Stereotypes!!!??

Ki manière? (A way of saying hello in Mauritian Kreol)

My first year and experience in Toulouse allowed to know some french manners and what to expect. I wasn't surprised  by the "Montpellierains" themselves but more by the fact that in the city, you have more french coming from several other parts of France and migrate here for weather and especially sun, Nabil, also known as late man is one of them,coming from Nancy, he wanted to escape the snow and its endless winter.

The most surprising thing was the huge amount of Erasmus students in the town and the fact that courses was going to be shared with some of them. This helped me to discover new cultures and ,for some of them, break stereotypes, for example germans, I've been told they are very cold, very strict and prefer stringency to creativity. Definitely that's untrue, most of them are good examples, good ambassadors.

I'd like to finish by dealing with the European stereotype, my grandfather told me before I came here: "you'll see that europeans are very friendly at first sight but won't invite you home very easily". I must recognise that he was partly right, people can be very friendly with you and you can share very good moments and experiences with them but it doesn't mean the friendship will go further, I may think it's due to the lifestyle which is totally different from my past lifestyle, here you meet and cross a lot of people each day.

And finally, from my point of view, what is the most important, whatever the culture, is the set of common values shared with people surrounding you, it's this set that can lead to creation of true relationships.


Thank you for reading,

Thomas