Stereotypes about French

Salut tout le monde,

As you know I am French from the other side of the planet so you could find funny that I have stereotypes about people of my own nationality. But French people from France and French people from New Caledonia are very different. So I have to say that I had some préjugés before I came here. Yes, it was my first time in France Mainland !!

In New Caledonia, we call the French "les zoreilles", no offence, it's just a word ! We believe they don't take a shower every day. I don't know if it's true, but you can ask them. We also believe they are stingy (they don't like to spend their money). For this I know it's untrue, since most of them are actually generous ! Everybody told me that people in Paris were rude, but that's not true (OK, I was there only 3 days, but still...) I met very friendly and helpful people. 

Concerning the stereotypes of Montpellier, I imagined the people here with a deep south accent, but many people come from others regions, so it's quite not true. What I didn't expect here was the slowlyness of people compared to others parts of France. You can wait all the day in a terrasse, nobody is going to ask you what you want to drink... 

Anyway, I took all the best from this city ;)

Is this really how French should be like?

Well,

From a country far away from Europe, in my hometown, we do have several stereotypes about the French, First of all, French people dislike those who don't speak French. Well, this is an useful stereotype since this will urge me to learn French before coming here. And I do find that people become extremely friendly after they find out I'm an Asian who can speak a little bit French :)
Second, life goes really slowly here. My parents kept threatening me that I'll have to get used to waiting in line and only being able to do one thing each day. Well, I think they exaggerate, however, it's true that things go SLOWLY. While in Asia, most of the people are busy all the time, life here in Montpellier seems way too smooth and slow for me.
Last but not least, before I came, I thought this is a place without rain and is always sunny, which is not true at all!!!! Montpellier has more rain than I imagined, and rainy days always make me sad :( Still, most of the time, we do have the sunshine.
It's interesting to see the differences between my stereotype of France and the real France, helping me to correct my point of view and know the country better :D

Yachoun CHANG

Hi Victoria,

I heard a lot of stereotypes about French people before I came here but I don't think they were very accurate. The common stereotype about the French being arrogant, in my opinion, is very untrue. On countless occasions I have needed to stop French people on the street and ask them for directions or assistance of some case, and each occasion they were very friendly and glad to help. Of course there are arrogant people in France but those people are everywhere in the world, except Ireland of course ;)  For sure, I will bring back the knowledge to Ireland that this stereotype about the French is very untrue especially in the South of France.

Jack.

Stereotypes

Hello everyone!

I would like you to share your ideas and opinions about the stereotypes you had about Montpellier and/or France before you came to study here.  What did you think it would be like?  What did you expect?  How were things different?  Were these stereotypes useful in anyway?  And any other comments you might have.....  happy blogging and see you next week, Victoria

advice.

Hi,
Actually there are not many things I could advise because I still discover many new things every day, but I can think of some. For example:

• take some WARM clothes if you are coming to Montpellier in January. For me the weather back then were a bad surprise. I missed my UGGs and big,feather coat.
• if you want to live in separate apartment, start to search for it in time! 3days before I had to leave, I had no place to live! But I was lucky to found amazing studio in last moment.
• start to learn french at your home country if you don't know it. People here mostly will speak with you in french. 
• and the last but not least - i advice to SMILE!(: because actually, if you catch an eye contact with a french stranger - he/she always smiles and you have to smile back. It sometimes makes my day!(:

Have a great weekend everyone!

agnete

Holidays in February

After hard first few weeks in Montpellier we decided to take a rest and calm down a bit. Justyina, Valeria, Petra and I visited our friends in Belgium. Michiel, who is still part of the class and Nicolas, one of the best guys from last semester. They offered to us really great housing. We did really fun sightseeing of north of Belgium including coast, harbour and parts of the seaside where richest people go for vacancies. We stayed with Nicolas in his house in Antwerp for last three nights and I can say Mr and Mrs Schoovaerts are the best hosts ever! Looking forward to see all of them in Croatia! So, Erasmus students in Montpellier, we have Ryanair flights and friends from worldwide, there is no reason not to meet them during the holidays. I'm also looking forward to move into a new appartment in center, next to Place de Jean Joures, for almost the same money i had to pay for room in student residence. I still have to wait until 15th to move in. Thanks to the Irish guys, i wont be homelles in the meantime. That is all for the moment. I hope you guys enjoyed holidays!

A plus!

More advice

The first advice I'd give someone coming to Montpellier would be: Don't think just because it's the south of France it's warm all the time. When I first got here I was so happy that I had changed my mind last-minute and had taken my coat. The wind can be cruel here...

Secondly you should prepare for unfriendly people in the student residency. First I thought they might not like  foreign students, cause dealing with them is more difficult because of the language barrier... but now I think they just don't like students in general. Don't take it personally, they're probably just unhappy with their jobs...

Recognizing people checking tickets in the tram is easy in Montpellier, as was already said before. In Berlin they're hiding much better, they never get into the train in groups and they will most certainly NEVER wear a uniform. (so Kenji come to Berlin and try your best :P ) Here you get around without a ticket pretty well since the ticket inspectors always appear in flocks and wear black jackets with a not-so-subtle colourful TAM patch.
Btw, does anyone know what happens or how high is the penalty is when you get caught without a ticket??

The most important administrative things have already been mentioned several times: CAF, CROUS etc..