. No one knows why his father didn't return this paper to Maupassant and Thiery always showed a copy to his students at the end of the term).
The good thins is that, if a guest is indeed coming alone, and is indeed single, you as host can invite another single person and the rest is up to their imagination. It happened at our salon once. I was being late as a typical Parisien Taiwanese or Taiwanese Parisien so my husband was left to open the door for the guests. We had invited Jean as single, Marie as single, and two couples. Jean arrived first, then my husband had to attend to the stove. Jean then opened the door for Marie. Their son is now 3 years old.
2. Champagne, Champagne, and more Champagne
"Sparklies" and "bubblies" are not champagne.
Yes, you see the labels "Taittinger" clearly, and yes, I vouch for their champagne. Yes, I have made a documentary with Beijing TV station on French champagne featuring Taittinger and yes, I will tell you all about the filming in a next blog.
3. The donor of the present decides what to do with it.
This applies to champagne, chocolate, cake, and wine. If someone comes with a plate of food, you will ask kindly the donor to cut/prepare/heat/serve it. It is an honor for the donor and be praised/given credit for their dish. If I ever bring some food to someone's party, the last thing I want to do is to serve it too, as I prefer to be discussing my next literary project with the other guests. I once made a mistake complimenting the wine (since I got nothing better to say ....at my own diner party. My husband was a bit embarrassed, "cherie, that is OUR wine",,,,)
My husband was mesmorised by the concept of "pot-luck" party organised by a group of Anglophone moms of my daughter's school.
"What should we eat first and last and in between?"
"That is the fun part of it, we share them all at the same time"
"How will be food be served?"
"It's spread out on the table, you serve yourself"
"What if there are more dessert and not enough savories?"
"Then we eat more dessert and eat less savories".
"What if...."
"Are you coming or not?"
4. "No" can mean "yes"
Quite similar to the Chinese politeness, the French need to and can be convinced into a second helping. However, strategically, there are those who confessed, "I'm saving some space for dessert". As for wine, just keep filling up the glass you can't go wrong.
5. I'm not going to explain how to set the table, what kind of food to serve and in what sequence. (There are many etiquette books, courses to take, recipes to follow, youtube to watch).
6. Always prepare plenty of "small bits of something" while waiting for everyone to arrive which may be from 30 minutes to 1 hour.
7. Be alert. It's your party so if the conversation is flowing a bit slow, prepare to fill in the gap by saying something (well, anything besides praising your own wine/cooking/furniture/cutlery).
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